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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/26236-8.txt b/26236-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..42e5f14 --- /dev/null +++ b/26236-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7777 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vixen, Volume I., by M. E. Braddon + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Vixen, Volume I. + +Author: M. E. Braddon + +Release Date: August 9, 2008 [EBook #26236] +[Last updated: June 14, 2013] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIXEN, VOLUME I. *** + + + + +Produced by Daniel Fromont. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + COLLECTION + OF + BRITISH AUTHORS + + TAUCHNITZ EDITION. + + VOL. 1809. + + VIXEN BY M. E. BRADDON + IN THREE VOLUMES. + VOL. I. + + TAUCHNITZ EDITION. + + + +VIXEN + + +A NOVEL + + +BY + +M. E. BRADDON, + +AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," ETC. ETC. + + +_COPYRIGHT EDITION_. + + +IN THREE VOLUMES. + +VOL. I. + + + + +By the same Author, + + LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET 2 vols. + AURORA FLOYD 2 vols. + ELEANOR'S VICTORY 2 vols. + JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY 2 vols. + HENRY DUNBAR 2 vols. + THE DOCTOR'S WIFE 2 vols. + ONLY A CLOD 2 vols. + SIR JASPER'S TENANT 2 vols. + THE LADY'S MILE 2 vols. + RUPERT GODWIN 2 vols. + DEAD-SEA FRUIT 2 vols. + RUN TO EARTH 2 vols. + FENTON'S QUEST 2 vols. + THE LOVELS OF ARDEN 2 vols. + STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS 2 vols. + LUCIUS DAVOREN 3 vols. + TAKEN AT THE FLOOD 3 vols. + LOST FOR LOVE 2 vols. + A STRANGE WORLD 2 vols. + HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE 2 vols. + DEAD MEN'S SHOES 2 vols. + JOSHUA HAGGARD'S DAUGHTER 2 vols. + WEAVERS AND WEFT 1 vol. + IN GREAT WATERS & OTHER TALES 1 vol. + AN OPEN VERDICT 3 vols. + + + + +LEIPZIG + +BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ + +1879. + + +_The Right of Translation is reserved_. + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. + + +CHAPTER I. A Pretty Horsebreaker + +CHAPTER II. Lady Jane Vawdrey + +CHAPTER III. "I Want a Little Serious Talk with You" + +CHAPTER IV. Rorie comes of Age + +CHAPTER V. Rorie makes a Speech + +CHAPTER VI. How She took the News + +CHAPTER VII. Rorie has Plans of his own + +CHAPTER VIII. Glas ist der Erde Stolz und Glück + +CHAPTER IX. A House of Mourning + +CHAPTER X. Captain Winstanley + +CHAPTER XI. "It shall be Measure for Measure" + +CHAPTER XII. "I have no Wrong, where I can claim no Right" + +CHAPTER XIII. "He belongs to the Tame-Cat Species" + +CHAPTER XIV. "He was worthy to be loved a Lifetime" + +CHAPTER XV. Lady Southminster's Ball + +CHAPTER XVI. Rorie asks a Question + +CHAPTER XVII. Where the Red King was slain + + + +VIXEN. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A Pretty Horsebreaker. + +The moon had newly risen, a late October moon, a pale almost +imperceptible crescent, above the dark pine spires in the thicket +through which Roderick Vawdrey came, gun in hand, after a long day's +rabbit-shooting. It was not his nearest way home, but he liked the +broad clearing in the pine wood, which had a ghostly look at dusk, and +was so still and lonely that the dart of a squirrel through the fallen +leaves was a startling event. Here and there a sturdy young oak that +had been newly stripped of its bark lay among the fern, like the naked +corpse of a giant. Here and there a tree had been cut down and slung +across the track, ready for barking. The ground was soft and spongy, +slippery with damp dead leaves, and inclined in a general way to +bogginess; but it was ground that Roderick Vawdrey had known all his +life, and it seemed more natural to him than any other spot upon mother +earth. + +On the edge of this thicket there was a broad ditch, with more mud and +dead fern in it than water, a ditch strongly suspected of snakes, and +beyond the ditch the fence that enclosed Squire Tempest's domain--an +old manor house in the heart of the New Forest. It had been an abbey +before the Reformation, and was still best known as the Abbey House. + +"I wonder whether I'm too late to catch her," speculated Roderick, +shifting his bag from one shoulder to the other; "she's no end of fun." + +In front of the clearing there was a broad five-barred gate, and +beside the gate a keeper's cottage. The flame of a newly-lighted candle +flashed out suddenly upon the autumn dusk, while Roderick stood +looking at the gate. + +"I'll ask at the lodge," he said; "I should like to say good-bye to the +little thing before I go back to Oxford." + +He walked quickly on to the gate. The keeper's children were playing at +nothing particular just inside it. + +"Has Miss Tempest gone for her ride this afternoon?" he asked. + +"Ya-ase," drawled the eldest shock-headed youngster. + +"And not come back yet?" + +"Noa. If she doant take care her'll be bogged." + +Roderick hitched his bag on to the top of the gate, and stood at ease +waiting. It was late for the little lady of Tempest Manor to be out on +her pony; but then it was an understood thing within a radius of ten +miles or so that she was a self-willed young person, and even at +fifteen years of age she had a knack of following her own inclination +with that noble disregard of consequences which characterises the +heaven-born ruler. + +Mr. Vawdrey had not waited more than ten minutes when there came the +thud of hoofs upon the soft track, a flash of gray in the distance, +something flying over those forky branches sprawling across the way, +then a half-sweet, half-shrill call, like a bird's, at which the +keeper's children scattered themselves like a brood of scared chickens, +and now a rush, and a gray pony shooting suddenly into the air and +coming down on the other side of the gate, as if he were a new kind of +skyrocket. + +"What do you think of that, Rorie?" cried the shrill sweet voice of the +gray pony's rider! + +"I'm ashamed of you, Vixen," said Roderick, "you'll come to a bad end +some of these days." + +"I don't care if I do, as long as I get my fling first," replied Vixen, +tossing her tawny mane. + +She was a slim young thing, in a short Lincoln-green habit. She had a +small pale face, brown eyes that sparkled with life and mischief, and a +rippling mass of reddish-auburn hair falling down her back under a +coquettish little felt hat. + +"Hasn't your mamma forbidden jumping, Vixen?" remonstrated Roderick, +opening the gate and coming in. + +"Yes, that she has, sir," said the old groom, riding up at a jog-trot +on his thickset brown cob. "It's quite against Mrs. Tempest's orders, +and it's a great responsibility to go out with Miss Violet. She will do +it." + +"You mean the pony will do it, Bates," cried Vixen. "I don't jump. How +can I help it if papa has given me a jumping pony? If I didn't let +Titmouse take a gate when he was in the humour, he'd kick like old +boots, and pitch me a cropper. It's an instinct of self-preservation +that makes me let him jump. And as for poor dear, pretty little mamma," +continued Vixen, addressing herself to Roderick, and changing her tone +to one of patronising tenderness, "if she had her way, I should be +brought up in a little box wrapped in jeweller's wool, to keep me safe. +But you see I take after papa, Rorie; and it comes as natural to me to +fly over gates as it does to you to get ploughed for smalls. There, +Bates," jumping off the pony, "you may take Titmouse home, and I'll +come presently and give him some apples, for he has been a dear, +darling, precious treasure of a ponykins." + +She emphasised this commendation with a kiss on Titmouse's gray nose, +and handed the bridle to Bates. + +"I'm going to walk home with Mr. Vawdrey," she said. + +"But, Vixen, I can't, really," said Roderick; "I'm due at home at this +moment, only I couldn't leave without saying good-bye to little Vix." + +"And you're over due at Oxford, too, aren't you?" cried Vixen, +laughing; "you're always due somewhere--never in the right place. But +whether you are due or not, you're coming up to the stables with me to +give Titmouse his apples, and then you're coming to dine with us on +your last night at home. I insist upon it; papa insists; mamma +insists--we all insist." + +"My mother will be as angry as----" + +"Old boots!" interjected Vixen. "That's the best comparison I know." + +"Awfully vulgar for a young lady." + +"You taught it me. How can I help being vulgar when I associate with +you? You should hear Miss McCroke preach at me sermons so long"--here +Vixen extended her arms to the utmost--"and I'm afraid they'd make as +much impression on Titmouse as they do upon me. But she's a dear old +thing, and I love her immensely." + +This was Vixen's usual way, making up for all shortcomings with the +abundance of her love. The heart was always atoning for the errors of +the head. + +"I wouldn't be Miss McCroke for anything. She must have a bad time of +it with you." + +"She has," assented Vixen, with a remorseful sigh; "I fear I'm bringing +her sandy hairs with sorrow to the grave. That hair of hers never could +be gray, you know, it's too self-opinionated in its sandiness. Now come +along, Rorie, do. Titmouse will be stamping about his box like a maniac +if he doesn't get those apples." + +She gave a little tug with both her small doeskin-covered hands at +Roderick's arm. He was still standing by the gate irresolute, +inclination drawing him to the Abbey House, duty calling him home to +Briarwood, five miles off, where his widowed mother was expecting his +return. + +"My last night at home, Vix," he said remonstrantly; "I really ought to +dine with my mother." + +"Of course you ought, and that's the very reason why you'll dine with +us. So 'kim over, now,' as Bates says to the horses; I don't know what +there is for dinner," she added confidentially, "but I feel sure it's +something nice. Dinner is papa's particular vanity, you know. He's very +weak about dinner." + +"Not so weak as he is about you, Vixen." + +"Do you really think papa is as fond of me as he is of his dinner?" + +"I'm sure of it!" + +"Then he must be very fond of me," exclaimed Vixen, with conviction. +"Now, are you coming?" + +Who could resist those little soft hands in doeskin? Certainly not +Rorie. He resigned himself to the endurance of his mother's anger in +the future as a price to be paid for the indulgence of his inclination +in the present, gave Vixen his arm, and turned his face towards the +Abbey House. + +They walked through shrubberies that would have seemed a pathless +wilderness to a stranger, but every turn in which was familiar to these +two. The ground was undulating, and vast thickets of rhododendron and +azalea rose high above them, or sank in green valleys below their path. +Here and there a group of tall firs towered skyward above the dark +entanglement of shrubs, or a great beech spread its wide limbs over the +hollows; here and there a pool of water reflected the pale moonshine. + +The house lay low, sheltered and shut in by those rhododendron +thickets, a long, rambling pile of building, which had been added to, +and altered, and taken away from, and added to again, like that +well-known puzzle in mental arithmetic which used to amuse us in our +childhood. It was all gables, and chimney-stacks, and odd angles, and +ivy-mantled wall, and richly-mullioned windows, or quaint little +diamond-paned lattices, peeping like a watchful eye from under the +shadow of a jutting cornice. The stables had been added in Queen +Elizabeth's time, after the monks had been routed from their snug +quarters, and the Abbey had been bestowed upon one of the Tudor +favourites. These Elizabethan stables formed the four sides of a +quadrangle, stone-paved, with an old marble basin in the centre--a +basin which the Vicar pronounced to be an early Saxon font, but which +Squire Tempest refused to have removed from the place it had occupied +ever since the stables were built. There were curious carvings upon the +six sides, but so covered with mosses and lichens that nobody could +tell what they meant; and the Squire forbade any scraping process by +officious antiquarians, which might lead to somebody's forcible +appropriation of the ancient basin. + +The Squire was not so modern in his ideas as to set up his own +gasometer, so the stables were lighted by lanterns, with an oil-lamp +fixed here and there against the wall. Into this dim uncertain light +came Roderick and Vixen, through the deep stone archway which opened +from the shrubbery into the stable-yard, and which was solid enough for +the gate of a fortified town. + +Titmouse's stable was lighted better then the rest. The door stood +open, and there was Titmouse, with the neat little quilted doeskin +saddle still on his back, waiting to be fed and petted by his young +mistress. It was a pretty picture, the old low-ceiled stable, with its +wide stalls and roomy loose-boxes and carpet of plaited straw, golden +against the deep brown of the woodwork. + +Vixen ran into the box, and took off Titmouse's bridle, he holding down +his head, like a child submitting to be undressed. Then, with many +vigorous tugs at straps and buckles, and a good deal of screwing up of +her rosy lips in the course of the effort, Vixen took off her pony's +saddle. + +"I like to do everything I can for him," she explained, as Rorie +watched her with an amused smile; "I'd wisp him down if they'd let me." + +She left the leather panel on Titmouse's back, hung up saddle and +bridle, and skipped off to a corn-chest to hunt for apples. Of these +she brought half-a-dozen or so in the skirt of her habit, and then, +swinging herself lightly into a comfortable corner of the manger, began +to carry out her system of reward for good conduct, with much coquetry +on her part and Titmouse's, Rorie watching it all from the empty stall +adjoining, his folded arms resting on the top of the partition. He said +not another word about his mother, or the duty that called him home to +Briarwood, but stood and watched this pretty horsebreaker in a dreamy +contentment. + +What was Violet Tempest, otherwise Vixen, like, this October evening, +just three months before her fifteenth birthday? She made a lovely +picture in this dim light, as she sat in the corner of the old manger, +holding a rosy-cheeked apple at a tantalising distance from Titmouse's +nose: yet she was perhaps not altogether lovely. She was brilliant +rather than absolutely beautiful. The white skin was powdered with +freckles. The rippling hair was too warm an auburn to escape an +occasional unfriendly remark from captious critics; but it was not red +hair for all that. The eyes were brownest of the brown, large, bright, +and full of expression. The mouth was a thought too wide, but it was a +lovely mouth notwithstanding. The lips were full and firmly +moulded--lips that could mean anything, from melting tenderness to +sternest resolve. Such lips, a little parted to show the whitest, +evenest teeth in Hampshire, seemed to Rorie lovely enough to please the +most critical connoisseur of feminine beauty. The nose was short and +straight, but had a trick of tilting itself upward with a little +impatient jerk that made it seem _retroussé;_ the chin was round and +full and dimpled; the throat was full and round also, a white column +supporting the tawny head, and indicated that Vixen was meant to be a +powerful woman, and not one of those ethereal nymphs who lend +themselves most readily to the decorative art of a court milliner. + +"I'm afraid Violet will be a dreadfully large creature," Mrs. Tempest +murmured plaintively, as the girl grew and flourished; that lady +herself being ethereal, and considering her own appearance a strictly +correct standard of beauty. How could it be otherwise, when she had +been known before her marriage as "the pretty Miss Calthorpe?" + +"This is very nice, you know, Vixen," said Roderick critically, as +Titmouse made a greedy snap at an apple, and was repulsed with a gentle +pat on his nose, "but it can't go on for ever. What'll you do when you +are grown up?" + +"Have a horse instead of a pony," answered Vixen unhesitatingly. + +"And will that be all the difference?" + +"I don't see what other difference there can be. I shall always love +papa, I shall always love hunting, I shall always love mamma--as much +as she'll let me. I shall always have a corner in my heart for deal old +Crokey; and, perhaps," looking at him mischievously, "even an odd +corner for you. What difference can a few more birthdays make in me? I +shall be too big for Titmouse, that's the only misfortune; but I shall +always keep him for my pet, and I'll have a basket-carriage and drive +him when I go to see my poor people. Sitting behind a pony is an awful +bore when one's natural place is on his back, but I'd sooner endure it +than let Titmouse fancy himself superannuated." + +"But when you're grown up you'll have to come out, Vixen. You'll be +obliged to go to London for a season, and be presented, and go to no +end of balls, and ride in the Row, and make a grand marriage, and have +a page all to yourself in the _Court Journal_." + +"Catch me--going to London!" exclaimed Vixen, ignoring the latter part +of the sentence. "Papa hates London, and so do I. And as to riding in +Rotten Row, _je voudrais bien me voir faisant cela_," added Vixen, +whose study of the French language chiefly resulted in the endeavour to +translate English slang into that tongue. "No, when I grow up I shall +take papa the tour of Europe. We'll see all those places I'm worried +about at lessons--Marathon, Egypt, Naples, the Peloponnesus, _tout le +tremblement_--and I shall say to each of them, 'Oh, this is you, is it? +What a nuisance you've been to me on the map.' We shall go up Mount +Vesuvius, and the Pyramids, and do all sorts of wild things; and by the +time I come home I shall have forgotten the whole of my education." + +"If Miss McCroke could hear you!" + +"She does, often. You can't imagine the wild things I say to her. But I +love her--fondly." + +A great bell clanged out with a vigorous peal, that seemed to shake the +old stable. + +"There's the first bell. I must run and dress. Come to the drawing-room +and see mamma." + +"But, Vixen, how can I sit down to dinner in such a costume," +remonstrated Rorie, looking down at his brown shooting-suit, leather +gaiters, and tremendous boots--boots which, instead of being beautified +with blacking, were suppled with tallow; "I can't do it, really." + +"Nonsense," cried Vixen, "what does it matter? Papa seldom dresses for +dinner. I believe he considers it a sacrifice to mamma's sense of +propriety when he washes his hands after coming in from the home farm. +And you are only a boy--I beg pardon--an undergraduate. So come along." + +"But upon my word, Vixen, I feel too much ashamed of myself." + +"I've asked you to dinner, and you've accepted," cried Vixen, pulling +him out of the stable by the lapel of his shooting-jacket. + +He seemed to relish that mode of locomotion, for he allowed himself to +be pulled all the way to the hall-door, and into the glow of the great +beech-wood fire; a ruddy light which shone upon many a sporting trophy, +and reflected itself on many a gleaming pike and cuirass, belonging to +days of old, when gentlemanly sport for the most part meant man-hunting. + +It was a fine old vaulted hall, a place to love and remember lovingly +when far away. The walls were all of darkly bright oak panelling, save +where here and there a square of tapestry hung before a door, or a +painted window let in the moonlight. At one end there was a great +arched fireplace, the arch surmounted with Squire Tempest's armorial +bearings, roughly cut in freestone. A mailed figure of the usual stumpy +build, in helm and hauberk, stood on each side of the hearth; a large +three-cornered chair covered with stamped and gilded leather was drawn +up to the fireside, the Squire's favourite seat on an autumn or winter +afternoon. The chair was empty now, but, stretched at full length +before the blazing logs, lay the Squire's chosen companion, Nip, a +powerful liver-coloured pointer; and beside him in equally luxurious +rest, reclined Argus, Vixen's mastiff. There was a story about Vixen +and the mastiff, involving the only incident in that young lady's life +the recollection whereof could make her blush. + +The dog, apparently coiled in deepest slumber, heard the light +footsteps on the hall floor, pricked up his tawny ears, sprang to his +feet, and bounded over to his young mistress, whom he nearly knocked +down in the warmth of his welcome. Nip, the pointer, blinked at the +intruders, yawned desperately, stretched himself a trifle longer, and +relapsed into slumber. + +"How fond that brute is of you," said Rorie; "but it's no wonder, when +one considers what you did for him." + +"If you say another word I shall hate you," cried Vixen savagely. + +"Well, but you know when a fellow fights another fellow's battles, the +other fellow's bound to be fond of him; and when a young lady pitches +into a bird-boy with her riding-whip to save a mastiff pup from +ill-usage, that mastiff pup is bound----" + +"Mamma," cried Vixen, flinging aside a tapestry _portière_, and +bouncing into the drawing-room, "here's Roderick, and he's come to +dinner, and you must excuse his shooting-dress, please. I'm sure pa +will." + +"Certainly, my dear Violet," replied a gentle, _traînante_ voice from +the fire-lit dimness near the velvet-curtained hearth. "Of course I am +always glad to see Mr. Vawdrey when your papa asks him. Where did you +meet the Squire, Roderick?" + +"Upon my word, Mrs. Tempest," faltered Rorie, coming slowly forward +into the ruddy glow, "I feel quite awfully ashamed of myself; I've been +rabbit-shooting, and I'm a most horrid object. It wasn't the Squire +asked me to stay. It was Vixen." + +Vixen made a ferocious grimace at him--he could just see her distorted +countenance in the fire-light--and further expressed her aggravation by +a smart crack of her whip. + +"Violet, my love, you have such startling ways," exclaimed Mrs. +Tempest, with a long-suffering air. "Really, Miss McCroke, you ought to +try and correct her of those startling ways." + +On this Roderick became aware of a stout figure in a tartan dress, +knitting industriously on the side of the hearth opposite Mrs. +Tempest's sofa. He could just see the flash of those active needles, +and could just hear Miss McCroke murmur placidly that she had corrected +Violet, and that it was no use. + +Rorie remembered that plaid poplin dress when he was at Eton. It was a +royal Stuart, too brilliant to be forgotten. He used to wonder whether +it would ever wear out, or whether it was not made of some +indestructible tissue, like asbestos--a fabric that neither time nor +fire could destroy. + +"It was Rorie's last night, you see, mamma," apologised Vixen, "and I +knew you and papa would like him to come, and that you wouldn't mind +his shooting-clothes a bit, though they do make him look like the +under-keeper, except that the under-keeper's better looking than Rorie, +and has finished growing his whiskers, instead of living in the +expectation of them." + +And with this Parthian shot, Vixen made a pirouette on her neat little +morocco-shod toes, and whisked herself out of the room; leaving +Roderick Vawdrey to make the best of his existence for the next twenty +minutes with the two women he always found it most difficult to get on +with, Mrs. Tempest and Miss McCroke. + +The logs broke into a crackling blaze just at this moment, and lighted +up that luxurious hearth and the two figures beside it. + +It was the prettiest thing imaginable in the way of a drawing-room, +that spacious low-ceiled chamber in the Abbey House. + +The oak panelling was painted white, a barbarity on the part of those +modern Goths the West End decorators, but a charming background for +quaint Venetian mirrors, hanging shelves of curious old china, dainty +little groups of richly-bound duodecimos, brackets, bronzes, freshest +flowers in majolica jars; water-colour sketches by Hunt, Prout, +Cattermole, and Edward Duncan; sage-green silk curtains; black and gold +furniture, and all the latest prettinesses of the new Jacobean school. +The mixture of real medievalism and modern quaintness was delightful. +One hardly knew where the rococo began or the mediaeval left off. The +good old square fireplace, with its projecting canopy, and columns in +white and coloured marbles, was as old as the days of Inigo Jones; but +the painted tiles, with their designs from the Iliad and Odyssey after +Dante Rossetti, were the newest thing from Minton's factory. + +Even Rorie felt that the room was pretty, though he did above all +things abhor to be trapped in it, as he found himself this October +evening. + +"There's a great lot of rubbish in it," he used to say of Mrs. +Tempest's drawing-room, "but it's rather nice altogether." + +Mrs. Tempest, at five-and-thirty, still retained the good looks which +had distinguished Miss Calthorpe at nineteen. She was small and slim, +with a delicate complexion. She had large soft eyes of a limpid +innocent azure, regular features, rosebud lips, hands after Velasquez, +and an unexceptionable taste in dress, the selection of which formed +one of the most onerous occupations of her life. To attire herself +becomingly, and to give the Squire the dinners he best liked, in an +order of succession so dexterously arranged as never to provoke +satiety, were Mrs. Tempest's cardinal duties. In the intervals of her +life she read modern poetry, unobjectionable French novels, and +reviews. She did a little high-art needle-work, played Mendelssohn's +Lieder, sang three French _chansons_ which her husband liked, slept, +and drank orange pekoe. In the consumption of this last article Mrs. +Tempest was as bad as a dram-drinker. She declared her inability to +support life without that gentle stimulant, and required to be wound up +at various hours of her languid day with a dose of her favourite +beverage. + +"I think I'll take a cup of tea," was Mrs. Tempest's inevitable remark +at every crisis of her existence. + +"And so you are going back to Oxford, Roderick?" the lady began with a +languid kindness. + +Mrs. Tempest had never been known to be unkind to anyone. She regarded +all her fellow-creatures with a gentle tolerance. They were there, a +necessary element of the universe, and she bore with them. But she had +never attached herself particularly to anybody except the Squire. Him +she adored. He took all the trouble of life off her hands, and gave her +all good things. She had been poor, and he had made her rich; nobody, +and he had elevated her into somebody. She loved him with a canine +fidelity, and felt towards him as a dog feels towards his master--that +in him this round world begins and ends. + +"Yes," assented Rorie, with a sigh, "I'm going up to-morrow." + +"Why up?" inquired Miss McCroke, without lifting her eyes from her +needles. "It isn't up on the map." + +"I hope you are going to get a grand degree," continued Mrs. Tempest, +in that soft conciliatory voice of hers; "Senior Wrangler, or +something." + +"That's the other shop," exclaimed Rorie; "they grow that sort of +timber at Cambridge. However, I hope to pull myself through somehow or +other this time, for my mother's sake. She attaches a good deal of +importance to it, though for my own part I can't see what good it can +do me. It won't make me farm my own land better, or ride straighter to +hounds, or do my duty better to my tenants." + +"Education," said Miss McCroke sententiously, "is always a good, and we +cannot too highly estimate its influence upon----" + +"Oh yes, I know," answered Rorie quickly, for he knew that when the +floodgates of Miss McCroke's eloquence were once loosened the tide ran +strong, "when house and lands are gone and spent a man may turn usher +in an academy, and earn fifty pounds a year and his laundress's bill by +grinding Caesar's Commentaries into small boys. But I shouldn't lay in +a stock of learning with that view. When my house and lands are gone +I'll go after them--emigrate, and go into the lumber trade in Canada." + +"What a dreadful idea," said Mrs. Tempest; "but you are not going to +lose house and lands, Roderick--such a nice place as Briarwood." + +"To my mind it's rather a commonplace hole," answered the young man +carelessly, "but the land is some of the best in the county." + +It must be nearly seven by this time, he thought. He was getting +through this period of probation better than he had expected. Mrs. +Tempest gave a little stifled yawn behind her huge black fan, upon +which Cupids and Graces, lightly sketched in French gray, were depicted +dancing in the airiest attitudes, after Boucher. Roderick would have +liked to yawn in concert, but at this juncture a sudden ray of light +flashed upon him and showed him a way of escape. + +"I think I'll go to the gentleman's room, and make myself decent before +the second bell rings," he said. + +"Do," assented Mrs. Tempest, with another yawn; and the young man fled. + +He had only time to scramble through a hurried toilet, and was still +feeling very doubtful as to the parting of his short crisp hair, when +the gong boomed out its friendly summons. The gentleman's room opened +from the hall, and Rorie heard the Squire's loud and jovial voice +uplifted as he raised the tapestry curtain. + +Mr. Tempest was standing in front of the log fire, pulling Vixen's +auburn hair. The girl had put on a picturesque brown velvet frock. A +scarlet sash was tied loosely round her willowy waist, and a scarlet +ribbon held back the rippling masses of her bright hair. + +"A study in red and brown," thought Rorie, as the fire-glow lit up the +picture of the Squire in his hunting-dress, and the girl in her warm +velvet gown. + +"Such a run, Rorie," cried the Squire; "we dawdled about among the +furze from twelve till four doing nothing, and just as it was getting +dark started a stag up on the high ground this side of Pickett's Post, +and ran him nearly into Ringwood. Go in and fetch my wife, Rorie. Oh, +here she is"--as the _portière_ was lifted by a white hand, all +a-glitter with diamonds--"you must excuse me sitting down in pink +to-day, Pamela; I only got in as the gong began to sound, and I'm as +hungry as the proverbial hunter." + +"You know I always think you handsomest in your scarlet coat, Edward," +replied the submissive wife, "but I hope you're not very muddy." + +"I won't answer for myself; but I haven't been actually up to my neck +in a bog." + +Rorie offered his arm to Mrs. Tempest, and they all went in to dinner, +the squire still playing with his daughter's hair, and Miss McCroke +solemnly bringing up the rear. + +The dining-room at the Abbey House was the ancient refectory, large +enough for a mess-room; so, when there were no visitors, the Tempests +dined in the library--a handsome square room, in which old family +portraits looked down from the oak panelling above the bookcases, and +where the literary element was not obtrusively conspicuous. You felt +that it was a room quite as well adapted for conviviality as for study. +There was a cottage piano in a snug corner by the fireplace. The +Squire's capacious arm-chair stood on the other side of the hearth, +Mrs. Tempest's low chair and gipsy table facing it. The old oak buffet +opposite the chimney-piece was a splendid specimen of Elizabethan +carving, and made a rich background for the Squire's racing-cups, and a +pair of Oliver Cromwell tankards, plain and unornamental as that +illustrious Roundhead himself. + +It was a delightful room on a chill October evening like this: the logs +roaring up the wide chimney, a pair of bronze candelabra lighting +buffet and table, Mrs. Tempest smiling pleasantly at her unbidden +guest, and the squire stooping, red-faced and plethoric, over his +mulligatawny; while Vixen, who was at an age when dinner is a secondary +consideration, was amusing herself with the dogs, gentlemanly animals, +too wellbred to be importunate in their demands for an occasional +tid-bit, and content to lie in superb attitudes, looking up at the +eaters patiently, with supplication in their great pathetic brown eyes. + +"Rorie is going up to-morrow--not in a balloon, but to Magdalen +College, Oxford--so, as this was his last night, I made him come to +dinner," explained Vixen presently. "I hope I didn't do wrong." + +"Rorie knows he's always welcome. Have some more of that mulligatawny, +my lad, it's uncommonly good." + +Rorie declined the mulligatawny, being at this moment deeply engaged in +watching Vixen and the dogs. Nip, the liver-coloured pointer, was +performing his celebrated statue feat. With his forelegs stiffly +extended, and his head proudly poised, he simulated a dog of marble; +and if it had not been for the occasional bumping of his tail upon the +Persian carpet, in an irresistible wag of self-approbation, the +simulation would have been perfect. + +"Look, papa! isn't it beautiful? I went out of the room the other day, +while Nip was doing the statue, after I'd told him not to move a paw, +and I stayed away quite five minutes, and then stole quietly back; and +there he was, lying as still as if he'd been carved out of stone. +Wasn't that fidelity?" + +"Nonsense!" cried the Squire. "How do you know that Nip didn't wind you +as you opened the door, and get himself into position? What are these?" +as the old silver _entrée_ dishes came round. "Stewed eels? You never +forget my tastes, Pamela." + +"Stewed eels, sir; _sole maître d'hôtel_," said the butler, in the +usual suppressed and deferential tone. + +Rorie helped himself automatically, and went on looking at Vixen. + +Her praises of Nip had kindled jealous fires in the breast of Argus, +her own particular favourite; and the blunt black muzzle had been +thrust vehemently under her velvet sleeve. + +"Argus is angry." said Rorie. + +"He's a dear old foolish thing to be jealous," answered Vixen, "when he +knows I'd go through fire and water for him." + +"Or even fight a big boy," cried the Squire, throwing himself back in +his chair with the unctuous laughter of a man who is dining well, and +knows it. + +Vixen blushed rosiest red at the allusion. + +"Papa, you oughtn't to say such things," she cried; "I was a little bit +of a child then." + +"Yes, and flew at a great boy of fourteen and licked him," exclaimed +the Squire, rapturously. "You know the story, don't you, Rorie?" + +Rorie had heard it twenty times, but looked the picture of ignorant +expectancy. + +"You know how Vixen came by Argus? What, you don't? Well, I'll tell +you. This little yellow-haired lass of mine was barely nine years old, +and she was riding through the village on her pony, with young Stubbs +behind her on the sorrel mare--and, you know, to her dying day, that +sorrel would never let anyone dismount her quietly. Now what does Vixen +spy but a lubberly lad and a lot of small children ill-using a mastiff +pup. They'd tied a tin-kettle to the brute's tail, and were doing their +best to drown him. There's a pond just beyond Mrs. Farley's cottage, +you know, and into that pond they'd pelted the puppy, and wouldn't let +him get out of it. As fast as the poor little brute scrambled up the +muddy bank they drove him back into the water." + +"Papa darling," pleaded Vixen despairingly, "Rorie has heard it all a +thousand times before. Haven't you now, Rorie?" + +"It's as new to me as to-morrow's _Times_," said Roderick with +effrontery. + +"Vixen was off the pony before you could say 'Jack Robinson.' She flew +into the midst of the dirty little ragamuffins, seized the biggest +ruffian by the collar, and trundled him backwards into the pond. Then +she laid about her right and left with her whip till the wretches +scampered off, leaving Vixen and the puppy masters of the situation; +and by this time the sorrel mare had allowed Stubbs to get off her, and +Stubbs rushed to the rescue. The young ringleader had been too much +surprised by his ducking to pull himself together again before this, +but he came up to time now, and had it out with Stubbs, while the +sorrel was doing as much damage as she conveniently could to Mrs. +Farley's palings. 'Don't quite kill him, please, Stubbs,' cried Vixen, +'although he richly deserves it;' and then she took the muddy little +beast up in her arms and ran home, leaving her pony to fate and Stubbs. +Stubbs told me the whole story, with tears in his eyes. 'Who'd ha' +thought, Squire, the little lady would ha' been such a game 'un?' said +Stubbs." + +"It's very horrid of you, papa, to tell such silly old stories," +remonstrated Vixen. "That was nearly seven years ago, and Dr. Dewsnap +told us the other day that everybody undergoes a complete change +of--what is it?--all the tissues--in seven years. I'm not the same +Vixen that pushed the boy into the pond. There's not a bit of her left +in me." + +And so the dinner went on and ended, with a good deal of distraction, +caused by the dogs, and a mild little remark now and then from Mrs. +Tempest, or an occasional wise interjection from Miss McCroke, who in a +manner represented the Goddess of Wisdom in this somewhat frivolous +family, and came in with a corrective and severely rational observation +when the talk was drifting towards idiocy. + +The filberts, bloomy purple grapes, and ruddy pippins, and yellow +William pears had gone their rounds--all home produce--and had been +admired and praised, and the Squire's full voice was mellowing after +his second glass of port, when the butler came in with a letter on a +salver, and carried it, with muffled footfall and solemn visage, as of +one who entrusted with the delivery of a death-warrant, straight to +Roderick Vawdrey. + +The young man looked at it as if he had encountered an unexpected +visitor of the adder tribe. + +"My mother," he faltered. + +It was a large and handsome letter with a big red seal. + +"May I?" asked Rorie, with a troubled visage, and having received his +host and hostess's assent, broke the seal. + + +"Dear Roderick,--Is it quite kind of you to absent yourself on this +your last night at home? I feel very sure that this will find you at +the Abbey House, and I send the brougham at a venture. Be good enough +to come home at once. The Dovedales arrived at Ashbourne quite +unexpectedly this afternoon, and are dining with me on purpose to see +you before you go back to Oxford. If your own good feeling did not urge +you to spend this last evening with me, I wonder that Mr. and Mrs. +Tempest were not kind enough to suggest to you which way your duty +lay.--Yours anxiously, + +"JANE VAWDREY." + + +Roderick crumpled the letter with an angry look. That fling at the +Tempests hit him hard. Why was it that his mother was always so ready +to find fault with these chosen friends of his? + +"Anything wrong, Rorie?" asked the Squire. + +"Nothing; except that the Dovedales are dining with my mother; and I'm +to go home directly." + +"If you please, ma'am, Master Vawdrey's servant has come for him," said +Vixen, mimicking the style of announcement at a juvenile party. "It's +quite too bad, Rorie," she went on, "I had made up my mind to beat you +at pyramids. However I daresay you're very glad to have the chance of +seeing your pretty cousin before you leave Hampshire." + +But Rorie shook his head dolefully, made his adieux, and departed. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Lady Jane Vawdrey. + +"It is not dogs only that are jealous!" thought Roderick, as he went +home in the brougham, with all the windows down, and the cool night +breeze blowing his cigar smoke away into the forest, to mix with the +mist wreaths that were curling up from the soft ground. It was an +offence of the highest grade to smoke in his mother's carriage; but +Rorie was in an evil temper just now, and found a kind of bitter +pleasure in disobedience. + +The carriage bowled swiftly along the straight, well-made road, but +Rorie hated riding in a brougham. The soft padded confinement galled +him. + +"Why couldn't she send me my dog-cart?" he asked himself indignantly. + +Briarwood was a large white house in a small park. It stood on much +higher ground than the Abbey House, and was altogether different from +that good old relic of a bygone civilisation. Briarwood was distinctly +modern. Its decorations savoured of the Regency: its furniture was +old-fashioned, without being antique. The classic stiffness and +straightness of the First French Empire distinguished the gilded chairs +and tables in the drawing-room. There were statues by Chantrey and +Canova in the spacious lofty hall; portraits by Lawrence and Romney in +the dining-room; a historical picture by Copley over the elephantine +mahogany sideboard; a Greek sarcophagus for wines under it. + +At its best, the Briarwood house was commonplace; but to the mind of +Lady Jane Vawdrey, the gardens and hot-houses made amends. She was a +profound horticulturist, and spent half her income on orchids and rare +newly-imported flowers, and by this means she had made Briarwood one of +the show places of the neighbourhood. + +"A woman must be distinguished for something, or she is no better than +her scullery-maid," said Lady Jane to her son, excusing herself for +these extravagances. "I have no talent for music, painting, or poetry, +so I devote myself to orchids; and perhaps my orchids turn out better +than many people's music and poetry." + +Lady Jane was not a pleasant-tempered woman, and enjoyed the privilege +of being more feared than liked; a privilege of which she made the +most, and which secured her immunity from many annoyances to which +good-natured people are subject. She did good to her poor neighbours, +in her own cold set way, but the poor people about Briarwood did not +send to her for wine and brandy as if she kept a public-house, and was +benefited by their liberal patronage; the curate at the little Gothic +church, down in the tiny village in a hollow of the wooded hills, did +not appeal to Lady Jane in his necessities for church or parish. She +subscribed handsomely to all orthodox well-established charities, but +was not prone to accidental benevolence. Nobody ever disappointed her +when she gave a dinner, or omitted the duty-call afterwards; but she +had no unceremonious gatherings, no gossipy kettle-drums, no +hastily-arranged picnics or garden parties. When people in the +neighbourhood wanted to take their friends to see the orchids, they +wrote to Lady Jane first, and made it quite a state affair; and on an +appointed afternoon, the lady of Briarwood received them, richly clad +in a dark velvet gown and a point-lace cap, as if she had just walked +out of an old picture, and there were three or four gardeners in +attendance to open doors, and cut specimen blossoms for the guests. + +"She's a splendid woman, admirable in every way," said Roderick to an +Oxford chum, with whom he had been discussing Lady Jane's virtues; "but +if a fellow could have a voice in the matter, she's not the mother I +should have chosen for myself." + +Ambition was the leading characteristic of Lady Jane's mind. As a girl, +she had been ambitious for herself, and that ambition had been +disappointed; as a woman, her ambition transferred itself to her son. +She was the eldest daughter of the Earl of Lodway, a nobleman who had +been considerably overweighted in the handicap of life, having nine +children, seats in three counties, a huge old house in St. James's +Square, and a small income--his three estates consisting of some of the +barrenest and most unprofitable land in Great Britain. Of Lord Lodway's +nine children, five were daughters, and of these Lady Jane was the +eldest and the handsomest. Even in her nursery she had a very distinct +notion that, for her, marriage meant promotion. She used to play at +being married at St. George's, Hanover Square, and would never consent +to have the ceremony performed by less than two bishops; even though +the part of one hierarch had to be represented by the nursery +hearth-broom. In due course Lady Jane Umleigh made her début in +society, in all the bloom and freshness of her stately Saxon beauty. +She was admired and talked about, and acknowledged as one of the belles +of that season; her portrait was engraved in the Book of Beauty, and +her ball programmes were always filled with the very best names; but at +the end of the season, Lady Lodway went back to the Yorkshire Wolds +with a biting sense of failure and mortification. Her handsome daughter +had not sent her arrow home to the gold. She had not received a single +offer worth talking about. + +"Don't you think you could consent to be married by one bishop and a +dean, Jenny, if the Marquis comes to the scratch soon after the +twelfth?" asked Lady Jane's youngest brother derisively. + +He had been made to do bishop in those play-weddings of Lady Jane's, +very often when the function went against the grain. + +The Marquis thus familiarly spoken about was Lord Strishfogel, the +richest nobleman in Ireland, and a great sea-rover, famous for his +steam yachts, and his importance generally. He had admired Lady Jane's +statuesque beauty, and had been more particular in his attentions than +the rest of her satellites, who for the most part merely worshipped her +because it was the right thing to do. Lord Strishfogel had promised to +come to Heron's Nest, Lord Lodway's place in the Wolds, for the +grouse-shooting; but instead of keeping his promise, this erratic young +peer went off to the Golden Horn, to race his yacht against the vessel +of a great Turkish official. This was Lady Jane Umleigh's first +disappointment. She had liked Lord Strishfogel just well enough to +fancy herself deeply in love with him, and she was unconscious of the +influence his rank and wealth had exercised upon her feelings. She had +thought of herself so often as the Marchioness of Strishfogel, had so +completely projected her mind into that brilliant future, that to +descend from this giddy height to the insignificance of unwedded +girlhood was as sharp a fall as if she had worn a crown and lost it. + +Her second season began, and Lord Strishfogel was still a rover; He was +in the South Seas by this time, writing a book, and enjoying halcyon +days among the friendly natives, swimming like a dolphin in those +summery seas, and indulging in harmless flirtations with dusky +princesses, whose chief attire was made of shells and flowers, and +whose untutored dancing was more vigorous than refined. At the end of +that second season, Jane Umleigh had serious thoughts of turning +philanthropist, and taking a shipload of destitute young women to +Australia. Anything would be better than this sense of a wasted life +and ignominious failure. + +She was in this frame of mind when Mr. Vawdrey came to Heron's Nest for +the shooting. He was a commoner, but his family was one of the oldest +in Hampshire, and he had lately distinguished himself by some rather +clever speeches in the House of Commons. His estate was worth fifteen +thousand a year, and he was altogether a man of some mark. Above all, +he was handsome, manly, and a gentleman to the marrow of his bones, and +he was the first man who ever fell over head and ears in love with Jane +Umleigh. + +The charms that had repelled more frivolous admirers attracted John +Vawdrey. That proud calm beauty of Lady Jane's seemed to his mind the +perfection of womanly grace. Here was a wife for a man to adore upon +his knees, a wife to be proud of, a wife to rule her vassals like a +queen, and to lead him, John Vawdrey, on to greatness. + +He was romantic, chivalrous, aspiring, and Lady Jane Umleigh was the +first woman he had met who embodied the heroine of his youthful dreams. +He proposed and was refused, and went away despairing. It would have +been a good match, undoubtedly--a truth which Lord and Lady Lodway +urged with some iteration upon their daughter--but it would have been a +terrible descent from the ideal marriage which Lady Jane had set up in +her own mind, as the proper prize for so fair a runner in life's race. +She had imagined herself a marchioness, with a vast territory of +mountain, vale, and lake, and an influence in the sister island second +only to that of royalty. She could not descend all at once to behold +herself the wife of a plain country gentleman, whose proudest privilege +it was to write M.P. after his name. + +The Earl and Countess were urgent, for they had another daughter ready +for the matrimonial market, and were inclined to regard Lady Jane as an +"old shopkeeper," but they knew their eldest daughter's temper, and did +not press the matter too warmly. + +Another season, Lady Jane's fourth, and Lady Sophia's first, began and +ended. Lady Sophia was piquant and witty, with a snub nose and a +playful disposition. She was a first-rate horsewoman, an exquisite +waltzer, good at croquet, archery, billiards, and all games requiring +accuracy of eye and aim, and Lady Sophia brought down her bird in a +single season. She went home to Heron's Nest a duchess in embryo. The +Duke of Dovedale, a bulky, middle-aged nobleman, with a passion for +fieldsports and high farming, had seen Lady Sophia riding a dangerous +horse in Rotten Row, and had been so charmed by her management of the +brute, as to become from that hour her slave. A pretty girl, with such +a seat in her saddle, and such a light hand for a horse's mouth, was +the next best thing to a goddess. Before the season was over the Duke +had proposed, and had been graciously accepted by the young lady, who +felt an inward glow of pride at having done so much better than the +family beauty. + +"Can I ever forget how that girl Jane has snubbed me?" said Lady Sophia +to her favourite brother. "And to think that I shall be sitting in +ermine robes in the House of Lords, while she is peeping through the +nasty iron fretwork in the Ladies' Gallery to catch a glimpse of the +top of her husband's head in the House of Commons." + +This splendid engagement of Lady Sophia's turned the tide for the +faithful John Vawdrey. Lady Jane met her rejected lover at Trouville, +and was so gracious to him that he ventured to renew his suit, and, to +his delighted surprise, was accepted. Anything was better than standing +out in the cold while the ducal engagement was absorbing everybody's +thoughts and conversation. Lady Sophia had boasted, in that playful way +of hers, of having her beauty-sister for chief bridesmaid; and the +beauty-sister had made up her mind that this thing should not be. +Perhaps she would have married a worse man than John Vawdrey to escape +such infamy. + +And John Vawdrey was by no means disagreeable to her; nay, it had been +pride, and not any disinclination for the man himself that had bidden +her reject him. He was clever, distinguished, and he loved her with a +romantic devotion which flattered and pleased her. Yes, she would marry +John Vawdrey. + +Everybody was delighted at this concession, the lady's parents and +belongings most especially so. Here were two daughters disposed of; and +if the beauty had made the inferior match, it was only one of those +capricious turns of fortune that are more to be expected than the +common order of things. + +So there was a double marriage the following spring at St. George's, +and Lady Jane's childish desire was gratified. There were two bishops +at the ceremony. True that one was only colonial, and hardly ranked +higher than the nursery hearth brush. + +Fate was not altogether unkind to Lady Jane. Her humble marriage was +much happier than her sister's loftier union. The Duke, who had been so +good-natured as a lover, proved stupid and somewhat tiresome as a +husband. He gave his mind to hunting and farming, and cared for nothing +else. His chief conversation was about cattle and manure, guano and +composts, the famous white Chillingham oxen, or the last thing in +strawberry roans. He spent a small fortune that would have been large +for a small man--in the attempt to acclimatise strange animals in his +park in the Midlands. Sophia, Duchess of Dovedale, had seven country +seats, and no home. Her children were puny and feeble. They sickened in +the feudal Scotch castle, they languished in the Buckinghamshire +Eden--a freestone palace set among the woods that overhang the valley +of the Thames. No breezes that blow could waft strength or vitality to +those feeble lungs. At thirty the Duchess of Dovedale had lost all her +babies, save one frail sapling, a girl of two years old, who promised +to have a somewhat better constitution than her perished brothers and +sisters. On this small paragon the Duchess concentrated her cares and +hopes. She gave up hunting--much to the disgust of that Nimrod, her +husband--in order to superintend her nursery. From the most +pleasure-loving of matrons, she became the most domestic. Lady Mabel +Ashbourne was to grow up the perfection of health, wisdom, and beauty, +under the mother's loving care. She would have a great fortune, for +there was a considerable portion of the Duke's property which he was +free to bequeath to his daughter. He had coal-pits in the North, and a +tin-mine in the West. He had a house at Kensington which he had built +for himself, a model Queen Anne mansion, with every article of +furniture made on the strictest aesthetic principles, and not an +anachronism from the garrets to the cellars. You might have expected to +meet Marlborough on the stairs, and to find Addison reading in the +library. The Scottish castle and the Buckinghamshire Paradise would go +with the title; but the Duke, delighted with the easy-going sport of +the New Forest, had bought six hundred acres between Stony Cross and +Romsey--a wide stretch of those low level pastures across which you see +the distant roofs and spires of the good old market town--and had made +for himself an archetypal home-farm, and had built himself a +hunting-box, with stables and kennels of the most perfect kind; and +this estate, with the Queen Anne house, and the pits, and the mine, was +his very own to dispose of as he pleased. + +Lady Jane's marriage had proved happy. Her husband, always egged on by +her ambitious promptings, had made himself an important figure in the +senate, and had been on the eve of entering the cabinet as Colonial +Secretary, when death cut short his career. A hard winter and a sharp +attack of bronchitis nipped the aspiring senator in the bud. + +Lady Jane was as nearly broken-hearted as so cold a woman could be. She +had loved her husband better than anything in this life, except +herself. He left her with one son and a handsome jointure, with the +full possession of Briarwood until her son's majority. Upon that only +child Lady Jane lavished all her care, but did not squander the wealth +of her affection. Perhaps her capacity for loving had died with her +husband. She had been proud and fond of him, but she was not proud of +the little boy in velvet knickerbockers, whose good looks were his only +merit, and who was continually being guilty of some new piece of +mischief; laming ponies, smashing orchids, glass, china, and generally +disturbing the perfect order which was Briarwood's first law. + +When the boy was old enough to go to Eton, he seemed still more remote +from his mother's love and sympathy. He was passionately fond of field +sports, and those Lady Jane Vawdrey detested. He was backwards in all +his studies, despite the careful coaching he had received from the mild +Anglican curate of Briarwood village. He was intensely pugilistic, and +rarely came home for the holidays without bringing a black eye or a +swollen nose as the result of his latest fight. He spent a good deal of +money, and in a manner that to his mother's calm sense appeared simply +idiotic. His hands were always grubby, his nails wore almost perpetual +mourning, his boots were an outrage upon good taste, and he generally +left a track of muddy foot-marks behind him along the crimson-carpeted +corridors. What could any mother do for such a boy, except tolerate +him? Love was out of the question. How could a delicate, high-bred +woman, soft-handed, velvet robed, care to have such a lad about her? a +boy who smelt of stables and wore hob-nailed boots, whose pockets were +always sticky with toffee, and his handkerchiefs a disgrace to +humanity, who gave his profoundest thoughts to pigeon-fancying, and his +warmest affections to ratting terriers, nay, who was capable of having +a live rat in his pocket at any moment of his life. + +But while all these habits made the lad abominable in the eyes of his +mother, the Duke and Duchess of Dovedale admired the young Hercules +with a fond and envious admiration. The Duke would have given coal-pits +and tin-mine, all the disposable property he held, and deemed it but a +small price for such a son. The Duchess thought of her feeble +boy-babies who had been whooping-coughed or scarlet-fevered out of the +world, and sighed, and loved her nephew better than ever his mother had +loved him since his babyhood. When the Dovedales were at their place in +the Forest, Roderick almost lived with them; or, at any rate, divided +his time between Ashbourne Park and the Abbey House, and spent as +little of his life at home as he could. He patronised Lady Mabel, who +was his junior by five years, rode her thorough-bred pony for her under +the pretence of improving its manners, until he took a header with it +into a bog, out of which pony and boy rolled and struggled +indiscriminately, boy none the worse, pony lamed for life. He played +billiards with the Duke, and told the Duchess all his school +adventures, practical jokes, fights, apple-pie beds, booby-traps, +surreptitious fried sausages, and other misdemeanours. + +Out of this friendship arose a brilliant vision which reconciled Lady +Jane Vawdrey to her son's preference for his aunt's house and his +aunt's society. Why should he not marry Mabel by-and-by, and unite the +two estates of Ashbourne and Briarwood, and become owner of the pits +and the mine, and distinguish himself in the senate, and be created a +peer? As the husband of Lady Mabel Ashbourne, he would be rich enough +to command a peerage, almost as a right; but his mother would have had +him deserve it. With this idea Lady Jane urged on her son's education. +All his Hampshire friends called him clever, but he won no laurels at +school. Lady Jane sent for grinders and had the boy ground; but all the +grinding could not grind a love of classics or metaphysics into this +free son of the forest. He went to Oxford, and got himself ploughed for +his Little Go, with a wonderful facility. For politics he cared not a +jot, but he could drive tandem better than any other undergraduate of +his year. He never spoke at the Union, but he pulled stroke in the +'Varsity boat. He was famous for his biceps, his good-nature, and his +good looks; but so far he had distinguished himself for nothing else, +and to this stage of nonperformance had he come when the reader first +beheld him. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +"I Want a Little Serious Talk with You." + +It was only half-past nine when the brougham drove up to the pillared +porch at Briarwood. The lighted drawing-room windows shone out upon the +vaporous autumn darkness--a row of five tall French casements--and the +sound of a piano caught Roderick's ear as he tossed the end of his +cigar in the shrubbery, and mounted the wide stone door-steps. + +"At it again," muttered Rorie with a shrug of disgust, as he entered +the hall, and heard, through the half-open drawing-room door, an +interlacement of pearly runs. At this stage of his existence, Rorie had +no appreciation of brilliant pianoforte playing. The music he liked +best was of the simplest, most inartificial order. + +"Are the Duke and Duchess here?" he asked the butler. + +"Her Grace and Lady Mabel is here, sir; not the Dook." + +"I suppose I must dress before I face the quality," muttered Rorie +sulkily, and he went leaping upstairs--three steps at a time--to +exchange his brown shooting-clothes and leather gaiters for that +dress-suit of his which was continually getting too small for him. +Rorie detested himself in a dress-suit and a white tie. + +"You beast," he cried, addressing his reflection in the tall glass door +of his armoire, "you are the image of a waiter at The Clarendon." + +The Briarwood drawing-room looked a great deal too vast and too lofty +for the three women who were occupying it this evening. It was a +finely-proportioned room, and its amber satin hangings made a pleasing +background for the white and gold furniture. White, gold, and amber +made up the prevailing tone of colour. Clusters of wax lights against +the walls and a crystal chandelier with many candles, filled the room +with a soft radiance. It was a room without shadow. There were no +recesses, no deep-set windows or doors. All was coldly bright, +faultlessly elegant. Rorie detested his mother's drawing-room almost as +much as he detested himself in a dress-coat that was too short in the +sleeves. + +The matrons were seated on each side of the shining gold and steel +fireplace, before which there stretched an island of silky white fur. +Lady Jane Vawdrey's younger sister was a stout, comfortable-looking +woman in gray silk, who hardly realised one's preconceived notion of a +duchess. Lady Jane herself had dignity enough for the highest rank in +the "Almanach de Gotha." She wore dark green velvet and old rose-point, +and looked like a portrait of an Austrian princess by Velasquez. Years +had not impaired the purity of her blonde complexion. Her aquiline +nose, thin lips, small firm chin, were the features of one born to +rule. Her light brown hair showed no streak of gray. An admirable +woman, no doubt, for anybody else's mother, as Rorie so often said to +himself. + +The young lady was still sitting at the piano, remote from the two +elders, her slim white fingers running in and out and to and fro in +those wondrous intricacies and involutions which distinguish modern +classical music. Rorie hated all that running about the piano to no +purpose, and could not perceive his cousin's merit in having devoted +three or four hours of her daily life for the last seven years to the +accomplishment of this melodious meandering. She left off playing, and +held out her small white hand to him as he came to the piano, after +shaking hands with his aunt. + +What was she like, this paragon formed by a mother's worshipping love +and ceaseless care, this one last pearl in the crown of domestic life, +this child of so many prayers and hopes, and fears, and deep pathetic +rejoicings? + +She was very fair to look upon--complete and beautiful as a pearl--with +that outward purity, that perfect delicacy of tint and harmony of +detail which is in itself a charm. Study her as captiously as you +would, you could find no flaw in this jewel. The small regular features +were so delicately chiselled, the fair fine skin was so transparent, +the fragile figure so exquisitely moulded, the ivory hand and arm so +perfect--no, you could discover no bad drawing or crude colouring in +this human picture. She lifted her clear blue eyes to Rorie's face, and +smiled at him in gentle welcome; and though he felt intensely cross at +having been summoned home like a school-boy, he could not refuse her a +responsive smile, or a gentle pressure of the taper fingers. + +"And so you have been dining with those horrid people!" she exclaimed +with an air of playful reproach, "and on your last night in +Hampshire--quite too unkind to Aunt Jane." + +"I don't know whom you mean by horrid people, Mabel," answered Rorie, +chilled back into sulkiness all at once; "the people I was with are all +that is good and pleasant." + +"Then you've not been at the Tempests' after all?" + +"I have been at the Tempests'. What have you to say against the +Tempests?" + +"Oh, I have nothing to say against them," said Lady Mabel, shrugging +her pretty shoulders in her fawn-coloured silk gown. "There are some +things that do not require to be said." + +"Mr. Tempest is the best and kindest of men; his wife is--well, a +nonentity, perhaps, but not a disagreeable one; and his daughter----" + +Here Rorie came to a sudden stop, which Lady Mabel accentuated with a +silvery little laugh. + +"His daughter is charming," she cried, when she had done laughing; "red +hair, and a green habit with brass buttons, a yellow waistcoat like her +papa's, and a rose in her button-hole. How I should like to see her in +Rotten Row!" + +"I'll warrant there wouldn't be a better horse-woman or a prettier girl +there," cried Rorie, scarlet with indignation. + +His mother looked daggers. His cousin gave another silvery laugh, clear +as those pearly treble runs upon the Erard; but that pretty artificial +laugh had a ring which betrayed her mortification. + +"Rorie is thorough," she said; "when he likes people he thinks them +perfection. You do think that little red-haired girl quite perfection, +now don't you, Rorie?" pursued Lady Mabel, sitting down before the +piano again, and touching the notes silently as she seemed to admire +the slender diamond hoops upon her white fingers--old-fashioned rings +that had belonged to a patrician great-grandmother. "You think her +quite a model young lady, though they say she can hardly read, and +makes her mark--like William the Conqueror--instead of signing her +name, and spends her life in the stables, and occasionally, when the +fox gets back to earth--swears." + +"I don't know who they may be," cried Roderick, savagely, "but they say +a pack of lies. Violet Tempest is as well educated as--any girl need +be. All girls can't be paragons; or, if they could, this earth would be +intolerable for the rest of humanity. Lord deliver us from a world +overrun with paragons. Violet Tempest is little more than a child, a +spoiled child, if you like, but she has a heart of gold, and a firmer +seat in her saddle than any other woman in Hampshire." + +Roderick had turned from scarlet to pale by the time he finished this +speech. His mother had paled at the first mention of poor Vixen. That +young lady's name acted upon Lady Jane's feelings very much as a red +rag acts on a bull. + +"I think, after keeping you away from your mother on the last night of +your vacation, Mr. Tempest might at least have had the good taste to +let you come home sober," said Lady Jane, with suppressed rage. + +"I drank a couple of glasses of still hock at dinner, and not a drop of +anything else from the time I entered the Abbey till I left it; and I +don't think, considering how I've seasoned myself with Bass at Oxford, +that two glasses of Rudesheimer would floor me," explained Rorie, with +recovered calmness. + +"Oh, but you were drinking deep of a more intoxicating nectar," cried +Lady Mabel, with that provokingly distinct utterance of hers. She had +been taught to speak as carefully as girls of inferior rank are taught +to play Beethoven--every syllable studied, every tone trained and +ripened to the right quality. "You were with Violet Tempest." + +"How you children quarrel!" exclaimed the Duchess; "you could hardly be +worse if you were lovers. Come here, Rorie, and tell me all that has +happened to you since we saw you at Lord's in July. Never mind these +Tempest people. They are of the smallest possible importance. Of +course, Rorie must have somebody to amuse himself with while we are +away." + +"And now we are come back, he is off to Oxford," said Mabel with an +aggrieved air. + +"You shouldn't have stayed so long in Switzerland then," retorted Rorie. + +"Oh, but it was my first visit, and everything is so lovely. After all +the Swiss landscapes I have done in chalk, and pencil, and +water-colours, I was astonished to find what a stranger I was to the +scenery. I blushed when I remembered those dreadful landscapes of mine. +I was ashamed to look at Mont Blanc. I felt as if the Matterhorn would +fall and crush me." + +"I think I shall do Switzerland next long," said Rorie patronisingly, +as if it would be a good thing for Switzerland. + +"You might have come this year while we were there," said Lady Mabel. + +"No, I mightn't. I've been grinding. If you knew what a dose of +Aristotle I've had, you'd pity me. That's where you girls have the best +of it. You learn to read a story-book in two or three modern languages, +to meander up and down the piano, and spoil Bristol board, or Whatman's +hot-pressed imperial, and then you call yourselves educated; while we +have to go back to the beginning of civilisation, and find out what a +lot of old Greek duffers were driving at when they sat in the sunshine +and prosed like old boots." + +Lady Mabel looked at him with a serene smile. + +"Would you be surprised to hear that I know a little Greek," she said, +"just enough to struggle through the Socratic dialogues with the aid of +my master?" + +Roderick started as if he had been stung. + +"What a shame!" he cried. "Aunt Sophia, what do you mean by making a +Lady Jane Grey or an Elizabeth Barrett Browning of her?" + +"A woman who has to occupy a leading position can hardly know too +much," answered the Duchess sententiously. + +"Ah, to be sure, Mabel will marry some diplomatic swell, and be +entertaining ambassadors by-and-by. And when some modern Greek envoy +comes simpering up to her with a remark about the weather, it will be +an advantage for her to know Plato. I understand. Wheels within wheels." + +"The Duchess of Dovedale's carriage," announced the butler, rolling out +the syllables as if it were a personal gratification to announce them. + +Mabel rose at once from the piano, and came to say good-night to her +aunt. + +"My dear child, it's quite early," said Lady Jane; "Roderick's last +night, too. And your mamma is in no hurry." + +Mabel looked at Roderick, but that young gentleman was airing himself +on the hearth-rug, and gazing absently up at the ceiling. It evidently +signified very little to him whether his aunt and cousin went or stayed. + +"You know you told papa you would be home soon after ten," said Lady +Mabel, and the Duchess rose immediately. + +She had a way of yielding to her only daughter which her +stronger-minded sister highly disapproved. The first duty of a mother, +in Lady Jane's opinion, was to rule her child, the second, to love it. +The idea was no doubt correct in the abstract; but the practice was not +succeeding too well with Roderick. + +"Good-night and good-bye," said Lady Mabel, when the maid had brought +her wraps, and Rorie had put them on. + +"Not good-bye," said the good-natured Duchess; "Rorie must come to +breakfast to-morrow, and see the Duke. He has just bought some +wonderful short-horns, and I am sure he would like to show them to you, +Rorie, because you can appreciate them. He was too tired to come out +to-night, but I know he wants to see you." + +"Thanks, I'll be there," answered Rorie, and he escorted the ladies to +their carriage; but not another word did Mabel speak till the brougham +had driven away from Briarwood. + +"What a horrid young man Roderick has grown, mamma!" she remarked +decisively, when they were outside the park-gates. + +"My love, I never saw him look handsomer." + +"I don't mean his looks. Good looks in a man are a superfluity. But his +manners--I never saw anything so underbred. Those Tempest people are +spoiling him." + + +"Roderick," said Lady Jane, just as Rorie was contemplating an escape +to the billiard-room and his cigar, "I want a little serious talk with +you." + +Rorie shivered in his shoes. He knew too well what his mother's serious +talk meant. He shrugged his shoulders with a movement that indicated a +dormant resistance, and went quietly into the drawing-room. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Rorie comes of Age. + +"Bless my soul!" cried the Squire; "it's a vixen, after all." + +This is how Squire Tempest greeted the family doctor's announcement of +the his baby's sex. He had been particularly anxious for a son to +inherit the Abbey House estate, succeed to his father's dignities as +master of the fox-hounds, and in a general way sustain the pride and +glory of the family name; and, behold! Providence had given him a +daughter. + +"The deuce is in it," ejaculated the Squire; "to think that it should +be a vixen!" + +This is how Violet Tempest came by her curious pet name. Before she was +short-coated, she had contrived to exhibit a very spirited, and even +vixenish temper, and the family doctor, who loved a small joke, used to +ask after Miss Vixen when he paid his professional visits. As she grew +older, her tawny hair was not unlike a red fox's brush in its bright +golden-brown hue, and her temper proved decidedly vixenish. + +"I wish you wouldn't call Violet by that dreadful nickname, dear," Mrs. +Tempest remonstrated mildly. + +"My darling, it suits her to a nicety," replied the Squire, and he took +his own way in this as in most things. + +The earth rolled round, and the revolving years brought no second baby +to the Abbey House. Every year made the Squire fonder of his little +golden-haired girl. He put her on a soft white ball of a pony as soon +as she could sit up straight, and took her about the Forest with a +leading-rein. No one else was allowed to teach Vixen to ride. Young as +she was, she soon learnt to do without the leading-rein, and the gentle +white pony was discarded as too quiet for little Miss Tempest. Before +her eleventh birthday she rode to hounds, rose before the sun to hunt +the young fox-cubs in early autumn, and saw the stag at bay on the wild +heathery downs above the wooded valleys that sink and fall below +Boldrewood with almost Alpine grandeur. She was a creature full of +life, and courage, and generous impulses, and spontaneous leanings to +all good thoughts; but she was a spoiled child, liked her own way, and +had no idea of being guided by anybody else's will--unless it had been +her father's, and he never thwarted her. + +Him she adored with the fondest love that child ever gave to parent: a +blind worshipping love, that saw in him the perfection of manhood, the +beginning and end of earthly good. If anyone had dared to say in +Vixen's hearing that her father could, by any possible combination of +circumstances, do wrong, act unjustly, or ungenerously, it would have +been better for that man to have come to handy grips with a tiger-cat +than with Violet Tempest. Her reverence for her father, and her belief +in him, were boundless. + +There never, perhaps, was a happier childhood than Violet's. She was +daughter and heiress to one of the most popular men in that part of the +country, and everybody loved her. She was not much given to visiting in +a methodical way among the poor, and it had never entered into her +young mind that it was her mission to teach older people the way to +heaven; but if there was trouble in the village--a sick child, a +husband in prison for rabbit snaring, a dead baby, a little boy's +pinafore set fire--Vixen and her pony were always to the fore; and it +was an axiom in the village that, where Miss Tempest did "take," it was +very good for those she took to. Violet never withdrew her hand when +she had put it to the plough. If she made a promise, she always kept +it. However long the sickness, however dire the poverty, Vixen's +patience and benevolence lasted to the end. + +The famous princess in the story, whose sleep was broken because there +was a pea under her seven feather-beds, had scarcely a more untroubled +life than Vixen. She had her own way in everything. She did exactly +what she liked with her comfortable, middle-aged governess, Miss +McCroke, learnt what she pleased, and left what she disliked unlearned. +She had the prettiest ponies in Hampshire to ride, the prettiest +dresses to wear. Her mother was not a woman to bestow mental culture +upon her only child, but she racked her small brain to devise becoming +costumes for Violet: the coloured stockings which harmonised best with +each particular gown, the neat little buckled shoes, the fascinating +Hessian boots. Nothing was too beautiful or too costly for Violet. She +was the one thing her parents possessed in the world, and they lavished +much love upon her; but it never occurred to Mr. and Mrs. Tempest, as +it had occurred to the Duchess of Dovedale--to make their daughter a +paragon. + +In this perpetual sunshine Violet grew up, fair as most things are that +grow in the sunshine. She loved her father with all her heart, and +mind, and soul; she loved her mother with a lesser love; she had a +tolerant affection for Miss McCroke; she loved her ponies, and the dog +Argus; she loved the hounds in the kennels; she loved every honest +familiar face of nurse, servant, and stable-man, gardener, keeper, and +huntsman, that had looked upon her with friendly, admiring eyes, ever +since she could remember. + +Not to be loved and admired would have been the strangest thing to +Violet. She would hardly have recognised herself in an unappreciative +circle. If she could have heard Lady Mabel talking about her, it would +have been like the sudden revelation of an unknown world--a world in +which it was possible for people to dislike and misjudge her. + +This is one of the disadvantages of being reared in a little heaven of +domestic love. The outside world seems so hard, and black, and dreary +afterwards, and the inhabitants thereof passing cruel. + +Miss Tempest looked upon Roderick Vawdrey as her own particular +property--a person whom she had the right to order about as she +pleased. Rorie had been her playfellow and companion in his +holiday-time for the last five years. All their tastes were in common. +They had the same love for the brute creation, the same wild delight in +rushing madly through the air on the backs of unreasoning animals; +widely different in their tastes from Lady Mabel, who had once been run +away with in a pony-carriage, and looked upon all horses as incipient +murderers. They had the same love of nature, and the same indifference +to books, and the same careless scorn of all the state and ceremony of +life. + +Vixen was "rising fifteen," as her father called it, and Rorie was just +five years her senior. The Squire saw them gay and happy together, +without one serious thought of what might come of their childish +friendship in the growth of years. That his Vixen could ever care for +anyone but her "old dad," was a notion that had not yet found its way +into the Squire's brain. She seemed to him quite as much his own +property, his own to do what he liked with, singly and simply attached +to him, as his favourite horse or his favourite dog. So there were no +shadowings forth in the paternal mind as to any growth and development +which the mutual affection of these two young people might take in the +future. + +It was very different with Lady Jane Vawdrey, who never saw her son and +his cousin Mabel together without telling herself how exactly they were +suited to each other, and what a nice thing it would be for the +Briarwood and Ashbourne estates to be united by their marriage. + +Rorie went back to college, and contrived to struggle through his next +examinations with an avoidance of actual discredit; but when Christmas +came he did not return to the Forest, though Violet had counted on his +coming, and had thought that it would be good fun to have his help in +the decorations for the little Gothic church in the valley--a pretty +little new church, like a toy, which the Squire had built and paid for, +and endowed with a perpetual seventy pounds a year out of his own +pocket. It would have been fun to see poor Rorie prick his clumsy +fingers with the holly. Vixen laughed at his awkwardness in advance, +when she talked to Miss McCroke about him, and drew upon herself that +lady's mild reproval. + +But Christmas came and brought no Rorie. He had gone off to spend his +Christmas at the Duke of Dovedale's Scotch castle. Easter came, and +still no Rorie. He was at Putney, with the 'Varsity crew, or in London +with the Dovedales, riding in the Row, and forgetting dear old +Hampshire and the last of the hunting, for which he would have been +just in time. + +Even the long vacation came without Rorie. He had gone for that +promised tour in Switzerland, at his mother's instigation, and was only +to come back late in the year to keep his twenty-first birthday, which +was to be honoured in a very subdued and unhilarious fashion at +Briarwood. + +"Mamma," said Violet, at breakfast-time one August morning, with her +nose scornfully tilted, "what is Mr. Vawdrey like--dark or fair?" + +"Why Violet, you can't have forgotten him," protested her mother, with +languid astonishment. + +"I think he has been away long enough for me to forget even the colour +of his hair, mamma; and as he hasn't written to anybody, we may fairly +suppose he has forgotten us." + +"Vixen misses her old playfellow," said the Squire, busy with the +demolition of a grouse. "But Rorie is a young man now, you know, dear, +and has work to do in the world--duties, my pet--duties." + +"And is a young man's first duty to forget his old friends?" inquired +Vixen naïvely. + +"My pet, you can't expect a lad of that kind to write letters. I am a +deuced bad hand at letter-writing myself, and always was. I don't think +a man's hand was ever made to pinch a pen. Nature has given us a broad +strong grasp, to grip a sword or a gun. Your mother writes most of my +letters, Vixen, you know, and I shall expect you to help her in a year +or two. Let me see; Rorie will be one-and-twenty in October, and there +are to be high jinks at Briarwood, I believe, so there's something for +you to look forward to, my dear." + +"Edward!" exclaimed Mrs. Tempest reproachfully; "you forget that Violet +is not out. She will not be sixteen till next February." + +"Bless her!" cried the Squire, with a tender look at his only child, +"she has grown up like a green bay-tree. But if this were to be quite a +friendly affair at Briarwood, she might go, surely." + +"It will not be a friendly affair," said Mrs. Tempest; "Lady Jane never +gives friendly parties. There is nothing friendly in her nature, and I +don't think she likes us--much. But I daresay we shall be asked, and if +we go I must have a new dress," added the gentle lady with a sigh of +resignation. "It will be a dinner, no doubt; and the Duke and Duchess +will be there, of course." + +The card of invitation came in due course, three weeks before the +birthday. It was to be a dinner, as Mrs. Tempest had opined. She wrote +off to her milliner at once, and there was a passage of letters and +fashion-plates and patterns of silk to and fro, and some of Mrs. +Tempest's finest lace came out of the perfumed chest in which she kept +her treasures, and was sent off to Madame Theodore. + +Poor Vixen beheld these preparations with an aching heart. She did not +care about dinner-parties in the least, but she would have liked to be +with Roderick on his birthday. She would have liked it to have been a +hunting-day, and to have ridden for a wild scamper across the hills +with him--to have seen the rolling downs of the Wight blue in the +distance--to have felt the soft south wind blowing in her face, and to +have ridden by his side, neck and neck, all day long; and then to have +gone home to the Abbey House to dinner, to the snug round table in the +library, and the dogs, and papa in his happiest mood, expanding over +his port and walnuts. That would have been a happy birthday for all of +them, in Violet's opinion. + +The Squire and his daughter had plenty of hunting in this merry month +of October, but there had been no sign of Rorie and his big raking +chestnut in the field, nor had anyone in the Forest heard of or seen +the young Oxonian. + +"I daresay he is only coming home in time for the birthday," Mrs. +Tempest remarked placidly, and went on with her preparations for that +event. + +She wanted to make a strong impression on the Duchess, who had not +behaved too well to her, only sending her invitations for +indiscriminate afternoon assemblies, which Mrs. Tempest had graciously +declined, pleading her feeble health as a reason for not going to +garden-parties. + +Vixen was in a peculiar temper during those three weeks, and poor Miss +McCroke had hard work with her. + +"_Der_, _die_, _das_," cried Vixen, throwing down her German grammar in +a rage one morning, when she had been making a muddle of the definite +article in her exercise, and the patient governess had declared that +they really must go back to the very beginning of things. "What stupid +people the Germans are! Why can't they have one little word for +everything, as we have? T, h, e, the. Any child can learn that. What do +they mean by chopping up their language into little bits, like the +pieces in a puzzle? Why, even the French are more reasonable--though +they're bad enough, goodness knows, with their hes and shes--feminine +tables, and masculine beds. Why should I be bothered to learn all this +rubbish? I'm not going to be a governess, and it will never be any use +to me. Papa doesn't know a single sentence in French or German, and +he's quite happy." + +"But if your papa were travelling on the Continent, Violet, he would +find his ignorance of the language a great deprivation." + +"No, he wouldn't. He'd have a courier." + +"Are you aware, my dear, that we have wasted five minutes already in +this discursive conversation?" remarked Miss McCroke, looking at a fat +useful watch, which she wore at her side in the good old fashion. "We +will leave the grammar for the present, and you can repeat Schiller's +Song of the Bell." + +"I'd rather say the Fight with the Dragon," said Vixen; "there's more +fire and life in it. I do like Schiller, Crokey dear. But isn't it a +pity he didn't write it in English?" + +And Vixen put her hands behind her, and began to recite the wonderful +story of the knight who slew the dragon, and very soon her eyes kindled +and her cheeks were aflame, and the grand verses were rolled out +rapidly, with a more or less faulty pronunciation, but plenty of life +and vehemence. This exercise of mind and memory suited Vixen a great +deal better than dull plodding at the first principles of grammar, and +the perpetual _der_, _die_, _das_. + +This day was the last of October, and Roderick Vawdrey's birthday. He +had not been seen at the Abbey House yet. He had returned to Briarwood +before this, no doubt, but had not taken the trouble to come and see +his old friends. + +"He's a man now, and has duties, and has done with us," thought Vixen +savagely. + +She was very glad that it was such a wretched day--a hideous day for +anyone's twenty-first birthday, ominous of all bad things, she thought. +There was not a rift in the dull gray sky; the straight fine rain came +down persistently, soaking into the sodden earth, and sending up an +odour of dead leaves. The smooth shining laurels in the shrubbery were +the only things in nature that seemed no worse for the perpetual +downpour. The gravel drives were spongy and sloppy. There was no +hunting, or Vixen would have been riding her pony through rain and foul +weather, and would have been comparatively independent of the elements. +But to be at home all day, watching the rain, and thinking what a +horrid, ungrateful young man Rorie was! That was dreary. + +Mrs. Tempest went to her room to lie down directly after luncheon. She +wanted to keep herself fresh for the evening. She made quite a solemn +business of this particular dinner-party. At five precisely, Pauline +was to bring her a cup of tea. At half-past five she was to begin to +dress. This would give her an hour and a half for her toilet, as +Briarwood was only half-an-hour's drive from the Abbey House. So for +the rest of that day--until she burst upon their astonished view in her +new gown--Mrs. Tempest would be invisible to her family. + +"What a disgusting birthday!" cried Vixen, sitting in the deep +embrasure of the hall window, with Argus at her side, dog and girl +looking out at the glistening shrubbery. + +Miss McCroke had gone to her room to write letters, or Vixen would have +hardly been allowed to remain peacefully in such an inelegant position, +her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms embracing her legs, her back +against the stout oak shutter. Yet the girl and dog made rather a +pretty picture, despite the inelegance of Vixen's attitude. The tawny +hair, black velvet frock, and careless amber sash, amber stockings, and +broad-toed Cromwell shoes; the tawny mastiff curled in the opposite +corner of the deep recess; the old armorial bearings, sending pale +shafts of parti-coloured light across Vixen's young head;--these things +made a picture full framed of light and colour, in the dark brown oak. + +"What an abominable birthday!" ejaculated Vixen; "if it were such +weather as this on my twenty-first birthday, I should think Nature had +taken a dislike to me. But I don't suppose Rorie cares. He is playing +billiards with a lot of his friends, and smoking, and making a horror +of himself, I daresay, and hardly knows whether it rains or shines." + +Drip, drip, drip, came the rain on the glistening leaves, berberis and +laurel, bay and holly, American oaks of richest red and bronze, copper +beeches, tall rhododendrons, cypress of every kind, and behind them a +dense black screen of yew. The late roses looked miserable. Vixen would +have liked to have brought them in and put them by the hall fire--the +good old hearth with its pile of blazing logs, before which Nip the +pointer was stretched at ease, his muscular toes stiffening themselves +occasionally, as if he was standing at a bird in his dreams. + +Vixen went on watching the rain. It was rather a lazy way of spending +the afternoon certainly, but Miss Tempest was out of humour with her +little world, and did not feel equal to groping out the difficulties, +the inexorable double sharps and odious double flats, in a waltz of +Chopin's. She watched the straight thin rain, and thought about +Rorie--chiefly to the effect that she hated him, and never could, by +any possibility, like him again. + +Gradually the trickle of the rain from an overflowing waterpipe took +the sound of a tune. No _berceuse_ by Gounod was ever more +rest-compelling. The full white lids drooped over the big brown eyes, +the little locked hands loosened, the soft round chin fell forward on +the knees; Argus gave a snort of satisfaction, and laid his heavy head +on the velvet gown. Girl and dog were asleep. There was no sound in the +wide old hall except the soft falling of wood ashes, the gentle +breathing of girl and dogs. + +Too pretty a picture assuredly to be lost to the eye of mankind. + +Whose footstep was this sounding on the wet gravel half-an-hour later? +Too quick and light for the Squire's. Who was this coming in softly out +of the rain, all dripping like a water god? Who was this whose falcon +eye took in the picture at a glance, and who stole cat-like to the +window, and bending down his dark wet head, gave Violet's sleeping lips +the first lover's kiss that had ever saluted them? + +Violet awoke with a faint shiver of surprise and joy. Instinct told her +from whom that kiss came, though it was the first time Roderick had +kissed her since he went to Eton. The lovely brown eyes opened and +looked into the dark gray ones. The ruddy brown head rested on Rorie's +shoulder. The girl--half child, half woman, and all loving +trustfulness, looked up at him with a glad smile. His heart was stirred +with a new feeling as those softly bright eyes looked into his. It was +the early dawn of a passionate love. The head lying on his breast +seemed to him the fairest thing on earth. + +"Rorie, how disgracefully you have behaved, and how utterly I detest +you!" exclaimed Vixen, giving him a vigorous push, and scrambling down +from the window-seat. "To be all this time in Hampshire and never come +near us." + +A moment ago, in that first instant of a newly awakened delight, she +was almost betrayed into telling him that she loved him dearly, and had +found life empty without him. But having had just time enough to +recover herself, she drew herself up as straight as a dart, and looked +at him as Kate may have looked at Petruchio during their first +unpleasant interview in which they made each other's acquaintance. + +"All this time!" cried Rorie. "Do you know how long I have been in +Hampshire?" + +"Haven't the least idea," retorted Vixen haughtily. + +"Just half-an-hour--or, at least it is exactly half-an-hour since I was +deposited with all my goods and chattels at the Lyndhurst Road Station." + +"You are only just home from Switzerland?" + +"Within this hour!" + +"And you have not even been to Briarwood?" + +"My honoured mother still awaits my duteous greetings." + +"And this is your twenty-first birthday, and you came here first of +all." + +And, almost uninvited, the tawny head dropped on to his shoulder again, +and the sweet childish lips allowed themselves to be kissed. + +"Rorie, how brown you have grown.'" + +"Have I!" + +The gray eyes were looking into the brown ones admiringly, and the +conversation was getting a trifle desultory. + +Swift as a flash Violet recollected herself. It dawned upon her that it +was not quite the right thing for a young lady "rising sixteen" to let +herself be kissed so tamely. Besides, Rorie never used to do it. The +thing was a new development, a curious outcome of his Swiss tour. +Perhaps people did it in Switzerland, and Rorie had acquired the habit. + +"How dare you do such a thing?" exclaimed Vixen, shaking herself free +from the traveller's encircling arm. + +"I didn't think you minded," said Rorie innocently; "and when a fellow +comes home from a long journey he expects a warm welcome!" + +"And I am glad to see you," cried Vixen, giving him both her hands with +a glorious frankness; "but you don't know how I have been hating you +lately." + +"Why, Vixen?" + +"For being always away. I thought you had forgotten us all--that you +did not care a jot for any of us." + +"I had not forgotten any of you, and I did care--very much--for some of +you." + +This, though vague, was consoling. + +The brown became Roderick. Dark of visage always, he was now tanned to +a bronze as of one born under southern skies. Those deep gray eyes of +his looked black under their black lashes. His black hair was cut close +to his well-shaped head. An incipient moustache shaded his upper lip, +and gave manhood to the strong, firm mouth. A manly face altogether, +Roderick's, and handsome withal. Vixen's short life had shown her none +handsomer. + +He was tall and strongly built, with a frame that had been developed by +many an athletic exercise--from throwing the hammer to pugilism. Vixen +thought him the image of Richard Coeur de Lion. She had been reading +"The Talisman" lately, and the Plantagenet was her ideal of manly +excellence. + +"Many happy returns of the day, Rorie," she said softly. "To think that +you are of age to-day. Your own master." + +"Yes, my infancy ceased and determined at the last stroke of midnight +yesterday. I wonder whether my anxious mother will recognise that fact?" + +"Of course you know what is going to happen at Briarwood. There is to +be a grand dinner-party." + +"And you are coming? How jolly!" + +"Oh, no, Rorie. I am not out yet, you know. I shan't be for two years. +Papa means to give me a season in town. He calls it having me broken to +harness. He'll take a furnished house, and we shall have the horses up, +and I shall ride in the Row, You'll be with us part of the time, won't +you, Rorie?" + +"_Ça se peut_. If papa will invite me." + +"Oh, he will, if I wish it. It's to be my first season, you know, and +I'm to have everything my own way." + +"Will that be a novelty?" demanded Roderick, with intention. + +"I don't know. I haven't had my own way in anything lately." + +"How is that?" + +"You have been away." + +At this naïve flattery, Roderick almost blushed. + +"How you've grown. Vixen," he remarked presently. + +"Have I really? Yes, I suppose I do grow. My frocks are always getting +too short." + +"Like the sleeves of my dress-coats a year or two ago." + +"But now you are of age, and can't grow any more. What are you going to +be, Rorie? What are you going to do with your liberty? Are you going +into Parliament?" + +Mr. Vawdrey indulged in a suppressed yawn. + +"My mother would like it," he said, "but upon my word I don't care +about it. I don't take enough interest in my fellow-creatures." + +"If they were foxes, you'd be anxious to legislate for them," suggested +Vixen. + +"I would certainly try to protect them from indiscriminate slaughter. +And in fact, when one considers the looseness of existing game-laws, I +think every country gentleman ought to be in Parliament." + +"And there is the Forest for you to take care of." + +"Yes, forestry is a subject on which I should like to have my say. I +suppose I shall be obliged to turn senator. But I mean to take life +easily--you may be sure of that, Vixen; and I intend to have the best +stud of hunters in Hampshire. And now I think I must be off." + +"No, you mustn't," cried Violet. "The dinner is not till eight. If you +leave here at six you will have no end of time for getting home to +dress. How did you come?" + +"On these two legs." + +"You shall have four to take you to Briarwood. West shall drive you +home in papa's dog-cart, with the new mare. You don't know her, do you? +Papa only bought her last spring. She is such a beauty, and +goes--goes--oh, like a skyrocket. She bolts occasionally; but you don't +mind that, do you?" + +"Not in the least. It would be rather romantic to be smashed on one's +twenty-first birthday. Will you tell them to order West to get ready at +once." + +"Oh, but you are to stop to tea with Miss McCroke and me--that's part +of our bargain. No kettledrum, no Starlight Bess! And you'd scarcely +care about walking to Briarwood under such rain as that!" + +"So be it, then; kettledrum and Starlight Bess, at any hazard of +maternal wrath. But really now I'm doing a most ungentlemanly thing, +Vixen, to oblige you!" + +"Always be ungentlemanly then for my sake--if it's ungentlemanly to +come and see me," said Vixen coaxingly. + +They were standing side by side in the big window looking out at the +straight thin rain. The two pairs of lips were not very far away from +each other, and Rorie might have been tempted to commit a third offence +against the proprieties, if Miss McCroke had not fortunately entered at +this very moment. She was wonderfully surprised at seeing Mr. Vawdrey, +congratulated him ceremoniously upon his majority, and infused an +element of stiffness into the small assembly. + +"Rorie is going to stay to tea," said Vixen. "We'll have it here by the +fire, please, Crokey dear. One can't have too much of a good fire this +weather. Or shall we go to my den? Which would you like best, Rorie?" + +"I think we had better have tea here, Violet," interjected Miss +McCroke, ringing the bell. + +Her pupil's _sanctum sanctorum_--that pretty up-stairs room, half +schoolroom, half boudoir, and wholly untidy--was not, in Miss McCroke's +opinion, an apartment to be violated by the presence of a young man. + +"And as Rory hasn't had any luncheon, and has come ever so far out of +his way to see me, please order something substantial for him," said +Vixen. + +Her governess obeyed. The gipsy table was wheeled up to the broad +hearth, and presently the old silver tea-pot and kettle, and the yellow +cups and saucers, were shining in the cheery firelight. The old butler +put a sirloin and a game-pie on the sideboard, and then left the little +party to shift for themselves, in pleasant picnic fashion. + +Vixen sat down before the hissing tea-kettle with a pretty important +air, like a child making tea out of toy tea-things. Rorie brought a low +square stool to a corner close to her, and seated himself with his chin +a little above the tea-table. + +"You can't eat roast beef in that position," said Vixen. + +"Oh yes I can--I can do anything that's mad or merry this evening. But +I'm not at all sure that I want beef, though it is nearly three months +since I've seen an honest bit of ox beef. I think thin bread and +butter--or roses and dew even--quite substantial enough for me this +evening." + +"You're afraid of spoiling your appetite for the grand dinner," said +Vixen. + +"No, I'm not. I hate grand dinners. Fancy making a fine art of eating, +and studying one's _menu_ beforehand to see what combination of dishes +will harmonise best with one's internal economy. And then the names of +the things are always better than the things themselves. It's like a +show at a fair, all the best outside. Give me a slice of English beef +or mutton, and a bird that my gun has shot, and let all the fine-art +dinners go hang." + +"Cut him a slice of beef, dear Miss McCroke," said Vixen. + +"Not now, thanks; I can't eat now. I'm going to drink orange pekoe." + +Argus had taken up his position between Violet and her visitor. He sat +bolt upright, like a sentinel keeping guard over his mistress; save +that a human sentinel, unless idiotic or intoxicated, would hardly sit +with jaws wide apart, and his tongue hanging out of one side of his +mouth, as Argus did. But this lolloping attitude of the canine tongue +was supposed to indicate a mind at peace with creation. + +"Are you very glad to come of age, Rorie?" asked Vixen, turning her +bright brown eyes upon him, full of curiosity. + +"Well, it will be rather nice to have as much money as I want without +asking my mother for it. She was my only guardian, you know. My father +had such confidence in her rectitude and capacity that he left +everything in her hands." + +"Do you find Briarwood much improved?" inquired Miss McCroke. + +Lady Jane had been doing a good deal to her orchid-houses lately. + +"I haven't found Briarwood at all yet," answered Rorie, "and Vixen +seems determined I shan't find it." + +"What, have you only just returned?" + +"Only just," + +"And you have not seen Lady Jane yet?" exclaimed Miss McCroke with a +horrified look. + +"It sounds rather undutiful, doesn't it? I was awfully tired, after +travelling all night; and I made this a kind of halfway house." + +"Two sides of a triangle are invariably longer than any one side," +remarked Vixen, gravely. "At least that's what Miss McCroke has taught +me." + +"It was rather out of my way, of course. But I wanted to see whether +Vixen had grown. And I wanted to see the Squire." + +"Papa has gone to Ringwood to look at a horse; but you'll see him at +the grand dinner. He'll be coming home to dress presently." + +"I hope you had an agreeable tour, Mr. Vawdrey?" said Miss McCroke. + +"Oh, uncommonly jolly." + +"And you like Switzerland?" + +"Yes; it's nice and hilly." + +And then Roderick favoured them with a sketch of his travels, while +they sipped their tea, and while Vixen made the dogs balance pieces of +cake on their big blunt noses. + +It was all very nice--the Tête Noire, and Mont Blanc, and the +Matterhorn. Rorie jumbled them all together, without the least regard +to geography. He had done a good deal of climbing, had worn out and +lost dozens of alpenstocks, and had brought home a case of Swiss carved +work for his friends. + +"There's a clock for your den, Vixen--I shall bring it to-morrow--with +a little cock-robin that comes out of his nest and sings--no end of +jolly." + +"How lovely!" cried Violet. + +The tall eight-day clock in a corner of the hall chimed the half-hour. + +"Half-past five, and Starlight Bess not ordered," exclaimed Roderick. + +"Let's go out to the stables and see about her," suggested Vixen. "And +then I can show you my pony. You remember Titmouse, the one that +_would_ jump?" + +"Violet!" ejaculated the aggrieved governess. "Do you suppose I would +permit you to go out of doors in such weather?" + +"Do you think it's still raining?" asked Vixen innocently. "It may have +cleared up. Well, we'd better order the cart," she added meekly, as she +rang the bell. "I'm not of age yet, you see, Rorie. Please, Peters, +tell West to get papa's dog-cart ready for Mr. Vawdrey, and to drive +Starlight Bess." + +Rorie looked at the bright face admiringly. The shadows had deepened; +there was no light in the great oak-panelled room except the ruddy +fire-glow, and in this light Violet Tempest looked her loveliest. The +figures in the tapestry seemed to move in the flickering +light--appeared and vanished, vanished and appeared, like the phantoms +of a dream. The carved bosses of the ceiling were reflected grotesquely +on the oaken wall above the tapestry. The stags' heads had a goblin +look. It was like a scene of enchantment, and Violet, in her black +frock and amber sash, looked like the enchantress--Circe, Vivien, +Melusine, or somebody of equally dubious antecedents. + +It was Miss McCroke's sleepiest hour. Orange pekoe, which has an +awakening influence upon most people, acted as an opiate upon her. She +sat blinking owlishly at the two young figures. + +Rorie roused himself with a great effort. + +"Unless Starlight Bess spins me along the road pretty quickly, I shall +hardly get to Briarwood by dinner-time," he said; "and upon my honour, +I don't feel the least inclination to go." + +"Oh, what fun if you were absent at your coming-of-age dinner!" cried +Vixen, with her brown eyes dancing mischievously. "They would have to +put an empty chair for you, like Banquo's." + +"It would be a lark," acquiesced Rorie, "but it wouldn't do; I should +hear too much about it afterwards. A fellow's mother has some kind of +claim upon him, you know. Now for Starlight Bess." + +They went into the vestibule, and Rorie opened the door, letting in a +gust of wind and rain, and the scent of autumn's last ill-used flowers. + +"Oh, I so nearly forgot," said Violet, as they stood on the threshold, +side by side, waiting for the dog-cart to appear. "I've got a little +present for you--quite a humble one for a grand young land-owner like +you--but I never could save much of my pocket-money; there are so many +poor children always having scarlet-fever, or tumbling into the fire, +or drinking out of boiling tea-kettles. But here it is, Rorie. I hope +you won't hate it very much." + +She put a little square packet into his hand, which he proceeded +instantly to open. + +"I shall love it, whatever it is." + +"It's a portrait." + +"You darling! The very thing I should have asked for." + +"The portrait of someone you're fond of." + +"Someone I adore," said Rorie. + +He had extracted the locket from its box by this time. It was a thick +oblong locket of dead gold, plain and massive; the handsomest of its +kind that a Southampton jeweller could supply. + +Rorie opened it eagerly, to look at the portrait. + +There was just light enough from the newly-kindled vestibule lamp to +show it to him. + +"Why it's a dog," cried Rorie, with deep-toned disgust. "It's old +Argus." + +"Who did you think it was?" + +"You, of course." + +"What an idea! As if I should give anyone my portrait. I knew you were +fond of Argus. Doesn't his head come out beautifully? The photographer +said he was the best sitter he had had for ever so long. I hope you +don't quite detest the locket, Rorie." + +"I admire it intensely, and I'm deeply grateful. But I feel +inexpressibly sold, all the same. And I am to go about the world with +Argus dangling at my breast. Well, for your sake, Vixen, I'll submit +even to that degradation." + +Here came the cart, with two flaming lamps, like angry eyes flashing +through the shrubberies. It pulled up at the steps. Rorie and Vixen +clasped hands and bade good-night, and then the young man swung himself +lightly into the seat beside the driver, and away went Starlight Bess +making just that sort of dashing and spirited start which inspires the +timorous beholder with the idea that the next proceeding will be the +bringing home of the driver and his companion upon a brace of shutters. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Rorie makes a Speech. + +Somewhat to his surprise, and much to his delight, Roderick Vawdrey +escaped that maternal lecture which he was wont undutifully to describe +as a "wigging." When he entered the drawing-room in full dress just +about ten minutes before the first of the guests was announced, Lady +Jane received him with a calm affectionateness, and asked him no +questions about his disposal of the afternoon. Perhaps this unusual +clemency was in honour of his twenty-first birthday, Rorie thought. A +man could not come of age more than once in his life. He was entitled +to some favour. + +The dinner-party was as other dinners at Briarwood; all the +arrangements perfect; the _menu_ commendable, if not new; the general +result a little dull. + +The Ashbourne party were among the first to arrive; the Duke portly and +affable; the Duchess delighted to welcome her favourite nephew; Lady +Mabel looking very fragile, flower-like, and graceful, in her pale blue +gauze dinner-dress. Lady Mabel affected the palest tints, half-colours, +which were more like the shadows in a sunset sky than any earthly hues. + +She took possession of Rorie at once, treating him with a calm +superiority, as if he had been a younger brother. + +"Tell me all about Switzerland," she said, as they sat side by side on +one of the amber ottomans. "What was it that you liked best?" + +"The climbing, of course," he answered. + +"But which of all the landscapes? What struck you most? What impressed +you most vividly? Your first view of Mont Blanc, or that marvellous +gorge below the Tête Noire,--or----?" + +"It was all uncommonly jolly. But there's a family resemblance in Swiss +mountains, don't you know? They're all white--and they're all peaky. +There's a likeness in Swiss lakes, too, if you come to think of it. +They're all blue, and they're all wet. And Swiss villages, now--don't +you think they are rather disappointing?--such a cruel plagiarism of +those plaster châlets the image-men carry about the London streets, and +no candle-ends burning inside to make 'em look pretty. But I liked +Lucerne uncommonly, there was such a capital billiard-table at the +hotel." + +"Roderick!" cried Lady Mabel, with a disgusted look. "I don't think you +have a vestige of poetry in your nature." + +"I hope I haven't," replied Rorie devoutly. + +"You could see those sublime scenes, and never once feel your heart +thrilled or your mind exalted--you can come home from your first Swiss +tour and talk about billiard-tables!" + +"The scenery was very nice," said Rorie thoughtfully. "Yes; there were +times, perhaps, when I was a trifle stunned by all that grand calm +beauty, the silence, the solitude, the awfulness of it all; but I had +hardly time to feel the thrill when I came bump up against a party of +tourists, English or American, all talking the same twaddle, and all +patronising the scenery. That took the charm out of the landscape +somehow, and I coiled up, as the Yankees say. And now you want me to go +into second-hand raptures, and repeat my emotions, as if I were writing +a tourist's article for a magazine. I can't do it, Mabel." + +"Well, I won't bore you any more about it," said Lady Mabel, "but I +confess my disappointment. I thought we should have such nice long +talks about Switzerland." + +"What's the use of talking of a place? If it's so lovely that one can't +live without it, one had better go back there." + +This was a practical way of putting things which was too much for Lady +Mabel. She fanned herself gently with a great fan of cloudy looking +feathers, such as Titania might have used that midsummer night near +Athens. She relapsed into a placid silence, looking at Rorie +thoughtfully with her calm blue eyes. + +His travels had improved him. That bronze hue suited him wonderfully +well. He looked more manly. He was no longer a beardless boy, to be +patronised with that gracious elder-sister air of Lady Mabel's. She +felt that he was further off from her than he had been last season in +London. + +"How late you arrived this evening," she said, after a pause. "I came +to five-o'clock with my aunt, and found her quite anxious about you. If +it hadn't been for your telegram from Southampton, she would have +fancied there was something wrong." + +"She needn't have fidgeted herself after three o'clock," answered Rorie +coolly; "my luggage must have come home by that time." + +"I see. You sent the luggage on before, and came by a later train?" + +"No, I didn't. I stopped halfway between here and Lyndhurst to see some +old friends." + +"Flattering for my aunt," said Mabel. "I should have thought she was +your oldest friend." + +"Of course she has the prior claim. But as I was going to hand myself +over to her bodily at seven o'clock, to be speechified about and +rendered generally ridiculous, after the manner of young men who come +of age, I felt I was entitled to do what I liked in the interval." + +"And therefore you went to the Tempests'," said Mabel, with her blue +eyes sparkling. "I see. That is what you do when you do what you like." + +"Precisely. I am very fond of Squire Tempest. When I first rode to +hounds it was under his wing. There's my mother beckoning me; I am to +go and do the civil to people." + +And Roderick walked away from the ottoman to the spot where his mother +stood, with the Duke of Dovedale at her side, receiving her guests. + +"It was a very grand party, in the way of blue blood, landed estate, +diamonds, lace, satin and velvet, and self-importance. All the magnates +of the soil, within accessible distance of Briarwood, had assembled to +do honour to Rorie's coming of age. The dining-tables had been arranged +in a horse-shoe, so as to accommodate fifty people in a room which, in +its every-day condition, would not have been too large for thirty. The +orchids and ferns upon this horse-shoe table made the finest +floricultural show that had been seen for a long time. There were rare +specimens from New Granada and the Philippine Islands; wondrous flowers +lately discovered in the Sierra Madre; blossoms of every shape and +colour from the Cordilleras; richest varieties of hue--golden yellow, +glowing crimson, creamy white; rare eccentricities of form and colour +beside which any other flower would have looked vulgar; butterfly +flowers and pitcher-shaped flowers, that had cost as much money as +prize pigeons, and seemed as worthless, save to the connoisseur in the +article. The Vawdrey racing-plate, won by Roderick's grandfather, was +nowhere by comparison with those marvellous tropical blossoms, that +fairy forest of fern. Everybody talked about the orchids, confessed his +or her comparative ignorance of the subject, and complimented Lady Jane. + +"The orchids made the hit of the evening," Rorie said afterwards. "It +was their coming of age, not mine." + +There was a moderate and endurable amount of speechifying by-and-by, +when the monster double-crowned pines had been cut, and the purple +grapes, almost as big as pigeons' eggs, had gone round. + +The Duke of Dovedale assured his friends that this was one of the +proudest moments of his life, and that if Providence had permitted a +son of his own to attain his majority, he, the Duke, could have hardly +felt a deeper interest in the occasion than he felt to-day. He +had--arra--arra--known this young man from childhood, and +had--er--um--never found him guilty of a mean +action--or--arra--discovered in him a thought unworthy of an English +gentleman. + +This last was felt to be a strong point, as it implied that an English +gentleman must needs be much better than any other gentleman. + +A continental gentleman might, of course, be guilty of an unworthy +thought and yet pass current, according to the loose morality of his +nation. But the English article must be flawless. + +And thus the Duke meandered on for five minutes or so, and there was a +subdued gush of approval, and then an uncomfortable little pause, and +then Rorie rose in his place, next to the Duchess, and returned thanks. + +He told them all how fond he was of them and the soil that bred them. +How he meant to be a Hampshire squire, pure and simple, if he could. +How he had no higher ambition than to be useful and to do good in this +little spot of England which Providence had given him for his +inheritance. How, if he should go into Parliament by-and-by, as he had +some thoughts of attempting to do, it would be in their interests that +he would join that noble body of legislators; that it would be they and +their benefit he would have always nearest his heart. + +"There is not a tree in the Forest that I do not love," cried Rorie, +fired with his theme, and forgetting to stammer; "and I believe there +is not a tree, from the Twelve Apostles to the Knightwood Oak, or a +patch of gorse from Picket Post to Stony Cross, that I do not know as +well as I know the friends round me to-night. I was born in the Forest, +and may I live and die and be buried here. I have just come back from +seeing some of the finest scenery in Europe; yet, without blushing for +my want of poetry, I will confess that the awful grandeur of those +snow-clad mountains did not touch my heart so deeply as our beechen +glades and primrose-carpeted bottoms close at home." There was a burst +of applause after Rorie's speech that made all the orchids shiver, and +nearly annihilated a thirty-guinea _Odontoglossum Vexillarium_. His +talk about the Forest, irrelevant as it might be, went home to the +hearts of the neighbouring landowners. But, by-and-by, in the +drawing-room, when he rejoined his cousin, he found that fastidious +young lady by no means complimentary. + +"Your speech would have been capital half a century ago, Rorie," she +said, "and you don't arra--arra--as poor papa does, which is something +to be thankful for; but all that talk about the Forest seemed to be an +anachronism. People are not rooted in their native soil nowadays, as +they used to be in the old stage-coach times, when it was a long day's +journey to London. One might as well be a vegetable at once if one is +to be pinned down to one particular spot of earth. Why, the Twelve +Apostles," exclaimed Mabel, innocent of irreverence, for she meant +certain ancient and fast-decaying oaks so named, "see as much of life +as your fine old English gentleman. Men have wider ideas nowadays. The +world is hardly big enough for their ambition." + +"I would rather live in a field, and strike my roots deep down like one +of those trees, than be a homeless nomad with a world-wide ambition," +answered Rorie. "I have a passion for home." + +"Then I wonder you spend so little time in it." + +"Oh, I don't mean a home inside four walls. The Forest is my home, and +Briarwood is no dearer to me than any other spot in it." + +"Not so dear as the Abbey House, perhaps?" + +"Well, no. I confess that fine old Tudor mansion pleases me better than +this abode of straight lines and French windows, plate glass and gilt +mouldings." + +They sat side by side upon the amber ottoman, Rorie with Mabel's blue +feather fan in his hand, twirling and twisting it as he talked, and +doing more damage to that elegant article in a quarter of an hour than +a twelvemonth's legitimate usage would have done. People, looking at +the pretty pair, smiled significantly, and concluded that it would be a +match, and went home and told less privileged people about the evident +attachment between the Duke's daughter and the young commoner. But +Rorie was not strongly drawn towards his cousin this evening. It seemed +to him that she was growing more and more of a paragon; and he hated +paragons. + +She played presently, and afterwards sang some French _chansons_. Both +playing and singing were perfect of their kind. Rorie did not +understand Chopin, and thought there was a good deal of unnecessary +hopping about the piano in that sort of thing--nothing concrete, or +that came to a focus; a succession of airy meanderings, a fairy dance +in the treble, a goblin hunt in the bass. But the French _chansons_, +the dainty little melodies with words of infantile innocence, all about +leaves and buds, and birds'-nests and butterflies, pleased him +infinitely. He hung over the piano with an enraptured air; and again +his friends made note of his subjugation, and registered the fact for +future discussion. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +How she took the News. + +It was past midnight when the Tempest carriage drove through the dark +rhododendron shrubberies up to the old Tudor porch. There was a great +pile of logs burning in the hall, giving the home-comers cheery +welcome. There was an antique silver spirit stand with its +accompaniments on one little table for the Squire, and there was +another little table on the opposite side of the hearth for Mrs. +Tempest, with a dainty tea-service sparkling and shining in the red +glow. + +A glance at these arrangements would have told you that there were old +servants at the Abbey House, servants who knew their master's and +mistress's ways, and for whom service was more or less a labour of love. + +"How nice," said the lady, with a contented sigh. "Pauline has thought +of my cup of tea." + +"And Forbes has not forgotten my soda-water," remarked the Squire. + +He said nothing about the brandy, which he was pouring into the tall +glass with a liberal hand. + +Pauline came to take off her mistress's cloak, and was praised for her +thoughtfulness about the tea, and then dismissed for the night. + +The Squire liked to stretch his legs before his own fireside after +dining out; and with the Squire, as with Mr. Squeers, the +leg-stretching process involved the leisurely consumption of a good +deal of brandy and water. + +Mr. and Mrs. Tempest talked over the Briarwood dinner-party, and +arrived--with perfect good nature--at the conclusion that it had been a +failure. + +"The dinner was excellent," said the Squire, "but the wine went round +too slow; my glasses were empty half the time. That's always the way +when you've a woman at the helm. She never fills her cellars properly, +or trusts her butler thoroughly." + +"The dresses were lovely," said Mrs. Tempest, "but everyone looked +bored. How did you like my dress, Edward? I think it's rather good +style. Theodore will charge me horribly for it, I daresay." + +"I don't know much about your dress, Pam, but you were the prettiest +woman in the room." + +"Oh Edward, at my age!" exclaimed Mrs. Tempest, with a pleased look, +"when there was that lovely Lady Mabel Ashbourne." + +"Do you call her lovely?--I don't. Lips too thin; waist too slim; too +much blood, and too little flesh." + +"Oh, but surely, Edward, she is grace itself; quite an ethereal +creature. If Violet had more of that refined air----" + +"Heaven forbid. Vixen is worth twenty such fine-drawn misses. Lady +Mabel has been spoiled by over-training." + +"Roderick is evidently in love with her," suggested Mrs. Tempest, +pouring out another cup of tea. + +The clocks had just struck two, the household was at rest, the logs +blazed and cracked merrily, the red light shining on those mail-clad +effigies in the corners, lighting up helm and hauberk, glancing on +greaves and gauntlets. It was an hour of repose and gossip which the +Squire dearly loved. + +Hush! what is this creeping softly down the old oak staircase? A +slender white figure with cloudy hair; a small pale face, and two dark +eyes shining with excitement; little feet in black velvet slippers +tripping lightly upon the polished oak. + +Is it a ghost? No; ghosts are noiseless, and those little slippers +descend from stair to stair with a gentle pit-a-pit. + +"Bless my soul and body!" cried the Squire; "what's this?" + +A gush of girlish laughter was his only answer. + +"Vixen!" + +"Did you take me for a ghost, papa?" cried Violet, descending the last +five stairs with a flying leap, and then, bounding across the hall to +perch, light as a bird, upon her father's knee. "Did I really frighten +you? Did you think the good old Abbey House was going to set up a +family ghost; a white lady, with a dismal history of a broken heart? +You darling papa! I hope you took me for a ghost!" + +"Well, upon my word, you know, Vixen, I was just the least bit +staggered. Your little white figure looked like something uncanny +against the black oak balustrades, half in light, half in shadow." + +"How nice!" exclaimed Violet. + +"But, my dear Violet, what can have induced you to come downstairs at +such an hour?" ejaculated Mrs. Tempest in an aggrieved voice. + +"I want to hear all about the party, mamma," answered Vixen coaxingly. +"Do you think I could sleep a wink on the night of Rorie's coming of +age? I heard the joy-bells ringing in my ears all night." + +"That was very ridiculous." said Mrs. Tempest, "for there were no +joy-bells after eleven o'clock yesterday." + +"But they rang all the same, mamma. It was no use burying my head in +the pillows; those bells only rang the louder. Ding-dong, ding-dong, +dell, Rorie's come of age; ding-dong, dell, Rorie's twenty-one. Then I +thought of the speeches that would be made, and I fancied I could hear +Rorie speaking. Did he make a good speech, papa?" + +"Capital, Vix; the only one that was worth hearing!" + +"I am so glad! And did he look handsome while he was speaking? I think +the Swiss sunshine has rather over-cooked him, you know; but he is not +unbecomingly brown." + +"He looked as handsome a young fellow as you need wish to set eyes on." + +"My dear Edward," remonstrated Mrs. Tempest, languidly, too thoroughly +contented with herself to be seriously vexed about anything, "do you +think it is quite wise of you to encourage Violet in that kind of talk?" + +"Why should she not talk of him? She never had a brother, and he stands +in the place of one to her. Isn't Rorie the same to you as an elder +brother, Vix?" + +The girl's head was on her father's shoulder, one slim arm round his +neck, her face hidden against the Squire's coat-collar. He could not +see the deep warm blush that dyed his daughter's cheek at this home +question. + +"I don't quite know what an elder brother would be like, papa. But I'm +very fond of Rorie--when he's nice, and comes to see us before anyone +else, as he did to-day." + +"And when he stays away?" + +"Oh, then I hate him awfully," exclaimed Vixen, with such energy that +the slender figure trembled faintly as she spoke. "But tell me all +about the party, mamma. Your dress was quite the prettiest, I am sure?" + +"I'm not certain of that, Violet," answered Mrs. Tempest with grave +deliberation, as if the question were far too serious to be answered +lightly. "There was a cream-coloured silk, with silver bullion fringe, +that was very striking. As a rule, I detest gold or silver trimmings; +but this was really elegant. It had an effect like moonlight." + +"Was that Lady Mabel Ashbourne's dress?" asked Vixen eagerly. + +"No; Lady Mabel wore blue gauze--the very palest blue, all puffings and +ruchings--like a cloud." + +"Oh mamma! the clouds have no puffings and ruchings." + +"My dear, I mean the general effect--a sort of shadowiness which suits +Lady Mabel's ethereal style." + +"Ethereal!" repeated Violet thoughtfully; "you seem to admire her very +much, mamma." + +"Everybody admires her, my dear." + +"Because she is a duke's only daughter." + +"No; because she is very lovely, and extremely elegant, and most +accomplished. She played and sang beautifully to-night." + +"What did she play, mamma?" + +"Chopin!" + +"Did she!" cried Vixen. "Then I pity her. Yes, even if she were my +worst enemy I should still pity her." + +"People who are fond of music don't mind difficulties," said Mrs. +Tempest. + +"Don't they? Then I suppose I'm not fond of it, because I shirk my +practice. But I should be very fond of music if I could grind it on a +barrel organ." + +"Oh, Violet, when will you be like Lady Mabel Ashbourne?" + +"Never, I devoutly hope," said the Squire. + +Here the Squire gave his daughter a hug which might mean anything. + +"Never, mamma," answered Violet with conviction. "First and foremost, I +never can be lovely, because I have red hair and a wide mouth. +Secondly, I can never be elegant--much less ethereal--because it isn't +in me. Thirdly, I shall never be accomplished, for poor Miss McCroke is +always giving me up as the baddest lot in the shape of pupils that ever +came in her way." + +"If you persist in talking in that horrible way, Violet----" + +"Let her talk as she likes, Pam," said the fond father. "I won't have +her bitted too heavily." + +Mrs. Tempest breathed a gentle sigh of resignation. The Squire was all +that is dear and good as husband and father, but refinement was out of +his line. + +"Do go on about the party, mamma. Did Rorie seem to enjoy himself very +much----" + +"I think so. He was very devoted to his cousin all the evening. I +believe they are engaged to be married." + +"Mamma!" exclaimed Vixen, starting up from her reclining attitude upon +her father's shoulder, and looking intently at the speaker; "Rorie +engaged to Lady Mabel Ashbourne!" + +"So I am told," replied Mrs. Tempest. "It will be a splendid match for +him." + +The pretty chestnut head dropped back into its old place upon the +Squire's shoulder, and Violet answered never a word. + +"Past two o'clock," cried her mother. "This is really too dreadful. +Come, Violet, you and I must go upstairs at any rate." + +"We'll all go," said the Squire, finishing his second brandy and soda. + +So they all three went upstairs together. Vixen had grown suddenly +silent and sleepy. She yawned dolefully, and kissed her mother and +father at the end of the gallery, without a word; and then scudded off, +swift as a scared rabbit, to her own room. + +"God bless her!" exclaimed the Squire; "she grows prettier and more +winning every day." + +"If her mouth were only a little smaller," sighed Mrs. Tempest. + +"It's the prettiest mouth I ever saw upon woman--bar one," said the +Squire. + +What was Vixen doing while the fond father was praising her? + +She had locked her door, and thrown herself face downwards on the +carpet, and was sobbing as if her heart would break. + +Rorie was going to be married. Her little kingdom had been overturned +by a revolution: her little world had crumbled all to pieces. Till +to-night she had been a queen in her own mind; and her kingdom had been +Rorie, her subjects had begun and ended in Rorie. All was over. He +belonged to some one else. She could never tyrannise over him +again--never scold him and abuse him and patronise him and ridicule him +any more. He was her Rorie no longer. + +Had she ever thought that a time might come when he would be something +more to her than playfellow and friend? No, never. The young bright +mind was too childishly simple for any such foresight or calculation. +She had only thought that he was in somewise her property, and would be +so till the end of both their lives. He was hers, and he was very fond +of her, and she thought him a rather absurd young fellow, and looked +down upon him with airs of ineffable superiority from the altitude of +her childish womanliness. + +And now he was gone. The earth had opened all at once and swallowed +him, like that prophetic gentleman in the Greek play, whose name Vixen +could never remember--chariot and horses and all. He belonged +henceforth to Lady Mabel Ashbourne. She could never be rude to him any +more. She could not take such a liberty with another young lady's lover. + +"And to think that he should never have told me he was going to be +engaged to her," she said. "He must have been fond of her from the very +beginning; and he never said a word; and he let me think he rather +liked me--or at least tolerated me. And how could he like two people +who are the very antipodes of each other? If he is fond of her, he must +detest me. If he respects her, he must despise me." + +The thought of such treachery rankled deep in the young warm heart. +Vixen started up to her feet, and stood in the midst of the firelit +room, with clinched fists, like a young fury. The light chestnut +tresses should have been Medusa's snakes to have harmonised with that +set white face. God had given Violet Tempest a heart to feel deeply, +too deeply for perfect peace, or that angelic softness which seems to +us most worthy in woman--the power to suffer and be patient. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Rorie has Plans of his own. + +Roderick Vawdrey's ideas of what was due to a young man who attains his +majority were in no wise satisfied by his birthday dinner-party. It had +been pleasant enough in its way, but far too much after the pattern of +all other dinner-parties to please a young man who hated all common and +hackneyed things, and all the beaten tracks of life--or who, at any +rate, fancied he did, which comes to nearly the same thing. + +"Mother," he began at breakfast next morning, in his loud cheery voice, +"we must have something for the small tenants, and shopkeepers, and +cottagers." + +"What do you mean, Roderick?" + +"Some kind of entertainment to celebrate my majority. The people will +expect it. Last night polished off the swells very nicely. The whole +thing did you credit, mother." + +"Thank you," said Lady Jane, with a slight contraction of her thin lips. + +This October morning, so pleasant for Rorie, was rather a bitter day +for his mother. She had been reigning sovereign at Briarwood hitherto; +henceforth she could only live there on sufferance. The house was +Rorie's. Even the orchid-houses were his. He might take her to task if +he pleased for having spent so much money on glass. + +"But I must have my humble friends round me," continued Rorie. "The +young people, too--the boys and girls. I'll tell you what, mother. We +must have a lawn meet. The hounds have never met here since my +grandfather's time--fifty years ago. The Duke's stud-groom was telling +me about it last year. He's a Hampshire man, you know, born and bred in +the Forest. We'll have a lawn meet and a hunting breakfast; and it +shall be open house for everyone--high and low, rich and poor, gentle +and simple. Don't be frightened, mother," interjected Rorie, seeing +Lady Jane's look of horror; "we won't do any mischief. Your gardens +shall be respected." + +"They are your gardens now, Roderick. You are sole master here, and can +do what you please." + +"My dear mother, how can you talk like that? Do you suppose I shall +ever forget who made the place what it is? The gardens have been your +particular hobby, and they shall be your gardens to the end of time." + +"That is very generous of you, my dear Roderick; but you are promising +too much. When you marry, your wife will be mistress of Briarwood, and +it will be necessary for me to find a new home." + +"I am in no hurry to get married. It will be half-a-dozen years before +I shall even think of anything so desperate." + +"I hope not, Roderick. With your position and your responsibilities you +ought to marry young. Marriage--a suitable marriage, that is to +say--would give you an incentive to earnestness and ambition. I want to +see you follow your father's footsteps; I want you to make a name +by-and-by." + +"I'm afraid it will be a distant by-and-by," said Rorie, with a yawn. +"I don't feel at all drawn towards the senate. I love the country, my +dogs, my horses, the free fresh air, the stir and movement of life too +well to pen myself up in a study and pore over blue-books, or to waste +the summer evenings listening to the member for Little Peddlington +laying down the law about combination drainage, or the proposed +loop-line that is intended to connect his borough with the world in +general. I'm afraid it isn't in me, mother, and that you'll be sorely +disappointed if you set your heart upon my making a figure as a +senator." + +"I should like to see you worthy of your father's name," Lady Jane +said, with a regretful sigh. + +"Providence hasn't made me in the same pattern," answered Rorie. "Look +at my grandfather's portrait over the mantelpiece, in pink and mahogany +tops. What a glorious fellow he must have been. You should hear how the +old people talk of him. I think I inherit his tastes, instead of my +father's. Hereditary genius crops up in curious ways, you know. +Perhaps, if I have a son, he will be a heaven-born statesman, and you +may have your ambition gratified by a grandson. And now about the +hunting breakfast. Would this day week suit you?" + +"This is your house, Roderick. It is for you to give your orders." + +"Bosh!" exclaimed the son impatiently. "Don't I tell you that you are +mistress here, and will be mistress----" + +"My dear Roderick, let us look things straight in the face," said Lady +Jane. "If I were sole mistress here there would be no hunting +breakfast. It is just the very last kind of entertainment I should ever +dream of giving. I am not complaining, mind. It is natural enough for +you to like that kind of thing; and, as master of this house, it is +your right to invite whomsoever you please. I am quite happy that it +should be so, but let there be no more talk about my being mistress of +this house. That is too absurd." + +Rorie felt all his most generous impulses turned to a sense of +constraint and bitterness. He could say no more. + +"Will you give me a list of the people you would like to be asked?" +said his mother, after rather an uncomfortable silence. + +"I'll go and talk it over with the Duke," answered Rorie. "He'll enter +into the spirit of the thing." + +Rorie found the Duke going the round of the loose-boxes, and uncle and +nephew spent an hour together pleasantly, overhauling the fine stud of +hunters which the Duke kept at Ashbourne, and going round the paddocks +to look at the brood-mares and their foals; these latter being +eccentric little animals, all head and legs, which nestled close to the +mother's side for a minute, and then took fright at their own tails, +and shot off across the field, like a skyrocket travelling +horizontally, or suddenly stood up on end, and executed a wild waltz in +mid air. + +The Duke and Roderick decided which among these leggy little beasts +possessed the elements of future excellence; and after an hour's +perambulation of the paddocks they went to the house, where they found +the Duchess and Lady Mabel in the morning-room; the Duchess busy making +scarlet cloth cloaks for her school-children, Lady Mabel reading a +German critic on Shakespeare. + +Here the hunt breakfast was fully discussed. Everybody was to be asked. +The Duchess put in a plea for her school-children. It would be such a +treat for the little things to see the hounds, and their red cloaks and +hoods would look so pretty on the lawn. + +"Let them come, by all means," said Roderick; "your +school--half-a-dozen schools. I'll have three or four tents rigged up +for refreshments. There shall be plenty to eat and drink for everybody. +And now I'm off to the Tempests' to arrange about the hounds. The +Squire will be pleased, I know." + +"Of course," said Lady Mabel, "and the Squire's daughter." + +"Dear little thing!" exclaimed Rorie, with an elder brother's +tenderness; "she'll be as pleased as Punch. You'll hunt, of course, +Mabel?" + +"I don't know. I don't shine in the field, as Miss Tempest does." + +"Oh, but you must come, Mab. The Duke will find you a safe mount." + +"She has a hunter I bred on purpose for her," said the Duke; "but +she'll never be such a horsewoman as her mother." + +"She looks lovely on Mazeppa," said Rorie; "and she must come to my +hunting breakfast." + +"Of course, Rorie, if you wish I shall come." + +Rorie stayed to luncheon, and then went back to Briarwood to mount his +horse to ride to the Abbey House. + +The afternoon was drawing in when Rorie rode up to the old Tudor +porch--a soft, sunless, gray afternoon. The door stood open, and he saw +the glow of the logs on the wide hearth, and the Squire's stalwart +figure sitting in the great arm-chair, leaning forward with a newspaper +across his knee, and Vixen on a stool at his feet, the dogs grouped +about them. + +"Shall I send my horse round to the stables, Squire?" asked Rorie. + +"Do, my lad," answered Mr. Tempest, ringing the bell, at which summons +a man appeared and took charge of Roderick's big chestnut. + +"Been hunting to-day, Squire?" asked Rorie, when he had shaken hands +with Mr. Tempest and his daughter, and seated himself on the opposite +side of the hearth. + +"No," answered the Squire, in a voice that had a duller sound than +usual. "We had the hounds out this morning at Hilberry Green, and there +was a good muster, Jack Purdy says; but I felt out of sorts, and +neither Vixen nor I went. It was a loss for Vixen, poor little girl." + +"It was a grief to see you ill, papa," said Violet, nestling closer to +him. + + She had hardly taken any notice of Roderick to-day, shaking +hands with him in an absent-minded way, evidently full of anxiety about +her father. She was very pale, and looked older and more womanly than +when he saw her yesterday, Roderick thought. + +"I'm not ill, my dear," said the Squire, "only a little muddled and +queer in my head; been riding too hard lately, perhaps. I don't get +lighter, you know, Rorie, and a quick run shakes me more than it used. +Old Martin, our family doctor, has been against my hunting for a long +time; but I should like to know what kind of life men of my age would +lead if they listened to the doctors. They wouldn't let us have a +decent dinner." + +"I'm so sorry!" said Rorie. "I came to ask you a favour, and now I feel +as it I hardly ought to say anything about it." + +And then Roderick proceeded to tell the Squire his views about a lawn +meet at Briarwood, and a hunting breakfast for rich and poor. + +"It shall be done, my boy," answered the Squire heartily. "It's just +the sort of thing you ought to do to make yourself popular. Lady Jane +is a charming woman, you know, thoroughbred to the finger-nails; but +she has kept herself a little too much to herself. There are people old +enough to remember what Briarwood was in your grandfather's time. This +day week you say. I'll arrange everything. We'll have such a gathering +as hasn't been seen for the last twenty years." + +"Vixen must come with you," said Rorie. + +"Of course." + +"If papa is well and strong enough to hunt." + +"My love, there is nothing amiss with me--nothing that need trouble me +this day week. A man may have a headache, mayn't he, child, without +people making any fuss about it?" + +"I should like you to see Dr. Martin, papa. Don't you think he ought to +see the doctor, Rorie? It's not natural for him to be ill." + +"I'm not going to be put upon half-rations, Vixen. Martin would starve +me. That's his only idea of medical treatment. Yes, Vixen shall come, +Rorie." + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Glas ist der Erde Stolz und Glück. + +The morning of the Briarwood Meet dawned fairly. Roderick watched the +first lifting of the darkness from his bed-room window, and rejoiced in +the promise of a fine weather. The heavens, which had been so +unpropitious upon his birthday, seemed to promise better things to-day. +He did not desire the traditional hunting morning--a southerly wind and +a cloudy sky. He cared very little about the scent lying well, or the +actual result of the day's sport. He wanted rather to see the kind +familiar faces round him, the autumn sunshine lighting up all the glow +and colour of the picture, the scarlet coats, the rich bay and brown of +the horses, the verdant background of lawn and shrubberies. Two huge +marquees had been erected for the commonalty--one for the +school-children, the other for the villagers. There were long tables in +the billiard-room for the farming class; and for the quality there was +the horse-shoe table in the dining-room, as at Roderick's birthday +dinner. But on this occasion the table was decorated only with hardy +ferns and flowers. The orchids were not allowed to appear. + +Roderick noticed the omission. + +"Why, where are the thing-um-tites, mother?" he asked, with some +surprise; "the pitcher-plants and tropical what's-its-names?" + +"I did not think there was any occasion to have them brought out of the +houses, Roderick," Lady Jane answered quietly; "there is always a risk +of their being killed, or some of your sporting friends might be +picking my prize blossoms to put in their button-holes. Men who give +their minds to horses would hardly appreciate orchids." + +"All right, mother. As long as there is plenty to eat, I don't suppose +it much matters," answered Rorie. + +He had certainly no cause for complaint upon this score. Briarwood had +been amply provisioned for an unlimited hospitality. The red coats and +green coats, and blue coats and brown coats, came in and out, slashed +away at boar's head and truffled turkey, sent champagne corks flying, +and added more dead men to the formidable corps of tall hock bottles, +dressed in uniform brown, which the astonished butler ranged rank and +file in a lobby outside the dining-room. He had never seen this kind of +thing at Briarwood since he had kept the keys of the cellars; and he +looked upon this promiscuous hospitality with a disapproving eye. + +The Duke supported his nephew admirably, and was hail-fellow-well-met +with everybody. He had always been popular at Ashbourne. It was his own +place, his particular selection, bought with his own money, improved +under his own eye, and he liked it better than any of his hereditary +seats. + +"If I had only had a son like you, Rorie," he said, as he stood beside +the young man, on the gravel sweep before the hall-door, welcoming the +new-comers, "I should have been a happy man. Well, I suppose I must be +satisfied with a grandson; but it's a hard thing that the title and +estates are to go to that scamp of a cousin of mine." + +Roderick, on this particular morning, was a nephew whom any uncle might +be proud to own. His red coat and buckskins became him; so did his +position as host and master at Briarwood. His tall erect figure showed +to advantage amidst the crowd. His smile lit up the dark sunburnt face +like sunshine. He had a kind word, a friendly hand-clasp for +everybody--even for gaffers and goodies who had hobbled from their +village shanties to see the sport, and to get their share of cold +sirloin and old October. He took the feeble old creatures into the +tent, and saw that they found a place at the board. + +Squire Tempest and his daughter were among the later arrivals. The meet +was to be at one, and they only rode into the grounds at half-past +twelve, when everyone else had breakfasted. Mrs. Tempest had not come. +The entertainment was much too early for a lady who never left her +rooms till after noon. + +Vixen looked lovely in her smart little habit. It was not the Lincoln +green with the brass buttons, which Lady Mabel had laughed at a year +ago. To-day Miss Tempest wore a dark brown habit, moulded to the full +erect figure, with a narrow rim of white at the throat, a little felt +hat of the same dark brown with a brown feather, long white gauntlets, +and a whip with a massive ivory handle. + +The golden bay's shining coat matched Violet's shining hair. It was the +prettiest picture in the world, the little rider in dark brown on the +bright bay horse, the daintily quilted saddle, the gauntleted hands +playing so lightly with the horse's velvet mouth--horse and rider +devotedly attached to each other. + +"How do you like him?" asked Vixen, directly she and Rorie had shaken +hands. "Isn't he absolutely lovely?' + +"Absolutely lovely," said Rorie, patting the horse's shoulder and +looking at the rider. + +"Papa gave him to me on my last birthday. I was to have ridden Titmouse +another year; but I got the brush one day after a hard run when almost +everybody else was left behind, and papa said I should have a horse. +Poor Titmouse is put into a basket-chaise. Isn't it sad for him?' + +"Awfully humiliating." + +Lady Mabel was close by on her chestnut thoroughbred, severely costumed +in darkest blue and chimney-pot hat. + +"I don't think you've ever met my cousin?" said Rorie. "Mabel, this is +Miss Tempest, whom you've heard me talk about. Miss Tempest, Lady Mabel +Ashbourne." + +Violet Tempest gave a startled look, and blushed crimson. Then the two +girls bowed and smiled: a constrained smile on Vixen's part, a prim and +chilly smile from Lady Mabel. + +"I want you two to be awful good friends," said Rorie; "and when you +come out, Vixen, Lady Mabel will take you under her wing. She knows +everybody, and the right thing to be done on every occasion." + +Vixen turned from red to pale, and said nothing. Lady Mabel looked at +the distant blue line of the Wight, and murmured that she would be +happy to be of use to Miss Tempest if ever they met in London. Rorie +felt, somehow, that it was not encouraging. Vixen stole a glance at her +rival. Yes, she was very pretty--a delicate patrician beauty which +Vixen had never seen before. No wonder Rorie was in love with her. +Where else could he have seen anything so exquisite? It was the most +natural thing in the world that these cousins should be fond of each +other, and engaged to be married. Vixen wondered that the thing had +never occurred to her as inevitable--that it should have come upon her +as a blow at the last. + +"I think Rorie ought to have told me," she said to herself. "He is like +my brother; and a brother would not hide his love affairs from his +sister. It was rather mean of Rorie." + +The business of the day began presently. Neither Vixen nor the Squire +dismounted. They had breakfasted at home; and Vixen, who did not care +much for Lady Jane Vawdrey, was glad to escape with no further +communication than a smile and a bow. At a quarter-past one they were +all riding away towards the Forest, and presently the serious business +began. + +Vixen and her father were riding side by side. + +"You are so pale, papa. Is your head bad again to-day?" + +"Yes, my dear. I'm afraid I've started a chronic headache. But the +fresh air will blow it away presently, I daresay. You're not looking +over-well yourself, Vixen. What have you done with your roses?" + +"I--I--don't care much about hunting to-day, papa," said Violet, sudden +tears rushing into her eyes. "Shall we go home together? You're not +well, and I'm not enjoying myself. Nobody wants us, either; so why +should we stay?" + +Rorie was a little way behind them, taking care of Lady Mabel, whose +slim-legged chestnut went through as many manoeuvres as if he had been +doing the manège business in a circus, and got over the ground very +slowly. + +"Nonsense, child! Go back! I should think not! Jack Purdy may do all +the work, but people like to see me to the fore. We shall find down in +Dingley Bottom, I daresay, and get a capital run across the hills to +Beaulieu." + +They found just as the Squire had anticipated, and after that there was +a hard run for the next hour and a quarter. Roderick was at the heel of +the hunt all the time, opening gates, and keeping his cousin out of +bogs and dangers of all kinds. They killed at last on a wild bit of +common near Beaulieu, and there were only a few in at the death, +amongst them Vixen on her fast young bay, flushed with excitement and +triumph by this time, and forgetting all her troubles in the delight of +winning one of the pads. Mrs Millington, the famous huntress from the +shires, was there to claim the brush. + + +"How tired you look, papa," said Vixen, as they rode quietly homewards. + +"A little done up, my dear, but a good dinner will set me all right +again. It was a capital run, and your horse behaved beautifully. I +don't think I made a bad choice for you. Rorie and his cousin were +miles behind, I daresay. Pretty girl, and sits her horse like a +picture--but she can't ride. We shall meet them going home, perhaps." + +A mile or two farther on they met Roderick alone. His cousin had gone +home with her father. + +"It was rather a bore losing the run," he said, as he turned his +horse's head and rode by Vixen, "but I was obliged to take care of my +cousin." + +One of the Squire's tenants, a seventeen-stone farmer, on a stout gray +cob, overtook them presently, and Mr. Tempest rode on by his side, +talking agricultural talk about over-fed beasts and cattle shows, the +last popular form of cruelty to animals. + +Roderick and Violet were alone, riding slowly side by side in the +darkening gray, between woods where solitary robins carolled sweetly, +or the rare gurgle of the thrush sounded now and then from thickets of +beech and holly. + +A faint colour came back to Vixen's cheek. She was very angry with her +playfellow for his want of confidence, for his unfriendly reserve. Yet +this was the one happy hour of her day. There had been a flavour of +desolateness and abandonment in all the rest. + +"I hope you enjoyed the run," said Rorie. + +"I don't think you can care much whether we did or didn't," retorted +Vixen, shrouding her personality in a vague plural. "If you had cared +you would have been with us. Sultan," meaning the chestnut "must have +felt cruelly humiliated by being kept so far behind." + +"If a man could be in two places at once, half of me, the better half +of me, would have been with you, Vixen; but I was bound to take care of +my cousin. I had insisted upon her coming." + +"Of course," answered Vixen, with a little toss of her head; "it would +have been quite wrong if she had been absent." + +They rode on in silence for a little while after this. Vixen was +longing to say: "Rorie, you have treated me very badly. You ought to +have told me you were going to be married." But something restrained +her. She patted her horse's neck, listened to the lonely robins, and +said not a word. The Squire and his tenant were a hundred yards ahead, +talking loudly. + +Presently they came to a point at which their roads parted, but Rorie +still rode on by Vixen. + +"Isn't that your nearest way?" asked Vixen, pointing down the +cross-road with the ivory handle of her whip. + +"I am not going the nearest way. I am going to the Abbey House with +you." + +"I wouldn't be so rude as to say Don't, but I think poor Sultan must be +tired." + +"Sultan shall have a by-day to-morrow." + +They went into an oak plantation, where a broad open alley led from one +side of the enclosure to the other. The wood had a mysterious look in +the late afternoon, when the shadows were thickening under the tall +thin trees. There was an all-pervading ghostly grayness as in a shadowy +under-world. They rode silently over the thick wet carpet of fallen +leaves, the horses starting a little now and then at the aspect of a +newly-barked trunk lying white across the track. They were silent, +having, in sooth, very little to say to each other just at this time. +Vixen was nursing her wrathful feelings; Rorie felt that his future was +confused and obscure. He ought to do something with his life, perhaps, +as his mother had so warmly urged. But his soul was stirred by no +ambitious promptings. + +They were within two hundred yards of the gate at the end of the +enclosure, when Vixen gave a sudden cry: + +"Did papa's horse stumble?" she asked; "look how he sways in his +saddle." + +Another instant, and the Squire reeled forward, and fell headforemost +across his horse's shoulder. The fall was so sudden and so heavy, that +the horse fell with him, and then scrambled up on to his feet again +affrighted, swung himself round, and rushed past Roderick and Vixen +along the plashy track. + +Vixen was off her horse in a moment, and had flown to her father's +side. He lay like a log, face downwards upon the sodden leaves just +inside the gate. The farmer had dismounted and was stooping over him, +bridle in hand, with a frightened face. + +"Oh, what is it?" cried Violet frantically. "Did the horse throw +him?--Bullfinch, his favourite horse. Is he much hurt? Oh, help me to +lift him up--help me--help me!" + +Rorie was by her side by this time, kneeling down with her beside the +prostrate Squire, trying to raise the heavy figure which lay like lead +across his arm. + +"It wasn't the horse, miss," said the farmer. "I'm afraid it's a +seizure." + +"A fit!" cried Vixen. "Oh, papa, papa----darling--darling----" + +She was sobbing, clinging to him, trembling like a leaf, and turning a +white, stricken face up towards Roderick. + +"Do something to help him--for God's sake--do something," she cried; +"you won't let him lie there and die for want of help. Some +brandy--something," she gasped, stretching out her trembling hand. + +The farmer had anticipated her thought. He had taken his flask from the +saddle pocket, and was kneeling down by the Squire. Roderick had lifted +the heavy head, and turned the ghastly face to the waning light. He +tried to force a little brandy between the livid lips--but vainly. + +"For God's sake get her away," he whispered to John Wimble, the farmer. +"It's all over with him." + +"Come away with me, my dear Miss Tempest," said Wimble, trying to raise +Violet from her knees beside the Squire. She was gazing into that awful +face distractedly--half divining its solemn meaning--yet watching for +the kind eyes to open and look at her again. "Come away with me, and +we'll get a doctor. Mr. Vawdrey will take care of your father." + +"You go for the doctor," she answered firmly. "I'll stay with papa. +Take my horse, he's faster than yours. Oh, he'll carry you well enough. +You don't know how strong he is--go, quick--quick--Dr. Martin, at +Lyndhurst--it's a long way, but you must get him. Papa will recover, +and be able to ride home, perhaps, before you can get back to us, but +go, go." + +"You go for the doctor, miss; your horse will carry you fast enough. +He'd never carry such a heavy weight as me, and my cob is dead beat. +You go, and Mr. Vawdrey will go with you. I'll take care of the Squire." + +Violet looked from one to the other helplessly. + +"I'd rather stay with papa," she said. "You go--yes--go, go. I'll stay +with papa." + +She crouched down beside the prostrate figure on the damp marshy +ground, took the heavy head on her lap, and looked up at the two men +with a pale set face which indicated a resolve that neither of them was +strong enough to overrule. They tried their utmost to persuade her, but +in vain. She was fixed as a new Niobe--a stony image of young despair. +So Roderick mounted his horse and rode off towards Lyndhurst, and +honest Jack Wimble tied the other two horses to the gate, and took his +stand beside them, a few paces from those two motionless figures on the +ground, patiently waiting for the issue of this bitter hour. + +It was one of the longest, weariest, saddest hours that ever youth and +hope lived through. There was an awful heart-sickening fear in Violet's +mind, but she gave it no definite shape. She would not say to herself, +"My father is dead." The position in which he was lying hampered her +arms so that she could not reach out her hand to lay it upon his heart. +She bent her face down to his lips. + +Oh God! not a flutter stirred upon her soft cheek as she laid it +against those pallid lips. The lower jaw had fallen in an awful-looking +way; but Violet had seen her father look like that sometimes as he +slept, with open mouth, before the hall fire. It might be only a long +swoon, a suspension of consciousness. Dr. Martin would come +presently--oh, how long, how long the time seemed--and make all things +right. + +The crescent moon shone silver pale above that dim gray wood. The +barked trunks gleamed white and spectral in the gathering dark. Owls +began to hoot in the distance, frogs were awaking near at hand, belated +rabbits flitted ghost-like across the track. All nature seemed of one +gray or shadowy hue--silvery where the moonbeams fell. + +The October air was chill and penetrating. There was a dull aching in +Violet's limbs from the weight of her burden, but she was hardly +conscious of physical pain. It seemed to her that she had been sitting +there for hours waiting for the doctor's help. She thought the night +must have nearly worn itself out. + +"Dr. Martin could not have been at home," she said, speaking for the +first time since Roderick rode away. "Mr. Vawdrey would fetch someone +else, surely." + +"My dear young lady, he hasn't had time to ride to Lyndhurst yet." + +"Not yet," cried Vixen despairingly, "not yet! And it has been so long. +Papa is getting so cold. The chill will be so bad for him." + +"Worse for you, miss. I do wish you'd let me take you home." + +"And leave papa here--alone--unconscious! How can you be so cruel as to +think of such a thing?" + +"Dear Miss Tempest, we're not doing him any good, and you may be +getting a chill that will be nigh your death. If you would only go home +to your mamma, now--it's hard upon her not to know--she'll be fretting +about you, I daresay." + +"Don't waste your breath talking to me," cried Vixen indignantly; "I +shall not leave this spot till papa goes with me." + +They waited for another quarter of an hour in dismal silence. The +horses gnawed the lower branches of the trees, and gave occasional +evidence of their impatience. Bullfinch had gone home to his stable no +doubt. They were only about a mile-and-a-half from the Abbey House. + +Hark! what was that? The splish-splash of horses' hoofs on the soft +turf. Another minute and Rorie rode up to the gate with a stranger. + +"I was lucky enough to meet this gentleman," he said, "a doctor from +Southampton, who was at the hunt to-day. Violet dear, will you let me +take you home now, and leave the doctor and Mr. Wimble with your +father?" + +"No," answered Vixen decisively. + +The strange doctor knelt down and looked at his patient. He was a +middle-aged man, grave-looking, with iron-gray hair--a man who +impressed Vixen with a sense of power and authority. She looked at him +silently, with a despairing appealing look that thrilled him, familiar +as he was with such looks. He made his examination quietly, saying not +a word, and keeping his face hidden. Then he turned to the two men who +were standing close by, watching him anxiously. + +"You must get some kind of litter to carry him home," he whispered. + +And then with gentle firmness, with strong irresistible hands, he +separated the living from the dead, lifted Violet from the ground and +led her towards her horse. + +"You must let Mr. Vawdrey take you home, my dear young lady," he said. +"You can do nothing here." + +"But you--you can do something," sobbed Violet, "you will bring him +back to life--you----" + +"I will do all that can be done," answered the doctor gently. + +His tone told her more than his words. She gave one wild shriek, and +threw herself down beside her dead father. A cloud came over the +distracted brain, and she lay there senseless. The doctor and Rorie +lifted her up and carried her to the gate where her horse was waiting. +The doctor forced a little brandy through the locked lips, and between +them Rorie and he placed her in the saddle. She had just consciousness +enough by this time to hold the bridle mechanically, and to sit upright +on her horse; and thus led by Roderick, she rode slowly back to the +home that was never any more to be the same home that she had known and +lived in through the joyous sixteen years of her life. All things were +to be different to her henceforward. The joy of life was broken short +off, like a flower snapped from its stem. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A House of Mourning. + +There was sorrow at the Abbey House deeper and wilder than had entered +within those doors for many a year. To Mrs. Tempest the shock of her +husband's death was overwhelming. Her easy, luxurious, monotonous life +had been very sweet to her, but her husband had been the dearest part +of her life. She had taken little trouble to express her love for him, +quite willing that he should take it for granted. She had been +self-indulgent and vain; seeking her own ease, spending money and care +on her own adornment; but she had not forgotten to make the Squire's +life pleasant to him also. Newly-wedded lovers in the fair +honeymoon-stage of existence could not have been fonder of each other +than the middle-aged Squire and his somewhat faded wife. His loving +eyes had never seen Time's changes in Pamela Tempest's pretty face, the +lessening brightness of the eyes, the duller tints of the complexion, +the loss of youth's glow and glory. To him she had always appeared the +most beautiful woman in the world. + +And now the fondly-indulged wife could do nothing but lie on her sofa +and shed a rain of incessant tears, and drink strong tea, which had +lost its power to comfort or exhilarate. She would see no one. She +could not even be roused to interest herself in the mourning, though, +with a handsome widow, Pauline thought that ought to be all important. + +"There are so many styles of widows' caps now, ma'am. You really ought +to see them, and choose for yourself," urged Pauline, an honest young +Englishwoman, who had begun life as Polly, but whom Mrs. Tempest had +elevated into Pauline. + +"What does it matter, Pauline? Take anything you like. _He_ will not be +there to see." + +Here the ready tears flowed afresh. That was the bitterest of all. That +she should look nice in her mourning, and Edward not be there to praise +her. In her feebleness she could not imagine life without him. She +would hear his step at her door surely, his manly voice in the +corridor. She would awake from this awful dream, in which he was not, +and find him, and fall into his arms, and sob out her grief upon his +breast, and tell him all she had suffered. + +That was the dominant feeling in this weak soul. He could not be gone +for ever. + +Yet the truth came back upon her in hideous distinctness every now and +then--came back suddenly and awfully, like the swift revelation of a +desolate plague-stricken scene under a lightning flash. He was gone. He +was lying in his coffin, in the dear old Tudor hall where they had sat +so cosily. Those dismal reiterated strokes of the funeral-bell meant +that his burial was at hand. They were moving the coffin already, +perhaps. His place knew him no more. + +She tottered to the darkened window, lifted the edge of the blind, and +looked out. The funeral train was moving slowly along the carriage +sweep, through the winding shrubberied road. How long, and black, and +solemnly splendid the procession looked. Everybody had loved and +respected him. It was a grand funeral. The thought of this general +homage gave a faint thrill of comfort to the widow's heart. + +"My noble husband," she ejaculated. "Who could help loving you?" + +It seemed to her only a little while ago that she had driven up to the +Tudor porch for the first time after her happy honeymoon, when she was +in the bloom of youth and beauty, and life was like a schoolgirl's +happy dream. + +"How short life is," she sobbed; "how cruelly short for those who are +happy!" + +With Violet grief was no less passionate; but it did not find its sole +vent in tears. The stronger soul was in rebellion against Providence. +She kept aloof from her mother in the time of sorrow. What could they +say to each other? They could only cry together. Violet shut herself in +her room, and refused to see anyone, except patient Miss McCroke, who +was always bringing her cups of tea, or basins of arrowroot, trying to +coax her to take some kind of nourishment, dabbing her hot forehead +with eau-de-Cologne--doing all those fussy little kindnesses which are +so acutely aggravating in a great sorrow. + +"Let me lie on the ground alone, and think of him, and wail for him." + +That is what Violet Tempest would have said, if she could have +expressed her desire clearly. + +Roderick Vawdrey went back to the Abbey House after the funeral, and +contrived to see Miss McCroke, who was full of sympathy for everybody. + +"Do let me see Violet, that's a dear creature," he said. "I can't tell +you how unhappy I am about her. I can't get her face out of my +thoughts, as I saw it that dreadful night when I led her horse +home--the wild sad eyes, the white lips." + +"She is not fit to see anyone," said Miss McCroke; "but perhaps it +might rouse her a little to see you." + +Miss McCroke had an idea that all mourners ought to be roused; that +much indulgence in grief for the dead was reprehensible. + +"Yes," answered Rorie eagerly, "she would see me, I know. We are like +brother and sister." + +"Come into the schoolroom," said the governess, "and I'll see what I +can do." + +The schoolroom was Vixen's own particular den, and was not a bit like +the popular idea of a schoolroom. + +It was a pretty little room, with a high wooden dado, painted olive +green, and a high-art paper of amazing ugliness, whereon brown and red +storks disported themselves on a dull green ground. The high-art paper +was enlivened with horsey caricatures by Leech, and a menagerie of +pottery animals on various brackets. + +A pot or a pan had been stuck into every corner that would hold one. +There were desks, and boxes, and wickerwork baskets of every shape and +kind, a dwarf oak bookcase on either side of the fireplace, with the +books all at sixes and sevens, leaning against each other as if they +were intoxicated. The broad mantelpiece presented a confusion of +photographs, cups and saucers, violet jars, and Dresden shepherdesses. +Over the quaint old Venetian glass dangled Vixen's first trophy, the +fox's brush, tied with a scarlet ribbon. There were no birds, or +squirrels, or dormice, for Vixen was too fond of the animal creation to +shut her favourites up in cages; but there was a black bearskin spread +in a corner for Argus to lie upon. In the wide low windows there were +two banks of bright autumn flowers, pompons and dwarf roses, mignonette +and veronica. + +Miss McCroke drew up the blind, and stirred the fire. + +"I'll go and ask her to come," she said. + +"Do, like a dear," said Rorie. + +He paced the room while she was gone, full of sadness. He had been very +fond of the Squire, and that awfully sudden death, an apopleptic +seizure, instantaneous as a thunderbolt, had impressed him very +painfully. It was his first experience of the kind, and it was +infinitely terrible to him. It seemed to him a long time before Vixen +appeared, and then the door opened, and a slim black figure came in, a +white fixed face looked at him piteously, with tearless eyes made big +by a great grief. She came leaning on Miss McCroke, as if she could +hardly walk unaided. The face was stranger to him than an altogether +unknown face. It was Violet Tempest with all the vivid joyous life gone +out of her, like a lamp that is extinguished. + +He took her cold trembling hands and drew her gently to a chair, and +sat down beside her. + +"I wanted so much to see you, dear," he said, "to tell you how sorry we +all are for you--my mother, my aunt, and cousin"--Violet gave a faint +shiver--"all of us. The Duke liked your dear father so much. It was +quite a shock to him." + +"You are very good," Violet said mechanically. + +She sat by him, pale and still as marble, looking at the ground. His +voice and presence impressed her but faintly, like something a long way +off. She was thinking of her dead father. She saw nothing but that one +awful figure. They had laid him in his grave by this time. The cold +cruel earth had fallen upon him and hidden him for ever from the light; +he was shut away for ever from the fair glad world; he who had been so +bright and cheerful, whose presence had carried gladness everywhere. + +"Is the funeral quite over?" she asked presently, without lifting her +heavy eyelids. + +"Yes, dear. It was a noble funeral. Everybody was there--rich and poor. +Everybody loved him." + +"The poor most of all," she said. "I know how good he was to them." + +Somebody knocked at the door and asked something of Miss McCroke, which +obliged the governess to leave her pupil. Roderick was glad at her +departure, That substantial figure in its new black dress had been a +hinderance to freedom of conversation. + +Miss McCroke's absence did not loosen Violet's tongue. She sat looking +at the ground, and was dumb. That silent grief was very awful to +Roderick. + +"Violet, why don't you talk to me about your sorrow?" he said. "Surely +you can trust me--your friend--your brother!" + +That last word stung her into speech. The hazel eyes shot a swift angry +glance at him. + +"You have no right to call yourself that," she said, "you have not +treated me like a sister." + +"How not, dear?" + +"You should have told me about your engagement--that you were going to +marry Lady Mabel Ashbourne." + +"Should I?" exclaimed Rorie, amazed. "If I had I should have told you +an arrant falsehood. I am not engaged to my cousin Mabel. I am not +going to marry her." + +"Oh, it doesn't matter in the least whether you are or not," returned +Vixen, with a weary air. "Papa is dead, and trifles like that can't +affect me now. But I felt it unkind of you at the time I heard it." + +"And where and how did you hear this wonderful news, Vixen?" asked +Rorie, very pleased to get her thoughts away from her grief, were it +only for a minute. + +"Mamma told me that everybody said you were engaged, and that the fact +was quite obvious." + +"What everybody says, and what is quite obvious, is very seldom true, +Violet. You may take that for a first principle in social science. I am +not engaged to anyone. I have no thought of getting married--for the +next three years." + +Vixen received this information with chilling silence. She would have +been very glad to hear it, perhaps, a week ago--at which time she had +found it a sore thing to think of her old playfellow as Lady Mabel's +affianced husband--but it mattered nothing now. The larger grief had +swallowed up all smaller grievances. Roderick Vawdrey had receded into +remote distance. He was no one, nothing, in a world that was suddenly +emptied of all delight. + +"What are you going to do, dear?" asked Roderick presently. "If you +shut yourself up in your room and abandon yourself to grief, you will +make yourself very ill. You ought to go away somewhere for a little +while." + +"For ever!" exclaimed Vixen passionately. "Do you think I can ever +endure this dear home without papa? There is not a thing I look at that +doesn't speak to me of him. The dogs, the horses. I almost hate them +for reminding me so cruelly. Yes, we are going away at once, I believe. +Mamma said so when I saw her this morning." + +"Your poor mamma! How does she bear her grief?" + +"Oh, she cries, and cries, and cries," said Vixen, rather +contemptuously. "I think it comforts her to cry. I can't cry. I am like +the dogs. If I did not restrain myself with all my might I should howl. +I should like to lie on the ground outside his door--just as his dog +does--and to refuse to eat or drink till I died." + +"But, dear Violet, you are not alone in the world. You have your poor +mamma to think of." + +"Mamma--yes. I am sorry for her, of course. But she is only like a +lay-figure in my life. Papa was everything." + +"Do you know where your mamma is going to take you?" + +"No; I neither know nor care. It will be to a house with four walls and +a roof, I suppose. It will be all the same to me wherever it is." + +What could Roderick say? It was too soon to talk about hope or comfort. +His heart was rent by this dull silent grief; but he could do nothing +except sit there silently by Vixen's side with her cold unresponsive +hands held in his. + +Miss McCroke came back presently, followed by a maid carrying a pretty +little Japanese tea-tray. + +"I have just been giving your poor mamma a cup of tea, Violet," said +the governess. "Mr. Clements has been telling her about the will, and +it has been quite too much for her. She was almost hysterical. But +she's better now, poor dear. And now we'll all have some tea. Bring the +table to the fire, Mr. Vawdrey, please, and let us make ourselves +comfortable," concluded Miss McCroke, with an assumption of mild +cheerfulness. + +Perhaps there is not in all nature so cheerful a thing as a good +sea-coal fire, with a log of beechwood on the top of the coals. It will +be cheerful in the face of affliction. It sends out its gushes of +warmth and brightness, its gay little arrowy flames that appear and +disappear like elves dancing their midnight waltzes on a barren moor. +It seems to say: "Look at me and be comforted! Look at me and hope! So +from the dull blackness of sorrow rise the many coloured lights of +new-born joy." + +Vixen suffered her chair to be brought near that cheery fire, and just +then Argus crept into the room and nestled at her knee. Roderick seated +himself at the other side of the hearth--a bright little fire-place +with its border of high-art tiles, illuminated with the story of "Mary, +Mary, quite contrary," after quaintly mediaeval designs, by Mr. Stacey +Marks. Miss McCroke poured out the tea in the quaint old red and blue +Worcester cups, and valiantly sustained that assumption of +cheerfulness. She would not have permitted herself to smile yesterday; +but now the funeral was over, the blinds were drawn up, and a mild +cheerfulness was allowable. + +"If you would condescend to tell me where you are going, Vixen, I might +contrive to come there too, by-and-by. We could have some rides +together. You'll take Arion, of course." + +"I don't know that I shall ever ride again," answered Violet with a +shudder. + +Could she ever forget that awful ride? Roderick hated himself for his +foolish speech. + +"Violet will have to devote herself to her studies very assiduously for +the next two years," said Miss McCroke. "She is much more backwards +than I like a pupil of mine to be at sixteen." + +"Yes, I am going to grind at three or four foreign grammars, and to +give my mind to latitude and longitude, and fractions, and decimals," +said Vixen, with a bitter laugh. "Isn't that cheering?" + +"Whatever you do, Vixen," cried Roderick earnestly, "don't be a +paradigm." + +"What's that?" + +"An example, a model, a paragon, a perfect woman nobly planned, &c. Be +anything but that, Vixen, if you love me." + +"I don't think there is much fear of any of us being perfect," said +Miss McCroke severely. "Imperfection is more in the line of humanity." + +"Do you think so?" interrogated Rorie. "I find there is a great deal +too much perfection in this world, too many faultless people--I hate +them." + +"Isn't that a confession of faultiness on your side?" suggested Miss +McCroke. + +"It may be. But it's the truth." + +Vixen sat with dry hollow eyes staring at the fire. She had heard their +talk as if it had been the idle voices of strangers sounding in the +distance, ever so far away. Argus nestled closer and closer at her +knee, and she patted his big blunt head absently, with a dim sense of +comfort in this brute love, which she had not derived from human +sympathy. + +Miss McCroke went on talking and arguing with Rorie, with a view to +sustaining that fictitious cheerfulness which might beguile Vixen into +brief oblivion of her griefs. But Vixen was not so to be beguiled. She +was with them, but not of them. Her haggard eyes stared at the fire, +and her thoughts were with the dear dead father, over whose +newly-filled grave the evening shadows were closing. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Captain Winstanley. + +Two years later, and Vixen was sitting with the same faithful Argus +nestling beside her, by the fireside of a spacious Brighton +drawing-room, a large, lofty, commonplace room, with tall windows +facing seawards. Miss McCroke was there too, standing at one of the +windows taking up a dropped stitch in her knitting, while Mrs. Tempest +walked slowly up and down the expanse of Brussels carpet, stopping now +and then at a window to look idly out at the red sunset beyond the +low-lying roofs and spars of Shoreham. Those two years had changed +Violet Tempest from a slender girl to a nobly-formed woman; a woman +whom a sculptor would have worshipped as his dream of perfection, whom +a painter would have reverenced for her glow and splendour of +colouring; but about whose beauty the common run of mankind, and more +especially womankind, had not quite made up their minds. The pretty +little women with eighteen-inch waists opined that Miss Tempest was too +big. + +"She's very handsome, you know, and all that," they said deprecatingly, +"and her figure is quite splendid; but she's on such a very large +scale. She ought to be painted in fresco, you know, on a high cornice. +As Autumn, or Plenty, or Ceres, or something of that kind, carrying a +cornucopia. But in a drawing-room she looks so very massive." + +The amber-haired women--palpably indebted to auricomous fluids for the +colour of their tresses--objected to the dark burnished gold of Violet +Tempest's hair. There was too much red in the gold, they said, and a +colour so obviously natural was very unfashionable. That cream-white +skin of hers, too, found objectors, on the score of a slight powdering +of freckles; spots which the kindly sun leaves on the fruit he best +loves. In fact, there were many reservations made by Miss Tempest's +pretended admirers when they summed up her good looks; but when she +rode her pretty bay horse along the King's Road, strangers turned to +look at her admiringly; when she entered a crowded room she threw all +paler beauties in the shade. The cabbage-rose is a vulgar flower +perhaps, but she is queen of the garden notwithstanding. + +Lest it should be supposed, after this, that Vixen was a giantess, it +may be as well to state that her height was five feet six, her waist +twenty-two inches at most, her shoulders broad but finely sloping, her +arms full and somewhat muscular, her hands not small, but exquisitely +tapering, her foot long and narrow, her instep arched like an Arab's, +and all her movements instinct with an untutored grace and dignity. She +held her head higher than is common to women, and on that score was +found guilty of pride. + +"I think we ought to go back before Christmas, Violet," said Mrs. +Tempest, continuing a discussion that had been dragging itself slowly +along for the last half-hour. + +"I am ready, mamma," answered Vixen submissively. "It will break our +hearts afresh when we go home, but I suppose we must go home some day." + +"But you would like to see the dear old house again, surely, Violet?" + +"Like to see the frame without the picture? No, no, no, mamma. The +frame was very dear while the picture was in it--but--yes," cried Vixen +passionately, "I should like to go back. I should like to see papa's +grave, and carry fresh flowers there every day. It has been too much +neglected." + +"Neglected, Violet! How can you say such a thing? When Manotti's bill for +the monument was over nine hundred pounds." + +"Oh, mamma, there is more love in a bunch of primroses that my own hand +gathers and carries to the grave than in all the marble or granite in +Westminster Abbey." + +"My dear, for poor people wild flowers are very nice, and show good +feeling--but the rich must have monuments. There could be nothing too +splendid for your dear papa," added the widow tearfully. + +She was always tearful when she spoke of her dear Edward, even now; +though she was beginning to find that life had some savour without him. + +"No," said Vixen, "but I think papa will like the flowers best." + +"Then if all is well, Miss McCroke," pursued Mrs. Tempest, "we will go +back at the end of November. It would be a pity to lose the season +here." + +Vixen yawned despondently. + +"What do we care about the season, mamma?" she exclaimed. "Can it +matter to us whether there are two or three thousand extra people in +the place? It only makes the King's Road a little more uncomfortable." + +"My dear Violet, at your age gaiety is good for you," said Mrs. Tempest. + +"Yes, and, like most other things that are good, it's very +disagreeable," retorted Vixen. + +"And now, about this ball," pursued Mrs. Tempest, taking up a dropped +stitch in the previous argument; "I really think we ought to go, if it +were only on Violet's account. Don't you, Maria?" + +Mrs. Tempest always called her governess Maria when she was anxious to +conciliate her. + +"Violet is old enough to enter society, certainly," said Miss McCroke, +with some deliberation; "but whether a public ball----" + +"If it's on my account, mamma, pray don't think of going," protested +Vixen earnestly. "I hate the idea of a ball--I hate----" + +"Captain Winstanley," announced Forbes, in the dusky end of the +drawing-room by the door. + +"He has saved me the trouble of finishing my sentence," muttered Vixen. + +The visitor came smiling though the dusk into the friendly glow of the +fire. He shook hands with Mrs. Tempest with the air of an old friend, +went over to the window to shake hands with Miss McCroke, and then came +back to Vixen, who gave him a limp cold hand, with an indifference that +was almost insolent, while Argus lifted his head an inch or so from the +carpet and saluted him with a suppressed growl. Whether this arose from +a wise instinct in the animal, or from a knowledge that his mistress +disliked the gentleman, would be too nice a point to decide. + +"I was that moment thinking of you, Captain Winstanley," said the widow. + +"An honour and a happiness for me," murmured the Captain. + +Mrs. Tempest seated herself in her own particular chair, beside which +was her own particular table with one of those pretty tea-services +which were her chief delight--a miniature silver tea-kettle with a +spirit-lamp, a cosy little ball-shaped teapot, cups and saucers of old +Battersea. + +"You'll take a cup of tea?" she said insinuatingly. + +"I shall be delighted. I feel as if I ought to go home and write verses +or smart paragraphs for the society papers after drinking your tea, it +is so inspiring. Addison ought to have drunk just such tea before +writing one of his Spectators, but unfortunately his muse required old +port." + +"If the Spectator came out nowadays I'm afraid we should think it +stupid." suggested Mrs. Tempest. + +"Simply because the slipshod writers of the present day have spoiled +our taste for fine English," interjected Miss McCroke severely. + +"Well, I fear we should find Addison a little thin," said Captain +Winstanley; "I can't imagine London society existing for a week on such +literary pabulum as 'The Vision of Mirza.' We want something stronger +than that. A little scandal about our neighbours, a racy article on +field sports, some sharpish hits at the City, a libel or two upon men +we know, a social article sailing very near the wind, and one of +Addison's papers on cherry-coloured hoods, or breast-knots, patches or +powder, thrown in by the way of padding. Our dear Joseph is too purely +literary for the present age." + +"What monsters newspapers have grown," remarked Mrs. Tempest. "It's +almost impossible to get through them." + +"Not if you read anything else," answered the captain. "The majority do +not." + +"We were talking about the ball just as you came in," said Mrs. +Tempest. "I really think Vixen ought to go." + +"I am sure she ought," said the Captain. + +Vixen sat looking at the fire and patting Argus. She did not favour the +Captain with so much as a glance; and yet he was a man upon whom the +eyes of women were apt to dwell favourably. He was not essentially +handsome. The most attractive men rarely are. He was tall and thin, +with a waist as small as a woman's, small hands, small feet--a general +delicacy of mould that was accounted thoroughbred. He had a long nose, +a darkly-pale complexion, keen gray eyes under dark brows, dark hair, +cropped close to his small head; thin lips, white teeth, a neat black +moustache, and a strictly military appearance, though he had sold out +of a line regiment three years ago, and was now a gentleman at large, +doing nothing, and living in a gentleman-like manner on a very small +income. He was not in debt, and was altogether respectable. Nothing +could be said against him, unless it were some dark hint of a gambling +transaction at a fast and furious club, some vague whisper about the +mysterious appearance of a king at écarté--the kind of a rumour which +is apt to pursue a man who, like Bulwer's Dudley Smooth, does not cheat +but always wins. + +Despite those vague slanders, which are generally baseless--the mere +expression of society's floating malice, the scum of ill-nature on the +ocean of talk--Captain Winstanley was a universal favourite. He went +everywhere, and was liked wherever he went. He was gifted with that +adaptability and hardiness which is, of all cleverness, most valuable +in polite society. Of him, as of Goldsmith, it might be said that he +touched nothing he did not adorn. True, that the things he touched were +for the most part small things, but they were things that kept him +before the eye of society, and found favour in that eye. + +He was a good horseman, a good oarsman, a good swimmer, a good +cricketer. He played and sang; he was a first-rate amateur actor; he +was great at billiards and all games of skill; he could talk any +language society wanted him to talk--society not requiring a man to +excel in Coptic or Chinese, or calling upon him suddenly for Japanese +or Persian; he dressed with perfect taste, and without the slightest +pretence of dandyism; he could write a first-rate letter, and +caricature his dearest friends of last year in pen and ink for the +entertainment of his dearest friends of this year; he was known to have +contributed occasionally to fashionable periodicals, and was supposed +to have a reserve of wit and satire which would quite have annihilated +the hack writers of the day had he cared to devote himself to +literature. + +Mrs. Tempest and her daughter had met the Captain early in the previous +spring among the Swiss mountains. He knew some of Mrs. Tempest's +Hampshire friends, and with no other credentials had contrived to win +her friendship. Vixen took it into her obstinate young head to detest +him. But then, Vixen, at seventeen and a half, was full of ridiculous +dislikes and irrational caprices. Mrs. Tempest, in her lonely and +somewhat depressed condition, considered the Captain a particularly +useful acquaintance. Miss McCroke was dubious, but finding any +expression of her doubts ungraciously received, took the safer line of +silence. + +The ball in question was a charity ball at the Pavilion, a perfectly +unobjectionable ball. The list of patronesses bristled with noble +names. There was nothing to be said against Vixen's appearance there, +except Miss McCroke's objection that Squire Tempest's daughter and +heiress ought not to make her _début_ in society at any public ball +whatever; ought, in a manner, hardly to be seen by the human eye as a +grown-up young lady, until she had been presented to her gracious +sovereign. But Mrs. Tempest had set her heart upon Vixen's going to the +ball; or, in other words, she had set her heart upon going herself. On +her way through Paris, in September, she had gone to Worth's--out of +curiosity, just to see what the great man's salons were like--and there +she had been tempted into the purchase of an artistic arrangement in +black silk and jet, velvet and passementerie. She did not require the +costume, but the thing in itself was so beautiful that she could not +help buying it. And having spent a hundred guineas on this masterpiece, +there arose in her mind a natural craving to exhibit it; to feel that +she was being pointed out as one of the best-dressed women in the +crowded room; to know that women were whispering to each other +significantly, "Worth," as the nocturn in velvet and silk and +glimmering jet swept by them. + +There was a good deal more discussion, and it was ultimately settled +that Vixen should go to the ball. She had no positive objection. She +would have liked the idea of the ball well enough perhaps, if it had +not been for Captain Winstanley. It was his advocacy that made the +subject odious. + +"How very rudely you behaved to Captain Winstanley, Violet," said Mrs. +Tempest, when her visitor had departed. + +"Did I, mamma?" inquired Vixen listlessly. "I thought I was +extraordinarily civil. If you knew how I should have liked to behave to +him, you would think so too." + +"I can not imagine why you are so prejudiced against him," pursued Mrs. +Tempest fretfully. + +"It is not prejudice, mamma, but instinct, like Argus's. That man is +destined to do us some great wrong, if we do not escape out of his +clutches." + +"It is shameful of you to say such things," cried the widow, pale with +anger. "What have you to say against him? What fault can you find with +him? You cannot deny that he is most gentlemanlike." + +"No, mamma; he is a little too gentlemanlike. He makes a trade of his +gentlemanliness. He is too highly polished for me." + +"You prefer a rough young fellow, like Roderick Vawdrey, who talks +slang, and smells of the stables." + +"I prefer anyone who is good and true," retorted Vixen. "Roderick is a +man, and not to be named in the same breath with your fine gentleman." + +"I admit that the comparison would be vastly to his disadvantage," said +the widow. "But it's time to dress for dinner." + +"And we are to dine with the Mortimers," yawned Vixen. "What a bore!" + +This young lady had not that natural bent for society which is +symptomatic of her age. The wound that pierced her young heart two +years ago had not healed so completely that she could find pleasure in +inane conversation across a primeval forest of sixpenny ferns, and the +factitious liveliness of a fashionable dinner-table. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +"It shall be Measure for Measure." + +The night of the ball came, and, in spite of her aversion for Captain +Winstanley, and general dislike of the whole thing, Violet Tempest +began the evening by enjoying herself. She was young and energetic, and +had an immense reserve of animal spirits after her two years of sadness +and mourning. She danced with the partners her friends brought +her--some of the most eligible men in the room--and was full of life +and gaiety; yet the festival seemed to her in somewise horrible all the +time. + +"If papa could know that we are dancing and smiling at each other, as +if all life was made up of gladness, when he is lying in his cold +grave!" thought Vixen, after joining hands with her mother in the +ladies' chain. + +The widow looked as if she had never known a care. She was conscious +that Worth's _chef-d'oeuvre_ was not thrown away. She saw herself in +the great mirrors which once reflected George and his lovely +Fitzherbert in their days of gladness--which reflected the same George +later, old, and sick, and weary. + +"That French _grande dame_ was right," thought Mrs. Tempest, "who said, +'_Le noir est si flattant pour les blondes_.'" + +Black was flattering for Vixen's auburn hair also. Though her +indifferent eye rarely glanced at the mirrored walls, she had never +looked lovelier. A tall graceful figure, in billowy black tulle, +wreathed with white chrysanthemums; a queen-like head, with a red-gold +coronal; a throat like an ivory pillar, spanned with a broad black +ribbon, fastened with a diamond clasp; diamond stars in her ears, and a +narrow belt of diamonds round each white arm. + +"How many waltzes have you kept for me?" Captain Winstanley asked +presently, coming up to Vixen. + +"I have not kept waltzes for anyone," she answered indifferently. + +"But surely you were under a promise to keep some for me? I asked you a +week ago." + +"Did you? I am sure I never promised anything of the kind." + +"Here is only one little shabby waltz left," said the Captain, looking +at her programme. "May I put my name down for that?" + +"If you like," answered Vixen indifferently; and then, with the +faintest suspicion of malice, she added, "as mamma does not dance round +dances." + +She was standing up for the Lancers presently, and her partner had just +led her to her place, when she saw that she had her mother and Captain +Winstanley again for her _vis-à-vis_. She grew suddenly pale, and +turned away. + +"Will you let me sit this out?" she said. "I feel awfully ill." + +Her partner was full of concern, and carried her off at once to a +cooler room. + +"It is too bad!" she muttered to herself. "The Lancers! To go romping +round with a lot of wild young men and women. It is as bad as the Queen +in Hamlet." + +This was the last dance before supper. Vixen went in to the supper-room +presently with her attentive partner, who had kept by her side +devotedly while the lively scramble to good old English tunes was going +on in the dancing-room. + +"Are you better?" he asked tenderly, fanning her with her big black +fan, painted with violets and white chrysanthemums. "The room is +abominably hot." + +"Thanks. I'm quite well now. It was only a momentary faintness. But I +rather hate the Lancers, don't you?" + +"Well, I don't know. I think, sometimes, you know, with a nice partner, +they're good fun. Only one can't help treading on the ladies' trains, +and they wind themselves round one's legs like snakes. I've seen +fellows come awful croppers, and the lady who has done it look so +sweetly unconcerned. But if one tears a lace flounce, you know, they +look daggers. It's something too dreadful to feel oneself walking into +honiton at ten guineas a yard, and the more one tries to extricate +oneself the more harm one does." + +Vixen's supper was the merest pretence. Her mother sat opposite her, +with Captain Winstanley still in attendance. Vixen gave them one +scathing look, and then sat like an image of scorn. Her partner could +not get a word from her, and when he offered her the fringed end of a +cracker bonbon, she positively refused to have anything to do with it. + +"Please don't," she said. "It's too inane. I couldn't possibly pretend +to be interested in the motto." + +When she went back to the ball-room Captain Winstanley followed her and +claimed his waltz. The band was just striking up the latest love-sick +German melody, "_Weit von dir!_" a strain of drawling tenderness. + +"You had better go and secure your supper," said Vixen coldly. + +"I despise all ball-suppers. This one most particularly, if it were to +deprive me of my waltz." + +Vixen shrugged her shoulders, and submitted to take those few +preliminary steps which are like the strong swimmer's shiverings on the +bank ere he plunges in the stream. And then she was whirling round to +the legato strains, "_Weit von dir! Weit von dir! Wo ist mein Lebens +Lust?--Weit von dir--Weit von dir!_" + +Captain Winstanley's waltzing was simple perfection. It was not the +Liverpool Lurch, or the Scarborough Scramble, the Bermondsey Bounce, or +the Whitechapel Wiggle; it was waltzing pure and simple, unaffected, +graceful; the waltzing of a man with a musical ear, and an athlete's +mastery of the art of motion. Vixen hated the Captain, but she enjoyed +the waltz. They danced till the last bar died away in a tender +diminuendo. + +"You look pale," said the Captain, "let us go into the garden." He +brought her cloak and wrapped it round her, and she took his offered +arm without a word. It was one of those rare nights in late October, +when the wind is not cold. There was hardly the flutter of a leaf in +the Pavilion garden. The neighbouring sea made the gentlest music--a +melancholy ebb and flow of sound, like the murmuring of some great +imprisoned spirit. + +In the searching light of day, when its adjacent cab-stands and +commonnesses are visible, and its gravelled walks are peopled with +nursemaids and small children, the Pavilion garden can hardly be called +romantic. But by this tender moonlight, in this cool stillness of a +placid autumn midnight, even the Pavilion garden had its air of romance +and mystery. The various roofs and chimneys stood up against the sky, +picturesque as a city of old time. And, after all, this part of +Brighton has a peculiar charm which all the rest of Brighton lacks. It +speaks of the past, it tells its story of the dead. They were not great +or heroic, perhaps, those departed figures, whose ghosts haunt us in +the red and yellow rooms, and in the stiff town garden; but they had +their histories. They lived, and loved, and suffered; and, being dead +so long, come back to us in the softened light of vanished days, and +take hold of our fancy with their quaint garments and antique +head-gear, their powder, and court-swords, and diamond shoe-buckles, +and little loves and little sorrows. + +Vixen walked slowly along the shining gravel-path with her black and +gold mantle folded round her, looking altogether statuesque and +unapproachable. They took one turn in absolute silence, and then +Captain Winstanley, who was not inclined to beat about the bush when he +had something particular to say, and a good opportunity for saying it, +broke the spell. + +This was perhaps the first time, in an acquaintance of more than six +months, that he had ever found himself alone with Violet Tempest, +without hazard of immediate interruption. + +"Miss Tempest," he began, with a firmness of tone that startled her, "I +want to know why you are so unkind to me." + +"I hardly know what you mean by unkindness. I hope I have never said +anything uncivil?" + +"No; but you have let me see very plainly that you dislike me." + +"I am sorry nature has given me an unpleasantly candid disposition." + +Those keen gray eyes of the Captain's were watching her intently. An +angry look shot at her from under the straight dark brows--swift as an +arrow. + +"You admit then that you do not like me?" he said. + +Vixen paused before replying. The position was embarrassing. + +"I suppose if I were ladylike and proper, I should protest that I like +you immensely; that there is no one in the world, my mother excepted, +whom I like better. But I never was particularly proper or polite, +Captain Winstanley, and I must confess there are very few people I do +like, and----" + +"And I am not one of them," said the Captain. + +"You have finished the sentence for me." + +"That is hard upon me--no, Violet, you can never know how hard. Why +should you dislike me? You are the first woman who ever told me so" +(flushing with an indignant recollection of all his victories). "I have +done nothing to offend you. I have not been obtrusive. I have +worshipped at a distance--but the Persian's homage of the sun is not +more reverent----" + +"Oh, pray don't talk about Persians and the sun," cried Violet. "I am +not worthy that you should be so concerned about my likes and dislikes. +Please think of me as an untaught inexperienced girl. Two years ago I +was a spoiled child. You don't know how my dearest father spoiled me. +It is no wonder I am rude. Remember this, and forgive me if I am too +truthful." + +"You are all that is lovely," he exclaimed passionately, stung by her +scorn and fired by her beauty, almost beside himself as they stood +there in the magical moonlight--for once in his life forgetting to +calculate every move on life's chessboard. "You are too lovely for me. +From the very first, in Switzerland, when I was so happy----no, I will +not tell you. I will not lay down my heart to be trampled under your +feet." + +"Don't," cried Violet, transfixing him with the angry fire of her eyes, +"for I'm afraid I should trample on it. I am not one of those gentle +creatures who go out of their way to avoid treading on worms--or other +reptiles." + +"You are as cruel as you are lovely," he said, "and your cruelty is +sweeter than another woman's kindness. Violet, I laugh at your dislike. +Yes, such aversion as that is often the beginning of closest liking. I +will not be disheartened. I will not be put off by your scornful +candour. What if I were to tell you that you are the only woman I ever +loved?" + +"Pray do not. It would transform passive dislike into active hatred. I +should be sorry for that, because," looking at him deliberately, with a +slow scorn, "I think my mother likes you." + +"She has honoured me with her confidence, and I hope I shall not prove +unworthy of the trust. I rarely fail to repay any benefit that is +bestowed upon me." + +"October nights are treacherous," said Vixen, drawing her cloak closer +around her. "I think we had better go back to the ball-room." + +She was shivering a little with agitated feeling, in spite of that +mantle of scorn in which she had wrapped herself. This was the first +man who had ever called her lovely, who had ever talked to her of love +with manhood's strong passion. + +The Captain gave her his arm, and they went back to the glare and heat +of the yellow dragons and scarlet griffins. Another Lancer scramble was +in full progress, to the old-fashioned jigging tunes, but Mrs. Tempest +was sitting among the matrons in a corner by an open window. + +"Are we ever going home any more, mamma?" inquired Vixen. + +"My dear Violet, I have been waiting for you ever so long." + +"Why should you leave so early?" exclaimed Captain Winstanley. "There +are half-a-dozen more dances, and you are engaged for them all, I +believe, Miss Tempest." + +"Then I will show mercy to my partners by going away," said Violet. +"Are all balls as long as this? We seem to have been here ages; I +expect to find my hair gray to-morrow morning." + +"I really think we had better go," said Mrs. Tempest, in her undecided +way. + +She was a person who never quite made up her mind about anything, but +balanced every question gently, letting somebody else turn the scale +for her--her maid, her governess, her daughter; she was always trying +to have her own way, but never quite knew what her own way was, and +just managed things skillfully enough to prevent other people having +theirs. + +"If you are determined, I will see you to your carriage, and then the +ball is over for me," said the Captain gallantly. + +He offered Mrs. Tempest his arm, and they went put into the vestibule, +where the Captain left them for a few minutes, while he went into the +porch to hasten the arrival of the carriage. + +"Where were you and Captain Winstanley all that time, Violet?" asked +Mrs. Tempest. + +"In the garden." + +"How imprudent!" + +"Indeed, dear mamma, it wasn't cold." + +"But you were out there so long. What could you find to talk about all +that time?" + +"We were not talking all the time, only enjoying the cool air and the +moonlight." + +"Mrs. Tempest's carriage!" roared one of the door-keepers, as if it had +been his doing that the carriage had appeared so quickly. + +Captain Winstanley was ready to hand them to their brougham. + +"Come and take a cup of tea to-morrow afternoon, and let as talk over +the ball," said the widow. + +"With infinite pleasure." + +"Shall we drop you at your house?" + +"A thousand thanks--no--my lodgings are so close, I'll walk home." + +He went back for his overcoat, and then walked slowly away, without +another glance at the crowded ball-room, or the corridors where the +ladies who were waiting for their carriages were contriving to improve +the time by a good deal of quiet, or even noisy, flirtation. His +lodgings were on the Old Steine, close by. But he did not go home +immediately. There are times in a man's life when four walls are to +small too hold the bigness of his thoughts. Captain Winstanley paced +the Marine Parade for half-an-hour or so before he went home. + +"_Va pour la mère_," he said to himself, at the close of that half +hour's meditations; "she is really very nice, and the position +altogether advantageous, perhaps as much as one has the right to expect +in the general decadence of things. But, good heavens, how lovely that +girl is! She is the first woman who ever looked me in the face and told +me she disliked me; the first woman who ever gave me contemptuous looks +and scornful words. And yet--for that very reason, perhaps--I----" + +The dark brows contracted over the keen eyes, which seemed closer than +usual to the hawk nose. + +"Look to yourself, my queen, in the time to come," he said, as he +turned his back on the silvery sea and moonlight sky. "You have been +hard to me and I will be hard to you. It shall be measure for measure." + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +"I have no Wrong, where I can claim no Right." + +Going home again. That was hard to bear. It reopened all the old +wounds. Violet Tempest felt as if her heart must really break, as if +this new grief were sharper than the old one, when the carriage drove +in through the familiar gates, in the December dusk, and along the +winding shrubberied road, and up to the Tudor porch, where the lion of +the Tempests stood, _passant regardant_, with lifted paw and backwards +gaze, above the stone shield. The ruddy firelight was shining across +the wide doorway. The old hearth looked as cheerful as of old. And +there stood the empty chair beside it. That had been Vixen's particular +wish. + +"Let nothing be disturbed, dear mamma," she had said ever so many +times, when her mother was writing her orders to the housekeeper. "Beg +them to keep everything just as it was in papa's time." + +"My dear, it will only make you grieve more." + +"Yes; but I had rather grieve for him than forget him. I am more afraid +of forgetting him than of grieving too much for him," said Vixen. + +And now, as she stood on the hearth after her journey, wrapped in black +furs, a little black fur _toque_ crowning her ruddy gold hair, fancy +filled the empty chair as she gazed at it. Yes, she could see her +father sitting there in his hunting-clothes, his whip across his knee. + +The old pointer, the Squire's favourite, came whining to her feet. How +old he looked! Old, and broken, and infirm, as if from much sorrow. + +"Poor Nip! poor Nip!" she said, patting him. "The joy of your life went +with papa, didn't it?" + +"It's all very sad," murmured Mrs. Tempest, loosening her wraps. "A +sad, sad home-coming. And it seems only yesterday that I came here as a +bride. Did I ever tell you about my travelling-dress, Violet? It was a +shot-silk--they were fashionable then, you know--bronze and blue--the +loveliest combination of colour!" + +"I can't imagine a shot-silk being anything but detestable," said Vixen +curtly. "Poor Nip! How faithful dogs are! The dear thing is actually +crying!" + +Tears were indeed running from the poor old eyes, as the pointer's head +lay in Vixen's lap; as if memory, kindled by her image, brought back +the past too keenly for that honest canine heart. + +"It is very mournful," said Mrs. Tempest. "Pauline, let us have a cup +of tea." + +She sank into an arm-chair opposite the fire. Not the squire's old +carved oak-chair, with its tawny leather cushions. That must needs be +sacred evermore--a memento of the dead, standing beside the hearth, +revered as the image of an honoured ancestor in a Roman citizen's home. + +"I wonder if anyone is alive that we knew here?" said Vixen, lying back +in her low chair, and idly caressing the dogs. + +"My dear Violet, why should people be dead? We have only been away two +years." + +"No; but it seems so long. I hardly expect to see any of the old faces. +He is not here," with a sudden choking sob. "Why should all be +left--except him?" + +"The workings of Providence are full of mystery," sighed the widow. +"Dear Edward! How handsome he looked that day he brought me home. And +he was a noble-looking man to the last. Not more than two spoonfuls of +pekoe, Pauline. You ought to know how I like it by this time." + +This to the handmaiden, who was making tea at the gipsy table in front +of the fire--the table at which Vixen and Rorie had drunk tea so +merrily on that young man's birthday. + +After tea mother and daughter went the round of the house. How +familiar, how dear, how strange, how sad all things looked! The +faithful servants had done their duty. Everything was in its place. The +last room they entered was the Squire's study. Here were all his +favourite books. The "Sporting Magazine" from its commencement, in +crimson morocco. "Nimrod" and "The Druid," "Assheton Smith's Memoirs," +and many others of the same class. Books on farming and farriery, on +dogs and guns. Here were the Squire's guns and whips, a motley +collection, all neatly arranged by his own hands. The servants had done +nothing but keep them free from dust. There, by the low and cosy +fireplace, with its tiled hearth, stood the capacious crimson morocco +chair, in which the master of the Abbey House had been wont to sit when +he held audience with his kennel-huntsman, or gamekeeper, his +farm-bailiff, or stud-groom. + +"Mamma, I should like you to lock the door of this room and keep the +key, so that no one may ever come here," said Vixen. + +"My dear, that is just the way to prolong your grief; but I will do it +if you like." + +"Do, dear mamma. Or, if you will let me keep the key, I will come in +and dust the room every day. It would be a pleasure for me, a mournful +one, perhaps, but still a pleasure." + +Mrs. Tempest made no objection, and, when they left the room, Vixen +locked the door and put the key in her pocket. + +Christmas was close at hand. The saddest time for such a home-coming, +Vixen thought. The gardeners brought in their barrows of holly, and +fir, and laurel; but Vixen would take no part in the decoration of hall +and corridors, staircase and gallery--she who in former years had been +so active in the labour. The humble inhabitants of the village rejoiced +in the return of the family at the great house, and Vixen was pleased +to see the kind faces again, the old men and women, the rosy-cheeked +children, and careworn mothers, withered and wrinkled before their time +with manifold anxieties. She had a friendly word for everyone, and +gifts for all. Home was sweet to her after her two years' absence, +despite the cloud of sadness that overhung all things. She went out to +the stables and made friends with the old horses, which had been out at +grass all through the summer, and had enjoyed a paradise of rest for +the last two years. Slug and Crawler, Mrs. Tempest's carriage horses, +sleek even-minded bays, had been at Brighton, and so had Vixen's +beautiful thorough-bred, and a handsome brown for the groom; but all +the rest had stayed in Hampshire. Not one had been sold, though the +stud was a wasteful and useless one for a widow and her daughter. There +was Bullfinch, the hunter Squire Tempest had ridden in his last hour of +life. Violet went into his box, and caressed him, and fed him, and +cried over him with bitterest tears. This home-coming brought back the +old sorrow with overwhelming force. She ran out of the stables to hide +her tears, and ran up to her own room, and abandoned herself to her +grief, almost as utterly as she had done on those dark days when her +father's corpse was lying in the house. + +There was no friendly Miss McCroke now to be fussy and anxious, and to +interpose herself between Violet Tempest and her grief. Violet was +supposed to be "finished," or, in other words, to know everything under +the sun which a young lady of good birth and ample fortune can be +required to know. Everything, in this case, consisted of a smattering +of French, Italian, and German, a dubious recollection of the main +facts in modern history, hazy images of Sennacherib, Helen of Troy, +Semiramis, Cyrus, the Battle of Marathon, Romulus and Remus, the murder +of Julius Caesar, and the loves of Antony and Cleopatra flitting dimly +athwart the cloudy background of an unmapped ancient world, a few vague +notions about astronomy, some foggy ideas upon the constitution of +plants and flowers, sea-weeds and shells, rocks and hills--and a +general indifference for all literature except poetry and novels. + +Miss McCroke, having done her duty conscientiously after her lights, +had now gone to finish three other young ladies, the motherless +daughters of an Anglo-Indian colonel, over whom she was to exercise +maternal authority and guidance, in a tall narrow house in Maida Vale. +She had left Mrs. Tempest with all honours, and Violet had lavished +gifts upon her at parting, feeling fonder of her governess in the last +week of their association than at any other period of her tutelage. +To-day, in her sorrow, it was a relief to Violet to find herself free +from the futile consolations of friendship. She flung herself into the +arm-chair by the fire and sobbed out her grief. + +"Oh, kindest, dearest, best of fathers," she cried, "what is home +without you!" + +And then she remembered that awful day of the funeral when Roderick +Vawdrey had sat with her beside this hearth, and had tried to comfort +her, and remembered how she had heard his voice as a sound far away, a +sound that had no meaning. That was the last time she had seen him. + +"I don't suppose I thanked him for his pity or his kindness," she +thought. "He must have gone away thinking me cold and ungrateful; but I +was like a creature at the bottom of some dark dismal pit. How could I +feel thankful to someone looking down at me and talking to me from the +free happy world at the top?" + +Her sobs ceased gradually, she dried her tears, and that unconscious +pleasure in life which is a part of innocent youth came slowly back. +She looked round the room in which so much of her childhood had been +spent, a room full of her own fancies and caprices, a room whose +prettiness had been bought with her own money, and was for the most +part the work of her own hands. + +In spite of home's sorrowful association she was glad to find herself +at home. Mountains, and lakes, and sunny bays, and dark pathless +forests, may be ever so good to see, but there is something sweet in +our return to the familiar rooms of home; some pleasure in being shut +snugly within four walls, surrounded by one's own belongings. + +The wood-fire burnt merrily, and sparkled on the many-coloured pots and +pans upon the panelled wall; here an Etruscan vase of India red, there +a Moorish water-jar of vivid amber. Outside the deep mullioned windows +the winter blast was blowing, with occasional spurts of flying snow. +Argus crept in presently, and stretched himself at full length upon the +fleecy rug. Vixen lay back in her low chair, musing idly in the glow of +the fire, and by-and-by the lips which had been convulsed with grief +parted in a smile, the lovely brown eyes shone with happy memories. + +She was thinking of her old playfellow and friend, Rorie. + +"I wonder if he will come to-day?" she mused. "I think he will. He is +sure to be at home for the hunting. Yes, he will come to-day. What will +he be like, I wonder? Handsomer than he was two years ago? No, that +could hardly be. He is quite a man now. Three-and-twenty! I must not +laugh at him any more." + +The thought of his coming thrilled her with a new joy. She seemed to +have been living an artificial life in the two years of her absence, to +have been changed in her very self by change of surroundings. It was +almost as if the old Vixen had been sent into an enchanted sleep, while +some other young lady, a model of propriety and good manners, went +about the world in Vixen's shape. Her life had been made up, more or +less, of trifles and foolishness, with a background of grand scenery. +Tepid little friendships with agreeable fellow-travellers at Nice; +tepid little friendships of the same order in Switzerland; well-dressed +young people smiling at each other, and delighting in each other's +company; and parting, probably for ever, without a pang. + +But now she had come back to the friends, the horses, the dogs, the +rooms, the gardens, the fields, the forests of youth, and was going to +be the real Vixen again; the wild, thoughtless, high-spirited girl whom +Squire Tempest and all the peasantry round about had loved. + +"I have been ridiculously well-behaved," she said to herself, "quite a +second edition of mamma. But now I am back in the Forest my good +manners may go hang. 'My foot's on my native heath, and my name is +McGregor.'" + +Somehow in all her thoughts of home--after that burst of grief for her +dead father--Roderick Vawdrey was the central figure. He filled the gap +cruel death had made. + +Would Rorie come soon to see her? Would he be very glad to have her at +home again? What would he think of her? Would he fancy her changed? For +the worse? For the better? + +"I wonder whether he would like my good manners or the original Vixen +best?" she speculated. + +The morning wore on, and still Violet Tempest sat idly by the fire. She +had made up her mind that Roderick would come to see her at once. She +was sufficiently aware of her own importance to feel sure that the fact +of her return had been duly chronicled in the local papers. He would +come to-day--before luncheon, perhaps, and they three, mamma, Rorie, +and herself, would sit at the round table in the library--the snug warm +room where they had so often sat with papa. This thought brought back +the bitterness of her loss. + +"I can bear it better if Rorie is with us," she thought, "and he is +almost sure to come. He would not be so unkind as to delay bidding +welcome to such poor lonely creatures as mamma and I." + +She looked at her little watch--a miniature hunter in a case of black +enamel, with a monogram in diamonds, one of her father's last gifts. It +was one o'clock already, and luncheon would be at half-past. + +"Only half-an-hour for Rorie," she thought. + +The minute-hand crept slowly to the half-hour, the luncheon-gong +sounded below, and there had been no announcement of Mr. Vawdrey. + +"He may be downstairs with mamma all this time," thought Vixen. "Forbes +would not tell me, unless he were sent." + +She went downstairs and met Forbes in the hall. + +"Oh, if you please, ma'am, Mrs. Tempest does not feel equal to coming +down to luncheon. She will take a wing of chicken in her own room." + +"And I don't feel equal to sitting in the library alone, Forbes," said +Violet; "so you may tell Phoebe to bring me a cup of tea and a biscuit. +Has nobody called this morning?" + +"No, ma'am." + +Vixen went back to her room, out of spirits and out of temper. It was +unkind of Rorie, cold, neglectful, heartless. + +"If he had come home after an absence of two years--absence under such +sad circumstances--how anxious I should be to see him," she thought. +"But I don't suppose there is frost enough to stop the hunting, and I +daresay he is tearing across the heather on some big raw-boned horse, +and not giving me a thought. Or perhaps he is dancing attendance upon +Lady Mabel. But no, I don't think he cares much for that kind of thing." + +She moved about the room a little, rearranging things that were already +arranged exactly as she had left them two years ago. She opened a book +and flung it aside; tried the piano, which sounded muffled and woolly. + +"My poor little Broadwood is no better for being out at grass," she +said. + +She went to one of the windows, and stood there looking out, expecting +every instant to see a dog-cart with a rakish horse, a wasp-like body, +and high red wheels, spin round the curve of the shrubbery. She stood +thus for a long time, as she had done on that wet October afternoon of +Rorie's home-coming; but no rakish horse came swinging round the curve +of the carriage-drive. The flying snow drifted past the window; the +winter sky looked blue and clear between the brief showers, the tall +feathery fir-trees and straight slim cypresses stood up against the +afternoon light, and Vixen gazed at them with angry eyes, full of +resentment against Roderick Vawdrey. + +"The ground is too hard for the scent to lie well, that's one comfort," +she reflected savagely. + +And then she thought of the dear old kennels given over to a new +master; the hounds whose names and idiosyncrasies she had known as well +as if they had been human acquaintances. She had lost all interest in +them now. Pouto and Gellert, Lightfoot, Juno, Ringlet, Lord +Dundreary--they had forgotten her, no doubt. + +Here was someone at last, but not the one for whom she was watching. A +figure clothed in a long loose black cloak and slouched felt hat, and +carrying a weedy umbrella, trudged sturdily around the curve, and came +briskly towards the porch. It was Mr. Scobel, the incumbent of the +pretty little Gothic church in the village--a church like a toy. + +He was a good man and a benevolent, this Mr. Scobel; a hard-worker, and +a blessing in the neighbourhood. But just at this moment Violet Tempest +did not feel grateful to him for coming. + +"What does he want?" she thought. "Blankets and coals and things, I +suppose." + +She turned sullenly from the window, and went back to her seat by the +fire, and threw on a log, and gave herself up to disappointment. The +blue winter sky had changed to gray; the light was fading behind the +feathery fir-tops. + +"Perhaps he will come to afternoon tea," she thought; and then, with a +discontented shrug of her shoulders: "No, he is not coming at all. If +he cared about us, he would have been the first to bid us welcome; +knowing, as he must, how miserable it was for me to come home at +all--without papa!" + +She sat looking at the fire. + +"How idle I am!" she mused; "and poor Crokey did so implore me to go on +with my education, and read good useful books and enlarge my mind. I +don't think my poor little mind would bear any more stretching, or that +I should be much happier if I knew all about Central Africa, and the +nearest way from Hindostan to China, or old red sandstone, and +tertiary, and the rest of them. What does it matter to me what the +earth is made of, if I can but be happy upon it? No, I shall never try +to be a highly cultivated young woman. I shall read Byron, and +Tennyson, and Wordsworth, and Keats, and Bulwer, and Dickens, and +Thackeray, and remain an ignoramus all the days of my life. I think +that would be quite enough for Rorie, if he and I were to be much +together; for I don't believe he ever opens a book at all. And what +would be the use of my talking to him about old red sandstone or the +centre of Africa?" + +Phoebe, Miss Tempest's fresh-faced Hampshire maid, appeared at this +moment. + +"Oh, if you please, miss, your ma says would you go to the +drawing-room? Mr. Scobel is with her, and would like to see you." + +Violet rose with a sigh. + +"Is my hair awfully untidy, Phoebe?" + +"I think I had better arrange the plaits, miss." + +"That means that I'm an object. It's four o'clock; I may as well change +my dress for dinner. I suppose I must go down to dinner?" + +"Lor' yes, miss; it will never do to shut yourself up in your own room +and fret. You're as pale as them there Christmas roses already." + +Ten minutes later Vixen went down to the drawing-room, looking very +stately in her black Irish poplin, whose heavy folds became the tall +full figure, and whose dense blackness set off the ivory skin and warm +auburn hair. She had given just one passing glance at herself in the +cheval-glass, and Vanity had whispered: + +"Perhaps Rorie would have thought me improved; but he has not taken the +trouble to come and see. I might be honeycombed by the small-pox, or +bald from the effects of typhus, for aught he cares." + +The drawing-room was all aglow with blazing logs, and the sky outside +the windows looking pale and gray, when Violet went in. Mrs. Tempest +was in her favourite arm-chair by the fire, Tennyson's latest poem on +the velvet-coloured gipsy table at her side, in company with a large +black fan and a smelling-bottle. Mr. Scobel was sitting in a low chair +on the other side of the hearth, with his knees almost up to his chin +and his trousers wrinkled up ever so far above his stout Oxford shoes, +leaving a considerable interval of gray stocking. He was a man of about +thirty, pale, and unpretending of aspect, who fortified his native +modesty with a pair of large binoculars, which interposed a kind of +barrier between himself and the outer world. + +He rose as Violet came towards him, and turned the binoculars upon her, +glittering in the glow of the fire. + +"How tall you have grown," he cried, when they had shaken hands. "And +how----" here he stopped, with a little nervous laugh; "I really don't +think I should have known you if we had met elsewhere." + +"Perhaps Rorie would hardly know me," thought Vixen. + +"How are all the poor people?" she asked, when Mr. Scobel had resumed +his seat, and was placidly caressing his knees, and blinking, or +seeming to blink, at the fire with his binoculars. + +"Oh, poor souls!" he sighed. "There has been a great deal of sickness +and distress, and want of work. Yes, a very great deal. The winter +began early, and we have had some severe weather. James Parsons is in +prison again for rabbit-snaring. I'm really afraid James is +incorrigible. Mrs. Roper's eldest son, Tom--I daresay you remember Tom, +an idle little ruffian, who was always birdnesting--has managed to get +himself run over by a pair of Lord Ellangowan's waggon-horses, and now +Lady Ellangowan is keeping the whole family. An aunt came from +Salisbury to sit up with the boy, and was quite angry because Lady +Ellangowan did not pay her for nursing him." + +"That's the worst of the poor," said Mrs. Tempest languidly, the +firelight playing upon her diamond rings, as she took her fan from the +velvet table and slowly unfolded it, to protect her cheek from the +glare, "they are never satisfied." + +"Isn't it odd they are not," cried Vixen, coming suddenly out of a deep +reverie, "when they have everything that can make life delightful?" + +"I don't know about everything, Violet; but really, when they have such +nice cottages as your dear papa built for them, so well-drained and +ventilated, they ought to be more contented." + +"What a comfort good drainage and ventilation must be, when there is no +bread in the larder!" said Violet. + +"My dear, it is ridiculous to talk in that way; just in the style of +horrid Radical newspapers. I am sure the poor have an immense deal done +for them. Look at Mr. Scobel, is he not always trying to help them?" + +"I do what I can," said the clergyman modestly; "but I only wish it +were more. An income of sixteen shillings a week for a family of seven +requires a good deal of ekeing out. If it were not for the assistance I +get here, and in one or two other directions, things would be very bad +in Beechdale." + +Beechdale was the name of the village nearest the Abbey House, the +village to which belonged Mr. Scobel's toy-church. + +"Of course, we must have the usual distribution of blanket and wearing +apparel on Christmas Eve," said Mrs. Tempest. "It will seem very sad +without my dear husband. But we came home before Christmas on purpose." + +"How good of you! It was very sad last year when the poor people came +up to the Hall to receive your gifts, and there were no familiar faces, +except the servants. There were a good many tears shed over last year's +blankets, I assure you." + +"Poor dear things!" sighed Mrs. Tempest, not making it too clear +whether she meant the blankets, or the recipients thereof. + +Violet said nothing after her little ironical protest about the poor. +She sat opposite the fire, between her mother and Mr. Scobel, but at +some distance from both. The ruddy light glowed on her ruddy hair, and +lit up her pale cheeks, and shone in her brilliant eyes. The incumbent +of Beechdale thought he had never seen anything so lovely. She was like +a painted window; a Madonna, with the glowing colour of Rubens, the +divine grace of Raffaelle. And those little speeches about the poor had +warmed his heart. He was Violet's friend and champion from that moment. + +Mrs. Tempest fanned herself listlessly. + +"I wish Forbes would bring the tea," she said. + +"Shall I ring, mamma?" + +"No, dear. They have not finished tea in the housekeeper's room, +perhaps. Forbes doesn't like to be disturbed. Is there any news, Mr. +Scobel? We only came home yesterday evening, and have seen no one." + +"News! Well, no, I think not much. Lady Ellangowan has got a new +orchid." + +"And there has been a new baby, too, hasn't there?" + +"Oh yes. But nobody talks about the baby, and everybody is in raptures +with the orchid." + +"What is it like?" + +"Rather a fine boy. I christened him last week." + +"I mean the orchid." + +"Oh, something really magnificent; a brilliant blue, a butterfly-shaped +blossom that positively looks as if it were alive. They say Lord +Ellangowan gave five hundred guineas for it. People come from the other +side of the county to see it." + +"I think you are all orchid mad," exclaimed Mrs. Tempest. "Oh, here +comes the tea!" as Forbes entered with the old silver tray and Swansea +cups and saucers. "You'll take some, of course, Mr. Scobel. I cannot +understand this rage for orchids--old china, or silver, or lace, I can +understand, but orchids--things that require no end of trouble to keep +them alive, and which I daresay are as common as buttercups and daisies +in the savage places where they grow. There is Lady Jane Vawdrey now, a +perfect slave to the orchid-houses." + +Violet's face flamed crimson at this mention of Lady Jane. Not for +worlds would she have asked a question about her old playfellow, though +she was dying to hear about him. Happily no one saw that sudden blush, +or it passed for a reflection of the fire-glow. + +"Poor Lady Jane!" sighed the incumbent of Beechdale, looking very +solemn, "she has gone to a land in which there are fairer flowers than +ever grew on the banks of the Amazon." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Surely you have heard----" + +"Nothing," exclaimed Mrs. Tempest. "I have corresponded with nobody but +my housekeeper while I have been away. I am a wretched correspondent at +the best of times, and, after dear Edward's death, I was too weary, too +depressed, to write letters. What is the matter with Lady Jane Vawdrey?" + +"She died at Florence last November of bronchitis. She was very ill +last winter, and had to be taken to Cannes for the early part of the +year; but she came back in April quite well and strong, as everyone +supposed, and spent the summer at Briarwood. Her doctors told her, +however, that she was not to risk another winter in England, so in +September she went to Italy, taking Lady Mabel with her." + +"And Roderick?" inquired Vixen, "He went with them of course." + +"Naturally," replied Mr. Scobel. "Mr. Vawdrey was with his mother till +the last." + +"Very nice of him," murmured Mrs. Tempest approvingly; "for, in a +general way, I don't think they got on too well together. Lady Jane was +rather dictatorial. And now, I suppose, Roderick will marry his cousin +as soon as he is out of mourning." + +"Why should you suppose so, mamma?" exclaimed Violet. "It is quite a +mistake of yours about their being engaged. Roderick told me so +himself. He was not engaged to Lady Mabel. He had not the least idea of +marrying her." + +"He has altered his mind since then, I conclude," said Mr. Scobel +cheerily--those binoculars of his could never have seen through a +stone-wall, and were not much good at seeing things under his +nose--"for it is quite a settled thing that Mr. Vawdrey and Lady Mabel +are to be married. It will be a splendid match for him, and will make +him the largest landowner in the Forest, for Ashbourne is settled on +Lady Mabel. The Duke bought it himself, you know, and it is not in the +entail," added the incumbent, explaining a fact that was as familiar as +the church catechism to Violet, who sat looking straight at the fire, +holding her head as high as Queen Guinevere after she had thrown the +diamonds out of window. + +"I always knew that it would be so," said Mrs. Tempest, with the air of +a sage. "Lady Jane had set her heart upon it. Worldly greatness was her +idol, poor thing! It is sad to think of her being snatched away from +everything. What has become of the orchids?" + +"Lady Jane left them to her niece. They are building houses to receive +them at Ashbourne." + +"Rather a waste of money, isn't it?" suggested Violet, in a cold hard +voice. "Why not let them stay at Briarwood till Lady Mabel is mistress +there?" + +Mr. Scobel did not enter into this discussion. He sat serenely gazing +at the fire, and sipping his tea, enjoying this hour of rest and warmth +after a long day's fatigue and hard weather. He had an Advent service +at seven o'clock that evening, and would but just have time to tramp +home through the winter dark, and take a hurried meal, before he ran +across to his neat little vestry and shuffled on his surplice, while +Mrs. Scobel played her plaintive voluntary on the twenty-guinea +harmonium. + +"And where is young Vawdrey now?" inquired Mrs. Tempest blandly. + +She could only think of the Squire of Briarwood as the lad from +Eton--clumsy, shy, given to breaking teacups, and leaving the track of +his footsteps in clay or mud upon the Aubusson carpets. + +"He has not come home yet. The Duke and Duchess went to Florence just +before Lady Jane's death, and I believe Mr. Vawdrey is with them in +Rome. Briarwood has been shut up since September." + +"Didn't I tell you, mamma, that somebody would be dead," cried Violet. +"I felt when we came into this house yesterday evening, that everything +in our lives was changed." + +"I should hardly think mourning can be very becoming to Lady Mabel," +ruminated Mrs. Tempest. "Those small sylph-like figures rarely look +well in black." + +Mr. Scobel rose with an effort to make his adieux. The delicious warmth +of the wood-fire, the perfume of arbutus logs, had made him sleepy. + +"You'll come and see our new school, I hope," he said to Violet, as +they shook hands. "You and your dear mamma have contributed so largely +to its erection that you have a right to be critical; but I really +think you will be pleased." + +"We'll come to-morrow afternoon, if it's fine," said Mrs. Tempest +graciously. "You must bring Mrs. Scobel to dinner at seven, and then we +can talk over all we have seen." + +"You are very kind. I've my young women's scripture-class at a +quarter-past eight; but if you will let me run away for an hour----" + +"Certainly." + +"I can come back for Mrs. Scobel. Thanks. We shall be delighted." + +When he was gone, Violet walked towards the door without a word to her +mother. + +"Violet, are you going away again? Pray stop, child, and let us have a +chat." + +"I have nothing to talk about, mamma." + +"Nonsense. You have quite deserted me since we came home. And do you +suppose I don't feel dull and depressed as well as you? It is not +dutiful conduct, Violet. I shall really have to engage a companion if +you go on so. Miss McCroke was dreary, but she was not altogether +uncompanionable. One could talk to her." + +"You had better have a companion, mamma. Someone who will be lively, +and talk pleasantly about nothing particular all day long. No doubt a +well-trained companion can do that. She has an inexhaustible +well-spring of twaddle in her own mind. I feel as if I could never be +cheerful again." + +"We had better have stopped at Brighton----" + +"I hate Brighton!" + +"Where we knew so many nice people----" + +"I detest nice people!" + +"Violet, do you know that you have an abominable temper?" + +"I know that I am made up of wickedness!" answered Vixen vehemently. + +She left the room without another word, and went straight to her den +upstairs, not to throw herself on the ground, and abandon herself to a +childish unreasoning grief, as she had done on the night of Roderick's +coming of age, but to face the situation boldly. She walked up and down +the dim fire-lit room, thinking of what she had just heard. + +"What does it matter to me? Why should I be so angry?" she asked +herself. "We were never more than friends and playfellows. And I think +that, on the whole, I rather disliked him. I know I was seldom civil to +him. He was papa's favourite. I should hardly have tolerated him but +for that." + +She felt relieved at having settled this point in her mind. Yet there +was a dull blank sense of loss, a vague aching in her troubled heart, +which she could not get rid of easily. She walked to and fro, to and +fro, while the fire faded out and the pale windows darkened. + +"I hate myself for being so vexed about this," she said, clasping her +hands above her head with a vehemence that showed the intensity of her +vexation. "Could I--I--Violet Tempest--ever be so despicable a creature +as to care for a man who does not care for me; to be angry, sorry, +broken-hearted, because a man does not want me for his wife? Such a +thing is not possible; if it were, I think I would kill myself. I +should be ashamed to live. I could not look human beings in the face. I +should take poison, or turn Roman Catholic and go into a convent, where +I should never see the face of a man again. No; I am not such an odious +creature. I have no regard for Rorie except as my old playfellow, and +when he comes home I will walk straight up to him and give him my hand, +and congratulate him heartily on his approaching marriage. Perhaps Lady +Mabel will ask me to be one of her bridesmaids. She will have a round +dozen, I daresay. Six in pink, and six in blue, no doubt, like wax +dolls at a charity-fair. Why can't people be married without making +idiots of themselves?" + +The half-hour gong sounded at this moment, and Vixen ran down to the +drawing-room, where the candles and lamps were lighted, and where there +was plenty of light literature lying about to distract the troubled +mind. Violet went to her mother's chair and knelt beside it. + +"Dear mamma, forgive me for being cross just now," she said gently; "I +was out of spirits. I will try to be better company in future--so that +you may not be obliged to engage a companion." + +"My dear, I don't wonder at your feeling low-spirited," replied Mrs. +Tempest graciously. "This place is horribly dull. How we ever endured +it, even in your dear papa's time, is more than I can understand. It is +like living on the ground-floor of one of the Egyptian pyramids. We +must really get some nice people about us, or we shall both go +melancholy mad." + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +"He belongs to the Tame-Cat Species." + +Life went on smoothly enough at the Abbey House after that evening. +Violet tried to make herself happy among the surroundings of her +childhood, petted the horses, drove her basket-carriage with the +favourite old pony, went among the villagers, rode her thoroughbred bay +for long wild explorations of the Forest and neighbouring country, +looked with longing eyes, sometimes, at the merry groups riding to the +meet, and went her lonely way with a heavy heart. No more hunting for +her. She could not hunt alone, and she had declined all friendly offers +of escort. It would have seemed a treason against her beloved dead to +ride across country by anyone else's side. + +Everyone had called at the Abbey House and welcomed Mrs. Tempest and +her daughter back to Hampshire. They had been asked to five-o'clock at +Ellangowan Park, to see the marvellous orchid. They had been invited to +half-a-dozen dinner-parties. + +Violet tried her utmost to persuade her mother that it was much too +soon after her father's death to think of visiting. + +"My dear Violet," cried the widow, "after going to that ball at +Brighton, we could not possibly decline invitations here. It would be +an insult to our friends. If we had not gone to the ball----" + +"We ought not to have gone," exclaimed Vixen. + +"My love, you should have said so at the time." + +"Mamma, you know I was strongly against it." + +Mrs. Tempest shrugged her shoulders as who should say, "This is too +much!" + +"I know your dress cost a small fortune, and that you danced every +waltz, Violet," she answered, "that is about all I do know." + +"Very well, mamma, let us accept all the invitations. Let us be as +merry as grigs. Perhaps it will make papa more comfortable in Paradise +to know how happy we are without him. He won't be troubled by any +uneasy thoughts about our grief, at all events," added Vixen, with a +stifled sob. + +"How irreverently you talk. Mr. Scobel would be dreadfully shocked to +hear you." said Mrs. Tempest. + +The invitations were all accepted, and Mrs. Tempest for the rest of the +winter was in a flutter about her dresses. She was very particular as +to the exact shade of silver-gray or lavender which might be allowed to +relieve the sombre mass of black; and would spend a whole morning in +discussing the propriety of a knot of scarlet ribbon, or a border of +gold passementerie. + +They went to Ellangowan Park and did homage to the wonderful orchid, +and discussed Roderick's engagement to the Duke's only daughter. +Everybody said that it was Lady Jane's doing, and there were some who +almost implied that she had died on purpose to bring about the happy +conjuncture. Violet was able to talk quite pleasantly about the +marriage, and to agree with everybody's praises of Lady Mabel's beauty, +elegance, good style, and general perfection. + +Christmas and the New Year went by, not altogether sadly. It is not +easy for youth to be full of sorrow. The clouds come and go, there are +always glimpses of sunshine. Violet was grateful for the kindness that +greeted her everywhere among her old friends, and perhaps a little glad +of the evident admiration accorded to her beauty in all circles. Life +was just tolerable, after all. She thought of Roderick Vawdrey as of +something belonging to the past; something which had no part, never +would have any part, in her future life. He too was dead and passed +away, like her father. Lady Mabel's husband, the master of Briarwood +_in esse_, and of Ashbourne _in posse_, was quite a different being +from the rough lad with whom she had played at battledore and +shuttlecock, billiards, croquet, and rounders. + +Early in February Mrs. Tempest informed her daughter that she was going +to give a dinner. + +"It will seem very dreadful without dearest Edward," she said; "but of +course having accepted hospitalities, we are bound to return them." + +"Do you really think we ought to burst out into dinner-parties so soon, +mamma?" + +"Yes, dear, as we accepted the dinners. If we had not gone it would +have been different." + +"Ah," sighed Vixen, "I suppose it all began with that ball at Brighton, +like 'Man's first disobedience, and the fruit----'" + +"I shall miss poor McCroke to fill in the invitation cards." + +"Let me do it, mamma. I can write a decent hand. That is one of the few +ladylike accomplishments I have been able to master; and even that is +open to objection as being too masculine." + +"If you would slope more, Violet, and make your up-strokes finer, and +not cross your T's so undeviatingly," Mrs. Tempest murmured amiably. "A +lady's T ought to be less pronounced. There is something too assertive +in your consonants." + +Violet wrote the cards. The dinner was to be quite a grand affair, +three weeks' notice, and a French cook from The Dolphin at Southampton +to take the conduct of affairs in the kitchen; whereby the Abbey House +cook declared afterwards that there was nothing that Frenchman did +which she could not have done as well, and that his wastefulness was +enough to make a Christian woman's hair stand on end. + +Three days before the dinner, Vixen, riding Arion home through the +shrubbery, after a long morning in the Forest, was startled by the +vision of a dog-cart a few yards in front of her, a cart, which, at the +first glance, she concluded must belong to Roderick Vawdrey. The wheels +were red, the horse had a rakish air, the light vehicle swung from side +to side as it spun around the curve. + +No, that slim figure, that neat waist, that military air did not belong +to Roderick Vawdrey. + +"He here!" ejaculated Vixen inwardly, with infinite disgust. "I thought +we had seen the last of him." + +She had been out for two hours and a half, and felt that Arion had done +quite enough, or she would have turned her horse's head and gone back +to the Forest, in order to avoid this unwelcome visitor. + +"I only hope mamma won't encourage him to come here," she thought; "but +I'm afraid that smooth tongue of his has too much influence over her. +And I haven't even poor Crokey to stand by me. I shall feel like a bird +transfixed by the wicked green eyes of a velvet-pawed murdering cat." + +"And I have not a friend in the world," she thought. "Plenty of +pleasant acquaintance, ready to simper at me and pay me compliments, +because I am Miss Tempest of the Abbey House, but not one honest friend +to stand by me, and turn that man out of doors. How dare he come here? +I thought I spoke plainly enough that night at Brighton." + +She rode slowly up to the house, slipped lightly out of her saddle, and +led her horse round to the stables, just as she had led the pony in her +happy childish days. The bright thoroughbred bay was as fond of her as +if he had been a dog, and as tame. She stood by his manger caressing +him while he ate his corn, and feeling very safe from Captain +Winstanley's society in the warm clover-scented stable. + +She dawdled away half-a-hour in this manner, before she went back to +the house, and ran up to her dressing-room. + +"If mamma sends for me now, I shan't be able to go down," she thought. +"He can hardly stay more than an hour. Oh, horror! he is a tea-drinker; +mamma will persuade him to stop till five o'clock." + +Violet dawdled over her change of dress as she had dawdled in the +stable. She had never been more particular about her hair. + +"I'll have it all taken down, Phoebe," she told her Abigail; "I'm in no +hurry." + +"But really, miss, it's beautiful----" + +"Nonsense after a windy ride; don't be lazy, Phoebe. You may give my +hair a good brushing while I read." + +A tap at the door came at this moment, and Phoebe ran to open it. + +"Mrs. Tempest wishes Miss Tempest to come down to the drawing-room +directly," said a voice in the corridor. + +"There now, miss," cried Phoebe, "how lucky I didn't take your hair +down. It never was nicer." + +Violet put on her black dress, costly and simple as the attire Polonius +recommended to his son. Mrs. Tempest might relieve her costume with +what bright or delicate hues she liked. Violet had worn nothing but +black since her father's death. Her sole ornaments were a pair of black +earrings, and a large black enamel locket, with one big diamond shining +in the middle of it, like an eye. This locket held the Squire's +portrait, and his daughter wore it constantly. + +The Louis Quatorze clock on the staircase struck five as Violet went +down. + +"Of course he is staying for tea," she thought, with an impatient shrug +of her shoulders. "He belongs to the tame-cat species, and has an +inexhaustible flow of gossip, spiced with mild malevolence. The kind of +frivolous ill-nature which says: 'I would not do anyone harm for the +world, but one may as well think the worst of everybody.'" + +Yes, kettledrum was in full swing. Mrs. Scobel had come over from her +tiny Vicarage for half-an-hour's chat, and was sitting opposite her +hostess's fire, while Captain Winstanley lounged with his back to the +canopied chimneypiece, and looked benignantly down upon the two ladies. +The Queen Anne kettle was hissing merrily over its spirit-lamp, the +perfume of the pekoe was delicious, the logs blazed cheerily in the low +fireplace, with its shining brass andirons. Not a repulsive picture, +assuredly; yet Vixen came slowly towards this charming circle, looking +black as thunder. + +Captain Winstanley hurried forward to receive her. + +"How do you do?" she said, as stiffly as a child brought down to the +drawing-room, bristling in newly-brushed hair and a best frock, and +then turning to her mother, she asked curtly: "What did you want with +me, mamma?" + +"It was Captain Winstanley who asked to see you, my dear. Won't you +have some tea?" + +"Thanks, no," said Vixen, seating herself in a corner between Mrs. +Scobel and the mantelpiece, and beginning to talk about the schools. + +Conrad Winstanley gave her a curious look from under his dark brows, +and then went on talking to her mother. He seemed hardly disconcerted +by her rudeness. + +"Yes, I assure you, if it hadn't been for the harriers, Brighton would +have been unbearable after you left," he said. "I ran across to Paris +directly the frost set in. But I don't wonder you were anxious to come +back to such a lovely old place as this." + +"I felt it a duty to come back," said Mrs. Tempest, with a pious air. +"But it was very sad at first. I never felt so unhappy in my life. I am +getting more reconciled now. Time softens all griefs." + +"Yes," said the Captain, in a louder tone than before, "Time is a +clever horse. There is nothing he won't beat if you know how to ride +him." + +"You'll take some tea?" insinuated Mrs. Tempest, her attention absorbed +by the silver kettle, which was just now conducting itself as +spitfireishly as any blackened block-tin on a kitchen hob. + +"I can never resist it. And perhaps after tea you will be so good as to +give me the treat you talked about just now." + +"To show you the house?" said Mrs. Tempest. "Do you think we shall have +light enough?" + +"Abundance. An old house like this is seen at its best in the twilight. +Don't you think so, Mrs. Scobel?" + +"Oh, yes," exclaimed Mrs. Scobel, with a lively recollection of her +album. "'They who would see Melrose aright, should see it'--I think, +by-the-bye, Sir Walter Scott says, 'by moonlight.'" + +"Yes, for an ancient Gothic abbey; but twilight is better for a Tudor +manor-house. Are you sure it will not fatigue you?" inquired the +Captain, with an air of solicitude, as Mrs. Tempest rose languidly. + +"No; I shall be very pleased to show you the dear old place. It is full +of sad associations, of course, but I do not allow my mind to dwell +upon them more than I can help." + +"No," cried Vixen bitterly. "We go to dinner-parties and kettledrums, +and go into raptures about orchids and old china, and try to cure our +broken hearts that way." + +"Are you coming, Violet?" asked her mother sweetly. + +"No, thanks, mamma. I am tired after my ride. Mrs. Scobel will help you +to play cicerone." + +Captain Winstanley left the room without so much as a look at Violet +Tempest. Yet her rude reception had galled him more than any cross that +fate had lately inflicted upon him. He had fancied that time would have +softened her feeling towards him, that rural seclusion and the society +of rustic nobodies would have made him appear at an advantage, that she +would have welcomed the brightness and culture of metropolitan life in +his person. He had hoped a great deal from the lapse of time since +their last meeting. But this sullen reception, this silent expression +of dislike, told him that Violet Tempest's aversion was a plant of deep +root. + +"The first woman who ever disliked me," he thought. "No wonder that she +interests me more than other women. She is like that chestnut mare that +threw me six times before I got the better of her. Yet she proved the +best horse I ever had, and I rode her till she hadn't a leg to stand +upon, and then sold her for twice the money she cost me. There are two +conquests a man can make over a woman, one to make her love him, the +other----" + +"That suit of chain-armour was worn by Sir Gilbert Tempest at Acre," +said the widow. "The plate-armour belonged to Sir Percy, who was killed +at Barnet. Each of them was knighted before he was five-and-twenty +years old, for prowess in the field. The portrait over the chimneypiece +is the celebrated Judge Tempest, who was famous for----Well, he did +something wonderful, I know. Perhaps Mrs. Scobel remembers," concluded +Mrs. Tempest, feebly. + +"It was at the trial of the seven bishops," suggested the Vicar's wife. + +"In the time of Queen Elizabeth," assented Mrs. Tempest. "That one with +the lace cravat and steel breastplate was an admiral in Charles the +Second's reign, and was made a baronet for his valiant behaviour when +the Dutch fleet were at Chatham. The baronetcy died with his son, who +left only daughters. The eldest married a Mr. Percival, who took the +name of Tempest, and sat for the borough of----Perhaps Mrs. Scobel +knows. I have such a bad memory for these things; though I have heard +my dear husband talk about them often." + +Captain Winstanley looked round the great oak-panelled hall dreamily, +and heard very little of Mrs. Tempest's vague prattling about her +husband's ancestors. + +What a lovely old place, he was thinking. A house that would give a man +importance in the land, supported, as it was, by an estate bringing in +something between five and six thousand a year. How much military +distinction, how many battles must a soldier win before he could make +himself master of such a fortune? + +"And it needed but for that girl to like me, and a little gold ring +would have given me the freehold of it all," thought Conrad Winstanley +bitterly. + +How many penniless girls, or girls with fortunes so far beneath the +measure of a fine gentleman's needs as to be useless, had been over +head and ears in love with the elegant Captain; how many pretty girls +had tempted him by their beauty and winsomeness to be false to his +grand principle that marriage meant promotion. And here was an +obstinate minx who would have realised all his aims, and whom he felt +himself able to love to distraction into the bargain; and, behold, some +adverse devil had entered into her mind, and made Conrad Winstanley +hateful to her. + +"It's like witchcraft," he said to himself. "Why should this one woman +be different from all other women? Perhaps it's the colour. That ruddy +auburn hair, the loveliest I ever saw, means temper. But I conquered +the chestnut, and I'll conquer Miss Tempest--or make her smart for it." + +"A handsome music-gallery, is it not?" said the widow. "The carved +balustrade is generally admired." + +Then they went into the dining-room, and looked cursorily at about a +dozen large dingy pictures of the Italian school, which a man who knew +anything about art would have condemned at a glance. Fine examples of +brown varnish, all of them. Thence to the library, lined with its +carved-oak dwarf bookcases, containing books which nobody had opened +for a generation--Livy, Gibbon, Hume, Burke, Smollett, Plutarch, +Thomson. These sages, clad in shiny brown leather and gilding, made as +good a lining for the walls as anything else, and gave an air of +snugness to the room in which the family dined when there was no +company. + +They came presently to the Squire's den, at the end of a corridor. + +"That was my dear husband's study," sighed Mrs. Tempest. "It looks +south, into the rose garden, and is one of the prettiest rooms in the +house. But we keep it locked, and I think Violet has the key." + +"Pray don't let Miss Tempest be disturbed," said Captain Winstanley. "I +have seen quite enough to know what a delightful house you have--all +the interest of days that are gone, all the luxuries of to-day. I think +that blending of past and present is most fascinating. I should never +be a severe restorer of antiquity, or refuse to sit in a chair that +wasn't undeniably Gothic." + +"Ah," sighed the Vicar's wife, who was an advanced disciple in the +school of Eastlake, "but don't you think everything should be in +harmony? If I were as rich as Mrs. Tempest, I wouldn't have so much as +a teapot that was not strictly Tudor." + +"Then I'm afraid you'd have to go without a teapot, and drink your tea +out of a tankard," retorted Captain Winstanley. + +"At any rate, I would be as Tudor as I could be." + +"And not have a brass bedstead, a spring mattress, a moderator lamp, or +a coal-scuttle in your house," said the captain. "My dear madam, it is +all very well to be mediaeval in matters ecclesiastic, but home +comforts must not be sacrificed in the pursuit of the aesthetic, or a +modern luxury discarded because it looks like an anachronism." + +Mrs. Scobel was delighted with Captain Winstanley. He was just the kind +of man to succeed in a rustic community. His quiet self-assurance set +other people at their ease. He carried with him an air of life and +movement, as if he were the patentee of a new pleasure. + +"My husband would be so pleased to see you at the Vicarage, if you are +staying any time in the neighbourhood," she said. + +But after this little gush of friendliness, she reflected that there +could not be much sympathy between the man of society and her Anglican +parson; and that it was she, and not Ignatius Scobel, who would be glad +to see Captain Winstanley at the Vicarage. + +"I shall be charmed," he replied. "I never was so delighted with any +place as your Forest. It is a new world to me. I hate myself for having +lived in England so long without knowing this beautiful corner of the +land. I am staying with my old chief, Colonel Pryke, at Warham Court, +and I'm only here for a few days." + +"But you are coming to my dinner-party?" said Mrs. Tempest. + +"That is a pleasure I cannot deny myself." + +"And you will come and see our church and schools?" said Mrs. Scobel. + +"I shall be more than pleased. I passed your pretty little church, I +think, on my way here. There was a tin tea-ket--a bell ringing----" + +"For vespers," exclaimed Mrs. Scobel. + +The exploration of the house took a long time, conducted in this +somewhat desultory and dawdling manner; but the closing in of night and +the sound of the dinner-gong gave the signal for Captain Winstanley's +departure. + +Mrs. Tempest would have liked to ask him to dinner; but she had an idea +that Violet might make herself objectionable, and refrained from this +exercise of hospitality. He was coming to the great dinner. He would +see her dress with the feather trimming, which was really prettier than +Worth's masterpiece, or, at any rate, newer; though it only came from +Madame Theodore, of Bruton Street. Sustained by this comforting +reflection, she parted with him quite cheerfully. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +"He was worthy to be loved a Lifetime." + +Conrad Winstanley had come to the New Forest with his mind resolved +upon one of two things. He meant to marry Violet Tempest or her mother. +If the case was quite hopeless with the daughter, he would content +himself with winning the lesser prize; and though Vanity whispered that +there was no woman living he might not win for himself if he chose to +be sufficiently patient and persevering, instinct told him that Violet +frankly detested him. + +"After all," argued Worldly Wisdom, "the alternative is not to be +despised. The widow is somewhat rococo; an old-fashioned jewel kept in +cotton-wool, and brought out on occasions to shine with a factitious +brilliancy, like old Dutch garnets backed with tinfoil; but she is +still pretty. She is ductile, amiable, and weak to a degree that +promises a husband the sovereign dominion. Why break your heart for +this fair devil of a daughter, who looks capable, if offended, of +anything in the way of revenge, from a horsewhip to slow poison? Are a +pair of brown eyes and a coronal of red gold hair worth all this wasted +passion?" + +"But the daughter is the greater catch," urged Ambition. "The dowager's +jointure is well enough, and she has the Abbey House and gardens for +her life, but Violet will be sole mistress of the estate when she comes +of age. As Violet's husband, your position would be infinitely better +than it could be as her stepfather. Unhappily, the cantankerous minx +has taken it into her head to dislike you." + +"Stay," interjected the bland voice of Vanity; "may not this dislike be +only an assumption, a mask for some deeper feeling? There are girls who +show their love in that way. Do not be in a hurry to commit yourself to +the mother until you have made yourself quite sure about the daughter." + +Mrs. Tempest's dinner-party was a success. It introduced Captain +Winstanley to all that was best in the surrounding society; for +although in Switzerland he had seemed very familiar with the best +people in the Forest, in Hampshire he appeared almost a stranger to +them. It was generally admitted, however, that the Captain was an +acquisition, and a person to be cultivated. He sang a French comic song +almost as well as Monsieur de Roseau, recited a short Yankee poem, +which none of his audience had ever heard before, with telling force. +He was at home upon every subject, from orchids to steam-ploughs, from +ordnance to light literature. A man who sang so well, talked so well, +looked so well, and behaved so well, could not be otherwise than +welcome in county society. Before the evening was over, Captain +Winstanley had been offered three hunters for the next day's run, and +had been asked to write in four birthday-books. + +Violet did not honour him with so much as a look, after her one cold +recognition of his first appearance in the drawing-room. It was a party +of more than twenty people, and she was able to keep out of his way +without obvious avoidance of him. He was stung, but had no right to be +offended. + +He took Mrs. Scobel in to dinner, and Mrs. Scobel played the +accompaniment of his song, being a clever little woman, able to turn +her hand to any thing. He would have preferred to be told off to some +more important matron, but was not sorry to be taken under Mrs. +Scobel's wing. She could give him the carte du pays, and would be +useful to him, no doubt, in the future; a social Iris, to fetch and +carry for him between Beechdale and the Abbey House. + +"Do you know that I am quite in love with your Forest?" he said to Mrs. +Tempest, standing in front of the ottoman where that lady sat with two +of her particular friends; "so much so, that I am actually in treaty +for Captain Hawbuck's cottage, and mean to stay here till the end of +the hunting." + +Everybody knew Captain Hawbuck's cottage, a verandahed box of a house, +on the slope of the hill above Beechdale. + +"I'm afraid you'll find the drawing-room chimney smokes," said a +matter-of-fact lady in sea-green; "poor Mrs. Hawbuck was a martyr to +that chimney." + +"What does a bachelor want with a drawing-room? If there is one +sitting-room in which I can burn a good fire, I shall be satisfied. The +stable is in very fair order." + +"The Hawbucks kept a pony-carriage," assented the sea-green lady. + +"If Mrs. Hawbuck accepts my offer, I shall send for my horses next +week," said the Captain. + +Mrs. Tempest blushed. Her life had flowed in so gentle and placid a +current, that the freshness of her soul had not worn off, and at +nine-and-thirty she was able to blush. There was something so +significant in Captain Winstanley's desire to establish himself at +Beechdale, that she could not help feeling fluttered by the fact. It +might be on Violet's account, of course, that he came; yet Violet and +he had never got on very well together. + +"Poor fellow!" she thought blandly, "if he for a moment supposes that +anything would tempt me to marry again, he is egregiously mistaken." + +And then she looked round the lovely old room, brightened by a crowd of +well-dressed people, and thought that next to being Edward Tempest's +wife, the best thing in life was to be Edward Tempest's widow. + +"Dear Edward!" she mused, "how strange that we should miss him so +little to-night." + +It had been with everyone as if the squire had never lived. Politeness +exacted this ignoring of the past, no doubt; but the thing had been so +easily done. The noble presence, the jovial laugh, the friendly smile +were gone, and no one seemed conscious of the void--no one but Violet, +who looked round the room once when conversation was liveliest, with a +pale indignant face, resenting this forgetfulness. + +"I wish papa's ghost would come in at that door and scare his +hollow-hearted friends," she said to herself; and she felt as if it +would hardly have been a surprise to her to see the door open slowly +and that familiar figure appear. + +"Well, Violet," Mrs. Temple said sweetly, when the guests were gone, +"how do you think it all went off?" + +"It," of course, meant the dinner-party. + +"I suppose, according to the nature of such things, it was all right +and proper," Vixen answered coldly; "but I should think it must have +been intensely painful to you, mamma." + +Mrs. Tempest sighed. She had always a large selection of sighs in +stock, suitable to every occasion. + +"I should have felt it much worse if I had sat in my old place at +dinner," she said; "but sitting at the middle of the table instead of +at the end made it less painful. And I really think it's better style. +How did you like the new arrangement of the glasses?" + +"I didn't notice anything new." + +"My dear Violet, you are frightfully unobservant." + +"No, I am not," answered Vixen quickly. "My eyes are keen enough, +believe me." + +Mrs. Tempest felt uncomfortable. She began to think that, after all, it +might be a comfortable thing to have a companion--as a fender between +herself and Violet. A perpetually present Miss Jones or Smith would +ward off these unpleasantnesses. + +There are occasions, however, on which a position must be faced +boldly--in proverbial phrase, the bull must be taken by the horns. And +here, Mrs. Tempest felt, was a bull which must be so encountered. She +knew that her poor little hands were too feeble for the office; but she +told herself that she must make the heroic attempt. + +"Violet, why have you such a rooted dislike to Captain Winstanley?" + +"Why is my hair the colour it is, mamma, or why are my eyes brown +instead of blue? If you could answer my question, I might be able to +answer yours. Nature made me what I am, and nature has implanted a +hatred of Captain Winstanley in my mind." + +"Do you not think it wrong to hate anyone--the very word hate was +considered unladylike when I was a girl--without cause?" + +"I have cause to hate him, good cause, sufficient cause. I hate all +self-seekers and adventurers." + +"You have no right to call him one or the other." + +"Have I not? What brings him here, but the pursuit of his own interest? +Why does he plant himself at our door as if he were come to besiege a +town? Do you mean to say, mamma, that you can be so blind as not to see +what he wants?" + +"He has come for the hunting." + +"Yes, but not to hunt our foxes or our stags. He wants a rich wife, +mamma. And he thinks that you or I will be foolish enough to marry him." + +"There would be nothing unnatural in his entertaining some idea of that +kind about you," replied Mrs. Tempest, with a sudden assertion of +matronly dignity. "But for him to think of me in that light would be +too absurd. I must be some years, perhaps four or five years, his +senior, to begin with." + +"Oh, he would forgive you that; he would not mind that." + +"And he ought to know that I should never dream of marrying again." + +"He ought, if he had any idea of what is right and noble in a woman," +answered Vixen. "But he has not. He has no ideas that do not begin and +end in himself and his own advantage. He sees you here with a handsome +house, a good income, and he thinks that he can persuade you to marry +him." + +"Violet, you must know that I shall never marry." + +"I hope I do know it. But the world ought to know it too. People ought +not to be allowed to whisper, and smile, and look significant; as I saw +some of them do to-night when Captain Winstanley was hanging over your +chair. You ought not to encourage him, mamma. It is a treason against +my father to have that man here." + +Here was a bull that required prompt and severe handling, but Mrs. +Tempest felt her powers inadequate to the effort. + +"I am surprised at you, Violet!" she exclaimed; "as if I did not know, +as well as you, what is due to my poor Edward; as if I should do +anything to compromise my own dignity. Is it to encourage a man to ask +him to a dinner-party, when he happens to be visiting in the +neighbourhood? Can I forbid Captain Winstanley to take the Hawbucks' +cottage?" + +"No, you have gone too far already. You gave him too much encouragement +in Switzerland, and at Brighton. He has attached himself to us, like a +limpet to a rock. You will not easily get rid of him; unless you let +him see that you understand and despise him." + +"I see nothing despicable in him, and I am not going to insult him at +your bidding," answered the widow, tremulous with anger. "I do not +believe him to be a schemer or an adventurer. He is a gentleman by +birth, education, profession. It is a supreme insolence on your part to +speak of him as you do. What can you know of the world? How can you +judge and measure a man like Captain Winstanley? A girl like you, +hardly out of the nursery! It is too absurd. And understand at once and +for ever, Violet, that I will not be hectored or lectured in this +manner, that I will not be dictated to, or taught what is good taste, +in my own house. This is to be my own house, you know, as long as I +live." + +"Yes; unless you give it a new master," said Violet gravely. "Forgive +me if I have been too vehement, mamma. It is my love that is bold. Whom +have I in this world to love now, except you? And when I see you in +danger--when I see the softness of your nature---- Dear mother, there +are some instincts that are stronger than reason. There are some +antipathies which are implanted in us for warnings. Remember what a +happy life you led with my dear father--his goodness, his overflowing +generosity, his noble heart. There is no man worthy to succeed him, to +live in his house. Dear mother, for pity's sake----" + +She was kneeling at her mother's feet, clinging to her hands, her voice +half-choked with sobs. Mrs. Tempest began to cry too. + +"My dearest Violet, how can you be so foolish? My love, don't cry. I +tell you that I shall never marry again--never. Not if I were asked to +become a countess. My heart is true to your dear father; it always will +be. I am almost sorry that I consented to these scarlet bows on my +dress, but the feather trimming looked so heavy without them, and +Theodore's eye for colour is perfect. My dear child, be assured I shall +carry his image with me to my grave." + +"Dear mother, that is all I ask. Be as happy as you can; but be true to +him. He was worthy to be loved for a lifetime; not to be put off with +half a life, half a heart." + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +Lady Southminster's Ball. + +Captain Winstanley closed with Mrs. Hawbuck for the pretty little +verandah-surrounded cottage on the slope of the hill above Beechdale. +Captain Hawbuck, a retired naval man, to whom the place had been very +dear, was in his grave, and his wife was anxious to try if she and her +hungry children could not live on less money in Belgium than they could +in England. The good old post-captain had improved and beautified the +place from a farm-labourer's cottage into a habitation which was the +quintessence of picturesque inconvenience. Ceilings which you could +touch with your hand; funny little fireplaces in angles of the rooms; a +corkscrew staircase, which a stranger ascended or descended at peril of +life or limb; no kitchen worth mentioning, and stuffy little bedrooms +under the thatch. Seen from the outside the cottage was charming; and +if the captain and his family could only have lived over the way, and +looked at it, they would have had full value for the money invested in +its improvement. Small as the rooms were, however, and despite that +dark slander which hung over the chimneys, Captain Winstanley declared +that the cottage would suit him admirably. + +"I like the situation," he said, discussing his bargain in the +coffee-room at The Crown, Lyndhurst. + +"I should rather think you did!" cried Mr. Bell, the local surgeon. +"Suits you down to the ground, doesn't it?" + +Whereby it will be seen that there was already a certain opinion in the +neighbourhood as to the Captain's motive for planting himself at +Beechdale--so acute is a quiet little community of this kind in +divining the intentions of a stranger. + +Captain Winstanley took up his quarters at Beechdale Cottage in less +than a week after Mrs. Tempest's dinner-party. He sent for his horses, +and began the business of hunting in real earnest. His two hunters were +unanimously pronounced screws; but it is astonishing how well a good +rider can get across country on a horse which other people call a screw. +Nobody could deny Captain Winstanley's merits as a horseman. His costume +and appointments had all the finish of Melton Mowbray, and he was always +in the first flight. + +Before he had occupied Captain Hawbuck's cottage a month the new-comer +had made friends for himself in all directions. He was as much at home +in the Forest as if he had been native and to the manner born. His +straight riding, his good looks, and agreeable manners won him +everybody's approval. There was nothing dissipated or Bohemian about +him. His clothes never smelt of stale tobacco. He was as punctual at +church every Sunday morning as if he had been a family man, bound to +set a good example. He subscribed liberally to the hounds, and was +always ready with those stray florins and half-crowns by which a man +purchases a cheap popularity among the horse-holding and +ragged-follower class. + +Having distinctly asserted her intention of remaining a widow to +Violet, Mrs. Tempest allowed herself the privilege of being civil to +Captain Winstanley. He dropped in at afternoon tea at least twice a +week; he dined at the Abbey House whenever the Scobels or any other +intimate friends were there "in a quiet way." He generally escorted +Mrs. Tempest and her daughter from church on Sunday morning, Violet +persistently loitering twenty yards or so behind them on the narrow +woodland path that led from Beechdale to the Abbey House. + +After walking home from church with Mrs. Tempest, it was only natural +that the Captain should stop to luncheon, and after luncheon--the +Sabbath afternoon being, in a manner, a legitimate occasion for +dawdling--it was equally natural for him to linger, looking at the +gardens and greenhouses, or talking beside the drawing-room fire, till +the appearance of the spitfire Queen Anne tea-kettle and Mrs. Tempest's +infusion of orange pekoe. + +Sometimes the Scobels were present at these Sunday luncheons, sometimes +not. Violet was with her mother, of course, on these occasions; but, +while bodily present, she contrived to maintain an attitude of +aloofness which would have driven a less resolute man than Conrad +Winstanley to absent himself. A man more sensitive to the opinions of +others could hardly have existed in such an atmosphere of dislike; but +Captain Winstanley meant to live down Miss Tempest's aversion, or to +give her double cause for hating him. + +"Why have you given up hunting, Miss Tempest?" he asked one Sunday +afternoon, when they had gone the round of the stables, and Arion had +been fondled and admired--a horse as gentle as an Italian greyhound in +his stable, as fiery as a wild-cat out of it. + +"Because I have no one I care to hunt with, now papa is gone." + +"But here in the Forest, where everybody knows you, where you might +have as many fathers as the Daughter of the Regiment----" + +"Yes, I have many kind friends. But there is not one who could fill my +father's place--for an hour." + +"It is a pity," said the Captain sympathetically. "You were so fond of +hunting, were you not?" + +"Passionately." + +"Then it is a shame you should forego the pleasure. And you must find +it very dull, I should think, riding alone in the forest." + +"Alone! I have my horse." + +"Surely he does not count as a companion." + +"Indeed he does. I wish for no better company than Arion, now papa is +gone." + +"Violet is so eccentric!" Mrs. Tempest murmured gently. + +Captain Winstanley had taken Mrs. Hawbuck's cottage till the first of +May. The end of April would see the last of the hunting, so this +arrangement seemed natural enough. He hunted in good earnest. There was +no pretence about him. It was only the extra knowing ones, the little +knot of choice spirits at The Crown, who saw some deeper motive than a +mere love of sport for his residence at Beechdale. These advanced minds +had contrived to find out all about Captain Winstanley by this +time--the date of his selling out, his ostensible and hidden reasons +for leaving the army, the amount of his income, and the general +complexion of his character. There was not much to be advanced against +him. No dark stories; only a leading notion that he was a man who +wanted to improve his fortunes, and would not be over-scrupulous as to +the means. But as your over-scrupulous man is one in a thousand, this +was ranking Captain Winstanley with the majority. + +The winter was over; there were primroses peeping out of the moss and +brambles, and a shy little dog-violet shining like a blue eye here and +there. The flaunting daffodils were yellow in every glade, and the +gummy chestnut buds were beginning to swell. It was mid-March, and as +yet there had been no announcement of home-coming from Roderick Vawdrey +or the Dovedales. The Duke was said to have taken a fancy to the Roman +style of fox-hunting; Lady Mabel was studying art; the Duchess was +suspected of a leaning to Romanism; and Roderick was dancing attendance +upon the family generally. + +"Why should he not stay there with them?" said Mr. Scobel, sipping his +pekoe in a comfortable little circle of gossipers round Mrs. Tempest's +gipsy table. "He has very little else to do with his life. He is a +young man utterly without views or purpose. He is one of our many +Gallios. You could not rouse him to an interest in those stirring +questions that are agitating the Catholic Church to her very +foundation. He has no mission. I have sounded him, and found him full +of a shallow good-nature. He would build a church if people asked him, +and hardly know, when it was finished, whether he meant it for Jews or +Gentiles." + +Vixen sat in her corner and said nothing. It amused her--rather with a +half-bitter sense of amusement--to hear them talk about Roderick. He +had quite gone out of her life. It interested her to know what people +thought of him in his new world. + +"If the Duke doesn't bring them all home very soon the Duchess will go +over to Rome," said Mrs. Scobel, with conviction. "She has been +drifting that way for ever so long. Ignatius isn't high enough for her." + +The Reverend Ignatius sighed. He hardly saw his way to ascending any +higher. He had already, acting always in perfect good faith and +conscientious desire for the right, made his pretty little church +obnoxious to many of the simple old Foresters, to whom a pair of brazen +candlesticks on an altar were among the abominations of Baal, and a +crucifix as hateful as the image of Ashtaroth; obstinate old people of +limited vision, who wanted Mr. Scobel to stick to what they called the +old ways, and read the Liturgy as they had heard it when they were +children. In the minds of these people, Mr. Scobel's self-devotion and +hard service were as nothing, while he cut off the ten commandments +from the Sunday morning service, and lighted his altar candles at the +early celebration. + +It was in this month of March that an event impended which caused a +considerable flutter among the dancing population of the Forest. Lord +Southminster's eldest daughter, Lady Almira Ringwood, was to marry Sir +Ponto Jones, the rich ironmaster--an alliance of ancient aristocracy +and modern wealth which was considered one of the grandest achievements +of the age, like the discovery of steam or the electric telegraph; and +after the marriage, which was to be quietly performed in the presence +of about a hundred and fifty blood relations, there was to be a ball, +to which all the county families were bidden, with very little more +distinction or favouritism than in the good old fairy-tale times, when +the king's herald went through the streets of the city to invite +everybody, and only some stray Cinderella, cleaning boots and knives in +a back kitchen, found herself unintentionally excluded. Lady +Southminster drew the line at county families, naturally, but her +kindly feelings allowed a wide margin for parsons, doctors, and +military men--and among these last Captain Winstanley received a card. + +Mrs. Scobel declared that this ball would be a grand thing for Violet. +"You have never properly come out, you know, dear," she said; "but at +Southminster you will be seen by everybody; and, as I daresay Lady +Ellangowan will take you under her wing, you'll be seen to the best +advantage." + +"Do you think Lady Ellangowan's wing will make any difference--in me?" +inquired Vixen. + +"It will make a great deal of difference in the Southminster set," +replied Mrs. Scobel, who considered herself an authority upon all +social matters. + +She was a busy good-natured little woman, the chosen confidante of all +her female friends. People were always appealing to her on small social +questions, what they ought to do or to wear on such and such an +occasion. She knew the wardrobes of her friends as well as she knew her +own. "I suppose you'll wear that lovely pink," she would say when +discussing an impending dinner-party. She gave judicious assistance in +the composition of a _menu_. "My love, everyone has pheasants at this +time of year. Ask your poulterer to send you guinea-fowls, they are +more _distingué_," she would suggest. Or: "If you have dessert ices, +let me recommend you coffee-cream. We had it last week at Ellangowan +Park." + +Vixen made no objection to the Southminster ball. She was young, and +fond of waltzing. Whirling easily round to the swing of some German +melody, in a great room garlanded with flowers, was a temporary +cessation of all earthly care, the idea of which was in no wise +unpleasant to her. She had enjoyed her waltzes even at that +charity-ball at the Pavilion, to which she had gone so unwillingly. + +The March night was fine, but blustery, when Mrs. Tempest and her +daughter started for the Southminster ball. The stars were shining in a +windy sky, the tall forest trees were tossing their heads, the brambles +were shivering, and a shrill shriek came up out of the woodland every +now and then like a human cry for help. + +Mrs Tempest had offered to take Mrs. Scobel and Captain Winstanley in +her roomy carriage. Mr. Scobel was not going to the ball. All such +entertainments were an abhorrence to him; but this particular ball, +being given in Lent, was more especially abhorrent. + +"I shouldn't think of going for my own amusement," Mrs. Scobel told her +husband, "but I want to see Violet Tempest at her first local ball +dance. I want to see the impression she makes. I believe she will be +the belle of the ball." + +"That would mean the belle of South Hants," said the parson. "She has a +beautiful face for a painted window--there is such a glow of colour." + +"She is absolutely lovely, when she likes," replied his wife; "but she +has a curious temper; and there is something very repellent about her +when she does not like people. Strange, is it not, that she should not +like Captain Winstanley?" + +"She would be a very noble girl under more spiritual influences," +sighed the Reverend Ignatius. "Her present surroundings are appallingly +earthly. Horses, dogs, a table loaded with meat in Lent and Advent, a +total ignoring of daily matins and even-song. It is sad to see those we +like treading the broad path so blindly. I feel sorry, my dear, that +you should go to this ball." + +"It is only on Violet's account," repeated Mrs. Scobel. "Mrs. Tempest +will be thinking of nothing but her dress; there will be nobody +interested in that poor girl." + +Urged thus, on purely benevolent grounds, Mr. Scobel could not withhold +his consent; more especially as he had acquired the habit of letting +his wife do what she liked on most occasions--a marital custom not +easily broken through. So Mrs. Scobel, who was an economical little +woman, "did up" her silver-gray silk dinner-dress with ten shillings' +worth of black tulle and pink rosebuds, and felt she had made a success +that Madame Elise might have approved. Her faith in the silver-gray and +the rosebuds was just a little shaken by her first view of Mrs. Tempest +and Violet; the widow in black velvet, rose-point, and scarlet--Spanish +as a portrait by Velasquez; Violet in black and gold, with white +stephanotis in her hair. + +The drive was a long one, well over ten miles, along one of those +splendid straight roads which distinguish the New Forest. Mrs. Tempest +and Mrs. Scobel were in high spirits, and prattled agreeably all the +way, only giving Captain Winstanley time to get a word in edgeways now +and then. Violet looked out of the window and held her peace. There was +always a charm for her in that dark silent forest, those waving +branches and flitting clouds, stars gleaming like lights on a stormy +sea. She was not much elated at the idea of the ball, and "that small, +small, imperceptibly small talk" of her mother's and Mrs. Scobel's was +beyond measure wearisome to her. + +"I hope we shall get there after the Ellangowans," said Mrs. Scobel, +when they had driven through the little town of Ringwood, and were +entering a land of level pastures and fertilising streams, which seemed +wonderfully tame after the undulating forest; "it would be so much +nicer for Violet to be in the Ellangowan set from the first." + +"I beg to state that Miss Tempest has promised me the first waltz," +said Captain Winstanley. "I am not going to be ousted by any offshoot +of nobility in Lady Ellangowan's set." + +"Oh, of course, if Violet has promised---- What a lot of carriages! I +am afraid there'll be a block presently." + +There was every prospect of such a calamity. A confluence of vehicles +had poured into a narrow lane bounded on one side by a treacherous +water-meadow, on the other by a garden-wall. They all came to a +standstill, as Mrs. Scobel had prophesied. For a quarter of an hour +there was no progress whatever, and a good deal of recrimination among +coachmen, and then the rest of the journey had to be done at a walking +pace. + +The reward was worth the labour when, at the end of a long winding +drive, the carriage drew up before the Italian front of Southminster +House; a white marble portico, long rows of tall windows brilliantly +lighted, a vista of flowers, and statues, and lamps, and pictures, and +velvet hangings, seen through the open doorway. + +"Oh, it is too lovely!" cried Violet, fresh as a schoolgirl in this new +delight; "first the dark forest and then a house like this--it is like +Fairyland." + +"And you are to be the queen of it--my queen," said Conrad Winstanley +in a low voice. "I am to have the first waltz, remember that. If the +Prince of Wales were my rival I would not give way." + +He detained her hand in his as she alighted from the carriage. She +snatched it from him angrily. + +"I have a good mind not to dance at all," she said. + +"Why not?" + +"It is paying too dearly for the pleasure to be obliged to dance with +you." + +"In what school did you learn politeness, Miss Tempest?" + +"If politeness means civility to people I despise, I have never learned +it," answered Vixen. + +There was no time for further skirmishing. He had taken her cloak from +her, and handed it to the attendant nymph, and received a ticket; and +now they were drifting into the tea-room, where a row of ministering +footmen were looking at the guests across a barricade of urns and +teapots, with countenances that seemed to say, "If you want anything, +you must ask for it. We are here under protest, and we very much wonder +how our people could ever have invited such rabble!" + +"I always feel small in a tea-room when there are only men in +attendance," whispered Mr. Scobel, "they are so haughty. I would sooner +ask Gladstone or Disraeli to pour me out a cup of tea than one of those +supercilious creatures." + +Lady Southminster was stationed in the Teniers room--a small apartment +at the beginning of the suite which ended in the picture-gallery or +ball-room. She was what Joe Gargery called a "fine figure of a woman," +in ruby velvet and diamonds, and received her guests with an +indiscriminating cordiality which went far to heal the gaping wounds +of county politics. + +The Ellangowans had arrived, and Lady Ellangowan, who was full of +good-nature, was quite ready to take Violet under her wing when Mrs. +Scobel suggested that operation. + +"I can find her any number of partners," she said. "Oh, there she +goes--off--already with Captain Winstanley." + +The Captain had lost no time in exacting his waltz. It was the third on +the programme, and the band were beginning to warm to their work. They +were playing a waltz by Offenbach--"_Les Traîneaux_"--with an +accompaniment of jingling sleigh-bells--music that had an almost +maddening effect on spirits already exhilarated. + +The long lofty picture-gallery made a magnificent ball-room--a polished +floor of dark wood--a narrow line of light under the projecting +cornice, the famous Paul Veronese, the world-renowned Rubens, the +adorable Titian--ideal beauty looking down with art's eternal +tranquillity upon the whisk and whirl of actual life--here a calm +Madonna, contemplating, with deep unfathomable eyes, these brief +ephemera of a night--there Judith with a white muscular arm holding the +tyrant's head aloft above the dancers--yonder Philip of Spain frowning +on this Lenten festival. + +Violet and Captain Winstanley waltzed in a stern silence. She was vexed +with herself for her loss of temper just now. In his breast there was a +deeper anger. "When would my day come?" he asked himself. "When shall I +be able to bow this proud head, to bend this stubborn will?" It must be +soon--he was tired of playing his submissive part--tired of holding his +cards hidden. + +They held on to the end of the waltz--the last clash of the +sleigh-bells. + +"Who's that girl in black and gold?" asked a Guardsman of Lady +Ellangowan; "those two are the best dancers in the room--it's a +thousand to nothing on them." + +That final clash of the bells brought the Captain and his partner to +anchor at the end of the gallery, which opened through an archway into +a spacious palm-house with a lofty dome. In the middle of this archway, +looking at the dancers, stood a figure at sight of which Violet +Tempest's heart gave a great leap, and then stood still. + +It was Roderick Vawdrey. He was standing alone, listlessly +contemplating the ball-room, with much less life and expression in his +face than there was in the pictured faces on the walls. + +"That was a very nice waltz thanks," said Vixen, giving the captain a +little curtsey. + +"Shall I take you back to Mrs. Tempest?" + +Roderick had seen her by this time, and was coming towards her with a +singularly grave and distant countenance, she thought; not at all like +the Rorie of old times. But of course that was over and done with. She +must never call him Rorie any more, not even in her own thoughts. A +sharp sudden memory thrilled her, as they stood face to face in that +brilliant gallery--the memory of their last meeting in the darkened +room on the day of her father's funeral. + +"How do you do?" said Roderick, with a gush of originality. "Your mamma +is here, I suppose." + +"Haven't you seen her?" + +"No; we've only just come." + +"We," no doubt, meant the Dovedale party, of which Mr. Vawdrey was +henceforth a part. + +"I did not know you were to be here," said Vixen, "or then that you +were in England." + +"We only came home yesterday, or I should have called at the Abbey +House. We have been coming home, or talking about it, for the last +three weeks. A few days ago the Duchess took it into her head that she +ought to be at Lady Almira's wedding--there's some kind of +relationship, you know, between the Ashbournes and the +Southminsters--so we put on a spurt, and here we are." + +"I am very glad," said Vixen, not knowing very well what to say; and +then seeing Captain Winstanley standing stiffly at her side, with an +aggrieved expression of countenance, she faltered: "I beg your pardon; +I don't think you have ever met Mr. Vawdrey. Captain Winstanley--Mr. +Vawdrey." + +Both gentlemen acknowledged the introduction with the stiffest and +chilliest of bows; and then the Captain offered Violet his arm, and +she, having no excuse for refusing it, submitted quietly to be taken +away from her old friend. Roderick made no attempt to detain her. + +The change in him could hardly have been more marked, Vixen thought. +Yes, the old Rorie--playfellow, scapegoat, friend of the dear old +childish days--was verily dead and gone. + +"Shall we go and look at the presents?" asked Captain Winstanley. + +"What presents?" + +"Lady Almira's wedding presents. They are all laid out in the library. +I hear they are very splendid. Everybody is crowding to see them." + +"I daresay mamma would like to go, and Mrs. Scobel," suggested Vixen. + +"Then we will all go together." + +They found the two matrons side by side on a settee, under a lovely +girlish head by Greuze. They were both delighted at the idea of seeing +the presents. It was something to do. Mrs. Tempest had made up her mind +to abjure even square dances this evening. There was something +incongruous in widowhood and the Lancers; especially in one's own +neighbourhood. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +Rorie asks a Question. + +The library was one of the finest rooms at Southminster. It was not +like the library at Althorpe--a collection for a nation to be proud of. +There was no priceless Decameron, no Caxton Bible, no inestimable "Book +of Hours," or early Venetian Virgil; but as a library of reference, a +library for all purposes of culture or enjoyment, it left nothing to be +desired. It was a spacious and lofty room, lined from floor to ceiling +with exquisitely bound books; for, if not a collector of rare editions, +Lord Southminster was at least a connoisseur of bindings. Creamy +vellum, flowered with gold, antique brown calf, and russia in every +shade of crimson and brown, gave brightness to the shelves, while the +sombre darkness of carved oak made a background for this variety of +colour. + +Not a mortal in the crowded library this evening thought of looking at +the books. The room had been transformed into a bazaar. Two long tables +were loaded with the wedding gifts which rejoicing friends and aspiring +acquaintances had lavished upon Lady Almira. Each gift was labelled +with the name of the giver; the exhibition was full of an intensely +personal interest. Everybody wanted to see what everybody had given. +Most of the people looking at the show had made their offerings, and +were anxious to see if their own particular contribution appeared to +advantage. + +Here Mrs. Scobel was in her element. She explained everything, +expatiated upon the beauty and usefulness of everything. If she had +assisted at the purchase of all these gifts, or had actually chosen +them, she could not have been more familiar with their uses and merits. + +"You must look at the silver candelabra presented by Sir Ponto's +workpeople, so much more sensible than a bracelet. I don't think +Garrard--yes, it is Garrard--ever did anything better; so sweetly +mythological--a goat and a dear little chubby boy, and ever so many +savage-looking persons with cymbals." + +"The education of Jupiter, perhaps," suggested Captain Winstanley. + +"Of course. The savage persons must be teaching him music. Have you +seen this liqueur cabinet, dear Mrs. Tempest? The most exquisite thing, +from the servants at Southminster. Could anything be nicer?" + +"Looks rather like a suggestion that Lady Almira may be given to +curaçoa on the quiet," said the Captain. + +"And this lovely, lovely screen in crewels, by the Ladies Ringwood, +after a picture by Alma Tadema," continued Mrs. Scobel. "Was there ever +anything so perfect? And to think that our poor mothers worked staring +roses and gigantic lilies in Berlin wool and glass beads, and imagined +themselves artistic!" + +The ladies went the round of the tables, in a crush of other ladies, +all rapturous. The Louis Quatorze fans, the carved ivory, the Brussels +point, the oxydised silver glove-boxes, and malachite blotting-books, +the pearls, opals, ormolu; the antique tankards and candlesticks, +Queen-Anne teapots; diamond stars, combs, tiaras; prayer-books, and +"Christian Years." The special presents which stood out from this chaos +of common place were--a _rivière_ of diamonds from the Earl of +Southminster, a cashmere shawl from Her Majesty, a basket of orchids, +valued at five hundred guineas, from Lady Ellangowan, a pair of +priceless crackle jars, a Sèvres dinner-service of the old +_bleu-du-roi_, a set of knives of which the handles had all been taken +from stags slaughtered by the Southminster hounds. + +"This is all very well for the wallflowers," said Captain Winstanley to +Violet, "but you and I are losing our dances." + +"I don't much care about dancing," answered Vixen wearily. + +She had been looking at this gorgeous display of bracelets and teacups, +silver-gilt dressing-cases, and ivory hairbrushes, without seeing +anything. She was thinking of Roderick Vawdrey, and how odd a thing it +was that he should seem so utter a stranger to her. + +"He has gone up into the ducal circle," she said to herself. "He is +translated. It is almost as if he had wings. He is certainly as far +away from me as if he were a bishop." + +They struggled back to the picture-gallery, and here Lady Ellangowan +took possession of Violet, and got her distinguished partners for all +the dances till supper-time. She found herself receiving a gracious +little nod from Lady Mabel Ashbourne in the ladies' chain. Neither the +lapse of two years nor the experience of foreign travel had made any +change in the hope of the Dovedales. She was still the same sylph-like +being, dressed in palest green, the colour of a duck's egg, with +diamonds in strictest moderation, and pearls that would have done +honour to a princess. + +"Do you think Lady Mabel Ashbourne very beautiful?" Vixen asked Lady +Ellangowan, curious to hear the opinion of experience and authority. + +"No; she's too shadowy for my taste," replied her ladyship, who was the +reverse of sylph-like. "Wasn't there someone in Greek mythology who +fell in love with a cloud? Lady Mabel would just suit that sort of +person. And then she is over-educated and conceited; sets up for a +modern Lady Jane Grey, quotes Greek plays, I believe, and looks +astounded if people don't understand her. She'll end by establishing a +female college, like Tennyson's princess." + +"Oh, but she is engaged to be married to Mr. Vawdrey." + +"Her cousin? Very foolish! That may go off by-and-by. First engagements +seldom come to anything." + +Violet thought herself a hateful creature for being inwardly grateful +to Lady Ellangowan for this speech. + +She had seen Roderick spinning round with his cousin. He was a good +waltzer, but not a graceful one. He steered his way well, and went with +a strong swing that covered a great deal of ground; but there was a +want of finish. Lady Mabel looked as if she were being carried away by +a maelstrom. And now people began to move towards the supper-rooms, of +which there were two, luxuriously arranged with numerous round tables +in the way that was still a novelty when "Lothair" was written. This +gave more room for the dancers. The people for whom a ball meant a +surfeit of perigord pie, truffled turkey, salmon _mayonnaise_, and +early strawberries, went for their first innings, meaning to return to +that happy hunting-ground as often as proved practicable. Violet was +carried off by a partner who was so anxious to take her to supper that +she felt sure he was dying to get some for himself. + +Her cavalier found her a corner at a snug little table with three +gorgeous matrons. She ate a cutlet and a teaspoonful of peas, took +three sips from a glass of champagne, and wound up with some +strawberries, which tasted as if they had been taken by mistake out of +the pickle-jar. + +"I'm afraid you haven't had a very good supper." said her partner, who +had been comfortably wedged between two of the matrons, consuming +mayonnaise and pâté to his heart's content. + +"Excellent, thanks. I shall be glad to make room for someone else." +Whereat the unfortunate young man was obliged to stand up, leaving the +choicest morsel of truffled goose-liver on his plate. + +The crowd in the picture-gallery was thinner when Violet went back. In +the doorway she met Roderick Vawdrey. + +"Haven't you kept a single dance for me, Violet?" he asked. + +"You didn't ask me to keep one." + +"Didn't I? Perhaps I was afraid of Captain Winstanley's displeasure. He +would have objected, no doubt." + +"Why should he object, unless I broke an engagement to him?" + +"Would he not? Are you actually free to be asked by anyone? If I had +known that two hours ago! And now, I suppose your programme is full. +Yes, to the very last galop; for which, of course, you won't stop. But +there's to be an extra waltz presently. You must give me that." + +She said neither yes nor no, and he put her hand through his arm and +led her up the room. + +"Have you seen mamma?" + +"Yes. She thinks I am grown. She forgets that I was one-and-twenty when +we last met. That does not leave much margin for growing, unless a man +went on getting taller indefinitely, like Lord Southminster's palms. He +had to take the roof off his palm-house last year, you know. What a +dreadful thing if I were to become a Norfolk giant--giants are +indigenous to Norfolk, aren't they?--and were obliged to take the roof +off Briarwood. Have you seen the Duchess?" + +"Only in the distance. I hardly know her at all, you know." + +"That's absurd. You ought to know her very well. You must be quite +intimate with her by-and-by, when we are all settled down as +steady-going married people." + +The little gloved hand on his arm quivered ever so slightly. This was a +distinct allusion to his approaching marriage. + +"Lovely room, isn't it? Just the right thing for a ball. How do you +like the Rubens? Very grand--a magnificent display of +carmines--beautiful, if you are an admirer of Rubens. What a +draughtsman! The Italian school rarely achieved that freedom of pencil. +Isn't that Greuze enchanting? There is an innocence, a freshness, about +his girlish faces that nobody has ever equalled. His women are not +Madonnas, or Junos, or Helens--they are the incarnation of girlhood; +girlhood without care or thought; girlhood in love with a kitten, or +weeping over a wounded robin-redbreast." + +How abominably he rattled on. Was it the overflow of joyous spirits? No +doubt. He was so pleased with life and fate, that he was obliged to +give vent to his exuberance in this gush of commonplace. + +"You remind me of Miss Bates, in Jane Austen's 'Emma,'" said Vixen, +laughing. + +The band struck up "_Trauriges Herz_," a waltz like a wail, but with a +fine swing in it. + +"Now for the old three-time," said Roderick; and the next minute they +were sailing smoothly over the polished floor, with all the fair +pictured faces, the crimson draperies, the pensive Madonnas, Dutch +boors, Italian temples, and hills, and skies, circling round them like +the figures in a kaleidoscope. + +"Do you remember our boy-and-girl waltzes in the hall at the Abbey +House?" asked Rorie. + +Happily for Vixen her face was so turned that he could not see the +quiver on her lips, the sudden look of absolute pain that paled her +cheeks. + +"I am not likely to forget any part of my childhood," she answered +gravely. "It was the one happy period of my life." + +"You don't expect me to believe that the last two years have been +altogether unhappy." + +"You may believe what you like. You who knew my father, ought to +know----" + +"The dear Squire! do you think I am likely to undervalue him, or to +forget your loss? No, Violet, no. But there are compensations. I heard +of you at Brighton. You were very happy there, were you not?" + +"I liked Brighton pretty well. And I had Arion there all the while. +There are some capital rides on the Downs." + +"Yes, and you had agreeable friends there." + +"Yes, we knew a good many pleasant people, and went to a great many +concerts. I heard all the good singers, and Madame Goddard ever so many +times." + +They went on till the end of the waltz, and then walked slowly round +the room, glancing at the pictures as they went by. The Duchess was not +in sight. + +"Shall we go and look at the palms?" asked Roderick, when they came to +the archway at the end of the gallery. + +"If you like." + +"This was the roof that had to be taken off, you know. It is a +magnificent dome, but I daresay the palms will outgrow it within Lord +Southminster's time." + +It was like entering a jungle in the tropics; if one could fancy a +jungle paved with encaustic tiles, and furnished with velvet-covered +ottomans for the repose of weary sportsmen. + +There was only a subdued light, from lamps thinly sprinkled among the +ferns and flowers. There were four large groups of statuary, placed +judiciously, and under the central dome there was a fountain, where, +half hidden by a veil of glittering spray, Neptune was wooing Tyro, +under the aspect of a river-god, amongst bulrushes, lilies, and +water-plants. + +Violet and her companion looked at the tropical plants, and admired, +with a delightful ignorance of the merits of these specimens. The tall +shafts and the thick tufts of huge leaves were not Vixen's idea of +beauty. + +"I like our beeches and oaks in the Forest ever so much better," she +exclaimed. + +"Everything in the Forest is dear," said Rorie. + +Vixen felt, with a curious choking sensation, that this was a good +opening for her to say something polite. She had always intended to +congratulate him, in a straightforward sisterly way, upon his +engagement to Lady Mabel. + +"I am so glad to hear you say that," she began. "And how happy you must +be to think that your fate is fixed here irrevocably; doubly fixed now; +for you can have no interest to draw you away from us, as you might if +you were to marry a stranger. Briarwood and Ashbourne united will make +you the greatest among us." + +"I don't highly value that kind of greatness, Violet--a mere question +of acreage; but I am glad to think myself anchored for life on my +native soil." + +"And you will go into Parliament and legislate for us, and take care +that we are not disforested. They have taken away too much already, +with their horrid enclosures." + +"The enclosures will make splendid pine-woods by-and-by." + +"Yes, when we are all dead and gone." + +"I don't know about Parliament. So long as my poor mother was living I +had an incentive to turn senator, she was so eager for it. But now that +she is gone, I don't feel strongly drawn that way. I suppose I shall +settle down into the approved pattern of country squire: breed fat +cattle--the aristocratic form of cruelty to animals--spend the best +part of my income upon agricultural machinery, talk about guano, like +the Duke, and lecture delinquents at quarter-sessions." + +"But Lady Mabel will not allow that. She will be ambitious for you." + +"I hope not. I can fancy no affliction greater than an ambitious wife. +No. My poor mother left Mabel her orchids. Mabel will confine her +ambition to orchids and literature. I believe she writes poetry, and +some day she will be tempted to publish a small volume, I daresay. +'Æolian Echoes,' or 'Harp Strings,' or 'Broken Chords,' 'Consecutive +Fifths,' or something of that kind." + +"You believe!" exclaimed Vixen. "Surely you have read some of Lady +Mabel's poetry, or heard it read. She must have read some of her verses +to you." + +"Never. She is too reserved, and I am too candid. It would be a +dangerous experiment. I should inevitably say something rude. Mabel +adores Shelley and Browning; she reads Greek, too. Her poetry is sure +to be unintelligible, and I should expose my obtuseness of intellect. I +couldn't even look as if I understood it." + +"If I were Lady Mabel, I think under such circumstances I should leave +off writing poetry." + +"That would be quite absurd. Mabel has a hundred tastes which I do not +share with her. She is devoted to her garden and hot-houses. I hardly +know one flower from another, except the forest wildlings. She detests +horses and dogs. I am never happier than when among them. She reads +Æschylus as glibly as I can read a French newspaper. But she will make +an admirable mistress for Briarwood. She has just that tranquil +superiority which becomes the ruler of a large estate. You will see +what cottages and schools we shall build. There will not be a weed in +our allotment gardens, and our farm-labourers will get all the prizes +at cottage flower-shows." + +"You will hunt, of course?" + +"Naturally; don't you know that I am to have the hounds next year? It +was all arranged a few days ago. Poor Mabel was strongly opposed to the +plan. She thought it was the first stage on the road to ruin; but I +think I convinced her that it was the natural thing for the owner of +Briarwood; and the Duke was warmly in favour of it." + +"The dear old kennels!" said Vixen, "I have never seen them +since--since I came home. I ride by the gate very often, but I have +never had the courage to go inside. The hounds wouldn't know me now." + +"You must renew your friendship with them. You will hunt, of course, +next year?" + +"No, I shall never hunt again!" + +"Oh, nonsense; I hear that Captain Winstanley is a mighty Nimrod--quite +a Leicestershire man. He will wish you to hunt." + +"What can Captain Winstanley have to do with it?" asked Vixen, turning +sharply upon him. + +"A great deal, I should imagine, by next season." + +"I haven't the least idea what you mean." + +It was Roderick Vawdrey's turn to look astonished. He looked both +surprised and angry. + +"How fond young ladies are of making mysteries about these things," he +exclaimed impatiently; "I suppose they think it enhances their +importance. Have I made a mistake? Have my informants misled me? Is +your engagement to Captain Winstanley not to be talked about yet--only +an understood thing among your own particular friends? Let me at least +be allowed the privilege of intimate friendship. Let me be among the +first to congratulate you." + +"What folly have you been listening to?" cried Vixen; "you, Roderick +Vawdrey, my old play-fellow--almost an adopted brother--to know me so +little." + +"What could I know of you to prevent my believing what I was told? Was +there anything strange in the idea that you should be engaged to +Captain Winstanley? I heard that he was a universal favourite." + +"And did you think that I should like a universal favourite?" + +"Why should you not? It seemed credible enough, and my informant was +positive; he saw you together at a picnic in Switzerland. It was looked +upon as a settled thing by all your friends." + +"By Captain Winstanley's friends, you mean. They may have looked upon +it as a settled thing that he should marry someone with plenty of +money, and they may have thought that my money would be as useful as +anyone else's." + +"Violet, are you mystifying me? are you trying to drive me crazy? or is +this the simple truth?" + +"It is the simple truth." + +"You are not engaged to this man?--you never have been?--you don't care +for him, never have cared for him?" + +"Never, never, never, never!" said Violet, with unmistakable emphasis. + +"Then I have been the most consummate----" + +He did not finish his sentence, and Violet did not ask him to finish +it. The ejaculation seemed involuntary. He sat staring at the palms, +and said nothing for the next minute and a half, while Vixen unfurled +her great black and gold fan, and looked at it admiringly, as if she +had never seen it before. + +"Do you really think those palms will break through the roof again in +the present Lord Southminster's time?" Roderick inquired presently, +with intense interest. + +Vixen did not feel herself called upon to reply to a question so purely +speculative. + +"I think I had better go and look for mamma and Mrs. Scobel," she said; +"they must have come back from the supper-room by this time." + +Roderick rose and offered her his arm. She was surprised to see how +pale he looked when they came out of the dusk into the brilliant light +of the gallery. But in a heated room, and between two and three o'clock +in the morning, a man may naturally be a little paler than usual. + +Roderick took Violet straight to the end of the room, where his quick +eye had espied Mrs. Tempest in her striking black and scarlet costume. +He said nothing more about the Duchess or Lady Mabel; and, indeed, took +Violet past the elder lady, who was sitting in one of the deep-set +windows with Lady Southminster, without attempting to bring about any +interchange of civilities. + +"Captain Winstanley has been kind enough to go and look for the +carriage, Violet," said Mrs. Tempest. "I told him we would join him in +the vestibule directly I could find you. Where have you been all this +time? You were not in the Lancers. Such a pretty set. Oh, here is Mrs. +Scobel!" as the Vicar's wife approached them on her partner's arm, in a +piteous state of dilapidation--not a bit of tulle puffing left, and all +her rosebuds crushed as flat as dandelions. + +"Such a delightful set!" she exclaimed gaspingly. + +"I'm afraid your dress has suffered," said her partner. + +"Not in the least." protested Mrs. Scobel, with the fortitude of that +ladylike martyr to a clumsy carver, celebrated by Sydney Smith, who, +splashed from head to foot, and with rills of brown gravy trickling +down her countenance, vowed that not a drop had reached her. + +"This," says the reverend wit, "I esteem the highest triumph of +civilisation." + +"Your carriage will be the third," the captain told Mrs. Tempest, while +Roderick was putting Violet's cloak round her in the vestibule; "there +are a good many people leaving already." + +Roderick went with them to the carriage door, and stayed in the porch +till they were gone. The last object Vixen saw under the Southminster +lamps was the pale grave face of her old playfellow. + +He went straight from the porch to the supper-room, not to find himself +a place at one of the snug little tables, but to go to the buffet and +pour out a glass of brandy, which he drank at a draught. Yet, in a +general way, there was no man more abstemious than Roderick Vawdrey. + +A quarter of an hour afterwards he was waltzing with Lady +Mabel--positively the last dance before their departure. + +"Roderick," she said in an awe-stricken undertone, "I am going to say +something very dreadful. Please forgive me in advance." + +"Certainly," he said, with a somewhat apprehensive look. + +"Just now, when you were talking to me, I fancied you had been drinking +brandy." + +"I had." + +"Absolute undiluted brandy!" + +"Neat brandy, sometimes denominated 'short.'" + +"Good heavens! were you ill?" + +"I had had what people call 'a turn.'" + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +Where the Red King was slain. + +May had come. The red glow of the beech-branches had changed to a +tender green; the oaks were amber; the winding forest-paths, the deep +inaccessible glades where the cattle led such a happy life, were blue +with dog-violets and golden with primroses. Whitsuntide was close at +hand, and good Mr. Scobel had given up his mind to church decoration, +and the entertainment of his school-children with tea and buns in that +delightful valley, where an iron monument, a little less artistic than +a pillar post-office marks the spot where the Red King fell. + +Vixen, though not particularly fond of school-feasts, had promised to +assist at this one. It was not to be a stiff or ceremonious affair. +There was to be no bevy of young ladies, oppressively attentive to +their small charges, causing the children to drink scalding tea in a +paroxysm of shyness. The whole thing was to be done in an easy and +friendly manner; with no aid but that of the school-mistress and +master. The magnates of the land were to have no part in the festival. + +"The children enjoy themselves so much more when there are no +finely-dressed people making believe to wait upon them," said Mrs. +Scobel; "but I know they'll be delighted to have you, Violet. They +positively adore you!" + +"I'm sure I can't imagine why they should," answered Violet truthfully. + +"Oh, but they do. They like to look at you. When you come into the +school-room they're all in a flutter; and they point at you awfully, +don't they, Miss Pierson?" said Mrs. Scobel, appealing to the +school-mistress. + +"Yes, ma'am. I can't cure them of pointing, do what I will." + +"Oh, they are dear little children," exclaimed Violet, "and I don't +care how much they point at me if they really like me. They make me +such nice little bob-curtsies when I meet them in the Forest, and they +all seem fond of Argus. I'm sure you have made them extremely polite, +Miss Pierson. I shall be very pleased to come to your school-feast, +Mrs. Scobel; and I'll tell our good old Trimmer to make no end of +cakes." + +"My dear Violet, pray don't think of putting Mrs. Trimmer to any +trouble. Your dear mamma might be angry." + +"Angry at my asking for some cakes for the school-children, after being +papa's wife for seventeen years! That couldn't be." + +The school-feast was fixed, three weeks in advance, for the Wednesday +in Whitsun week, and during the interval there were many small +meteorologists in Beechdale school intent upon the changes of the moon, +and all those varied phenomena from which the rustic mind draws its +auguries of coming weather. The very crowing of early village cocks was +regarded suspiciously by the school children at this period; and even +the harmless domestic pussy, sitting with his back to the fire, was +deemed a cat of evil omen. + +It happened that the appointed Wednesday was a day on which Mrs. +Tempest had chosen to invite a few friends in a quiet way to her seven +o'clock dinner; among the few Captain Winstanley, who had taken Mrs. +Hawbuck's cottage for an extended period of three months. Mrs. Tempest +had known all about the school-feast a fortnight before she gave her +invitations, but had forgotten the date at the moment when she arranged +her little dinner. Yet she felt offended that Violet should insist upon +keeping her engagement to the Scobels. + +"But, dear mamma, I am of no use to you at our parties," pleaded Vixen; +"if I were at all necessary to your comfort I would give up the +school-feast." + +"My dear Violet, it is not my comfort I am considering; but I cannot +help feeling annoyed that you should prefer to spend your evening with +a herd of vulgar children--playing Oranges and Lemons, or Kiss in the +Ring, or some other ridiculous game, and getting yourself into a most +unbecoming perspiration--to a quiet home evening with a few friends." + +"You see, mamma, I know our quiet home evenings with a few friends so +well. I could tell you beforehand exactly what will happen, almost the +very words people will say--how your _jardinières_ will be admired, and +how the conversation will glance off from your ferns and pelargoniums +to Lady Ellangowan's orchids, and then drift back to your old china; +after which the ladies will begin to talk about dress, and the +wickedness of giving seven guineas for a summer bonnet, as Mrs Jones, +or Green, or Robinson has just done; from which their talk will glide +insensibly to the iniquities of modern servants; and when those have +been discussed exhaustively, one of the younger ladies will tell you +the plot of the last novel she has had from Mudie's, with an infinite +number of you knows and you sees, and then perhaps Captain +Winstanley--he is coming, I suppose--will sing a French song, of which +the company will understand about four words in every verse, and then +you will show Mrs. Carteret your last piece of art needlework--" + +"What nonsense you talk, Violet. However, if you prefer the children at +Stony Cross to the society of your mother and your mother's friends, +you must take your own way." + +"And you will forgive me in advance, dear mamma?" + +"My love, I have nothing to forgive. I only deplore a bent of mind +which I can but think unladylike." + +Vixen was glad to be let off with so brief a lecture. In her heart of +hearts she was not at all sorry that her mother's friendly dinner +should fall on a day which she had promised to spend elsewhere. It was +a treat to escape the sameness of that polite entertainment. Yes, +Captain Winstanley was to be there of course, and prolonged +acquaintance had not lessened her dislike to that gentleman. She had +seen him frequently during his residence at the Hawbuck cottage, not at +her mother's house only, but at all the best houses in the +neighbourhood. He had done nothing to offend her. He had been +studiously polite; and that was all. Not by one word had he reminded +Violet of that moonlight walk in the Pavilion garden; not by so much as +a glance or a sigh had he hinted at a hidden passion. So far she could +make no complaint against him. But the attrition of frequent +intercourse did not wear off the sharp edge of her dislike. + +Wednesday afternoon came, and any evil auguries that had been drawn +from the noontide crowing of restless village cocks was set at naught, +for the weather was peerless: a midsummer sky and golden sunlight shone +upon all things; upon white-walled cottages and orchards, and gardens +where the pure lilies were beginning to blow, upon the yellow-green oak +leaves and deepening bloom of the beech, and the long straight roads +cleaving the heart of the Forest. + +Violet had arranged to drive Mr. and Mrs. Scobel in her pony-carriage. +She was at the door of their snug little Vicarage at three o'clock; the +vivacious Titmouse tossing his head and jingling his bit in a burst of +pettishness at the aggravating behaviour of the flies. + +Mrs. Scobel came fluttering out, with the Vicar behind her. Both +carried baskets, and behind them came an old servant, who had been Mrs. +Scobel's nurse, a woman with a figure like a hogshead of wine, and a +funny little head at the top, carrying a third basket. + +"The buns and bread have gone straight from the village," said the +Vicar's wife. "How well you are looking, Violet. I hope dear Mrs. +Tempest was not very angry at your coming with us." + +"Dear Mrs. Tempest didn't care a straw," Vixen answered, laughing. "But +she thinks me wanting in dignity for liking to have a romp with the +school-children." + +All the baskets were in by this time, and Titmouse was in a paroxysm of +impatience; so Mr. and Mrs. Scobel seated themselves quickly, and Vixen +gave her reins a little shake that meant Go, and off went the pony at a +pace which was rather like running away. + +The Vicar looked slightly uneasy. + +"Does he always go as fast as this?" he inquired. + +"Sometimes a good deal faster. He's an old fencer, you know, and hasn't +forgotten his jumping days. But of course I don't let him jump with the +carriage." + +"I should think not," ejaculated the Vicar; "unless you wanted to +commit murder and suicide. Don't you think you could make him go a +little steadier? He's going rather like a dog with a tin kettle at his +tail, and if the kettle were to tip over----" + +"Oh, he'll settle down presently," said Vixen coolly. "I don't want to +interfere with him; it makes him ill-tempered. And if he were to take +to kicking----" + +"If you'll pull him up, I think I'll get out and walk," said Mr. +Scobel, the back of whose head was on a level with the circle which the +pony's hoofs would have been likely to describe in the event of kicking. + +"Oh, please don't!" cried Vixen. "If you do that I shall think you've +no confidence in my driving." + +She pulled Titmouse together, and coaxed him into an unobjectionable +trot; a trot which travelled over the ground very fast, without giving +the occupants of the carriage the uncomfortable sensation of sitting +behind a pony intent on getting to the sharp edge of the horizon and +throwing himself over. + +They were going up a long hill. Halfway up they came to the gate of the +kennels. Violet looked at it with a curious half-reluctant glance that +expressed the keenest pain. + +"Poor papa," she sighed. "He never seemed happier than when he used to +take me to see the hounds." + +"Mr. Vawdrey is to have them next year," said Mrs. Scobel. "That seems +right and proper. He will be the biggest man in this part of the +country when the Ashbourne and Briarwood estates are united. And the +Duke cannot live very long--a man who gives his mind to eating and +drinking, and is laid up with the gout twice a year." + +"Do you know when they are to be married?" asked Vixen, with an +unconcerned air. + +"At the end of this year, I am told. Lady Jane died last November. They +would hardly have the wedding before a twelvemonth was over. Have you +seen much of Mr. Vawdrey since he came back?" + +"I believe I have seen him three times: once at Lady Southminster's +ball; once when he came to call upon mamma; once at kettledrum at +Ellangowan, where he was in attendance upon Lady Mabel. He looked +rather like a little dog at the end of a string; he had just that +meekly-obedient look, combined with an expression of not wanting to be +there, which you see in a dog. If I were engaged, I would not take my +_fiancée_ to kettledrums." + +"Ah, Violet, when are you going to be engaged?" cried Mrs. Scobel, in a +burst of playfulness. "Where is the man worthy of you?" + +"Nowhere; unless Heaven would make me such a man as my father." + +"You and Mr. Vawdrey were such friends when you were girl and boy. I +used sometimes to fancy that childish friendship of yours would lead to +a lasting attachment." + +"Did you? That was a great mistake. I am not half good enough for Mr. +Vawdrey. I was well enough for a playfellow, but he wants something +much nearer perfection in a wife." + +"But your tastes are so similar." + +"The very reason we should not care for each other." + +"'In joining contrasts lieth love's delight.' That's what a poet has +said, yet I can't quite believe that, Violet." + +"But you see the event proves the poet's axiom true. Here is my old +playfellow, who cares for nothing but horses and hounds and a country +life, devotedly attached to Lady Mabel Ashbourne, who reads Greek plays +with as much enjoyment as other young ladies derive from a stirring +novel, and who hasn't an idea or an attitude that is not strictly +aesthetic." + +"Do you know, Violet, I am very much afraid that this marriage is +rather the result of calculation than of genuine affection?" said Mrs. +Scobel solemnly. + +"Oh, no doubt it will be a grand thing to unite Ashbourne and +Briarwood, but Roderick Vawdrey is too honourable to marry a girl he +could not love. I would never believe him capable of such baseness," +answered Violet, standing up for her old friend. + +Here they turned out of the Forest and drove through a peaceful colony +consisting of half-a-dozen cottages, a rustic inn where reigned a +supreme silence and sleepiness, and two or three houses in old-world +gardens. + +Vixen changed the conversation to buns and school-children, which +agreeable theme occupied them till Titmouse had walked up a +tremendously steep hill, the Vicar trudging through the dust beside +him; and then the deep green vale in which Rufus was slain lay smiling +in the sunshine below their feet. + +Perhaps the panorama to be seen from the top of that hill is absolutely +the finest in the Forest--a vast champaign, stretching far away to the +white walls, tiled roofs, and ancient abbey-church of Romsey; here a +glimpse of winding water, there a humble village--nameless save for its +inhabitants--nestling among the trees, or basking in the broad sunshine +of a common. + +At the top of the hill, Bates, the gray-headed groom, who had attended +Violet ever since her first pony-ride, took possession of Titmouse and +the chaise, while the baskets were handed over to a lad, who had been +on the watch for their arrival. Then they all went down the steep path +into the valley, at the bottom of which the children were swarming in a +cluster, as thick as bees, while a pale flame and a cloud of white +smoke went up from the midst of them like the fire beneath a sacrifice. +This indicated the boiling of the kettle, in true gipsy fashion. + +For the next hour and a half tea-drinking was the all-absorbing +business with everybody. The boiling of the kettle was a grand feature +in the entertainment. Cups and saucers were provided by a little colony +of civilised gipsies, who seem indigenous to the spot, and whose summer +life is devoted to assisting at picnics and tea-drinkings, telling +fortunes, and selling photographs. White cloths were spread upon the +short sweet turf, and piles of bread-and-butter, cake and buns, invited +the attention of the flies. + +Presently arose the thrilling melody of a choral grace, with the sweet +embellishment of a strong Hampshire accent. And then, with a swoop as +of eagles on their quarry, the school-children came down upon the +mountains of bread-and-butter, and ate their way manfully to the buns +and cake. + +Violet had never been happier since her return to Hampshire than she +felt that sunny afternoon, as she moved quickly about, ministering to +these juvenile devourers. The sight of their somewhat bovine +contentment took her thoughts away from her own cares and losses; and +presently, when the banquet was concluded--a conclusion only arrived at +by the total consumption of everything provided, whereby the +hungry-eyed gipsy attendants sunk into despondency--Vixen constituted +herself Lord of Misrule, and led off a noisy procession in the +time-honoured game of Oranges and Lemons, which entertainment continued +till the school-children were in a high fever. After this they had Kiss +in the Ring; Vixen only stipulating, before she began, that nobody +should presume to drop the handkerchief before her. Then came +Touchwood--a game charmingly adapted to that wooded valley, where the +trees looked as if they had been planted at convenient distances on +purpose for this juvenile sport. + +"Oh, I am so tired," cried Violet at last, when church clocks--all out +of earshot in this deep valley--were striking eight, and the low sun +was golden on the silvery beech-boles, and the quiet half-hidden +water-pools under the trees yonder; "I really don't think I can have +anything to do with the next game." + +"Oh, if you please, miss," cried twenty shrill young voices, "oh, if +you please, miss, we couldn't play without you--you're the best on us!" + +This soothing flattery had its effect. + +"Oh, but I really don't think I can do more than start you," sighed +Vixen, flushed and breathless, "what is it to be?" + +"Blindman's Buff," roared the boys. + +"Hunt the Slipper," screamed the girls. + +"Oh, Blindman's Buff is best," said Vixen. "This little wood is a +splendid place for Blindman's Buff. But mind, I shall only start you. +Now then, who's to be Blindman?" + +Mr. Scobel volunteered. He had been a tranquil spectator of the sports +hitherto; but this was the last game, and he felt that he ought to do +something more than look on. Vixen blindfolded him, asked him the usual +question about his father's stable, and then sent him spinning amongst +the moss-grown beeches, groping his way fearfully, with outstretched +arms, amidst shrillest laughter and noisiest delight. + +He was not long blindfold, and had not had many bumps against the trees +before he impounded the person of a fat and scant-of-breath scholar, a +girl whose hard breathing would have betrayed her neighbourhood to the +dullest ear. + +"That's Polly Sims, I know," said the Vicar. + +It was Polly Sims, who was incontinently made as blind as Fortune or +Justice, or any other of the deities who dispense benefits to man. +Polly floundered about among the trees for a long time, making frantic +efforts to catch the empty air, panting like a human steam-engine, and +nearly knocking out what small amount of brains she might possess +against the gray branches, outstretched like the lean arms of Macbeth's +weird women across her path. Finally Polly Sims succeeded in catching +Bobby Jones, whom she clutched with the tenacity of an octopus; and +then came the reign of Bobby Jones, who was an expert at the game, and +who kept the whole party on the _qui vive_ by his serpentine windings +and twistings among the stout old trunks. + +Presently there was a shrill yell of triumph. Bobby had caught Miss +Tempest. + +"I know'd her by her musling gownd, and the sweet-smelling stuff upon +her pocket-handkercher," he roared. + +Violet submitted with a good grace. + +"I'm dreadfully tired," she said, "and I'm sure I shan't catch anyone." + +The sun had been getting lower and lower. There were splashes of ruddy +light on the smooth gray beech-boles, and that was all. Soon these +would fade, and all would be gloom. The grove had an awful look +already. One would expect to meet some ghostly Druid, or some witch of +eld, among the shadowy tracks left by the forest wildings. Vixen went +about her work languidly. She was really tired, and was glad to think +her day's labours were over. She went slowly in and out among the +trees, feeling her way with outstretched arms, her feet sinking +sometimes into deep drifts of last year's leaves, or gliding +noiselessly over the moss. The air was soft and cool and dewy, with a +perfume of nameless wild flowers--a faint aromatic odour of herbs, +which the wise women had gathered for medicinal uses in days of old, +when your village sorceress was your safest doctor. Everywhere there +was the hush and coolness of fast-coming night. The children's voices +were stilled. This last stage of the game was a thing of breathless +interest. + +Vixen's footsteps drifted lower down into the wooded hollow; insensibly +she was coming towards the edge of the treacherously green bog which +has brought many a bold rider to grief in these districts, and still +she had caught no one. She began to think that she had roamed ever so +far away, and was in danger of losing herself altogether, or at least +losing everybody else, and being left by herself in the forest +darkness. The grassy hollow in which she was wandering had an +atmosphere of solitude. + +She was on the point of taking off the handkerchief that Mr. Scobel had +bound so effectually across her eyes, when her outstretched hands +clasped something--a substantial figure, distinctly human, clad in +rough cloth. + +Before she had time to think who it was she had captured, a pair of +strong arms clasped her; she was drawn to a broad chest; she felt a +heart beating strong and fast against her shoulder, while lips that +seemed too familiar to offend kissed hers with all the passion of a +lover's kiss. + +"Don't be angry," said a well-known voice; "I believe it's the rule of +the game. If it isn't I'm sure it ought to be." + +A hand, at once strong and gentle, took off the handkerchief, and in +the soft woodland twilight she looked up at Roderick Vawdrey's face, +looking down upon her with an expression which she presumed must mean a +brotherly friendliness--the delight of an old friend at seeing her +after a long interval. + +She was not the less angry at that outrageous unwarrantable kiss. + +"It is not the rule of the game amongst civilised people; though it +possibly may be among plough-boys and servant-maids!" she exclaimed +indignantly. "You are really a most ungentlemanlike person! I wonder +Lady Mabel Ashbourne has not taught you better manners." + +"Is that to be my only reward for saving you from plunging--at least +ankle-deep--in the marshy ground yonder? But for me you would have been +performing a boggy version of Ophelia by this time." + +"How did you come here?" + +"I have been to Langley Brook for a day's fly-fishing, and was tramping +home across country in a savage humour at my poor sport, when I heard +the chatter of small voices, and presently came upon the Scobels and +the school-children. The juveniles were in a state of alarm at having +lost you. They had been playing the game in severe silence, and at a +turn in the grove missed you altogether. Oh, here comes Scobel, with +his trencher on the back of his head." + +The Vicar came forward, rejoicing at sight of Violet's white gown. + +"My dear, what a turn you have given us!" he cried; "those silly +children, to let you out of their sight! I don't think a wood is a good +place for Blindman's Buff." + +"No more do I," answered Vixen, very pale. + +"You look as if you had been frightened, too," said the Vicar. + +"It did feel awfully lonely; not a sound, except the frogs croaking +their vespers, and one dismal owl screaming in the distance. And how +cold it has turned now the sun has gone down; and how ghostly the +beeches look in their green mantles; there is something awful in a wood +at sunset." + +She ran on in an excited tone, masking her agitation under an unnatural +vivacity. Roderick watched her keenly. Mr. and Mrs. Scobel went back to +their business of getting the children together, and the pots, pans, and +baskets packed for the return-journey. The children were inclined to be +noisy and insubordinate. They would have liked to make a night of it in +this woody hollow, or in the gorse-clothed heights up yonder by Stony +Cross. To go home after such a festival, and be herded in small stuffy +cottages, was doubtless trying to free-born humanity, always more or +less envious of the gipsies. + +"Shall we walk up the hill together?" Roderick asked Violet humbly, +"while the Scobels follow with their flock?" + +"I am going to drive Mr. and Mrs. Scobel," replied Vixen curtly. + +"But where is your carriage?" + +"I don t know. I rather think it was to meet us at the top of the hill." + +"Then let us go up together and find it--unless you hate me too much to +endure my company for a quarter of an hour--or are too angry with me +for my impertinence just now." + +"It is not worth being serious about," answered Vixen quietly, after a +little pause. "I was very angry at the moment, but after all--between +you and me--who were like brother and sister a few years ago, it can't +matter very much. I daresay you may have kissed me in those days, +though I have forgotten all about it." + +"I think I did--once or twice," admitted Rorie with laudable gravity. + +"Then let your impertinence just now go down to the old account, which +we will close, if you please, to-night. But," seeing him drawing nearer +her with a sudden eagerness, "mind, it is never to be repeated. I could +not forgive that." + +"I would do much to escape your anger," said Rorie softly. + +"The whole situation just now was too ridiculous," pursued Vixen, with +a spurious hilarity. "A young woman wandering blindfold in a wood all +alone--it must have seemed very absurd." + +"It seemed very far from absurd--to me," said Rorie. + +They were going slowly up the grassy hill, the short scanty herbage +looking gray in the dimness. Glow-worms were beginning to shine here +and there at the foot of the furze-bushes. A pale moon was rising above +the broad expanse of wood and valley, which sank with gentle +undulations to the distant plains, where the young corn was growing and +the cattle were grazing in a sober agricultural district. Here all was +wild and beautiful--rich, yet barren. + +"I'm afraid when we met last--at Lady Southminster's ball--that I +forgot to congratulate you upon your engagement to your cousin," said +Violet by-and-by, when they had walked a little way in perfect silence. + +She was trying to carry out an old determination. She had always meant +to go up to him frankly, with outstretched hand, and wish him joy. And +she fancied that at the ball she had said too little. She had not let +him understand that she was really glad. "Believe me, I am very glad +that you should marry someone close at home--that you should widen your +influence among us." + +"You are very kind," answered Rorie, with exceeding coldness. "I +suppose all such engagements are subjects for congratulation, from a +conventional point of view. My future wife is both amiable and +accomplished, as you know. I have reason to be very proud that she has +done me so great an honour as to prefer me to many worthier suitors; +but I am bound to tell you--as we once before spoke of this subject, at +the time of your dear father's death, and I then expressed myself +somewhat strongly--I am bound to tell you that my engagement to Mabel +was made to please my poor mother. It was when we were all in Italy +together. My mother was dying. Mabel's goodness and devotion to her had +been beyond all praise; and my heart was drawn to her by affection, by +gratitude; and I knew that it would make poor mother happy to see us +irrevocably bound to each other--and so--the thing came about somehow, +almost unawares, and I have every reason to be proud and happy that +fate should have favoured me so far above my deserts." + +"I am very glad that you are happy," said Violet gently. + +After this there was a silence which lasted longer than the previous +interval in their talk. They were at the top of the ill before either +of them spoke. + +Then Vixen laid her hand lightly upon her old playfellow's arm, and +said, with extreme earnestness: + +"You will go into Parliament by-and-by, no doubt, and have great +influence. Do not let them spoil the Forest. Do not let horrid +grinding-down economists, for the sake of saving a few pounds or +gaining a few pounds, alter and destroy scenes that are so beautiful +and a delight to so many. England is a rich country, is she not? Surely +she can afford to keep something for her painters and her poets, and +even for the humble holiday-folks who come to drink tea at Rufus's +stone. Don't let our Forest be altered, Rorie. Let all things be as +they were when we were children." + +"All that my voice and influence can do to keep them so shall be done, +Violet," he answered in tones as earnest. "I am glad that you have +asked me something to-night. I am glad, with all my heart, that you +have given me something to do for you. It shall be like a badge in my +helmet, by-and-by, when I enter the lists. I think I shall say: 'For +God and for Violet,' when I run a tilt against the economic devastators +who want to clear our woods and cut off our commoners." + +He bent down and kissed her hand, as in token of knightly allegiance. +He had just time to do it comfortably before Mr. and Mrs. Scobel, with +the children and their master and mistress, came marching up the hill, +singing, with shrill glad voices, one of the harvest-home processional +hymns. + + + "All good gifts around us + Are sent from heaven above, + Then thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord, + For all His love." + + +"What a delicious night!" cried Mr. Scobel. "I think we ought all to +walk home. It would be much nicer than being driven." + +This he said with a lively recollection of Titmouse's performances on +the journey out, and a lurking dread that he might behave a little +worse on the journey home. A lively animal of that kind, going home to +his stable, through the uncertain lights and shadows of woodland roads, +and driven by such a charioteer as Violet Tempest, was not to be +thought of without a shudder. + +"I think I had better walk, in any case," said Mr. Scobel thoughtfully. +"I shall be wanted to keep the children together." + +"Let us all walk home," suggested Roderick. "We can go through the +plantations. It will be very jolly in the moonlight. Bates can drive +your pony back, Violet." + +Vixen hesitated. + +"It's not more than four miles through the plantations," said Roderick. + +"Do you think I am afraid of a long walk?" + +"Of course not. You were a modern Atalanta three years ago. I don't +suppose a winter in Paris and a season at Brighton have quite spoiled +you." + +"It shall be as you like, Mrs. Scobel," said Vixen, appealing to the +Vicar's wife. + +"Oh, let us walk by all means," replied Mrs. Scobel, divining her +husband's feelings with respect to Titmouse. + +"Then, you may drive the pony home, Bates," said Violet; "and be sure +you give him a good supper." + +Titmouse went rattling down the hill at a pace that almost justified +the Vicar's objection to him. He gave a desperate shy in the hollow at +sight of a shaggy donkey, with a swollen appearance about the head, +suggestive, to the equine mind, of hobgoblins. Convulsed at this +appalling spectre, Titmouse stood on end for a second or two, and then +tore violently off, swinging his carriage behind him, so that the +groom's figure swayed to and fro in the moonlight. + +"Thank God we're not sitting behind that brute!" ejaculated the Vicar +devoutly. + +The pedestrians went off in the other direction, along the brow of the +hill, by a long white road that crossed a wide sweep of heathy country, +brown ridges and dark hollows, distant groups of firs standing black +against the moonlit sky, here and there a solitary yew that looked as +if it were haunted--just such a landscape as that Scottish heath upon +which Macbeth met the three weird women at set of sun, when the battle +was lost and won. Vixen and Rorie led the way; the procession of +school-children followed, singing hymns as they went with a vocal power +that gave no token of diminution. + +"Their singing is very melodious when the sharp edge is taken off by +distance," said Rorie; and he and Violet walked at a pace which soon +left the children a good way behind them. + +Mellowed by a quarter of a mile or so of interesting space, the music +lent a charm to the tranquil, perfumed night. + +By-and-by they came to the gate of an enclosure which covered a large +extent of ground, and through which there was a near way to Beechdale +and the Abbey House. They walked along a grassy track through a +plantation of young pines--a track which led them down into a green and +mossy bottom, where the trees were old and beautiful, and the shadows +fell darker. The tall beech-trunks shone like silver, or like wonderful +frozen trees in some region of eternal ice and snow. It was a +wilderness in which a stranger would incontinently lose himself; but +every foot of the way was familiar to Vixen and Rorie. They had +followed the hounds by these green ways, and ridden and rambled here in +all seasons. + +For some time they walked almost in silence, enjoying the beauty of the +night, the stillness only broken by the distant chorus of children +singing their pious strains--old hymn-tunes that Violet had known and +loved all her life. + +"Doesn't it almost seem as if our old childish days had come back?" +said Roderick by-and-by. "Don't you feel as if you were a little girl +again, Vixen, going for a ramble with me--fern-hunting or +primrose-gathering?" + +"No," answered Vixen firmly. "Nothing can ever bring the past back for +me. I shall never forget that I had a father--the best and dearest--and +that I have lost him." + +"Dear Violet," Roderick began, very gently, "life cannot be made up of +mourning for the dead. We may keep their images enshrined in our hearts +for ever, but we must not shut our youth from the sunshine. Think how +few years of youth God gives us; and if we waste those upon vain +sorrow----" + +"No one can say that I have wasted my youth, or shut myself from the +sunshine. I go to kettle-drums and dancing-parties. My mother and I +have taken pains to let the world see how happy we can be without papa." + +"The dear old Squire!" said Rorie tenderly; "I think he loved me." + +"I am sure he did," answered Vixen. + +"Well, you and I seem to have entered upon a new life since last we +rode through these woods together. I daresay you are right, and that it +is not possible to fancy oneself back in the past, even for a moment. +Consciousness of the present hangs so heavily upon us." + +"Yes," assented Vixen. + +They had come to the end of the enclosure, and stood leaning against a +gate, waiting for the arrival of the children. + +"And after all, perhaps, it is better to live in the present, and look +back at the past, as at an old picture which we shall sooner or later +turn with its face to the wall." + +"I like best to think of my old self as if it were someone else," said +Violet. "I know there was a little girl whom her father called Vixen, +who used to ride after the hounds, and roam about the Forest on her +pony; and who was herself almost as wild as the Forest ponies. But I +can't associate her with this present me," concluded Violet, pointing +to herself with a half-scornful gesture. + +"And which is the better, do you think," asked Rorie, "the wild Violet +of the past, or the elegant exotic of the present?" + +"I know which was the happier." + +"Ah," sighed Rorie, "happiness is a habit we outgrow when we get out of +our teens. But you, at nineteen, ought to have a year or so to the +good." + +The children came in sight, tramping along the rutty green walk, +singing lustily, Mr. Scobel walking at their head, and swinging his +stick in time with the tuneful choir. + + + "He only is the Maker + Of all things near and far; + He paints the wayside flower, + He lights the evening star." + + +END OF VOL. I. + + +PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. + + + + +Transcriber's note: Typographical errors silently corrected: + +volume 1 =XI. "It shall be Measure for Measure= replaced by + =XI. "It shall be Measure for Measure"= + +volume 1 chapter 1: =trainante= replaced by =traînante= + +volume 1 chapter 4: =I I shan't be for two years= replaced by + =I shan't be for two years= + +volume 1 chapter 12: =with the orchid?= replaced by + =with the orchid.= + +volume 1 chapter 12: =hade made him sleepy= replaced by + =had made him sleepy= + +volume 1 chapter 13: =cat species.= replaced by cat =species."= + +volume 1 chapter 15: =Les Traineaux= replaced by =Les Traîneaux= + +volume 1 chapter 17: =children together.= replaced by + =children together."= + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vixen, Volume I., by M. E. Braddon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIXEN, VOLUME I. *** + +***** This file should be named 26236-8.txt or 26236-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/2/3/26236/ + +Produced by Daniel Fromont. 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E. Braddon +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: small } + +P.letter {font-size: small ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 5% } + +P.finis { text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vixen, Volume I., by M. E. Braddon + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Vixen, Volume I. + +Author: M. E. Braddon + +Release Date: August 9, 2008 [EBook #26236] +[Last updated: June 14, 2013] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIXEN, VOLUME I. *** + + + + +Produced by Daniel Fromont. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +COLLECTION +<BR> +OF +<BR> +BRITISH AUTHORS +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +TAUCHNITZ EDITION. +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +VOL. 1809. +<BR><BR> +VIXEN BY M. E. BRADDON +<BR> +IN THREE VOLUMES. +<BR> +VOL. I. +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +TAUCHNITZ EDITION. +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +VIXEN +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +A NOVEL +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +M. E. BRADDON, +</H2> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," ETC. ETC. +</H4> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +<I>COPYRIGHT EDITION</I>. +<BR><BR> +IN THREE VOLUMES. +<BR> +VOL. I. +</H3> + +<BR><BR> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +By the same Author, +<BR><BR> + LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET 2 vols.<BR> + AURORA FLOYD 2 vols.<BR> + ELEANOR'S VICTORY 2 vols.<BR> + JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY 2 vols.<BR> + HENRY DUNBAR 2 vols.<BR> + THE DOCTOR'S WIFE 2 vols.<BR> + ONLY A CLOD 2 vols.<BR> + SIR JASPER'S TENANT 2 vols.<BR> + THE LADY'S MILE 2 vols.<BR> + RUPERT GODWIN 2 vols.<BR> + DEAD-SEA FRUIT 2 vols.<BR> + RUN TO EARTH 2 vols.<BR> + FENTON'S QUEST 2 vols.<BR> + THE LOVELS OF ARDEN 2 vols.<BR> + STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS 2 vols.<BR> + LUCIUS DAVOREN 3 vols.<BR> + TAKEN AT THE FLOOD 3 vols.<BR> + LOST FOR LOVE 2 vols.<BR> + A STRANGE WORLD 2 vols.<BR> + HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE 2 vols.<BR> + DEAD MEN'S SHOES 2 vols.<BR> + JOSHUA HAGGARD'S DAUGHTER 2 vols.<BR> + WEAVERS AND WEFT 1 vol.<BR> + IN GREAT WATERS & OTHER TALES 1 vol.<BR> + AN OPEN VERDICT 3 vols.<BR> +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +LEIPZIG +<BR> +BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ +<BR> +1879. +<BR><BR> +<I>The Right of Translation is reserved</I>. +</H5> + +<BR><BR> + +<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%"> + +<BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3> +CHAPTER I. <A HREF="#chap01">A Pretty Horsebreaker</A><BR> +CHAPTER II. <A HREF="#chap02">Lady Jane Vawdrey</A><BR> +CHAPTER III. <A HREF="#chap03">"I Want a Little Serious Talk with You"</A><BR> +CHAPTER IV. <A HREF="#chap04">Rorie comes of Age</A><BR> +CHAPTER V. <A HREF="#chap05">Rorie makes a Speech</A><BR> +CHAPTER VI. <A HREF="#chap06">How She took the News</A><BR> +CHAPTER VII. <A HREF="#chap07">Rorie has Plans of his own</A><BR> +CHAPTER VIII. <A HREF="#chap08">Glas ist der Erde Stolz und Glück</A><BR> +CHAPTER IX. <A HREF="#chap09">A House of Mourning</A><BR> +CHAPTER X. <A HREF="#chap10">Captain Winstanley</A><BR> +CHAPTER XI. <A HREF="#chap11">"It shall be Measure for Measure"</A><BR> +CHAPTER XII. <A HREF="#chap12">"I have no Wrong, where I can claim no Right"</A><BR> +CHAPTER XIII. <A HREF="#chap13">"He belongs to the Tame-Cat Species"</A><BR> +CHAPTER XIV. <A HREF="#chap14">"He was worthy to be loved a Lifetime"</A><BR> +CHAPTER XV. <A HREF="#chap15">Lady Southminster's Ball</A><BR> +CHAPTER XVI. <A HREF="#chap16">Rorie asks a Question</A><BR> +CHAPTER XVII. <A HREF="#chap17">Where the Red King was slain</A><BR> +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +VIXEN. +</H1> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A Pretty Horsebreaker. +</H3> + +<P> +The moon had newly risen, a late October moon, a pale almost +imperceptible crescent, above the dark pine spires in the thicket +through which Roderick Vawdrey came, gun in hand, after a long day's +rabbit-shooting. It was not his nearest way home, but he liked the +broad clearing in the pine wood, which had a ghostly look at dusk, and +was so still and lonely that the dart of a squirrel through the fallen +leaves was a startling event. Here and there a sturdy young oak that +had been newly stripped of its bark lay among the fern, like the naked +corpse of a giant. Here and there a tree had been cut down and slung +across the track, ready for barking. The ground was soft and spongy, +slippery with damp dead leaves, and inclined in a general way to +bogginess; but it was ground that Roderick Vawdrey had known all his +life, and it seemed more natural to him than any other spot upon mother +earth. +</P> + +<P> +On the edge of this thicket there was a broad ditch, with more mud and +dead fern in it than water, a ditch strongly suspected of snakes, and +beyond the ditch the fence that enclosed Squire Tempest's domain—an +old manor house in the heart of the New Forest. It had been an abbey +before the Reformation, and was still best known as the Abbey House. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder whether I'm too late to catch her," speculated Roderick, +shifting his bag from one shoulder to the other; "she's no end of fun." +</P> + +<P> +In front of the clearing there was a broad five-barred gate, and +beside the gate a keeper's cottage. The flame of a newly-lighted candle +flashed out suddenly upon the autumn dusk, while Roderick stood +looking at the gate. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll ask at the lodge," he said; "I should like to say good-bye to the +little thing before I go back to Oxford." +</P> + +<P> +He walked quickly on to the gate. The keeper's children were playing at +nothing particular just inside it. +</P> + +<P> +"Has Miss Tempest gone for her ride this afternoon?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Ya-ase," drawled the eldest shock-headed youngster. +</P> + +<P> +"And not come back yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"Noa. If she doant take care her'll be bogged." +</P> + +<P> +Roderick hitched his bag on to the top of the gate, and stood at ease +waiting. It was late for the little lady of Tempest Manor to be out on +her pony; but then it was an understood thing within a radius of ten +miles or so that she was a self-willed young person, and even at +fifteen years of age she had a knack of following her own inclination +with that noble disregard of consequences which characterises the +heaven-born ruler. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Vawdrey had not waited more than ten minutes when there came the +thud of hoofs upon the soft track, a flash of gray in the distance, +something flying over those forky branches sprawling across the way, +then a half-sweet, half-shrill call, like a bird's, at which the +keeper's children scattered themselves like a brood of scared chickens, +and now a rush, and a gray pony shooting suddenly into the air and +coming down on the other side of the gate, as if he were a new kind of +skyrocket. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you think of that, Rorie?" cried the shrill sweet voice of the +gray pony's rider! +</P> + +<P> +"I'm ashamed of you, Vixen," said Roderick, "you'll come to a bad end +some of these days." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care if I do, as long as I get my fling first," replied Vixen, +tossing her tawny mane. +</P> + +<P> +She was a slim young thing, in a short Lincoln-green habit. She had a +small pale face, brown eyes that sparkled with life and mischief, and a +rippling mass of reddish-auburn hair falling down her back under a +coquettish little felt hat. +</P> + +<P> +"Hasn't your mamma forbidden jumping, Vixen?" remonstrated Roderick, +opening the gate and coming in. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, that she has, sir," said the old groom, riding up at a jog-trot +on his thickset brown cob. "It's quite against Mrs. Tempest's orders, +and it's a great responsibility to go out with Miss Violet. She will do +it." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean the pony will do it, Bates," cried Vixen. "I don't jump. How +can I help it if papa has given me a jumping pony? If I didn't let +Titmouse take a gate when he was in the humour, he'd kick like old +boots, and pitch me a cropper. It's an instinct of self-preservation +that makes me let him jump. And as for poor dear, pretty little mamma," +continued Vixen, addressing herself to Roderick, and changing her tone +to one of patronising tenderness, "if she had her way, I should be +brought up in a little box wrapped in jeweller's wool, to keep me safe. +But you see I take after papa, Rorie; and it comes as natural to me to +fly over gates as it does to you to get ploughed for smalls. There, +Bates," jumping off the pony, "you may take Titmouse home, and I'll +come presently and give him some apples, for he has been a dear, +darling, precious treasure of a ponykins." +</P> + +<P> +She emphasised this commendation with a kiss on Titmouse's gray nose, +and handed the bridle to Bates. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to walk home with Mr. Vawdrey," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"But, Vixen, I can't, really," said Roderick; "I'm due at home at this +moment, only I couldn't leave without saying good-bye to little Vix." +</P> + +<P> +"And you're over due at Oxford, too, aren't you?" cried Vixen, +laughing; "you're always due somewhere—never in the right place. But +whether you are due or not, you're coming up to the stables with me to +give Titmouse his apples, and then you're coming to dine with us on +your last night at home. I insist upon it; papa insists; mamma +insists—we all insist." +</P> + +<P> +"My mother will be as angry as——" +</P> + +<P> +"Old boots!" interjected Vixen. "That's the best comparison I know." +</P> + +<P> +"Awfully vulgar for a young lady." +</P> + +<P> +"You taught it me. How can I help being vulgar when I associate with +you? You should hear Miss McCroke preach at me sermons so long"—here +Vixen extended her arms to the utmost—"and I'm afraid they'd make as +much impression on Titmouse as they do upon me. But she's a dear old +thing, and I love her immensely." +</P> + +<P> +This was Vixen's usual way, making up for all shortcomings with the +abundance of her love. The heart was always atoning for the errors of +the head. +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't be Miss McCroke for anything. She must have a bad time of +it with you." +</P> + +<P> +"She has," assented Vixen, with a remorseful sigh; "I fear I'm bringing +her sandy hairs with sorrow to the grave. That hair of hers never could +be gray, you know, it's too self-opinionated in its sandiness. Now come +along, Rorie, do. Titmouse will be stamping about his box like a maniac +if he doesn't get those apples." +</P> + +<P> +She gave a little tug with both her small doeskin-covered +hands at Roderick's arm. He was still standing by the gate irresolute, +inclination drawing him to the Abbey House, duty calling him home to +Briarwood, five miles off, where his widowed mother was expecting his +return. +</P> + +<P> +"My last night at home, Vix," he said remonstrantly; "I really ought to +dine with my mother." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you ought, and that's the very reason why you'll dine with +us. So 'kim over, now,' as Bates says to the horses; I don't know what +there is for dinner," she added confidentially, "but I feel sure it's +something nice. Dinner is papa's particular vanity, you know. He's very +weak about dinner." +</P> + +<P> +"Not so weak as he is about you, Vixen." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you really think papa is as fond of me as he is of his dinner?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure of it!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then he must be very fond of me," exclaimed Vixen, with conviction. +"Now, are you coming?" +</P> + +<P> +Who could resist those little soft hands in doeskin? Certainly not +Rorie. He resigned himself to the endurance of his mother's anger in +the future as a price to be paid for the indulgence of his inclination +in the present, gave Vixen his arm, and turned his face towards the +Abbey House. +</P> + +<P> +They walked through shrubberies that would have seemed a pathless +wilderness to a stranger, but every turn in which was familiar to these +two. The ground was undulating, and vast thickets of rhododendron and +azalea rose high above them, or sank in green valleys below their path. +Here and there a group of tall firs towered skyward above the dark +entanglement of shrubs, or a great beech spread its wide limbs over the +hollows; here and there a pool of water reflected the pale moonshine. +</P> + +<P> +The house lay low, sheltered and shut in by those rhododendron +thickets, a long, rambling pile of building, which had been added to, +and altered, and taken away from, and added to again, like that +well-known puzzle in mental arithmetic which used to amuse us in our +childhood. It was all gables, and chimney-stacks, and odd angles, and +ivy-mantled wall, and richly-mullioned windows, or quaint little +diamond-paned lattices, peeping like a watchful eye from under the +shadow of a jutting cornice. The stables had been added in Queen +Elizabeth's time, after the monks had been routed from their snug +quarters, and the Abbey had been bestowed upon one of the Tudor +favourites. These Elizabethan stables formed the four sides of a +quadrangle, stone-paved, with an old marble basin in the centre—a +basin which the Vicar pronounced to be an early Saxon font, but which +Squire Tempest refused to have removed from the place it had occupied +ever since the stables were built. There were curious carvings upon the +six sides, but so covered with mosses and lichens that nobody could +tell what they meant; and the Squire forbade any scraping process by +officious antiquarians, which might lead to somebody's forcible +appropriation of the ancient basin. +</P> + +<P> +The Squire was not so modern in his ideas as to set up his own +gasometer, so the stables were lighted by lanterns, with an oil-lamp +fixed here and there against the wall. Into this dim uncertain light +came Roderick and Vixen, through the deep stone archway which opened +from the shrubbery into the stable-yard, and which was solid enough for +the gate of a fortified town. +</P> + +<P> +Titmouse's stable was lighted better then the rest. The door stood +open, and there was Titmouse, with the neat little quilted doeskin +saddle still on his back, waiting to be fed and petted by his young +mistress. It was a pretty picture, the old low-ceiled stable, with its +wide stalls and roomy loose-boxes and carpet of plaited straw, golden +against the deep brown of the woodwork. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen ran into the box, and took off Titmouse's bridle, he holding down +his head, like a child submitting to be undressed. Then, with many +vigorous tugs at straps and buckles, and a good deal of screwing up of +her rosy lips in the course of the effort, Vixen took off her pony's +saddle. +</P> + +<P> +"I like to do everything I can for him," she explained, as Rorie +watched her with an amused smile; "I'd wisp him down if they'd let me." +</P> + +<P> +She left the leather panel on Titmouse's back, hung up saddle and +bridle, and skipped off to a corn-chest to hunt for apples. Of these +she brought half-a-dozen or so in the skirt of her habit, and then, +swinging herself lightly into a comfortable corner of the manger, began +to carry out her system of reward for good conduct, with much coquetry +on her part and Titmouse's, Rorie watching it all from the empty stall +adjoining, his folded arms resting on the top of the partition. He said +not another word about his mother, or the duty that called him home to +Briarwood, but stood and watched this pretty horsebreaker in a dreamy +contentment. +</P> + +<P> +What was Violet Tempest, otherwise Vixen, like, this October evening, +just three months before her fifteenth birthday? She made a lovely +picture in this dim light, as she sat in the corner of the old manger, +holding a rosy-cheeked apple at a tantalising distance from Titmouse's +nose: yet she was perhaps not altogether lovely. She was brilliant +rather than absolutely beautiful. The white skin was powdered with +freckles. The rippling hair was too warm an auburn to escape an +occasional unfriendly remark from captious critics; but it was not red +hair for all that. The eyes were brownest of the brown, large, bright, +and full of expression. The mouth was a thought too wide, but it was a +lovely mouth notwithstanding. The lips were full and firmly +moulded—lips that could mean anything, from melting tenderness to +sternest resolve. Such lips, a little parted to show the whitest, +evenest teeth in Hampshire, seemed to Rorie lovely enough to please the +most critical connoisseur of feminine beauty. The nose was short and +straight, but had a trick of tilting itself upward with a little +impatient jerk that made it seem <I>retroussé;</I> the chin was round and +full and dimpled; the throat was full and round also, a white column +supporting the tawny head, and indicated that Vixen was meant to be a +powerful woman, and not one of those ethereal nymphs who lend +themselves most readily to the decorative art of a court milliner. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid Violet will be a dreadfully large creature," Mrs. Tempest +murmured plaintively, as the girl grew and flourished; that lady +herself being ethereal, and considering her own appearance a strictly +correct standard of beauty. How could it be otherwise, when she had +been known before her marriage as "the pretty Miss Calthorpe?" +</P> + +<P> +"This is very nice, you know, Vixen," said Roderick critically, as +Titmouse made a greedy snap at an apple, and was repulsed with a gentle +pat on his nose, "but it can't go on for ever. What'll you do when you +are grown up?" +</P> + +<P> +"Have a horse instead of a pony," answered Vixen unhesitatingly. +</P> + +<P> +"And will that be all the difference?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see what other difference there can be. I shall always love +papa, I shall always love hunting, I shall always love mamma—as much +as she'll let me. I shall always have a corner in my heart for deal old +Crokey; and, perhaps," looking at him mischievously, "even an odd +corner for you. What difference can a few more birthdays make in me? I +shall be too big for Titmouse, that's the only misfortune; but I shall +always keep him for my pet, and I'll have a basket-carriage and drive +him when I go to see my poor people. Sitting behind a pony is an awful +bore when one's natural place is on his back, but I'd sooner endure it +than let Titmouse fancy himself superannuated." +</P> + +<P> +"But when you're grown up you'll have to come out, Vixen. You'll be +obliged to go to London for a season, and be presented, and go to no +end of balls, and ride in the Row, and make a grand marriage, and have +a page all to yourself in the <I>Court Journal</I>." +</P> + +<P> +"Catch me—going to London!" exclaimed Vixen, ignoring the latter part +of the sentence. "Papa hates London, and so do I. And as to riding in +Rotten Row, <I>je voudrais bien me voir faisant cela</I>," added Vixen, +whose study of the French language chiefly resulted in the endeavour to +translate English slang into that tongue. "No, when I grow up I shall +take papa the tour of Europe. We'll see all those places I'm worried +about at lessons—Marathon, Egypt, Naples, the Peloponnesus, <I>tout le +tremblement</I>—and I shall say to each of them, 'Oh, this is you, is it? +What a nuisance you've been to me on the map.' We shall go up Mount +Vesuvius, and the Pyramids, and do all sorts of wild things; and by the +time I come home I shall have forgotten the whole of my education." +</P> + +<P> +"If Miss McCroke could hear you!" +</P> + +<P> +"She does, often. You can't imagine the wild things I say to her. But I +love her—fondly." +</P> + +<P> +A great bell clanged out with a vigorous peal, that seemed to shake the +old stable. +</P> + +<P> +"There's the first bell. I must run and dress. Come to the drawing-room +and see mamma." +</P> + +<P> +"But, Vixen, how can I sit down to dinner in such a costume," +remonstrated Rorie, looking down at his brown shooting-suit, leather +gaiters, and tremendous boots—boots which, instead of being beautified +with blacking, were suppled with tallow; "I can't do it, really." +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense," cried Vixen, "what does it matter? Papa seldom dresses for +dinner. I believe he considers it a sacrifice to mamma's sense of +propriety when he washes his hands after coming in from the home farm. +And you are only a boy—I beg pardon—an undergraduate. So come along." +</P> + +<P> +"But upon my word, Vixen, I feel too much ashamed of myself." +</P> + +<P> +"I've asked you to dinner, and you've accepted," cried Vixen, pulling +him out of the stable by the lapel of his shooting-jacket. +</P> + +<P> +He seemed to relish that mode of locomotion, for he allowed himself to +be pulled all the way to the hall-door, and into the glow of the great +beech-wood fire; a ruddy light which shone upon many a sporting trophy, +and reflected itself on many a gleaming pike and cuirass, belonging to +days of old, when gentlemanly sport for the most part meant man-hunting. +</P> + +<P> +It was a fine old vaulted hall, a place to love and remember lovingly +when far away. The walls were all of darkly bright oak panelling, save +where here and there a square of tapestry hung before a door, or a +painted window let in the moonlight. At one end there was a great +arched fireplace, the arch surmounted with Squire Tempest's armorial +bearings, roughly cut in freestone. A mailed figure of the usual stumpy +build, in helm and hauberk, stood on each side of the hearth; a large +three-cornered chair covered with stamped and gilded leather was drawn +up to the fireside, the Squire's favourite seat on an autumn or winter +afternoon. The chair was empty now, but, stretched at full length +before the blazing logs, lay the Squire's chosen companion, Nip, a +powerful liver-coloured pointer; and beside him in equally luxurious +rest, reclined Argus, Vixen's mastiff. There was a story about Vixen +and the mastiff, involving the only incident in that young lady's life +the recollection whereof could make her blush. +</P> + +<P> +The dog, apparently coiled in deepest slumber, heard the light +footsteps on the hall floor, pricked up his tawny ears, sprang to his +feet, and bounded over to his young mistress, whom he nearly knocked +down in the warmth of his welcome. Nip, the pointer, blinked at the +intruders, yawned desperately, stretched himself a trifle longer, and +relapsed into slumber. +</P> + +<P> +"How fond that brute is of you," said Rorie; "but it's no wonder, when +one considers what you did for him." +</P> + +<P> +"If you say another word I shall hate you," cried Vixen savagely. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, but you know when a fellow fights another fellow's battles, the +other fellow's bound to be fond of him; and when a young lady pitches +into a bird-boy with her riding-whip to save a mastiff pup from +ill-usage, that mastiff pup is bound——" +</P> + +<P> +"Mamma," cried Vixen, flinging aside a tapestry <I>portière</I>, and +bouncing into the drawing-room, "here's Roderick, and he's come to +dinner, and you must excuse his shooting-dress, please. I'm sure pa +will." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, my dear Violet," replied a gentle, <I>traînante</I> voice from +the fire-lit dimness near the velvet-curtained hearth. "Of course I am +always glad to see Mr. Vawdrey when your papa asks him. Where did you +meet the Squire, Roderick?" +</P> + +<P> +"Upon my word, Mrs. Tempest," faltered Rorie, coming slowly forward +into the ruddy glow, "I feel quite awfully ashamed of myself; I've been +rabbit-shooting, and I'm a most horrid object. It wasn't the Squire +asked me to stay. It was Vixen." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen made a ferocious grimace at him—he could just see her distorted +countenance in the fire-light—and further expressed her aggravation by +a smart crack of her whip. +</P> + +<P> +"Violet, my love, you have such startling ways," exclaimed Mrs. +Tempest, with a long-suffering air. "Really, Miss McCroke, you ought to +try and correct her of those startling ways." +</P> + +<P> +On this Roderick became aware of a stout figure in a tartan dress, +knitting industriously on the side of the hearth opposite Mrs. +Tempest's sofa. He could just see the flash of those active needles, +and could just hear Miss McCroke murmur placidly that she had corrected +Violet, and that it was no use. +</P> + +<P> +Rorie remembered that plaid poplin dress when he was at Eton. It was a +royal Stuart, too brilliant to be forgotten. He used to wonder whether +it would ever wear out, or whether it was not made of some +indestructible tissue, like asbestos—a fabric that neither time nor +fire could destroy. +</P> + +<P> +"It was Rorie's last night, you see, mamma," apologised Vixen, "and I +knew you and papa would like him to come, and that you wouldn't mind +his shooting-clothes a bit, though they do make him look like the +under-keeper, except that the under-keeper's better looking than Rorie, +and has finished growing his whiskers, instead of living in the +expectation of them." +</P> + +<P> +And with this Parthian shot, Vixen made a pirouette on her neat little +morocco-shod toes, and whisked herself out of the room; leaving +Roderick Vawdrey to make the best of his existence for the next twenty +minutes with the two women he always found it most difficult to get on +with, Mrs. Tempest and Miss McCroke. +</P> + +<P> +The logs broke into a crackling blaze just at this moment, and lighted +up that luxurious hearth and the two figures beside it. +</P> + +<P> +It was the prettiest thing imaginable in the way of a drawing-room, +that spacious low-ceiled chamber in the Abbey House. +</P> + +<P> +The oak panelling was painted white, a barbarity on the part of those +modern Goths the West End decorators, but a charming background for +quaint Venetian mirrors, hanging shelves of curious old china, dainty +little groups of richly-bound duodecimos, brackets, bronzes, freshest +flowers in majolica jars; water-colour sketches by Hunt, Prout, +Cattermole, and Edward Duncan; sage-green silk curtains; black and gold +furniture, and all the latest prettinesses of the new Jacobean school. +The mixture of real medievalism and modern quaintness was delightful. +One hardly knew where the rococo began or the mediaeval left off. The +good old square fireplace, with its projecting canopy, and columns in +white and coloured marbles, was as old as the days of Inigo Jones; but +the painted tiles, with their designs from the Iliad and Odyssey after +Dante Rossetti, were the newest thing from Minton's factory. +</P> + +<P> +Even Rorie felt that the room was pretty, though he did above all +things abhor to be trapped in it, as he found himself this October +evening. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a great lot of rubbish in it," he used to say of Mrs. +Tempest's drawing-room, "but it's rather nice altogether." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest, at five-and-thirty, still retained the good looks which +had distinguished Miss Calthorpe at nineteen. She was small and slim, +with a delicate complexion. She had large soft eyes of a limpid +innocent azure, regular features, rosebud lips, hands after Velasquez, +and an unexceptionable taste in dress, the selection of which formed +one of the most onerous occupations of her life. To attire herself +becomingly, and to give the Squire the dinners he best liked, in an +order of succession so dexterously arranged as never to provoke +satiety, were Mrs. Tempest's cardinal duties. In the intervals of her +life she read modern poetry, unobjectionable French novels, and +reviews. She did a little high-art needle-work, played Mendelssohn's +Lieder, sang three French <I>chansons</I> which her husband liked, slept, +and drank orange pekoe. In the consumption of this last article Mrs. +Tempest was as bad as a dram-drinker. She declared her inability to +support life without that gentle stimulant, and required to be wound up +at various hours of her languid day with a dose of her favourite +beverage. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I'll take a cup of tea," was Mrs. Tempest's inevitable remark +at every crisis of her existence. +</P> + +<P> +"And so you are going back to Oxford, Roderick?" the lady began with a +languid kindness. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest had never been known to be unkind to anyone. She regarded +all her fellow-creatures with a gentle tolerance. They were there, a +necessary element of the universe, and she bore with them. But she had +never attached herself particularly to anybody except the Squire. Him +she adored. He took all the trouble of life off her hands, and gave her +all good things. She had been poor, and he had made her rich; nobody, +and he had elevated her into somebody. She loved him with a canine +fidelity, and felt towards him as a dog feels towards his master—that +in him this round world begins and ends. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," assented Rorie, with a sigh, "I'm going up to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"Why up?" inquired Miss McCroke, without lifting her eyes from her +needles. "It isn't up on the map." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you are going to get a grand degree," continued Mrs. Tempest, +in that soft conciliatory voice of hers; "Senior Wrangler, or +something." +</P> + +<P> +"That's the other shop," exclaimed Rorie; "they grow that sort of +timber at Cambridge. However, I hope to pull myself through somehow or +other this time, for my mother's sake. She attaches a good deal of +importance to it, though for my own part I can't see what good it can +do me. It won't make me farm my own land better, or ride straighter to +hounds, or do my duty better to my tenants." +</P> + +<P> +"Education," said Miss McCroke sententiously, "is always a good, and we +cannot too highly estimate its influence upon——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes, I know," answered Rorie quickly, for he knew that when the +floodgates of Miss McCroke's eloquence were once loosened the tide ran +strong, "when house and lands are gone and spent a man may turn usher +in an academy, and earn fifty pounds a year and his laundress's bill by +grinding Caesar's Commentaries into small boys. But I shouldn't lay in +a stock of learning with that view. When my house and lands are gone +I'll go after them—emigrate, and go into the lumber trade in Canada." +</P> + +<P> +"What a dreadful idea," said Mrs. Tempest; "but you are not going to +lose house and lands, Roderick—such a nice place as Briarwood." +</P> + +<P> +"To my mind it's rather a commonplace hole," answered the young man +carelessly, "but the land is some of the best in the county." +</P> + +<P> +It must be nearly seven by this time, he thought. He was getting +through this period of probation better than he had expected. Mrs. +Tempest gave a little stifled yawn behind her huge black fan, upon +which Cupids and Graces, lightly sketched in French gray, were depicted +dancing in the airiest attitudes, after Boucher. Roderick would have +liked to yawn in concert, but at this juncture a sudden ray of light +flashed upon him and showed him a way of escape. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I'll go to the gentleman's room, and make myself decent before +the second bell rings," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Do," assented Mrs. Tempest, with another yawn; and the young man fled. +</P> + +<P> +He had only time to scramble through a hurried toilet, and was still +feeling very doubtful as to the parting of his short crisp hair, when +the gong boomed out its friendly summons. The gentleman's room opened +from the hall, and Rorie heard the Squire's loud and jovial voice +uplifted as he raised the tapestry curtain. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Tempest was standing in front of the log fire, pulling Vixen's +auburn hair. The girl had put on a picturesque brown velvet frock. A +scarlet sash was tied loosely round her willowy waist, and a scarlet +ribbon held back the rippling masses of her bright hair. +</P> + +<P> +"A study in red and brown," thought Rorie, as the fire-glow lit up the +picture of the Squire in his hunting-dress, and the girl in her warm +velvet gown. +</P> + +<P> +"Such a run, Rorie," cried the Squire; "we dawdled about among the +furze from twelve till four doing nothing, and just as it was getting +dark started a stag up on the high ground this side of Pickett's Post, +and ran him nearly into Ringwood. Go in and fetch my wife, Rorie. Oh, +here she is"—as the <I>portière</I> was lifted by a white hand, all +a-glitter with diamonds—"you must excuse me sitting down in pink +to-day, Pamela; I only got in as the gong began to sound, and I'm as +hungry as the proverbial hunter." +</P> + +<P> +"You know I always think you handsomest in your scarlet coat, Edward," +replied the submissive wife, "but I hope you're not very muddy." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't answer for myself; but I haven't been actually up to my neck +in a bog." +</P> + +<P> +Rorie offered his arm to Mrs. Tempest, and they all went in to dinner, +the squire still playing with his daughter's hair, and Miss McCroke +solemnly bringing up the rear. +</P> + +<P> +The dining-room at the Abbey House was the ancient refectory, large +enough for a mess-room; so, when there were no visitors, the Tempests +dined in the library—a handsome square room, in which old family +portraits looked down from the oak panelling above the bookcases, and +where the literary element was not obtrusively conspicuous. You felt +that it was a room quite as well adapted for conviviality as for study. +There was a cottage piano in a snug corner by the fireplace. The +Squire's capacious arm-chair stood on the other side of the hearth, +Mrs. Tempest's low chair and gipsy table facing it. The old oak buffet +opposite the chimney-piece was a splendid specimen of Elizabethan +carving, and made a rich background for the Squire's racing-cups, and a +pair of Oliver Cromwell tankards, plain and unornamental as that +illustrious Roundhead himself. +</P> + +<P> +It was a delightful room on a chill October evening like this: the logs +roaring up the wide chimney, a pair of bronze candelabra lighting +buffet and table, Mrs. Tempest smiling pleasantly at her unbidden +guest, and the squire stooping, red-faced and plethoric, over his +mulligatawny; while Vixen, who was at an age when dinner is a secondary +consideration, was amusing herself with the dogs, gentlemanly animals, +too wellbred to be importunate in their demands for an occasional +tid-bit, and content to lie in superb attitudes, looking up at the +eaters patiently, with supplication in their great pathetic brown eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Rorie is going up to-morrow—not in a balloon, but to Magdalen +College, Oxford—so, as this was his last night, I made him come to +dinner," explained Vixen presently. "I hope I didn't do wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"Rorie knows he's always welcome. Have some more of that mulligatawny, +my lad, it's uncommonly good." +</P> + +<P> +Rorie declined the mulligatawny, being at this moment deeply engaged in +watching Vixen and the dogs. Nip, the liver-coloured pointer, was +performing his celebrated statue feat. With his forelegs stiffly +extended, and his head proudly poised, he simulated a dog of marble; +and if it had not been for the occasional bumping of his tail upon the +Persian carpet, in an irresistible wag of self-approbation, the +simulation would have been perfect. +</P> + +<P> +"Look, papa! isn't it beautiful? I went out of the room the other day, +while Nip was doing the statue, after I'd told him not to move a paw, +and I stayed away quite five minutes, and then stole quietly back; and +there he was, lying as still as if he'd been carved out of stone. +Wasn't that fidelity?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense!" cried the Squire. "How do you know that Nip didn't wind you +as you opened the door, and get himself into position? What are these?" +as the old silver <I>entrée</I> dishes came round. "Stewed eels? You never +forget my tastes, Pamela." +</P> + +<P> +"Stewed eels, sir; <I>sole maître d'hôtel</I>," said the butler, in the +usual suppressed and deferential tone. +</P> + +<P> +Rorie helped himself automatically, and went on looking at Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +Her praises of Nip had kindled jealous fires in the breast of Argus, +her own particular favourite; and the blunt black muzzle had been +thrust vehemently under her velvet sleeve. +</P> + +<P> +"Argus is angry." said Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +"He's a dear old foolish thing to be jealous," answered Vixen, "when he +knows I'd go through fire and water for him." +</P> + +<P> +"Or even fight a big boy," cried the Squire, throwing himself back in +his chair with the unctuous laughter of a man who is dining well, and +knows it. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen blushed rosiest red at the allusion. +</P> + +<P> +"Papa, you oughtn't to say such things," she cried; "I was a little bit +of a child then." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and flew at a great boy of fourteen and licked him," exclaimed +the Squire, rapturously. "You know the story, don't you, Rorie?" +</P> + +<P> +Rorie had heard it twenty times, but looked the picture of ignorant +expectancy. +</P> + +<P> +"You know how Vixen came by Argus? What, you don't? Well, I'll tell +you. This little yellow-haired lass of mine was barely nine years old, +and she was riding through the village on her pony, with young Stubbs +behind her on the sorrel mare—and, you know, to her dying day, that +sorrel would never let anyone dismount her quietly. Now what does Vixen +spy but a lubberly lad and a lot of small children ill-using a mastiff +pup. They'd tied a tin-kettle to the brute's tail, and were doing their +best to drown him. There's a pond just beyond Mrs. Farley's cottage, +you know, and into that pond they'd pelted the puppy, and wouldn't let +him get out of it. As fast as the poor little brute scrambled up the +muddy bank they drove him back into the water." +</P> + +<P> +"Papa darling," pleaded Vixen despairingly, "Rorie has heard it all a +thousand times before. Haven't you now, Rorie?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's as new to me as to-morrow's <I>Times</I>," said Roderick with +effrontery. +</P> + +<P> +"Vixen was off the pony before you could say 'Jack Robinson.' She flew +into the midst of the dirty little ragamuffins, seized the biggest +ruffian by the collar, and trundled him backwards into the pond. Then +she laid about her right and left with her whip till the wretches +scampered off, leaving Vixen and the puppy masters of the situation; +and by this time the sorrel mare had allowed Stubbs to get off her, and +Stubbs rushed to the rescue. The young ringleader had been too much +surprised by his ducking to pull himself together again before this, +but he came up to time now, and had it out with Stubbs, while the +sorrel was doing as much damage as she conveniently could to Mrs. +Farley's palings. 'Don't quite kill him, please, Stubbs,' cried Vixen, +'although he richly deserves it;' and then she took the muddy little +beast up in her arms and ran home, leaving her pony to fate and Stubbs. +Stubbs told me the whole story, with tears in his eyes. 'Who'd ha' +thought, Squire, the little lady would ha' been such a game 'un?' said +Stubbs." +</P> + +<P> +"It's very horrid of you, papa, to tell such silly old stories," +remonstrated Vixen. "That was nearly seven years ago, and Dr. Dewsnap +told us the other day that everybody undergoes a complete change +of—what is it?—all the tissues—in seven years. I'm not the same +Vixen that pushed the boy into the pond. There's not a bit of her left +in me." +</P> + +<P> +And so the dinner went on and ended, with a good deal of distraction, +caused by the dogs, and a mild little remark now and then from Mrs. +Tempest, or an occasional wise interjection from Miss McCroke, who in a +manner represented the Goddess of Wisdom in this somewhat frivolous +family, and came in with a corrective and severely rational observation +when the talk was drifting towards idiocy. +</P> + +<P> +The filberts, bloomy purple grapes, and ruddy pippins, and yellow +William pears had gone their rounds—all home produce—and had been +admired and praised, and the Squire's full voice was mellowing after +his second glass of port, when the butler came in with a letter on a +salver, and carried it, with muffled footfall and solemn visage, as of +one who entrusted with the delivery of a death-warrant, straight to +Roderick Vawdrey. +</P> + +<P> +The young man looked at it as if he had encountered an unexpected +visitor of the adder tribe. +</P> + +<P> +"My mother," he faltered. +</P> + +<P> +It was a large and handsome letter with a big red seal. +</P> + +<P> +"May I?" asked Rorie, with a troubled visage, and having received his +host and hostess's assent, broke the seal. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"Dear Roderick,—Is it quite kind of you to absent yourself on this +your last night at home? I feel very sure that this will find you at +the Abbey House, and I send the brougham at a venture. Be good enough +to come home at once. The Dovedales arrived at Ashbourne quite +unexpectedly this afternoon, and are dining with me on purpose to see +you before you go back to Oxford. If your own good feeling did not urge +you to spend this last evening with me, I wonder that Mr. and Mrs. +Tempest were not kind enough to suggest to you which way your duty +lay.—Yours anxiously, +<BR><BR> +"JANE VAWDREY." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Roderick crumpled the letter with an angry look. That fling at the +Tempests hit him hard. Why was it that his mother was always so ready +to find fault with these chosen friends of his? +</P> + +<P> +"Anything wrong, Rorie?" asked the Squire. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing; except that the Dovedales are dining with my mother; and I'm +to go home directly." +</P> + +<P> +"If you please, ma'am, Master Vawdrey's servant has come for him," said +Vixen, mimicking the style of announcement at a juvenile party. "It's +quite too bad, Rorie," she went on, "I had made up my mind to beat you +at pyramids. However I daresay you're very glad to have the chance of +seeing your pretty cousin before you leave Hampshire." +</P> + +<P> +But Rorie shook his head dolefully, made his adieux, and departed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Lady Jane Vawdrey. +</H3> + +<P> +"It is not dogs only that are jealous!" thought Roderick, as he went +home in the brougham, with all the windows down, and the cool night +breeze blowing his cigar smoke away into the forest, to mix with the +mist wreaths that were curling up from the soft ground. It was an +offence of the highest grade to smoke in his mother's carriage; but +Rorie was in an evil temper just now, and found a kind of bitter +pleasure in disobedience. +</P> + +<P> +The carriage bowled swiftly along the straight, well-made road, but +Rorie hated riding in a brougham. The soft padded confinement galled +him. +</P> + +<P> +"Why couldn't she send me my dog-cart?" he asked himself indignantly. +</P> + +<P> +Briarwood was a large white house in a small park. It stood on much +higher ground than the Abbey House, and was altogether different from +that good old relic of a bygone civilisation. Briarwood was distinctly +modern. Its decorations savoured of the Regency: its furniture was +old-fashioned, without being antique. The classic stiffness and +straightness of the First French Empire distinguished the gilded chairs +and tables in the drawing-room. There were statues by Chantrey and +Canova in the spacious lofty hall; portraits by Lawrence and Romney in +the dining-room; a historical picture by Copley over the elephantine +mahogany sideboard; a Greek sarcophagus for wines under it. +</P> + +<P> +At its best, the Briarwood house was commonplace; but to the mind of +Lady Jane Vawdrey, the gardens and hot-houses made amends. She was a +profound horticulturist, and spent half her income on orchids and rare +newly-imported flowers, and by this means she had made Briarwood one of +the show places of the neighbourhood. +</P> + +<P> +"A woman must be distinguished for something, or she is no better than +her scullery-maid," said Lady Jane to her son, excusing herself for +these extravagances. "I have no talent for music, painting, or poetry, +so I devote myself to orchids; and perhaps my orchids turn out better +than many people's music and poetry." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Jane was not a pleasant-tempered woman, and enjoyed the privilege +of being more feared than liked; a privilege of which she made the +most, and which secured her immunity from many annoyances to which +good-natured people are subject. She did good to her poor neighbours, +in her own cold set way, but the poor people about Briarwood did not +send to her for wine and brandy as if she kept a public-house, and was +benefited by their liberal patronage; the curate at the little Gothic +church, down in the tiny village in a hollow of the wooded hills, did +not appeal to Lady Jane in his necessities for church or parish. She +subscribed handsomely to all orthodox well-established charities, but +was not prone to accidental benevolence. Nobody ever disappointed her +when she gave a dinner, or omitted the duty-call afterwards; but she +had no unceremonious gatherings, no gossipy kettle-drums, no +hastily-arranged picnics or garden parties. When people in the +neighbourhood wanted to take their friends to see the orchids, they +wrote to Lady Jane first, and made it quite a state affair; and on an +appointed afternoon, the lady of Briarwood received them, richly clad +in a dark velvet gown and a point-lace cap, as if she had just walked +out of an old picture, and there were three or four gardeners in +attendance to open doors, and cut specimen blossoms for the guests. +</P> + +<P> +"She's a splendid woman, admirable in every way," said Roderick to an +Oxford chum, with whom he had been discussing Lady Jane's virtues; "but +if a fellow could have a voice in the matter, she's not the mother I +should have chosen for myself." +</P> + +<P> +Ambition was the leading characteristic of Lady Jane's mind. As a girl, +she had been ambitious for herself, and that ambition had been +disappointed; as a woman, her ambition transferred itself to her son. +She was the eldest daughter of the Earl of Lodway, a nobleman who had +been considerably overweighted in the handicap of life, having nine +children, seats in three counties, a huge old house in St. James's +Square, and a small income—his three estates consisting of some of the +barrenest and most unprofitable land in Great Britain. Of Lord Lodway's +nine children, five were daughters, and of these Lady Jane was the +eldest and the handsomest. Even in her nursery she had a very distinct +notion that, for her, marriage meant promotion. She used to play at +being married at St. George's, Hanover Square, and would never consent +to have the ceremony performed by less than two bishops; even though +the part of one hierarch had to be represented by the nursery +hearth-broom. In due course Lady Jane Umleigh made her début in +society, in all the bloom and freshness of her stately Saxon beauty. +She was admired and talked about, and acknowledged as one of the belles +of that season; her portrait was engraved in the Book of Beauty, and +her ball programmes were always filled with the very best names; but at +the end of the season, Lady Lodway went back to the Yorkshire Wolds +with a biting sense of failure and mortification. Her handsome daughter +had not sent her arrow home to the gold. She had not received a single +offer worth talking about. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think you could consent to be married by one bishop and a +dean, Jenny, if the Marquis comes to the scratch soon after the +twelfth?" asked Lady Jane's youngest brother derisively. +</P> + +<P> +He had been made to do bishop in those play-weddings of Lady Jane's, +very often when the function went against the grain. +</P> + +<P> +The Marquis thus familiarly spoken about was Lord Strishfogel, the +richest nobleman in Ireland, and a great sea-rover, famous for his +steam yachts, and his importance generally. He had admired Lady Jane's +statuesque beauty, and had been more particular in his attentions than +the rest of her satellites, who for the most part merely worshipped her +because it was the right thing to do. Lord Strishfogel had promised to +come to Heron's Nest, Lord Lodway's place in the Wolds, for the +grouse-shooting; but instead of keeping his promise, this erratic young +peer went off to the Golden Horn, to race his yacht against the vessel +of a great Turkish official. This was Lady Jane Umleigh's first +disappointment. She had liked Lord Strishfogel just well enough to +fancy herself deeply in love with him, and she was unconscious of the +influence his rank and wealth had exercised upon her feelings. She had +thought of herself so often as the Marchioness of Strishfogel, had so +completely projected her mind into that brilliant future, that to +descend from this giddy height to the insignificance of unwedded +girlhood was as sharp a fall as if she had worn a crown and lost it. +</P> + +<P> +Her second season began, and Lord Strishfogel was still a rover; He was +in the South Seas by this time, writing a book, and enjoying halcyon +days among the friendly natives, swimming like a dolphin in those +summery seas, and indulging in harmless flirtations with dusky +princesses, whose chief attire was made of shells and flowers, and +whose untutored dancing was more vigorous than refined. At the end of +that second season, Jane Umleigh had serious thoughts of turning +philanthropist, and taking a shipload of destitute young women to +Australia. Anything would be better than this sense of a wasted life +and ignominious failure. +</P> + +<P> +She was in this frame of mind when Mr. Vawdrey came to Heron's Nest for +the shooting. He was a commoner, but his family was one of the oldest +in Hampshire, and he had lately distinguished himself by some rather +clever speeches in the House of Commons. His estate was worth fifteen +thousand a year, and he was altogether a man of some mark. Above all, +he was handsome, manly, and a gentleman to the marrow of his bones, and +he was the first man who ever fell over head and ears in love with Jane +Umleigh. +</P> + +<P> +The charms that had repelled more frivolous admirers attracted John +Vawdrey. That proud calm beauty of Lady Jane's seemed to his mind the +perfection of womanly grace. Here was a wife for a man to adore upon +his knees, a wife to be proud of, a wife to rule her vassals like a +queen, and to lead him, John Vawdrey, on to greatness. +</P> + +<P> +He was romantic, chivalrous, aspiring, and Lady Jane Umleigh was the +first woman he had met who embodied the heroine of his youthful dreams. +He proposed and was refused, and went away despairing. It would have +been a good match, undoubtedly—a truth which Lord and Lady Lodway +urged with some iteration upon their daughter—but it would have been a +terrible descent from the ideal marriage which Lady Jane had set up in +her own mind, as the proper prize for so fair a runner in life's race. +She had imagined herself a marchioness, with a vast territory of +mountain, vale, and lake, and an influence in the sister island second +only to that of royalty. She could not descend all at once to behold +herself the wife of a plain country gentleman, whose proudest privilege +it was to write M.P. after his name. +</P> + +<P> +The Earl and Countess were urgent, for they had another daughter ready +for the matrimonial market, and were inclined to regard Lady Jane as an +"old shopkeeper," but they knew their eldest daughter's temper, and did +not press the matter too warmly. +</P> + +<P> +Another season, Lady Jane's fourth, and Lady Sophia's first, began and +ended. Lady Sophia was piquant and witty, with a snub nose and a +playful disposition. She was a first-rate horsewoman, an exquisite +waltzer, good at croquet, archery, billiards, and all games requiring +accuracy of eye and aim, and Lady Sophia brought down her bird in a +single season. She went home to Heron's Nest a duchess in embryo. The +Duke of Dovedale, a bulky, middle-aged nobleman, with a passion for +fieldsports and high farming, had seen Lady Sophia riding a dangerous +horse in Rotten Row, and had been so charmed by her management of the +brute, as to become from that hour her slave. A pretty girl, with such +a seat in her saddle, and such a light hand for a horse's mouth, was +the next best thing to a goddess. Before the season was over the Duke +had proposed, and had been graciously accepted by the young lady, who +felt an inward glow of pride at having done so much better than the +family beauty. +</P> + +<P> +"Can I ever forget how that girl Jane has snubbed me?" said Lady Sophia +to her favourite brother. "And to think that I shall be sitting in +ermine robes in the House of Lords, while she is peeping through the +nasty iron fretwork in the Ladies' Gallery to catch a glimpse of the +top of her husband's head in the House of Commons." +</P> + +<P> +This splendid engagement of Lady Sophia's turned the tide for the +faithful John Vawdrey. Lady Jane met her rejected lover at Trouville, +and was so gracious to him that he ventured to renew his suit, and, to +his delighted surprise, was accepted. Anything was better than standing +out in the cold while the ducal engagement was absorbing everybody's +thoughts and conversation. Lady Sophia had boasted, in that playful way +of hers, of having her beauty-sister for chief bridesmaid; and the +beauty-sister had made up her mind that this thing should not be. +Perhaps she would have married a worse man than John Vawdrey to escape +such infamy. +</P> + +<P> +And John Vawdrey was by no means disagreeable to her; nay, it had been +pride, and not any disinclination for the man himself that had bidden +her reject him. He was clever, distinguished, and he loved her with a +romantic devotion which flattered and pleased her. Yes, she would marry +John Vawdrey. +</P> + +<P> +Everybody was delighted at this concession, the lady's parents and +belongings most especially so. Here were two daughters disposed of; and +if the beauty had made the inferior match, it was only one of those +capricious turns of fortune that are more to be expected than the +common order of things. +</P> + +<P> +So there was a double marriage the following spring at St. George's, +and Lady Jane's childish desire was gratified. There were two bishops +at the ceremony. True that one was only colonial, and hardly ranked +higher than the nursery hearth brush. +</P> + +<P> +Fate was not altogether unkind to Lady Jane. Her humble marriage was +much happier than her sister's loftier union. The Duke, who had been so +good-natured as a lover, proved stupid and somewhat tiresome as a +husband. He gave his mind to hunting and farming, and cared for nothing +else. His chief conversation was about cattle and manure, guano and +composts, the famous white Chillingham oxen, or the last thing in +strawberry roans. He spent a small fortune that would have been large +for a small man—in the attempt to acclimatise strange animals in his +park in the Midlands. Sophia, Duchess of Dovedale, had seven country +seats, and no home. Her children were puny and feeble. They sickened in +the feudal Scotch castle, they languished in the Buckinghamshire +Eden—a freestone palace set among the woods that overhang the valley +of the Thames. No breezes that blow could waft strength or vitality to +those feeble lungs. At thirty the Duchess of Dovedale had lost all her +babies, save one frail sapling, a girl of two years old, who promised +to have a somewhat better constitution than her perished brothers and +sisters. On this small paragon the Duchess concentrated her cares and +hopes. She gave up hunting—much to the disgust of that Nimrod, her +husband—in order to superintend her nursery. From the most +pleasure-loving of matrons, she became the most domestic. Lady Mabel +Ashbourne was to grow up the perfection of health, wisdom, and beauty, +under the mother's loving care. She would have a great fortune, for +there was a considerable portion of the Duke's property which he was +free to bequeath to his daughter. He had coal-pits in the North, and a +tin-mine in the West. He had a house at Kensington which he had built +for himself, a model Queen Anne mansion, with every article of +furniture made on the strictest aesthetic principles, and not an +anachronism from the garrets to the cellars. You might have expected to +meet Marlborough on the stairs, and to find Addison reading in the +library. The Scottish castle and the Buckinghamshire Paradise would go +with the title; but the Duke, delighted with the easy-going sport of +the New Forest, had bought six hundred acres between Stony Cross and +Romsey—a wide stretch of those low level pastures across which you see +the distant roofs and spires of the good old market town—and had made +for himself an archetypal home-farm, and had built himself a +hunting-box, with stables and kennels of the most perfect kind; and +this estate, with the Queen Anne house, and the pits, and the mine, was +his very own to dispose of as he pleased. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Jane's marriage had proved happy. Her husband, always egged on by +her ambitious promptings, had made himself an important figure in the +senate, and had been on the eve of entering the cabinet as Colonial +Secretary, when death cut short his career. A hard winter and a sharp +attack of bronchitis nipped the aspiring senator in the bud. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Jane was as nearly broken-hearted as so cold a woman could be. She +had loved her husband better than anything in this life, except +herself. He left her with one son and a handsome jointure, with the +full possession of Briarwood until her son's majority. Upon that only +child Lady Jane lavished all her care, but did not squander the wealth +of her affection. Perhaps her capacity for loving had died with her +husband. She had been proud and fond of him, but she was not proud of +the little boy in velvet knickerbockers, whose good looks were his only +merit, and who was continually being guilty of some new piece of +mischief; laming ponies, smashing orchids, glass, china, and generally +disturbing the perfect order which was Briarwood's first law. +</P> + +<P> +When the boy was old enough to go to Eton, he seemed still more remote +from his mother's love and sympathy. He was passionately fond of field +sports, and those Lady Jane Vawdrey detested. He was backwards in all +his studies, despite the careful coaching he had received from the mild +Anglican curate of Briarwood village. He was intensely pugilistic, and +rarely came home for the holidays without bringing a black eye or a +swollen nose as the result of his latest fight. He spent a good deal of +money, and in a manner that to his mother's calm sense appeared simply +idiotic. His hands were always grubby, his nails wore almost perpetual +mourning, his boots were an outrage upon good taste, and he generally +left a track of muddy foot-marks behind him along the crimson-carpeted +corridors. What could any mother do for such a boy, except tolerate +him? Love was out of the question. How could a delicate, high-bred +woman, soft-handed, velvet robed, care to have such a lad about her? a +boy who smelt of stables and wore hob-nailed boots, whose pockets were +always sticky with toffee, and his handkerchiefs a disgrace to +humanity, who gave his profoundest thoughts to pigeon-fancying, and his +warmest affections to ratting terriers, nay, who was capable of having +a live rat in his pocket at any moment of his life. +</P> + +<P> +But while all these habits made the lad abominable in the eyes of his +mother, the Duke and Duchess of Dovedale admired the young Hercules +with a fond and envious admiration. The Duke would have given coal-pits +and tin-mine, all the disposable property he held, and deemed it but a +small price for such a son. The Duchess thought of her feeble +boy-babies who had been whooping-coughed or scarlet-fevered out of the +world, and sighed, and loved her nephew better than ever his mother had +loved him since his babyhood. When the Dovedales were at their place in +the Forest, Roderick almost lived with them; or, at any rate, divided +his time between Ashbourne Park and the Abbey House, and spent as +little of his life at home as he could. He patronised Lady Mabel, who +was his junior by five years, rode her thorough-bred pony for her under +the pretence of improving its manners, until he took a header with it +into a bog, out of which pony and boy rolled and struggled +indiscriminately, boy none the worse, pony lamed for life. He played +billiards with the Duke, and told the Duchess all his school +adventures, practical jokes, fights, apple-pie beds, booby-traps, +surreptitious fried sausages, and other misdemeanours. +</P> + +<P> +Out of this friendship arose a brilliant vision which reconciled Lady +Jane Vawdrey to her son's preference for his aunt's house and his +aunt's society. Why should he not marry Mabel by-and-by, and unite the +two estates of Ashbourne and Briarwood, and become owner of the pits +and the mine, and distinguish himself in the senate, and be created a +peer? As the husband of Lady Mabel Ashbourne, he would be rich enough +to command a peerage, almost as a right; but his mother would have had +him deserve it. With this idea Lady Jane urged on her son's education. +All his Hampshire friends called him clever, but he won no laurels at +school. Lady Jane sent for grinders and had the boy ground; but all the +grinding could not grind a love of classics or metaphysics into this +free son of the forest. He went to Oxford, and got himself ploughed for +his Little Go, with a wonderful facility. For politics he cared not a +jot, but he could drive tandem better than any other undergraduate of +his year. He never spoke at the Union, but he pulled stroke in the +'Varsity boat. He was famous for his biceps, his good-nature, and his +good looks; but so far he had distinguished himself for nothing else, +and to this stage of nonperformance had he come when the reader first +beheld him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"I Want a Little Serious Talk with You." +</H3> + +<P> +It was only half-past nine when the brougham drove up to the pillared +porch at Briarwood. The lighted drawing-room windows shone out upon the +vaporous autumn darkness—a row of five tall French casements—and the +sound of a piano caught Roderick's ear as he tossed the end of his +cigar in the shrubbery, and mounted the wide stone door-steps. +</P> + +<P> +"At it again," muttered Rorie with a shrug of disgust, as he entered +the hall, and heard, through the half-open drawing-room door, an +interlacement of pearly runs. At this stage of his existence, Rorie had +no appreciation of brilliant pianoforte playing. The music he liked +best was of the simplest, most inartificial order. +</P> + +<P> +"Are the Duke and Duchess here?" he asked the butler. +</P> + +<P> +"Her Grace and Lady Mabel is here, sir; not the Dook." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose I must dress before I face the quality," muttered Rorie +sulkily, and he went leaping upstairs—three steps at a time—to +exchange his brown shooting-clothes and leather gaiters for that +dress-suit of his which was continually getting too small for him. +Rorie detested himself in a dress-suit and a white tie. +</P> + +<P> +"You beast," he cried, addressing his reflection in the tall glass door +of his armoire, "you are the image of a waiter at The Clarendon." +</P> + +<P> +The Briarwood drawing-room looked a great deal too vast and too lofty +for the three women who were occupying it this evening. It was a +finely-proportioned room, and its amber satin hangings made a pleasing +background for the white and gold furniture. White, gold, and amber +made up the prevailing tone of colour. Clusters of wax lights against +the walls and a crystal chandelier with many candles, filled the room +with a soft radiance. It was a room without shadow. There were no +recesses, no deep-set windows or doors. All was coldly bright, +faultlessly elegant. Rorie detested his mother's drawing-room almost as +much as he detested himself in a dress-coat that was too short in the +sleeves. +</P> + +<P> +The matrons were seated on each side of the shining gold and steel +fireplace, before which there stretched an island of silky white fur. +Lady Jane Vawdrey's younger sister was a stout, comfortable-looking +woman in gray silk, who hardly realised one's preconceived notion of a +duchess. Lady Jane herself had dignity enough for the highest rank in +the "Almanach de Gotha." She wore dark green velvet and old rose-point, +and looked like a portrait of an Austrian princess by Velasquez. Years +had not impaired the purity of her blonde complexion. Her aquiline +nose, thin lips, small firm chin, were the features of one born to +rule. Her light brown hair showed no streak of gray. An admirable +woman, no doubt, for anybody else's mother, as Rorie so often said to +himself. +</P> + +<P> +The young lady was still sitting at the piano, remote from the two +elders, her slim white fingers running in and out and to and fro in +those wondrous intricacies and involutions which distinguish modern +classical music. Rorie hated all that running about the piano to no +purpose, and could not perceive his cousin's merit in having devoted +three or four hours of her daily life for the last seven years to the +accomplishment of this melodious meandering. She left off playing, and +held out her small white hand to him as he came to the piano, after +shaking hands with his aunt. +</P> + +<P> +What was she like, this paragon formed by a mother's worshipping love +and ceaseless care, this one last pearl in the crown of domestic life, +this child of so many prayers and hopes, and fears, and deep pathetic +rejoicings? +</P> + +<P> +She was very fair to look upon—complete and beautiful as a pearl—with +that outward purity, that perfect delicacy of tint and harmony of +detail which is in itself a charm. Study her as captiously as you +would, you could find no flaw in this jewel. The small regular features +were so delicately chiselled, the fair fine skin was so transparent, +the fragile figure so exquisitely moulded, the ivory hand and arm so +perfect—no, you could discover no bad drawing or crude colouring in +this human picture. She lifted her clear blue eyes to Rorie's face, and +smiled at him in gentle welcome; and though he felt intensely cross at +having been summoned home like a school-boy, he could not refuse her a +responsive smile, or a gentle pressure of the taper fingers. +</P> + +<P> +"And so you have been dining with those horrid people!" she exclaimed +with an air of playful reproach, "and on your last night in +Hampshire—quite too unkind to Aunt Jane." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know whom you mean by horrid people, Mabel," answered Rorie, +chilled back into sulkiness all at once; "the people I was with are all +that is good and pleasant." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you've not been at the Tempests' after all?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have been at the Tempests'. What have you to say against the +Tempests?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I have nothing to say against them," said Lady Mabel, shrugging +her pretty shoulders in her fawn-coloured silk gown. "There are some +things that do not require to be said." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Tempest is the best and kindest of men; his wife is—well, a +nonentity, perhaps, but not a disagreeable one; and his daughter——" +</P> + +<P> +Here Rorie came to a sudden stop, which Lady Mabel accentuated with a +silvery little laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"His daughter is charming," she cried, when she had done laughing; "red +hair, and a green habit with brass buttons, a yellow waistcoat like her +papa's, and a rose in her button-hole. How I should like to see her in +Rotten Row!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll warrant there wouldn't be a better horse-woman or a prettier girl +there," cried Rorie, scarlet with indignation. +</P> + +<P> +His mother looked daggers. His cousin gave another silvery laugh, clear +as those pearly treble runs upon the Erard; but that pretty artificial +laugh had a ring which betrayed her mortification. +</P> + +<P> +"Rorie is thorough," she said; "when he likes people he thinks them +perfection. You do think that little red-haired girl quite perfection, +now don't you, Rorie?" pursued Lady Mabel, sitting down before the +piano again, and touching the notes silently as she seemed to admire +the slender diamond hoops upon her white fingers—old-fashioned rings +that had belonged to a patrician great-grandmother. "You think her +quite a model young lady, though they say she can hardly read, and +makes her mark—like William the Conqueror—instead of signing her +name, and spends her life in the stables, and occasionally, when the +fox gets back to earth—swears." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know who they may be," cried Roderick, savagely, "but they say +a pack of lies. Violet Tempest is as well educated as—any girl need +be. All girls can't be paragons; or, if they could, this earth would be +intolerable for the rest of humanity. Lord deliver us from a world +overrun with paragons. Violet Tempest is little more than a child, a +spoiled child, if you like, but she has a heart of gold, and a firmer +seat in her saddle than any other woman in Hampshire." +</P> + +<P> +Roderick had turned from scarlet to pale by the time he finished this +speech. His mother had paled at the first mention of poor Vixen. That +young lady's name acted upon Lady Jane's feelings very much as a red +rag acts on a bull. +</P> + +<P> +"I think, after keeping you away from your mother on the last night of +your vacation, Mr. Tempest might at least have had the good taste to +let you come home sober," said Lady Jane, with suppressed rage. +</P> + +<P> +"I drank a couple of glasses of still hock at dinner, and not a drop of +anything else from the time I entered the Abbey till I left it; and I +don't think, considering how I've seasoned myself with Bass at Oxford, +that two glasses of Rudesheimer would floor me," explained Rorie, with +recovered calmness. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but you were drinking deep of a more intoxicating nectar," cried +Lady Mabel, with that provokingly distinct utterance of hers. She had +been taught to speak as carefully as girls of inferior rank are taught +to play Beethoven—every syllable studied, every tone trained and +ripened to the right quality. "You were with Violet Tempest." +</P> + +<P> +"How you children quarrel!" exclaimed the Duchess; "you could hardly be +worse if you were lovers. Come here, Rorie, and tell me all that has +happened to you since we saw you at Lord's in July. Never mind these +Tempest people. They are of the smallest possible importance. Of +course, Rorie must have somebody to amuse himself with while we are +away." +</P> + +<P> +"And now we are come back, he is off to Oxford," said Mabel with an +aggrieved air. +</P> + +<P> +"You shouldn't have stayed so long in Switzerland then," retorted Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but it was my first visit, and everything is so lovely. After all +the Swiss landscapes I have done in chalk, and pencil, and +water-colours, I was astonished to find what a stranger I was to the +scenery. I blushed when I remembered those dreadful landscapes of mine. +I was ashamed to look at Mont Blanc. I felt as if the Matterhorn would +fall and crush me." +</P> + +<P> +"I think I shall do Switzerland next long," said Rorie patronisingly, +as if it would be a good thing for Switzerland. +</P> + +<P> +"You might have come this year while we were there," said Lady Mabel. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I mightn't. I've been grinding. If you knew what a dose of +Aristotle I've had, you'd pity me. That's where you girls have the best +of it. You learn to read a story-book in two or three modern languages, +to meander up and down the piano, and spoil Bristol board, or Whatman's +hot-pressed imperial, and then you call yourselves educated; while we +have to go back to the beginning of civilisation, and find out what a +lot of old Greek duffers were driving at when they sat in the sunshine +and prosed like old boots." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Mabel looked at him with a serene smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you be surprised to hear that I know a little Greek," she said, +"just enough to struggle through the Socratic dialogues with the aid of +my master?" +</P> + +<P> +Roderick started as if he had been stung. +</P> + +<P> +"What a shame!" he cried. "Aunt Sophia, what do you mean by making a +Lady Jane Grey or an Elizabeth Barrett Browning of her?" +</P> + +<P> +"A woman who has to occupy a leading position can hardly know too +much," answered the Duchess sententiously. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, to be sure, Mabel will marry some diplomatic swell, and be +entertaining ambassadors by-and-by. And when some modern Greek envoy +comes simpering up to her with a remark about the weather, it will be +an advantage for her to know Plato. I understand. Wheels within wheels." +</P> + +<P> +"The Duchess of Dovedale's carriage," announced the butler, rolling out +the syllables as if it were a personal gratification to announce them. +</P> + +<P> +Mabel rose at once from the piano, and came to say good-night to her +aunt. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear child, it's quite early," said Lady Jane; "Roderick's last +night, too. And your mamma is in no hurry." +</P> + +<P> +Mabel looked at Roderick, but that young gentleman was airing himself +on the hearth-rug, and gazing absently up at the ceiling. It evidently +signified very little to him whether his aunt and cousin went or stayed. +</P> + +<P> +"You know you told papa you would be home soon after ten," said Lady +Mabel, and the Duchess rose immediately. +</P> + +<P> +She had a way of yielding to her only daughter which her +stronger-minded sister highly disapproved. The first duty of a mother, +in Lady Jane's opinion, was to rule her child, the second, to love it. +The idea was no doubt correct in the abstract; but the practice was not +succeeding too well with Roderick. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night and good-bye," said Lady Mabel, when the maid had brought +her wraps, and Rorie had put them on. +</P> + +<P> +"Not good-bye," said the good-natured Duchess; "Rorie must come to +breakfast to-morrow, and see the Duke. He has just bought some +wonderful short-horns, and I am sure he would like to show them to you, +Rorie, because you can appreciate them. He was too tired to come out +to-night, but I know he wants to see you." +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks, I'll be there," answered Rorie, and he escorted the ladies to +their carriage; but not another word did Mabel speak till the brougham +had driven away from Briarwood. +</P> + +<P> +"What a horrid young man Roderick has grown, mamma!" she remarked +decisively, when they were outside the park-gates. +</P> + +<P> +"My love, I never saw him look handsomer." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't mean his looks. Good looks in a man are a superfluity. But his +manners—I never saw anything so underbred. Those Tempest people are +spoiling him." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"Roderick," said Lady Jane, just as Rorie was contemplating an escape +to the billiard-room and his cigar, "I want a little serious talk with +you." +</P> + +<P> +Rorie shivered in his shoes. He knew too well what his mother's serious +talk meant. He shrugged his shoulders with a movement that indicated a +dormant resistance, and went quietly into the drawing-room. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Rorie comes of Age. +</H3> + +<P> +"Bless my soul!" cried the Squire; "it's a vixen, after all." +</P> + +<P> +This is how Squire Tempest greeted the family doctor's announcement of +the his baby's sex. He had been particularly anxious for a son to +inherit the Abbey House estate, succeed to his father's dignities as +master of the fox-hounds, and in a general way sustain the pride and +glory of the family name; and, behold! Providence had given him a +daughter. +</P> + +<P> +"The deuce is in it," ejaculated the Squire; "to think that it should +be a vixen!" +</P> + +<P> +This is how Violet Tempest came by her curious pet name. Before she was +short-coated, she had contrived to exhibit a very spirited, and even +vixenish temper, and the family doctor, who loved a small joke, used to +ask after Miss Vixen when he paid his professional visits. As she grew +older, her tawny hair was not unlike a red fox's brush in its bright +golden-brown hue, and her temper proved decidedly vixenish. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you wouldn't call Violet by that dreadful nickname, dear," Mrs. +Tempest remonstrated mildly. +</P> + +<P> +"My darling, it suits her to a nicety," replied the Squire, and he took +his own way in this as in most things. +</P> + +<P> +The earth rolled round, and the revolving years brought no second baby +to the Abbey House. Every year made the Squire fonder of his little +golden-haired girl. He put her on a soft white ball of a pony as soon +as she could sit up straight, and took her about the Forest with a +leading-rein. No one else was allowed to teach Vixen to ride. Young as +she was, she soon learnt to do without the leading-rein, and the gentle +white pony was discarded as too quiet for little Miss Tempest. Before +her eleventh birthday she rode to hounds, rose before the sun to hunt +the young fox-cubs in early autumn, and saw the stag at bay on the wild +heathery downs above the wooded valleys that sink and fall below +Boldrewood with almost Alpine grandeur. She was a creature full of +life, and courage, and generous impulses, and spontaneous leanings to +all good thoughts; but she was a spoiled child, liked her own way, and +had no idea of being guided by anybody else's will—unless it had been +her father's, and he never thwarted her. +</P> + +<P> +Him she adored with the fondest love that child ever gave to parent: a +blind worshipping love, that saw in him the perfection of manhood, the +beginning and end of earthly good. If anyone had dared to say in +Vixen's hearing that her father could, by any possible combination of +circumstances, do wrong, act unjustly, or ungenerously, it would have +been better for that man to have come to handy grips with a tiger-cat +than with Violet Tempest. Her reverence for her father, and her belief +in him, were boundless. +</P> + +<P> +There never, perhaps, was a happier childhood than Violet's. She was +daughter and heiress to one of the most popular men in that part of the +country, and everybody loved her. She was not much given to visiting in +a methodical way among the poor, and it had never entered into her +young mind that it was her mission to teach older people the way to +heaven; but if there was trouble in the village—a sick child, a +husband in prison for rabbit snaring, a dead baby, a little boy's +pinafore set fire—Vixen and her pony were always to the fore; and it +was an axiom in the village that, where Miss Tempest did "take," it was +very good for those she took to. Violet never withdrew her hand when +she had put it to the plough. If she made a promise, she always kept +it. However long the sickness, however dire the poverty, Vixen's +patience and benevolence lasted to the end. +</P> + +<P> +The famous princess in the story, whose sleep was broken because there +was a pea under her seven feather-beds, had scarcely a more untroubled +life than Vixen. She had her own way in everything. She did exactly +what she liked with her comfortable, middle-aged governess, Miss +McCroke, learnt what she pleased, and left what she disliked unlearned. +She had the prettiest ponies in Hampshire to ride, the prettiest +dresses to wear. Her mother was not a woman to bestow mental culture +upon her only child, but she racked her small brain to devise becoming +costumes for Violet: the coloured stockings which harmonised best with +each particular gown, the neat little buckled shoes, the fascinating +Hessian boots. Nothing was too beautiful or too costly for Violet. She +was the one thing her parents possessed in the world, and they lavished +much love upon her; but it never occurred to Mr. and Mrs. Tempest, as +it had occurred to the Duchess of Dovedale—to make their daughter a +paragon. +</P> + +<P> +In this perpetual sunshine Violet grew up, fair as most things are that +grow in the sunshine. She loved her father with all her heart, and +mind, and soul; she loved her mother with a lesser love; she had a +tolerant affection for Miss McCroke; she loved her ponies, and the dog +Argus; she loved the hounds in the kennels; she loved every honest +familiar face of nurse, servant, and stable-man, gardener, keeper, and +huntsman, that had looked upon her with friendly, admiring eyes, ever +since she could remember. +</P> + +<P> +Not to be loved and admired would have been the strangest thing to +Violet. She would hardly have recognised herself in an unappreciative +circle. If she could have heard Lady Mabel talking about her, it would +have been like the sudden revelation of an unknown world—a world in +which it was possible for people to dislike and misjudge her. +</P> + +<P> +This is one of the disadvantages of being reared in a little heaven of +domestic love. The outside world seems so hard, and black, and dreary +afterwards, and the inhabitants thereof passing cruel. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Tempest looked upon Roderick Vawdrey as her own particular +property—a person whom she had the right to order about as she +pleased. Rorie had been her playfellow and companion in his +holiday-time for the last five years. All their tastes were in common. +They had the same love for the brute creation, the same wild delight in +rushing madly through the air on the backs of unreasoning animals; +widely different in their tastes from Lady Mabel, who had once been run +away with in a pony-carriage, and looked upon all horses as incipient +murderers. They had the same love of nature, and the same indifference +to books, and the same careless scorn of all the state and ceremony of +life. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen was "rising fifteen," as her father called it, and Rorie was just +five years her senior. The Squire saw them gay and happy together, +without one serious thought of what might come of their childish +friendship in the growth of years. That his Vixen could ever care for +anyone but her "old dad," was a notion that had not yet found its way +into the Squire's brain. She seemed to him quite as much his own +property, his own to do what he liked with, singly and simply attached +to him, as his favourite horse or his favourite dog. So there were no +shadowings forth in the paternal mind as to any growth and development +which the mutual affection of these two young people might take in the +future. +</P> + +<P> +It was very different with Lady Jane Vawdrey, who never saw her son and +his cousin Mabel together without telling herself how exactly they were +suited to each other, and what a nice thing it would be for the +Briarwood and Ashbourne estates to be united by their marriage. +</P> + +<P> +Rorie went back to college, and contrived to struggle through his next +examinations with an avoidance of actual discredit; but when Christmas +came he did not return to the Forest, though Violet had counted on his +coming, and had thought that it would be good fun to have his help in +the decorations for the little Gothic church in the valley—a pretty +little new church, like a toy, which the Squire had built and paid for, +and endowed with a perpetual seventy pounds a year out of his own +pocket. It would have been fun to see poor Rorie prick his clumsy +fingers with the holly. Vixen laughed at his awkwardness in advance, +when she talked to Miss McCroke about him, and drew upon herself that +lady's mild reproval. +</P> + +<P> +But Christmas came and brought no Rorie. He had gone off to spend his +Christmas at the Duke of Dovedale's Scotch castle. Easter came, and +still no Rorie. He was at Putney, with the 'Varsity crew, or in London +with the Dovedales, riding in the Row, and forgetting dear old +Hampshire and the last of the hunting, for which he would have been +just in time. +</P> + +<P> +Even the long vacation came without Rorie. He had gone for that +promised tour in Switzerland, at his mother's instigation, and was only +to come back late in the year to keep his twenty-first birthday, which +was to be honoured in a very subdued and unhilarious fashion at +Briarwood. +</P> + +<P> +"Mamma," said Violet, at breakfast-time one August morning, with her +nose scornfully tilted, "what is Mr. Vawdrey like—dark or fair?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why Violet, you can't have forgotten him," protested her mother, with +languid astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +"I think he has been away long enough for me to forget even the colour +of his hair, mamma; and as he hasn't written to anybody, we may fairly +suppose he has forgotten us." +</P> + +<P> +"Vixen misses her old playfellow," said the Squire, busy with the +demolition of a grouse. "But Rorie is a young man now, you know, dear, +and has work to do in the world—duties, my pet—duties." +</P> + +<P> +"And is a young man's first duty to forget his old friends?" inquired +Vixen naïvely. +</P> + +<P> +"My pet, you can't expect a lad of that kind to write letters. I am a +deuced bad hand at letter-writing myself, and always was. I don't think +a man's hand was ever made to pinch a pen. Nature has given us a broad +strong grasp, to grip a sword or a gun. Your mother writes most of my +letters, Vixen, you know, and I shall expect you to help her in a year +or two. Let me see; Rorie will be one-and-twenty in October, and there +are to be high jinks at Briarwood, I believe, so there's something for +you to look forward to, my dear." +</P> + +<P> +"Edward!" exclaimed Mrs. Tempest reproachfully; "you forget that Violet +is not out. She will not be sixteen till next February." +</P> + +<P> +"Bless her!" cried the Squire, with a tender look at his only child, +"she has grown up like a green bay-tree. But if this were to be quite a +friendly affair at Briarwood, she might go, surely." +</P> + +<P> +"It will not be a friendly affair," said Mrs. Tempest; "Lady Jane never +gives friendly parties. There is nothing friendly in her nature, and I +don't think she likes us—much. But I daresay we shall be asked, and if +we go I must have a new dress," added the gentle lady with a sigh of +resignation. "It will be a dinner, no doubt; and the Duke and Duchess +will be there, of course." +</P> + +<P> +The card of invitation came in due course, three weeks before the +birthday. It was to be a dinner, as Mrs. Tempest had opined. She wrote +off to her milliner at once, and there was a passage of letters and +fashion-plates and patterns of silk to and fro, and some of Mrs. +Tempest's finest lace came out of the perfumed chest in which she kept +her treasures, and was sent off to Madame Theodore. +</P> + +<P> +Poor Vixen beheld these preparations with an aching heart. She did not +care about dinner-parties in the least, but she would have liked to be +with Roderick on his birthday. She would have liked it to have been a +hunting-day, and to have ridden for a wild scamper across the hills +with him—to have seen the rolling downs of the Wight blue in the +distance—to have felt the soft south wind blowing in her face, and to +have ridden by his side, neck and neck, all day long; and then to have +gone home to the Abbey House to dinner, to the snug round table in the +library, and the dogs, and papa in his happiest mood, expanding over +his port and walnuts. That would have been a happy birthday for all of +them, in Violet's opinion. +</P> + +<P> +The Squire and his daughter had plenty of hunting in this merry month +of October, but there had been no sign of Rorie and his big raking +chestnut in the field, nor had anyone in the Forest heard of or seen +the young Oxonian. +</P> + +<P> +"I daresay he is only coming home in time for the birthday," Mrs. +Tempest remarked placidly, and went on with her preparations for that +event. +</P> + +<P> +She wanted to make a strong impression on the Duchess, who +had not behaved too well to her, only sending her invitations for +indiscriminate afternoon assemblies, which Mrs. Tempest had graciously +declined, pleading her feeble health as a reason for not going to +garden-parties. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen was in a peculiar temper during those three weeks, and poor Miss +McCroke had hard work with her. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Der</I>, <I>die</I>, <I>das</I>," cried Vixen, throwing down her German grammar in +a rage one morning, when she had been making a muddle of the definite +article in her exercise, and the patient governess had declared that +they really must go back to the very beginning of things. "What stupid +people the Germans are! Why can't they have one little word for +everything, as we have? T, h, e, the. Any child can learn that. What do +they mean by chopping up their language into little bits, like the +pieces in a puzzle? Why, even the French are more reasonable—though +they're bad enough, goodness knows, with their hes and shes—feminine +tables, and masculine beds. Why should I be bothered to learn all this +rubbish? I'm not going to be a governess, and it will never be any use +to me. Papa doesn't know a single sentence in French or German, and +he's quite happy." +</P> + +<P> +"But if your papa were travelling on the Continent, Violet, he would +find his ignorance of the language a great deprivation." +</P> + +<P> +"No, he wouldn't. He'd have a courier." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you aware, my dear, that we have wasted five minutes already in +this discursive conversation?" remarked Miss McCroke, looking at a fat +useful watch, which she wore at her side in the good old fashion. "We +will leave the grammar for the present, and you can repeat Schiller's +Song of the Bell." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather say the Fight with the Dragon," said Vixen; "there's more +fire and life in it. I do like Schiller, Crokey dear. But isn't it a +pity he didn't write it in English?" +</P> + +<P> +And Vixen put her hands behind her, and began to recite the wonderful +story of the knight who slew the dragon, and very soon her eyes kindled +and her cheeks were aflame, and the grand verses were rolled out +rapidly, with a more or less faulty pronunciation, but plenty of life +and vehemence. This exercise of mind and memory suited Vixen a great +deal better than dull plodding at the first principles of grammar, and +the perpetual <I>der</I>, <I>die</I>, <I>das</I>. +</P> + +<P> +This day was the last of October, and Roderick Vawdrey's birthday. He +had not been seen at the Abbey House yet. He had returned to Briarwood +before this, no doubt, but had not taken the trouble to come and see +his old friends. +</P> + +<P> +"He's a man now, and has duties, and has done with us," thought Vixen +savagely. +</P> + +<P> +She was very glad that it was such a wretched day—a hideous day for +anyone's twenty-first birthday, ominous of all bad things, she thought. +There was not a rift in the dull gray sky; the straight fine rain came +down persistently, soaking into the sodden earth, and sending up an +odour of dead leaves. The smooth shining laurels in the shrubbery were +the only things in nature that seemed no worse for the perpetual +downpour. The gravel drives were spongy and sloppy. There was no +hunting, or Vixen would have been riding her pony through rain and foul +weather, and would have been comparatively independent of the elements. +But to be at home all day, watching the rain, and thinking what a +horrid, ungrateful young man Rorie was! That was dreary. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest went to her room to lie down directly after luncheon. She +wanted to keep herself fresh for the evening. She made quite a solemn +business of this particular dinner-party. At five precisely, Pauline +was to bring her a cup of tea. At half-past five she was to begin to +dress. This would give her an hour and a half for her toilet, as +Briarwood was only half-an-hour's drive from the Abbey House. So for +the rest of that day—until she burst upon their astonished view in her +new gown—Mrs. Tempest would be invisible to her family. +</P> + +<P> +"What a disgusting birthday!" cried Vixen, sitting in the deep +embrasure of the hall window, with Argus at her side, dog and girl +looking out at the glistening shrubbery. +</P> + +<P> +Miss McCroke had gone to her room to write letters, or Vixen would have +hardly been allowed to remain peacefully in such an inelegant position, +her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms embracing her legs, her back +against the stout oak shutter. Yet the girl and dog made rather a +pretty picture, despite the inelegance of Vixen's attitude. The tawny +hair, black velvet frock, and careless amber sash, amber stockings, and +broad-toed Cromwell shoes; the tawny mastiff curled in the opposite +corner of the deep recess; the old armorial bearings, sending pale +shafts of parti-coloured light across Vixen's young head;—these things +made a picture full framed of light and colour, in the dark brown oak. +</P> + +<P> +"What an abominable birthday!" ejaculated Vixen; "if it were such +weather as this on my twenty-first birthday, I should think Nature had +taken a dislike to me. But I don't suppose Rorie cares. He is playing +billiards with a lot of his friends, and smoking, and making a horror +of himself, I daresay, and hardly knows whether it rains or shines." +</P> + +<P> +Drip, drip, drip, came the rain on the glistening leaves, berberis and +laurel, bay and holly, American oaks of richest red and bronze, copper +beeches, tall rhododendrons, cypress of every kind, and behind them a +dense black screen of yew. The late roses looked miserable. Vixen would +have liked to have brought them in and put them by the hall fire—the +good old hearth with its pile of blazing logs, before which Nip the +pointer was stretched at ease, his muscular toes stiffening themselves +occasionally, as if he was standing at a bird in his dreams. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen went on watching the rain. It was rather a lazy way of spending +the afternoon certainly, but Miss Tempest was out of humour with her +little world, and did not feel equal to groping out the difficulties, +the inexorable double sharps and odious double flats, in a waltz of +Chopin's. She watched the straight thin rain, and thought about +Rorie—chiefly to the effect that she hated him, and never could, by +any possibility, like him again. +</P> + +<P> +Gradually the trickle of the rain from an overflowing waterpipe took +the sound of a tune. No <I>berceuse</I> by Gounod was ever more +rest-compelling. The full white lids drooped over the big brown eyes, +the little locked hands loosened, the soft round chin fell forward on +the knees; Argus gave a snort of satisfaction, and laid his heavy head +on the velvet gown. Girl and dog were asleep. There was no sound in the +wide old hall except the soft falling of wood ashes, the gentle +breathing of girl and dogs. +</P> + +<P> +Too pretty a picture assuredly to be lost to the eye of mankind. +</P> + +<P> +Whose footstep was this sounding on the wet gravel half-an-hour later? +Too quick and light for the Squire's. Who was this coming in softly out +of the rain, all dripping like a water god? Who was this whose falcon +eye took in the picture at a glance, and who stole cat-like to the +window, and bending down his dark wet head, gave Violet's sleeping lips +the first lover's kiss that had ever saluted them? +</P> + +<P> +Violet awoke with a faint shiver of surprise and joy. Instinct told her +from whom that kiss came, though it was the first time Roderick had +kissed her since he went to Eton. The lovely brown eyes opened and +looked into the dark gray ones. The ruddy brown head rested on Rorie's +shoulder. The girl—half child, half woman, and all loving +trustfulness, looked up at him with a glad smile. His heart was stirred +with a new feeling as those softly bright eyes looked into his. It was +the early dawn of a passionate love. The head lying on his breast +seemed to him the fairest thing on earth. +</P> + +<P> +"Rorie, how disgracefully you have behaved, and how utterly I detest +you!" exclaimed Vixen, giving him a vigorous push, and scrambling down +from the window-seat. "To be all this time in Hampshire and never come +near us." +</P> + +<P> +A moment ago, in that first instant of a newly awakened delight, she +was almost betrayed into telling him that she loved him dearly, and had +found life empty without him. But having had just time enough to +recover herself, she drew herself up as straight as a dart, and looked +at him as Kate may have looked at Petruchio during their first +unpleasant interview in which they made each other's acquaintance. +</P> + +<P> +"All this time!" cried Rorie. "Do you know how long I have been in +Hampshire?" +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't the least idea," retorted Vixen haughtily. +</P> + +<P> +"Just half-an-hour—or, at least it is exactly half-an-hour since I was +deposited with all my goods and chattels at the Lyndhurst Road Station." +</P> + +<P> +"You are only just home from Switzerland?" +</P> + +<P> +"Within this hour!" +</P> + +<P> +"And you have not even been to Briarwood?" +</P> + +<P> +"My honoured mother still awaits my duteous greetings." +</P> + +<P> +"And this is your twenty-first birthday, and you came here first of +all." +</P> + +<P> +And, almost uninvited, the tawny head dropped on to his shoulder again, +and the sweet childish lips allowed themselves to be kissed. +</P> + +<P> +"Rorie, how brown you have grown.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Have I!" +</P> + +<P> +The gray eyes were looking into the brown ones admiringly, and the +conversation was getting a trifle desultory. +</P> + +<P> +Swift as a flash Violet recollected herself. It dawned upon her that it +was not quite the right thing for a young lady "rising sixteen" to let +herself be kissed so tamely. Besides, Rorie never used to do it. The +thing was a new development, a curious outcome of his Swiss tour. +Perhaps people did it in Switzerland, and Rorie had acquired the habit. +</P> + +<P> +"How dare you do such a thing?" exclaimed Vixen, shaking herself free +from the traveller's encircling arm. +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't think you minded," said Rorie innocently; "and when a fellow +comes home from a long journey he expects a warm welcome!" +</P> + +<P> +"And I am glad to see you," cried Vixen, giving him both her hands with +a glorious frankness; "but you don't know how I have been hating you +lately." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Vixen?" +</P> + +<P> +"For being always away. I thought you had forgotten us all—that you +did not care a jot for any of us." +</P> + +<P> +"I had not forgotten any of you, and I did care—very much—for some of +you." +</P> + +<P> +This, though vague, was consoling. +</P> + +<P> +The brown became Roderick. Dark of visage always, he was now tanned to +a bronze as of one born under southern skies. Those deep gray eyes of +his looked black under their black lashes. His black hair was cut close +to his well-shaped head. An incipient moustache shaded his upper lip, +and gave manhood to the strong, firm mouth. A manly face altogether, +Roderick's, and handsome withal. Vixen's short life had shown her none +handsomer. +</P> + +<P> +He was tall and strongly built, with a frame that had been developed by +many an athletic exercise—from throwing the hammer to pugilism. Vixen +thought him the image of Richard Coeur de Lion. She had been reading +"The Talisman" lately, and the Plantagenet was her ideal of manly +excellence. +</P> + +<P> +"Many happy returns of the day, Rorie," she said softly. "To think that +you are of age to-day. Your own master." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, my infancy ceased and determined at the last stroke of midnight +yesterday. I wonder whether my anxious mother will recognise that fact?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you know what is going to happen at Briarwood. There is to +be a grand dinner-party." +</P> + +<P> +"And you are coming? How jolly!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, Rorie. I am not out yet, you know. I shan't be for two years. +Papa means to give me a season in town. He calls it having me broken to +harness. He'll take a furnished house, and we shall have the horses up, +and I shall ride in the Row, You'll be with us part of the time, won't +you, Rorie?" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Ça se peut</I>. If papa will invite me." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he will, if I wish it. It's to be my first season, you know, and +I'm to have everything my own way." +</P> + +<P> +"Will that be a novelty?" demanded Roderick, with intention. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. I haven't had my own way in anything lately." +</P> + +<P> +"How is that?" +</P> + +<P> +"You have been away." +</P> + +<P> +At this naïve flattery, Roderick almost blushed. +</P> + +<P> +"How you've grown. Vixen," he remarked presently. +</P> + +<P> +"Have I really? Yes, I suppose I do grow. My frocks are always getting +too short." +</P> + +<P> +"Like the sleeves of my dress-coats a year or two ago." +</P> + +<P> +"But now you are of age, and can't grow any more. What are you going to +be, Rorie? What are you going to do with your liberty? Are you going +into Parliament?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Vawdrey indulged in a suppressed yawn. +</P> + +<P> +"My mother would like it," he said, "but upon my word I don't care +about it. I don't take enough interest in my fellow-creatures." +</P> + +<P> +"If they were foxes, you'd be anxious to legislate for them," suggested +Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"I would certainly try to protect them from indiscriminate slaughter. +And in fact, when one considers the looseness of existing game-laws, I +think every country gentleman ought to be in Parliament." +</P> + +<P> +"And there is the Forest for you to take care of." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, forestry is a subject on which I should like to have my say. I +suppose I shall be obliged to turn senator. But I mean to take life +easily—you may be sure of that, Vixen; and I intend to have the best +stud of hunters in Hampshire. And now I think I must be off." +</P> + +<P> +"No, you mustn't," cried Violet. "The dinner is not till eight. If you +leave here at six you will have no end of time for getting home to +dress. How did you come?" +</P> + +<P> +"On these two legs." +</P> + +<P> +"You shall have four to take you to Briarwood. West shall drive you +home in papa's dog-cart, with the new mare. You don't know her, do you? +Papa only bought her last spring. She is such a beauty, and +goes—goes—oh, like a skyrocket. She bolts occasionally; but you don't +mind that, do you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not in the least. It would be rather romantic to be smashed on one's +twenty-first birthday. Will you tell them to order West to get ready at +once." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but you are to stop to tea with Miss McCroke and me—that's part +of our bargain. No kettledrum, no Starlight Bess! And you'd scarcely +care about walking to Briarwood under such rain as that!" +</P> + +<P> +"So be it, then; kettledrum and Starlight Bess, at any hazard of +maternal wrath. But really now I'm doing a most ungentlemanly thing, +Vixen, to oblige you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Always be ungentlemanly then for my sake—if it's ungentlemanly to +come and see me," said Vixen coaxingly. +</P> + +<P> +They were standing side by side in the big window looking out at the +straight thin rain. The two pairs of lips were not very far away from +each other, and Rorie might have been tempted to commit a third offence +against the proprieties, if Miss McCroke had not fortunately entered at +this very moment. She was wonderfully surprised at seeing Mr. Vawdrey, +congratulated him ceremoniously upon his majority, and infused an +element of stiffness into the small assembly. +</P> + +<P> +"Rorie is going to stay to tea," said Vixen. "We'll have it here by the +fire, please, Crokey dear. One can't have too much of a good fire this +weather. Or shall we go to my den? Which would you like best, Rorie?" +</P> + +<P> +"I think we had better have tea here, Violet," interjected Miss +McCroke, ringing the bell. +</P> + +<P> +Her pupil's <I>sanctum sanctorum</I>—that pretty up-stairs room, half +schoolroom, half boudoir, and wholly untidy—was not, in Miss McCroke's +opinion, an apartment to be violated by the presence of a young man. +</P> + +<P> +"And as Rory hasn't had any luncheon, and has come ever so far out of +his way to see me, please order something substantial for him," said +Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +Her governess obeyed. The gipsy table was wheeled up to the broad +hearth, and presently the old silver tea-pot and kettle, and the yellow +cups and saucers, were shining in the cheery firelight. The old butler +put a sirloin and a game-pie on the sideboard, and then left the little +party to shift for themselves, in pleasant picnic fashion. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen sat down before the hissing tea-kettle with a pretty important +air, like a child making tea out of toy tea-things. Rorie brought a low +square stool to a corner close to her, and seated himself with his chin +a little above the tea-table. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't eat roast beef in that position," said Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes I can—I can do anything that's mad or merry this evening. But +I'm not at all sure that I want beef, though it is nearly three months +since I've seen an honest bit of ox beef. I think thin bread and +butter—or roses and dew even—quite substantial enough for me this +evening." +</P> + +<P> +"You're afraid of spoiling your appetite for the grand dinner," said +Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"No, I'm not. I hate grand dinners. Fancy making a fine art of eating, +and studying one's <I>menu</I> beforehand to see what combination of dishes +will harmonise best with one's internal economy. And then the names of +the things are always better than the things themselves. It's like a +show at a fair, all the best outside. Give me a slice of English beef +or mutton, and a bird that my gun has shot, and let all the fine-art +dinners go hang." +</P> + +<P> +"Cut him a slice of beef, dear Miss McCroke," said Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"Not now, thanks; I can't eat now. I'm going to drink orange pekoe." +</P> + +<P> +Argus had taken up his position between Violet and her visitor. He sat +bolt upright, like a sentinel keeping guard over his mistress; save +that a human sentinel, unless idiotic or intoxicated, would hardly sit +with jaws wide apart, and his tongue hanging out of one side of his +mouth, as Argus did. But this lolloping attitude of the canine tongue +was supposed to indicate a mind at peace with creation. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you very glad to come of age, Rorie?" asked Vixen, turning her +bright brown eyes upon him, full of curiosity. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it will be rather nice to have as much money as I want without +asking my mother for it. She was my only guardian, you know. My father +had such confidence in her rectitude and capacity that he left +everything in her hands." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you find Briarwood much improved?" inquired Miss McCroke. +</P> + +<P> +Lady Jane had been doing a good deal to her orchid-houses +lately. +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't found Briarwood at all yet," answered Rorie, "and Vixen +seems determined I shan't find it." +</P> + +<P> +"What, have you only just returned?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only just," +</P> + +<P> +"And you have not seen Lady Jane yet?" exclaimed Miss McCroke with a +horrified look. +</P> + +<P> +"It sounds rather undutiful, doesn't it? I was awfully tired, after +travelling all night; and I made this a kind of halfway house." +</P> + +<P> +"Two sides of a triangle are invariably longer than any one side," +remarked Vixen, gravely. "At least that's what Miss McCroke has taught +me." +</P> + +<P> +"It was rather out of my way, of course. But I wanted to see whether +Vixen had grown. And I wanted to see the Squire." +</P> + +<P> +"Papa has gone to Ringwood to look at a horse; but you'll see him at +the grand dinner. He'll be coming home to dress presently." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you had an agreeable tour, Mr. Vawdrey?" said Miss McCroke. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, uncommonly jolly." +</P> + +<P> +"And you like Switzerland?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; it's nice and hilly." +</P> + +<P> +And then Roderick favoured them with a sketch of his travels, while +they sipped their tea, and while Vixen made the dogs balance pieces of +cake on their big blunt noses. +</P> + +<P> +It was all very nice—the Tête Noire, and Mont Blanc, and the +Matterhorn. Rorie jumbled them all together, without the least regard +to geography. He had done a good deal of climbing, had worn out and +lost dozens of alpenstocks, and had brought home a case of Swiss carved +work for his friends. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a clock for your den, Vixen—I shall bring it to-morrow—with +a little cock-robin that comes out of his nest and sings—no end of +jolly." +</P> + +<P> +"How lovely!" cried Violet. +</P> + +<P> +The tall eight-day clock in a corner of the hall chimed the half-hour. +</P> + +<P> +"Half-past five, and Starlight Bess not ordered," exclaimed Roderick. +</P> + +<P> +"Let's go out to the stables and see about her," suggested Vixen. "And +then I can show you my pony. You remember Titmouse, the one that +<I>would</I> jump?" +</P> + +<P> +"Violet!" ejaculated the aggrieved governess. "Do you suppose I would +permit you to go out of doors in such weather?" +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think it's still raining?" asked Vixen innocently. "It may have +cleared up. Well, we'd better order the cart," she added meekly, as she +rang the bell. "I'm not of age yet, you see, Rorie. Please, Peters, +tell West to get papa's dog-cart ready for Mr. Vawdrey, and to drive +Starlight Bess." +</P> + +<P> +Rorie looked at the bright face admiringly. The shadows had deepened; +there was no light in the great oak-panelled room except the ruddy +fire-glow, and in this light Violet Tempest looked her loveliest. The +figures in the tapestry seemed to move in the flickering +light—appeared and vanished, vanished and appeared, like the phantoms +of a dream. The carved bosses of the ceiling were reflected grotesquely +on the oaken wall above the tapestry. The stags' heads had a goblin +look. It was like a scene of enchantment, and Violet, in her black +frock and amber sash, looked like the enchantress—Circe, Vivien, +Melusine, or somebody of equally dubious antecedents. +</P> + +<P> +It was Miss McCroke's sleepiest hour. Orange pekoe, which has an +awakening influence upon most people, acted as an opiate upon her. She +sat blinking owlishly at the two young figures. +</P> + +<P> +Rorie roused himself with a great effort. +</P> + +<P> +"Unless Starlight Bess spins me along the road pretty quickly, I shall +hardly get to Briarwood by dinner-time," he said; "and upon my honour, +I don't feel the least inclination to go." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, what fun if you were absent at your coming-of-age dinner!" cried +Vixen, with her brown eyes dancing mischievously. "They would have to +put an empty chair for you, like Banquo's." +</P> + +<P> +"It would be a lark," acquiesced Rorie, "but it wouldn't do; I should +hear too much about it afterwards. A fellow's mother has some kind of +claim upon him, you know. Now for Starlight Bess." +</P> + +<P> +They went into the vestibule, and Rorie opened the door, letting in a +gust of wind and rain, and the scent of autumn's last ill-used flowers. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I so nearly forgot," said Violet, as they stood on the threshold, +side by side, waiting for the dog-cart to appear. "I've got a little +present for you—quite a humble one for a grand young land-owner like +you—but I never could save much of my pocket-money; there are so many +poor children always having scarlet-fever, or tumbling into the fire, +or drinking out of boiling tea-kettles. But here it is, Rorie. I hope +you won't hate it very much." +</P> + +<P> +She put a little square packet into his hand, which he +proceeded instantly to open. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall love it, whatever it is." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a portrait." +</P> + +<P> +"You darling! The very thing I should have asked for." +</P> + +<P> +"The portrait of someone you're fond of." +</P> + +<P> +"Someone I adore," said Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +He had extracted the locket from its box by this time. It was a thick +oblong locket of dead gold, plain and massive; the handsomest of its +kind that a Southampton jeweller could supply. +</P> + +<P> +Rorie opened it eagerly, to look at the portrait. +</P> + +<P> +There was just light enough from the newly-kindled vestibule lamp to +show it to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Why it's a dog," cried Rorie, with deep-toned disgust. "It's old +Argus." +</P> + +<P> +"Who did you think it was?" +</P> + +<P> +"You, of course." +</P> + +<P> +"What an idea! As if I should give anyone my portrait. I knew you were +fond of Argus. Doesn't his head come out beautifully? The photographer +said he was the best sitter he had had for ever so long. I hope you +don't quite detest the locket, Rorie." +</P> + +<P> +"I admire it intensely, and I'm deeply grateful. But I feel +inexpressibly sold, all the same. And I am to go about the world with +Argus dangling at my breast. Well, for your sake, Vixen, I'll submit +even to that degradation." +</P> + +<P> +Here came the cart, with two flaming lamps, like angry eyes flashing +through the shrubberies. It pulled up at the steps. Rorie and Vixen +clasped hands and bade good-night, and then the young man swung himself +lightly into the seat beside the driver, and away went Starlight Bess +making just that sort of dashing and spirited start which inspires the +timorous beholder with the idea that the next proceeding will be the +bringing home of the driver and his companion upon a brace of shutters. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Rorie makes a Speech. +</H3> + +<P> +Somewhat to his surprise, and much to his delight, Roderick Vawdrey +escaped that maternal lecture which he was wont undutifully to describe +as a "wigging." When he entered the drawing-room in full dress just +about ten minutes before the first of the guests was announced, Lady +Jane received him with a calm affectionateness, and asked him no +questions about his disposal of the afternoon. Perhaps this unusual +clemency was in honour of his twenty-first birthday, Rorie thought. A +man could not come of age more than once in his life. He was entitled +to some favour. +</P> + +<P> +The dinner-party was as other dinners at Briarwood; all the +arrangements perfect; the <I>menu</I> commendable, if not new; the general +result a little dull. +</P> + +<P> +The Ashbourne party were among the first to arrive; the Duke portly and +affable; the Duchess delighted to welcome her favourite nephew; Lady +Mabel looking very fragile, flower-like, and graceful, in her pale blue +gauze dinner-dress. Lady Mabel affected the palest tints, half-colours, +which were more like the shadows in a sunset sky than any earthly hues. +</P> + +<P> +She took possession of Rorie at once, treating him with a calm +superiority, as if he had been a younger brother. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me all about Switzerland," she said, as they sat side by side on +one of the amber ottomans. "What was it that you liked best?" +</P> + +<P> +"The climbing, of course," he answered. +</P> + +<P> +"But which of all the landscapes? What struck you most? What impressed +you most vividly? Your first view of Mont Blanc, or that marvellous +gorge below the Tête Noire,—or——?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was all uncommonly jolly. But there's a family resemblance in Swiss +mountains, don't you know? They're all white—and they're all peaky. +There's a likeness in Swiss lakes, too, if you come to think of it. +They're all blue, and they're all wet. And Swiss villages, now—don't +you think they are rather disappointing?—such a cruel plagiarism of +those plaster châlets the image-men carry about the London streets, and +no candle-ends burning inside to make 'em look pretty. But I liked +Lucerne uncommonly, there was such a capital billiard-table at the +hotel." +</P> + +<P> +"Roderick!" cried Lady Mabel, with a disgusted look. "I don't think you +have a vestige of poetry in your nature." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope I haven't," replied Rorie devoutly. +</P> + +<P> +"You could see those sublime scenes, and never once feel your heart +thrilled or your mind exalted—you can come home from your first Swiss +tour and talk about billiard-tables!" +</P> + +<P> +"The scenery was very nice," said Rorie thoughtfully. "Yes; there were +times, perhaps, when I was a trifle stunned by all that grand calm +beauty, the silence, the solitude, the awfulness of it all; but I had +hardly time to feel the thrill when I came bump up against a party of +tourists, English or American, all talking the same twaddle, and all +patronising the scenery. That took the charm out of the landscape +somehow, and I coiled up, as the Yankees say. And now you want me to go +into second-hand raptures, and repeat my emotions, as if I were writing +a tourist's article for a magazine. I can't do it, Mabel." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I won't bore you any more about it," said Lady Mabel, "but I +confess my disappointment. I thought we should have such nice long +talks about Switzerland." +</P> + +<P> +"What's the use of talking of a place? If it's so lovely that one can't +live without it, one had better go back there." +</P> + +<P> +This was a practical way of putting things which was too much for Lady +Mabel. She fanned herself gently with a great fan of cloudy looking +feathers, such as Titania might have used that midsummer night near +Athens. She relapsed into a placid silence, looking at Rorie +thoughtfully with her calm blue eyes. +</P> + +<P> +His travels had improved him. That bronze hue suited him wonderfully +well. He looked more manly. He was no longer a beardless boy, to be +patronised with that gracious elder-sister air of Lady Mabel's. She +felt that he was further off from her than he had been last season in +London. +</P> + +<P> +"How late you arrived this evening," she said, after a pause. "I came +to five-o'clock with my aunt, and found her quite anxious about you. If +it hadn't been for your telegram from Southampton, she would have +fancied there was something wrong." +</P> + +<P> +"She needn't have fidgeted herself after three o'clock," answered Rorie +coolly; "my luggage must have come home by that time." +</P> + +<P> +"I see. You sent the luggage on before, and came by a later train?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I didn't. I stopped halfway between here and Lyndhurst to see some +old friends." +</P> + +<P> +"Flattering for my aunt," said Mabel. "I should have thought she was +your oldest friend." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course she has the prior claim. But as I was going to hand myself +over to her bodily at seven o'clock, to be speechified about and +rendered generally ridiculous, after the manner of young men who come +of age, I felt I was entitled to do what I liked in the interval." +</P> + +<P> +"And therefore you went to the Tempests'," said Mabel, with her blue +eyes sparkling. "I see. That is what you do when you do what you like." +</P> + +<P> +"Precisely. I am very fond of Squire Tempest. When I first rode to +hounds it was under his wing. There's my mother beckoning me; I am to +go and do the civil to people." +</P> + +<P> +And Roderick walked away from the ottoman to the spot where his mother +stood, with the Duke of Dovedale at her side, receiving her guests. +</P> + +<P> +"It was a very grand party, in the way of blue blood, landed estate, +diamonds, lace, satin and velvet, and self-importance. All the magnates +of the soil, within accessible distance of Briarwood, had assembled to +do honour to Rorie's coming of age. The dining-tables had been arranged +in a horse-shoe, so as to accommodate fifty people in a room which, in +its every-day condition, would not have been too large for thirty. The +orchids and ferns upon this horse-shoe table made the finest +floricultural show that had been seen for a long time. There were rare +specimens from New Granada and the Philippine Islands; wondrous flowers +lately discovered in the Sierra Madre; blossoms of every shape and +colour from the Cordilleras; richest varieties of hue—golden yellow, +glowing crimson, creamy white; rare eccentricities of form and colour +beside which any other flower would have looked vulgar; butterfly +flowers and pitcher-shaped flowers, that had cost as much money as +prize pigeons, and seemed as worthless, save to the connoisseur in the +article. The Vawdrey racing-plate, won by Roderick's grandfather, was +nowhere by comparison with those marvellous tropical blossoms, that +fairy forest of fern. Everybody talked about the orchids, confessed his +or her comparative ignorance of the subject, and complimented Lady Jane. +</P> + +<P> +"The orchids made the hit of the evening," Rorie said afterwards. "It +was their coming of age, not mine." +</P> + +<P> +There was a moderate and endurable amount of speechifying by-and-by, +when the monster double-crowned pines had been cut, and the purple +grapes, almost as big as pigeons' eggs, had gone round. +</P> + +<P> +The Duke of Dovedale assured his friends that this was one of the +proudest moments of his life, and that if Providence had permitted a +son of his own to attain his majority, he, the Duke, could have hardly +felt a deeper interest in the occasion than he felt to-day. He +had—arra—arra—known this young man from childhood, and +had—er—um—never found him guilty of a mean +action—or—arra—discovered in him a thought unworthy of an English +gentleman. +</P> + +<P> +This last was felt to be a strong point, as it implied that an English +gentleman must needs be much better than any other gentleman. +</P> + +<P> +A continental gentleman might, of course, be guilty of an unworthy +thought and yet pass current, according to the loose morality of his +nation. But the English article must be flawless. +</P> + +<P> +And thus the Duke meandered on for five minutes or so, and there was a +subdued gush of approval, and then an uncomfortable little pause, and +then Rorie rose in his place, next to the Duchess, and returned thanks. +</P> + +<P> +He told them all how fond he was of them and the soil that bred them. +How he meant to be a Hampshire squire, pure and simple, if he could. +How he had no higher ambition than to be useful and to do good in this +little spot of England which Providence had given him for his +inheritance. How, if he should go into Parliament by-and-by, as he had +some thoughts of attempting to do, it would be in their interests that +he would join that noble body of legislators; that it would be they and +their benefit he would have always nearest his heart. +</P> + +<P> +"There is not a tree in the Forest that I do not love," cried Rorie, +fired with his theme, and forgetting to stammer; "and I believe there +is not a tree, from the Twelve Apostles to the Knightwood Oak, or a +patch of gorse from Picket Post to Stony Cross, that I do not know as +well as I know the friends round me to-night. I was born in the Forest, +and may I live and die and be buried here. I have just come back from +seeing some of the finest scenery in Europe; yet, without blushing for +my want of poetry, I will confess that the awful grandeur of those +snow-clad mountains did not touch my heart so deeply as our beechen +glades and primrose-carpeted bottoms close at home." There was a burst +of applause after Rorie's speech that made all the orchids shiver, and +nearly annihilated a thirty-guinea <I>Odontoglossum Vexillarium</I>. His +talk about the Forest, irrelevant as it might be, went home to the +hearts of the neighbouring landowners. But, by-and-by, in the +drawing-room, when he rejoined his cousin, he found that fastidious +young lady by no means complimentary. +</P> + +<P> +"Your speech would have been capital half a century ago, Rorie," she +said, "and you don't arra—arra—as poor papa does, which is something +to be thankful for; but all that talk about the Forest seemed to be an +anachronism. People are not rooted in their native soil nowadays, as +they used to be in the old stage-coach times, when it was a long day's +journey to London. One might as well be a vegetable at once if one is +to be pinned down to one particular spot of earth. Why, the Twelve +Apostles," exclaimed Mabel, innocent of irreverence, for she meant +certain ancient and fast-decaying oaks so named, "see as much of life +as your fine old English gentleman. Men have wider ideas nowadays. The +world is hardly big enough for their ambition." +</P> + +<P> +"I would rather live in a field, and strike my roots deep down like one +of those trees, than be a homeless nomad with a world-wide ambition," +answered Rorie. "I have a passion for home." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I wonder you spend so little time in it." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I don't mean a home inside four walls. The Forest is my home, and +Briarwood is no dearer to me than any other spot in it." +</P> + +<P> +"Not so dear as the Abbey House, perhaps?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, no. I confess that fine old Tudor mansion pleases me better than +this abode of straight lines and French windows, plate glass and gilt +mouldings." +</P> + +<P> +They sat side by side upon the amber ottoman, Rorie with Mabel's blue +feather fan in his hand, twirling and twisting it as he talked, and +doing more damage to that elegant article in a quarter of an hour than +a twelvemonth's legitimate usage would have done. People, looking at +the pretty pair, smiled significantly, and concluded that it would be a +match, and went home and told less privileged people about the evident +attachment between the Duke's daughter and the young commoner. But +Rorie was not strongly drawn towards his cousin this evening. It seemed +to him that she was growing more and more of a paragon; and he hated +paragons. +</P> + +<P> +She played presently, and afterwards sang some French <I>chansons</I>. Both +playing and singing were perfect of their kind. Rorie did not +understand Chopin, and thought there was a good deal of unnecessary +hopping about the piano in that sort of thing—nothing concrete, or +that came to a focus; a succession of airy meanderings, a fairy dance +in the treble, a goblin hunt in the bass. But the French <I>chansons</I>, +the dainty little melodies with words of infantile innocence, all about +leaves and buds, and birds'-nests and butterflies, pleased him +infinitely. He hung over the piano with an enraptured air; and again +his friends made note of his subjugation, and registered the fact for +future discussion. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VI. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +How she took the News. +</H3> + +<P> +It was past midnight when the Tempest carriage drove through the dark +rhododendron shrubberies up to the old Tudor porch. There was a great +pile of logs burning in the hall, giving the home-comers cheery +welcome. There was an antique silver spirit stand with its +accompaniments on one little table for the Squire, and there was +another little table on the opposite side of the hearth for Mrs. +Tempest, with a dainty tea-service sparkling and shining in the red +glow. +</P> + +<P> +A glance at these arrangements would have told you that there were old +servants at the Abbey House, servants who knew their master's and +mistress's ways, and for whom service was more or less a labour of love. +</P> + +<P> +"How nice," said the lady, with a contented sigh. "Pauline has thought +of my cup of tea." +</P> + +<P> +"And Forbes has not forgotten my soda-water," remarked the Squire. +</P> + +<P> +He said nothing about the brandy, which he was pouring into the tall +glass with a liberal hand. +</P> + +<P> +Pauline came to take off her mistress's cloak, and was praised for her +thoughtfulness about the tea, and then dismissed for the night. +</P> + +<P> +The Squire liked to stretch his legs before his own fireside after +dining out; and with the Squire, as with Mr. Squeers, the +leg-stretching process involved the leisurely consumption of a good +deal of brandy and water. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. and Mrs. Tempest talked over the Briarwood dinner-party, and +arrived—with perfect good nature—at the conclusion that it had been a +failure. +</P> + +<P> +"The dinner was excellent," said the Squire, "but the wine went round +too slow; my glasses were empty half the time. That's always the way +when you've a woman at the helm. She never fills her cellars properly, +or trusts her butler thoroughly." +</P> + +<P> +"The dresses were lovely," said Mrs. Tempest, "but everyone looked +bored. How did you like my dress, Edward? I think it's rather good +style. Theodore will charge me horribly for it, I daresay." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know much about your dress, Pam, but you were the prettiest +woman in the room." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh Edward, at my age!" exclaimed Mrs. Tempest, with a pleased look, +"when there was that lovely Lady Mabel Ashbourne." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you call her lovely?—I don't. Lips too thin; waist too slim; too +much blood, and too little flesh." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but surely, Edward, she is grace itself; quite an ethereal +creature. If Violet had more of that refined air——" +</P> + +<P> +"Heaven forbid. Vixen is worth twenty such fine-drawn misses. Lady +Mabel has been spoiled by over-training." +</P> + +<P> +"Roderick is evidently in love with her," suggested Mrs. Tempest, +pouring out another cup of tea. +</P> + +<P> +The clocks had just struck two, the household was at rest, the logs +blazed and cracked merrily, the red light shining on those mail-clad +effigies in the corners, lighting up helm and hauberk, glancing on +greaves and gauntlets. It was an hour of repose and gossip which the +Squire dearly loved. +</P> + +<P> +Hush! what is this creeping softly down the old oak staircase? A +slender white figure with cloudy hair; a small pale face, and two dark +eyes shining with excitement; little feet in black velvet slippers +tripping lightly upon the polished oak. +</P> + +<P> +Is it a ghost? No; ghosts are noiseless, and those little slippers +descend from stair to stair with a gentle pit-a-pit. +</P> + +<P> +"Bless my soul and body!" cried the Squire; "what's this?" +</P> + +<P> +A gush of girlish laughter was his only answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Vixen!" +</P> + +<P> +"Did you take me for a ghost, papa?" cried Violet, descending the last +five stairs with a flying leap, and then, bounding across the hall to +perch, light as a bird, upon her father's knee. "Did I really frighten +you? Did you think the good old Abbey House was going to set up a +family ghost; a white lady, with a dismal history of a broken heart? +You darling papa! I hope you took me for a ghost!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, upon my word, you know, Vixen, I was just the least bit +staggered. Your little white figure looked like something uncanny +against the black oak balustrades, half in light, half in shadow." +</P> + +<P> +"How nice!" exclaimed Violet. +</P> + +<P> +"But, my dear Violet, what can have induced you to come downstairs at +such an hour?" ejaculated Mrs. Tempest in an aggrieved voice. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to hear all about the party, mamma," answered Vixen coaxingly. +"Do you think I could sleep a wink on the night of Rorie's coming of +age? I heard the joy-bells ringing in my ears all night." +</P> + +<P> +"That was very ridiculous." said Mrs. Tempest, "for there were no +joy-bells after eleven o'clock yesterday." +</P> + +<P> +"But they rang all the same, mamma. It was no use burying my head in +the pillows; those bells only rang the louder. Ding-dong, ding-dong, +dell, Rorie's come of age; ding-dong, dell, Rorie's twenty-one. Then I +thought of the speeches that would be made, and I fancied I could hear +Rorie speaking. Did he make a good speech, papa?" +</P> + +<P> +"Capital, Vix; the only one that was worth hearing!" +</P> + +<P> +"I am so glad! And did he look handsome while he was speaking? I think +the Swiss sunshine has rather over-cooked him, you know; but he is not +unbecomingly brown." +</P> + +<P> +"He looked as handsome a young fellow as you need wish to set eyes on." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Edward," remonstrated Mrs. Tempest, languidly, too thoroughly +contented with herself to be seriously vexed about anything, "do you +think it is quite wise of you to encourage Violet in that kind of talk?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why should she not talk of him? She never had a brother, and he stands +in the place of one to her. Isn't Rorie the same to you as an elder +brother, Vix?" +</P> + +<P> +The girl's head was on her father's shoulder, one slim arm round his +neck, her face hidden against the Squire's coat-collar. He could not +see the deep warm blush that dyed his daughter's cheek at this home +question. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't quite know what an elder brother would be like, papa. But I'm +very fond of Rorie—when he's nice, and comes to see us before anyone +else, as he did to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"And when he stays away?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, then I hate him awfully," exclaimed Vixen, with such energy that +the slender figure trembled faintly as she spoke. "But tell me all +about the party, mamma. Your dress was quite the prettiest, I am sure?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not certain of that, Violet," answered Mrs. Tempest with grave +deliberation, as if the question were far too serious to be answered +lightly. "There was a cream-coloured silk, with silver bullion fringe, +that was very striking. As a rule, I detest gold or silver trimmings; +but this was really elegant. It had an effect like moonlight." +</P> + +<P> +"Was that Lady Mabel Ashbourne's dress?" asked Vixen eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +"No; Lady Mabel wore blue gauze—the very palest blue, all puffings and +ruchings—like a cloud." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh mamma! the clouds have no puffings and ruchings." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, I mean the general effect—a sort of shadowiness which suits +Lady Mabel's ethereal style." +</P> + +<P> +"Ethereal!" repeated Violet thoughtfully; "you seem to admire her very +much, mamma." +</P> + +<P> +"Everybody admires her, my dear." +</P> + +<P> +"Because she is a duke's only daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"No; because she is very lovely, and extremely elegant, and most +accomplished. She played and sang beautifully to-night." +</P> + +<P> +"What did she play, mamma?" +</P> + +<P> +"Chopin!" +</P> + +<P> +"Did she!" cried Vixen. "Then I pity her. Yes, even if she were my +worst enemy I should still pity her." +</P> + +<P> +"People who are fond of music don't mind difficulties," said Mrs. +Tempest. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't they? Then I suppose I'm not fond of it, because I shirk my +practice. But I should be very fond of music if I could grind it on a +barrel organ." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Violet, when will you be like Lady Mabel Ashbourne?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never, I devoutly hope," said the Squire. +</P> + +<P> +Here the Squire gave his daughter a hug which might mean anything. +</P> + +<P> +"Never, mamma," answered Violet with conviction. "First and foremost, I +never can be lovely, because I have red hair and a wide mouth. +Secondly, I can never be elegant—much less ethereal—because it isn't +in me. Thirdly, I shall never be accomplished, for poor Miss McCroke is +always giving me up as the baddest lot in the shape of pupils that ever +came in her way." +</P> + +<P> +"If you persist in talking in that horrible way, Violet——" +</P> + +<P> +"Let her talk as she likes, Pam," said the fond father. "I won't have +her bitted too heavily." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest breathed a gentle sigh of resignation. The Squire was all +that is dear and good as husband and father, but refinement was out of +his line. +</P> + +<P> +"Do go on about the party, mamma. Did Rorie seem to enjoy himself very +much——" +</P> + +<P> +"I think so. He was very devoted to his cousin all the evening. I +believe they are engaged to be married." +</P> + +<P> +"Mamma!" exclaimed Vixen, starting up from her reclining attitude upon +her father's shoulder, and looking intently at the speaker; "Rorie +engaged to Lady Mabel Ashbourne!" +</P> + +<P> +"So I am told," replied Mrs. Tempest. "It will be a splendid match for +him." +</P> + +<P> +The pretty chestnut head dropped back into its old place upon the +Squire's shoulder, and Violet answered never a word. +</P> + +<P> +"Past two o'clock," cried her mother. "This is really too dreadful. +Come, Violet, you and I must go upstairs at any rate." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll all go," said the Squire, finishing his second brandy and soda. +</P> + +<P> +So they all three went upstairs together. Vixen had grown suddenly +silent and sleepy. She yawned dolefully, and kissed her mother and +father at the end of the gallery, without a word; and then scudded off, +swift as a scared rabbit, to her own room. +</P> + +<P> +"God bless her!" exclaimed the Squire; "she grows prettier and more +winning every day." +</P> + +<P> +"If her mouth were only a little smaller," sighed Mrs. Tempest. +</P> + +<P> +"It's the prettiest mouth I ever saw upon woman—bar one," said the +Squire. +</P> + +<P> +What was Vixen doing while the fond father was praising her? +</P> + +<P> +She had locked her door, and thrown herself face downwards on the +carpet, and was sobbing as if her heart would break. +</P> + +<P> +Rorie was going to be married. Her little kingdom had been overturned +by a revolution: her little world had crumbled all to pieces. Till +to-night she had been a queen in her own mind; and her kingdom had been +Rorie, her subjects had begun and ended in Rorie. All was over. He +belonged to some one else. She could never tyrannise over him +again—never scold him and abuse him and patronise him and ridicule him +any more. He was her Rorie no longer. +</P> + +<P> +Had she ever thought that a time might come when he would be something +more to her than playfellow and friend? No, never. The young bright +mind was too childishly simple for any such foresight or calculation. +She had only thought that he was in somewise her property, and would be +so till the end of both their lives. He was hers, and he was very fond +of her, and she thought him a rather absurd young fellow, and looked +down upon him with airs of ineffable superiority from the altitude of +her childish womanliness. +</P> + +<P> +And now he was gone. The earth had opened all at once and swallowed +him, like that prophetic gentleman in the Greek play, whose name Vixen +could never remember—chariot and horses and all. He belonged +henceforth to Lady Mabel Ashbourne. She could never be rude to him any +more. She could not take such a liberty with another young lady's lover. +</P> + +<P> +"And to think that he should never have told me he was going to be +engaged to her," she said. "He must have been fond of her from the very +beginning; and he never said a word; and he let me think he rather +liked me—or at least tolerated me. And how could he like two people +who are the very antipodes of each other? If he is fond of her, he must +detest me. If he respects her, he must despise me." +</P> + +<P> +The thought of such treachery rankled deep in the young warm heart. +Vixen started up to her feet, and stood in the midst of the firelit +room, with clinched fists, like a young fury. The light chestnut +tresses should have been Medusa's snakes to have harmonised with that +set white face. God had given Violet Tempest a heart to feel deeply, +too deeply for perfect peace, or that angelic softness which seems to +us most worthy in woman—the power to suffer and be patient. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Rorie has Plans of his own. +</H3> + +<P> +Roderick Vawdrey's ideas of what was due to a young man who attains his +majority were in no wise satisfied by his birthday dinner-party. It had +been pleasant enough in its way, but far too much after the pattern of +all other dinner-parties to please a young man who hated all common and +hackneyed things, and all the beaten tracks of life—or who, at any +rate, fancied he did, which comes to nearly the same thing. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother," he began at breakfast next morning, in his loud cheery voice, +"we must have something for the small tenants, and shopkeepers, and +cottagers." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean, Roderick?" +</P> + +<P> +"Some kind of entertainment to celebrate my majority. The people will +expect it. Last night polished off the swells very nicely. The whole +thing did you credit, mother." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," said Lady Jane, with a slight contraction of her thin lips. +</P> + +<P> +This October morning, so pleasant for Rorie, was rather a bitter day +for his mother. She had been reigning sovereign at Briarwood hitherto; +henceforth she could only live there on sufferance. The house was +Rorie's. Even the orchid-houses were his. He might take her to task if +he pleased for having spent so much money on glass. +</P> + +<P> +"But I must have my humble friends round me," continued Rorie. "The +young people, too—the boys and girls. I'll tell you what, mother. We +must have a lawn meet. The hounds have never met here since my +grandfather's time—fifty years ago. The Duke's stud-groom was telling +me about it last year. He's a Hampshire man, you know, born and bred in +the Forest. We'll have a lawn meet and a hunting breakfast; and it +shall be open house for everyone—high and low, rich and poor, gentle +and simple. Don't be frightened, mother," interjected Rorie, seeing +Lady Jane's look of horror; "we won't do any mischief. Your gardens +shall be respected." +</P> + +<P> +"They are your gardens now, Roderick. You are sole master here, and can +do what you please." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear mother, how can you talk like that? Do you suppose I shall +ever forget who made the place what it is? The gardens have been your +particular hobby, and they shall be your gardens to the end of time." +</P> + +<P> +"That is very generous of you, my dear Roderick; but you are promising +too much. When you marry, your wife will be mistress of Briarwood, and +it will be necessary for me to find a new home." +</P> + +<P> +"I am in no hurry to get married. It will be half-a-dozen years before +I shall even think of anything so desperate." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not, Roderick. With your position and your responsibilities you +ought to marry young. Marriage—a suitable marriage, that is to +say—would give you an incentive to earnestness and ambition. I want to +see you follow your father's footsteps; I want you to make a name +by-and-by." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid it will be a distant by-and-by," said Rorie, with a yawn. +"I don't feel at all drawn towards the senate. I love the country, my +dogs, my horses, the free fresh air, the stir and movement of life too +well to pen myself up in a study and pore over blue-books, or to waste +the summer evenings listening to the member for Little Peddlington +laying down the law about combination drainage, or the proposed +loop-line that is intended to connect his borough with the world in +general. I'm afraid it isn't in me, mother, and that you'll be sorely +disappointed if you set your heart upon my making a figure as a +senator." +</P> + +<P> +"I should like to see you worthy of your father's name," Lady Jane +said, with a regretful sigh. +</P> + +<P> +"Providence hasn't made me in the same pattern," answered Rorie. "Look +at my grandfather's portrait over the mantelpiece, in pink and mahogany +tops. What a glorious fellow he must have been. You should hear how the +old people talk of him. I think I inherit his tastes, instead of my +father's. Hereditary genius crops up in curious ways, you know. +Perhaps, if I have a son, he will be a heaven-born statesman, and you +may have your ambition gratified by a grandson. And now about the +hunting breakfast. Would this day week suit you?" +</P> + +<P> +"This is your house, Roderick. It is for you to give your orders." +</P> + +<P> +"Bosh!" exclaimed the son impatiently. "Don't I tell you that you are +mistress here, and will be mistress——" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Roderick, let us look things straight in the face," said Lady +Jane. "If I were sole mistress here there would be no hunting +breakfast. It is just the very last kind of entertainment I should ever +dream of giving. I am not complaining, mind. It is natural enough for +you to like that kind of thing; and, as master of this house, it is +your right to invite whomsoever you please. I am quite happy that it +should be so, but let there be no more talk about my being mistress of +this house. That is too absurd." +</P> + +<P> +Rorie felt all his most generous impulses turned to a sense of +constraint and bitterness. He could say no more. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you give me a list of the people you would like to be asked?" +said his mother, after rather an uncomfortable silence. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go and talk it over with the Duke," answered Rorie. "He'll enter +into the spirit of the thing." +</P> + +<P> +Rorie found the Duke going the round of the loose-boxes, and uncle and +nephew spent an hour together pleasantly, overhauling the fine stud of +hunters which the Duke kept at Ashbourne, and going round the paddocks +to look at the brood-mares and their foals; these latter being +eccentric little animals, all head and legs, which nestled close to the +mother's side for a minute, and then took fright at their own tails, +and shot off across the field, like a skyrocket travelling +horizontally, or suddenly stood up on end, and executed a wild waltz in +mid air. +</P> + +<P> +The Duke and Roderick decided which among these leggy little beasts +possessed the elements of future excellence; and after an hour's +perambulation of the paddocks they went to the house, where they found +the Duchess and Lady Mabel in the morning-room; the Duchess busy making +scarlet cloth cloaks for her school-children, Lady Mabel reading a +German critic on Shakespeare. +</P> + +<P> +Here the hunt breakfast was fully discussed. Everybody was to be asked. +The Duchess put in a plea for her school-children. It would be such a +treat for the little things to see the hounds, and their red cloaks and +hoods would look so pretty on the lawn. +</P> + +<P> +"Let them come, by all means," said Roderick; "your +school—half-a-dozen schools. I'll have three or four tents rigged up +for refreshments. There shall be plenty to eat and drink for everybody. +And now I'm off to the Tempests' to arrange about the hounds. The +Squire will be pleased, I know." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," said Lady Mabel, "and the Squire's daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear little thing!" exclaimed Rorie, with an elder brother's +tenderness; "she'll be as pleased as Punch. You'll hunt, of course, +Mabel?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know. I don't shine in the field, as Miss Tempest does." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but you must come, Mab. The Duke will find you a safe mount." +</P> + +<P> +"She has a hunter I bred on purpose for her," said the Duke; "but +she'll never be such a horsewoman as her mother." +</P> + +<P> +"She looks lovely on Mazeppa," said Rorie; "and she must come to my +hunting breakfast." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, Rorie, if you wish I shall come." +</P> + +<P> +Rorie stayed to luncheon, and then went back to Briarwood to mount his +horse to ride to the Abbey House. +</P> + +<P> +The afternoon was drawing in when Rorie rode up to the old Tudor +porch—a soft, sunless, gray afternoon. The door stood open, and he saw +the glow of the logs on the wide hearth, and the Squire's stalwart +figure sitting in the great arm-chair, leaning forward with a newspaper +across his knee, and Vixen on a stool at his feet, the dogs grouped +about them. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I send my horse round to the stables, Squire?" asked Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +"Do, my lad," answered Mr. Tempest, ringing the bell, at which summons +a man appeared and took charge of Roderick's big chestnut. +</P> + +<P> +"Been hunting to-day, Squire?" asked Rorie, when he had shaken hands +with Mr. Tempest and his daughter, and seated himself on the opposite +side of the hearth. +</P> + +<P> +"No," answered the Squire, in a voice that had a duller sound than +usual. "We had the hounds out this morning at Hilberry Green, and there +was a good muster, Jack Purdy says; but I felt out of sorts, and +neither Vixen nor I went. It was a loss for Vixen, poor little girl." +</P> + +<P> +"It was a grief to see you ill, papa," said Violet, nestling closer to +him. +</P> + +<P> +She had hardly taken any notice of Roderick to-day, shaking +hands with him in an absent-minded way, evidently full of anxiety about +her father. She was very pale, and looked older and more womanly than +when he saw her yesterday, Roderick thought. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not ill, my dear," said the Squire, "only a little muddled and +queer in my head; been riding too hard lately, perhaps. I don't get +lighter, you know, Rorie, and a quick run shakes me more than it used. +Old Martin, our family doctor, has been against my hunting for a long +time; but I should like to know what kind of life men of my age would +lead if they listened to the doctors. They wouldn't let us have a +decent dinner." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm so sorry!" said Rorie. "I came to ask you a favour, and now I feel +as it I hardly ought to say anything about it." +</P> + +<P> +And then Roderick proceeded to tell the Squire his views about a lawn +meet at Briarwood, and a hunting breakfast for rich and poor. +</P> + +<P> +"It shall be done, my boy," answered the Squire heartily. "It's just +the sort of thing you ought to do to make yourself popular. Lady Jane +is a charming woman, you know, thoroughbred to the finger-nails; but +she has kept herself a little too much to herself. There are people old +enough to remember what Briarwood was in your grandfather's time. This +day week you say. I'll arrange everything. We'll have such a gathering +as hasn't been seen for the last twenty years." +</P> + +<P> +"Vixen must come with you," said Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course." +</P> + +<P> +"If papa is well and strong enough to hunt." +</P> + +<P> +"My love, there is nothing amiss with me—nothing that need trouble me +this day week. A man may have a headache, mayn't he, child, without +people making any fuss about it?" +</P> + +<P> +"I should like you to see Dr. Martin, papa. Don't you think he ought to +see the doctor, Rorie? It's not natural for him to be ill." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not going to be put upon half-rations, Vixen. Martin would starve +me. That's his only idea of medical treatment. Yes, Vixen shall come, +Rorie." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Glas ist der Erde Stolz und Glück. +</H3> + +<P> +The morning of the Briarwood Meet dawned fairly. Roderick watched the +first lifting of the darkness from his bed-room window, and rejoiced in +the promise of a fine weather. The heavens, which had been so +unpropitious upon his birthday, seemed to promise better things to-day. +He did not desire the traditional hunting morning—a southerly wind and +a cloudy sky. He cared very little about the scent lying well, or the +actual result of the day's sport. He wanted rather to see the kind +familiar faces round him, the autumn sunshine lighting up all the glow +and colour of the picture, the scarlet coats, the rich bay and brown of +the horses, the verdant background of lawn and shrubberies. Two huge +marquees had been erected for the commonalty—one for the +school-children, the other for the villagers. There were long tables in +the billiard-room for the farming class; and for the quality there was +the horse-shoe table in the dining-room, as at Roderick's birthday +dinner. But on this occasion the table was decorated only with hardy +ferns and flowers. The orchids were not allowed to appear. +</P> + +<P> +Roderick noticed the omission. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, where are the thing-um-tites, mother?" he asked, with some +surprise; "the pitcher-plants and tropical what's-its-names?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did not think there was any occasion to have them brought out of the +houses, Roderick," Lady Jane answered quietly; "there is always a risk +of their being killed, or some of your sporting friends might be +picking my prize blossoms to put in their button-holes. Men who give +their minds to horses would hardly appreciate orchids." +</P> + +<P> +"All right, mother. As long as there is plenty to eat, I don't suppose +it much matters," answered Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +He had certainly no cause for complaint upon this score. Briarwood had +been amply provisioned for an unlimited hospitality. The red coats and +green coats, and blue coats and brown coats, came in and out, slashed +away at boar's head and truffled turkey, sent champagne corks flying, +and added more dead men to the formidable corps of tall hock bottles, +dressed in uniform brown, which the astonished butler ranged rank and +file in a lobby outside the dining-room. He had never seen this kind of +thing at Briarwood since he had kept the keys of the cellars; and he +looked upon this promiscuous hospitality with a disapproving eye. +</P> + +<P> +The Duke supported his nephew admirably, and was hail-fellow-well-met +with everybody. He had always been popular at Ashbourne. It was his own +place, his particular selection, bought with his own money, improved +under his own eye, and he liked it better than any of his hereditary +seats. +</P> + +<P> +"If I had only had a son like you, Rorie," he said, as he stood beside +the young man, on the gravel sweep before the hall-door, welcoming the +new-comers, "I should have been a happy man. Well, I suppose I must be +satisfied with a grandson; but it's a hard thing that the title and +estates are to go to that scamp of a cousin of mine." +</P> + +<P> +Roderick, on this particular morning, was a nephew whom any uncle might +be proud to own. His red coat and buckskins became him; so did his +position as host and master at Briarwood. His tall erect figure showed +to advantage amidst the crowd. His smile lit up the dark sunburnt face +like sunshine. He had a kind word, a friendly hand-clasp for +everybody—even for gaffers and goodies who had hobbled from their +village shanties to see the sport, and to get their share of cold +sirloin and old October. He took the feeble old creatures into the +tent, and saw that they found a place at the board. +</P> + +<P> +Squire Tempest and his daughter were among the later arrivals. The meet +was to be at one, and they only rode into the grounds at half-past +twelve, when everyone else had breakfasted. Mrs. Tempest had not come. +The entertainment was much too early for a lady who never left her +rooms till after noon. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen looked lovely in her smart little habit. It was not the Lincoln +green with the brass buttons, which Lady Mabel had laughed at a year +ago. To-day Miss Tempest wore a dark brown habit, moulded to the full +erect figure, with a narrow rim of white at the throat, a little felt +hat of the same dark brown with a brown feather, long white gauntlets, +and a whip with a massive ivory handle. +</P> + +<P> +The golden bay's shining coat matched Violet's shining hair. It was the +prettiest picture in the world, the little rider in dark brown on the +bright bay horse, the daintily quilted saddle, the gauntleted hands +playing so lightly with the horse's velvet mouth—horse and rider +devotedly attached to each other. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you like him?" asked Vixen, directly she and Rorie had shaken +hands. "Isn't he absolutely lovely?' +</P> + +<P> +"Absolutely lovely," said Rorie, patting the horse's shoulder and +looking at the rider. +</P> + +<P> +"Papa gave him to me on my last birthday. I was to have ridden Titmouse +another year; but I got the brush one day after a hard run when almost +everybody else was left behind, and papa said I should have a horse. +Poor Titmouse is put into a basket-chaise. Isn't it sad for him?' +</P> + +<P> +"Awfully humiliating." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Mabel was close by on her chestnut thoroughbred, severely costumed +in darkest blue and chimney-pot hat. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think you've ever met my cousin?" said Rorie. "Mabel, this is +Miss Tempest, whom you've heard me talk about. Miss Tempest, Lady Mabel +Ashbourne." +</P> + +<P> +Violet Tempest gave a startled look, and blushed crimson. Then the two +girls bowed and smiled: a constrained smile on Vixen's part, a prim and +chilly smile from Lady Mabel. +</P> + +<P> +"I want you two to be awful good friends," said Rorie; "and when you +come out, Vixen, Lady Mabel will take you under her wing. She knows +everybody, and the right thing to be done on every occasion." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen turned from red to pale, and said nothing. Lady Mabel looked at +the distant blue line of the Wight, and murmured that she would be +happy to be of use to Miss Tempest if ever they met in London. Rorie +felt, somehow, that it was not encouraging. Vixen stole a glance at her +rival. Yes, she was very pretty—a delicate patrician beauty which +Vixen had never seen before. No wonder Rorie was in love with her. +Where else could he have seen anything so exquisite? It was the most +natural thing in the world that these cousins should be fond of each +other, and engaged to be married. Vixen wondered that the thing had +never occurred to her as inevitable—that it should have come upon her +as a blow at the last. +</P> + +<P> +"I think Rorie ought to have told me," she said to herself. "He is like +my brother; and a brother would not hide his love affairs from his +sister. It was rather mean of Rorie." +</P> + +<P> +The business of the day began presently. Neither Vixen nor the Squire +dismounted. They had breakfasted at home; and Vixen, who did not care +much for Lady Jane Vawdrey, was glad to escape with no further +communication than a smile and a bow. At a quarter-past one they were +all riding away towards the Forest, and presently the serious business +began. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen and her father were riding side by side. +</P> + +<P> +"You are so pale, papa. Is your head bad again to-day?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, my dear. I'm afraid I've started a chronic headache. But the +fresh air will blow it away presently, I daresay. You're not looking +over-well yourself, Vixen. What have you done with your roses?" +</P> + +<P> +"I—I—don't care much about hunting to-day, papa," said Violet, sudden +tears rushing into her eyes. "Shall we go home together? You're not +well, and I'm not enjoying myself. Nobody wants us, either; so why +should we stay?" +</P> + +<P> +Rorie was a little way behind them, taking care of Lady Mabel, whose +slim-legged chestnut went through as many manoeuvres as if he had been +doing the manège business in a circus, and got over the ground very +slowly. +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense, child! Go back! I should think not! Jack Purdy may do all +the work, but people like to see me to the fore. We shall find down in +Dingley Bottom, I daresay, and get a capital run across the hills to +Beaulieu." +</P> + +<P> +They found just as the Squire had anticipated, and after that there was +a hard run for the next hour and a quarter. Roderick was at the heel of +the hunt all the time, opening gates, and keeping his cousin out of +bogs and dangers of all kinds. They killed at last on a wild bit of +common near Beaulieu, and there were only a few in at the death, +amongst them Vixen on her fast young bay, flushed with excitement and +triumph by this time, and forgetting all her troubles in the delight of +winning one of the pads. Mrs Millington, the famous huntress from the +shires, was there to claim the brush. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"How tired you look, papa," said Vixen, as they rode quietly homewards. +</P> + +<P> +"A little done up, my dear, but a good dinner will set me all right +again. It was a capital run, and your horse behaved beautifully. I +don't think I made a bad choice for you. Rorie and his cousin were +miles behind, I daresay. Pretty girl, and sits her horse like a +picture—but she can't ride. We shall meet them going home, perhaps." +</P> + +<P> +A mile or two farther on they met Roderick alone. His cousin had gone +home with her father. +</P> + +<P> +"It was rather a bore losing the run," he said, as he turned his +horse's head and rode by Vixen, "but I was obliged to take care of my +cousin." +</P> + +<P> +One of the Squire's tenants, a seventeen-stone farmer, on a stout gray +cob, overtook them presently, and Mr. Tempest rode on by his side, +talking agricultural talk about over-fed beasts and cattle shows, the +last popular form of cruelty to animals. +</P> + +<P> +Roderick and Violet were alone, riding slowly side by side in the +darkening gray, between woods where solitary robins carolled sweetly, +or the rare gurgle of the thrush sounded now and then from thickets of +beech and holly. +</P> + +<P> +A faint colour came back to Vixen's cheek. She was very angry with her +playfellow for his want of confidence, for his unfriendly reserve. Yet +this was the one happy hour of her day. There had been a flavour of +desolateness and abandonment in all the rest. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you enjoyed the run," said Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think you can care much whether we did or didn't," retorted +Vixen, shrouding her personality in a vague plural. "If you had cared +you would have been with us. Sultan," meaning the chestnut "must have +felt cruelly humiliated by being kept so far behind." +</P> + +<P> +"If a man could be in two places at once, half of me, the better half +of me, would have been with you, Vixen; but I was bound to take care of +my cousin. I had insisted upon her coming." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," answered Vixen, with a little toss of her head; "it would +have been quite wrong if she had been absent." +</P> + +<P> +They rode on in silence for a little while after this. Vixen was +longing to say: "Rorie, you have treated me very badly. You ought to +have told me you were going to be married." But something restrained +her. She patted her horse's neck, listened to the lonely robins, and +said not a word. The Squire and his tenant were a hundred yards ahead, +talking loudly. +</P> + +<P> +Presently they came to a point at which their roads parted, but Rorie +still rode on by Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't that your nearest way?" asked Vixen, pointing down the +cross-road with the ivory handle of her whip. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not going the nearest way. I am going to the Abbey House with +you." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't be so rude as to say Don't, but I think poor Sultan must be +tired." +</P> + +<P> +"Sultan shall have a by-day to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +They went into an oak plantation, where a broad open alley led from one +side of the enclosure to the other. The wood had a mysterious look in +the late afternoon, when the shadows were thickening under the tall +thin trees. There was an all-pervading ghostly grayness as in a shadowy +under-world. They rode silently over the thick wet carpet of fallen +leaves, the horses starting a little now and then at the aspect of a +newly-barked trunk lying white across the track. They were silent, +having, in sooth, very little to say to each other just at this time. +Vixen was nursing her wrathful feelings; Rorie felt that his future was +confused and obscure. He ought to do something with his life, perhaps, +as his mother had so warmly urged. But his soul was stirred by no +ambitious promptings. +</P> + +<P> +They were within two hundred yards of the gate at the end of the +enclosure, when Vixen gave a sudden cry: +</P> + +<P> +"Did papa's horse stumble?" she asked; "look how he sways in his +saddle." +</P> + +<P> +Another instant, and the Squire reeled forward, and fell headforemost +across his horse's shoulder. The fall was so sudden and so heavy, that +the horse fell with him, and then scrambled up on to his feet again +affrighted, swung himself round, and rushed past Roderick and Vixen +along the plashy track. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen was off her horse in a moment, and had flown to her father's +side. He lay like a log, face downwards upon the sodden leaves just +inside the gate. The farmer had dismounted and was stooping over him, +bridle in hand, with a frightened face. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, what is it?" cried Violet frantically. "Did the horse throw +him?—Bullfinch, his favourite horse. Is he much hurt? Oh, help me to +lift him up—help me—help me!" +</P> + +<P> +Rorie was by her side by this time, kneeling down with her beside the +prostrate Squire, trying to raise the heavy figure which lay like lead +across his arm. +</P> + +<P> +"It wasn't the horse, miss," said the farmer. "I'm afraid it's a +seizure." +</P> + +<P> +"A fit!" cried Vixen. "Oh, papa, papa——darling—darling——" +</P> + +<P> +She was sobbing, clinging to him, trembling like a leaf, and turning a +white, stricken face up towards Roderick. +</P> + +<P> +"Do something to help him—for God's sake—do something," she cried; +"you won't let him lie there and die for want of help. Some +brandy—something," she gasped, stretching out her trembling hand. +</P> + +<P> +The farmer had anticipated her thought. He had taken his flask from the +saddle pocket, and was kneeling down by the Squire. Roderick had lifted +the heavy head, and turned the ghastly face to the waning light. He +tried to force a little brandy between the livid lips—but vainly. +</P> + +<P> +"For God's sake get her away," he whispered to John Wimble, the farmer. +"It's all over with him." +</P> + +<P> +"Come away with me, my dear Miss Tempest," said Wimble, trying to raise +Violet from her knees beside the Squire. She was gazing into that awful +face distractedly—half divining its solemn meaning—yet watching for +the kind eyes to open and look at her again. "Come away with me, and +we'll get a doctor. Mr. Vawdrey will take care of your father." +</P> + +<P> +"You go for the doctor," she answered firmly. "I'll stay with papa. +Take my horse, he's faster than yours. Oh, he'll carry you well enough. +You don't know how strong he is—go, quick—quick—Dr. Martin, at +Lyndhurst—it's a long way, but you must get him. Papa will recover, +and be able to ride home, perhaps, before you can get back to us, but +go, go." +</P> + +<P> +"You go for the doctor, miss; your horse will carry you fast enough. +He'd never carry such a heavy weight as me, and my cob is dead beat. +You go, and Mr. Vawdrey will go with you. I'll take care of the Squire." +</P> + +<P> +Violet looked from one to the other helplessly. +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather stay with papa," she said. "You go—yes—go, go. I'll stay +with papa." +</P> + +<P> +She crouched down beside the prostrate figure on the damp marshy +ground, took the heavy head on her lap, and looked up at the two men +with a pale set face which indicated a resolve that neither of them was +strong enough to overrule. They tried their utmost to persuade her, but +in vain. She was fixed as a new Niobe—a stony image of young despair. +So Roderick mounted his horse and rode off towards Lyndhurst, and +honest Jack Wimble tied the other two horses to the gate, and took his +stand beside them, a few paces from those two motionless figures on the +ground, patiently waiting for the issue of this bitter hour. +</P> + +<P> +It was one of the longest, weariest, saddest hours that ever youth and +hope lived through. There was an awful heart-sickening fear in Violet's +mind, but she gave it no definite shape. She would not say to herself, +"My father is dead." The position in which he was lying hampered her +arms so that she could not reach out her hand to lay it upon his heart. +She bent her face down to his lips. +</P> + +<P> +Oh God! not a flutter stirred upon her soft cheek as she laid it +against those pallid lips. The lower jaw had fallen in an awful-looking +way; but Violet had seen her father look like that sometimes as he +slept, with open mouth, before the hall fire. It might be only a long +swoon, a suspension of consciousness. Dr. Martin would come +presently—oh, how long, how long the time seemed—and make all things +right. +</P> + +<P> +The crescent moon shone silver pale above that dim gray wood. The +barked trunks gleamed white and spectral in the gathering dark. Owls +began to hoot in the distance, frogs were awaking near at hand, belated +rabbits flitted ghost-like across the track. All nature seemed of one +gray or shadowy hue—silvery where the moonbeams fell. +</P> + +<P> +The October air was chill and penetrating. There was a dull aching in +Violet's limbs from the weight of her burden, but she was hardly +conscious of physical pain. It seemed to her that she had been sitting +there for hours waiting for the doctor's help. She thought the night +must have nearly worn itself out. +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Martin could not have been at home," she said, speaking for the +first time since Roderick rode away. "Mr. Vawdrey would fetch someone +else, surely." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear young lady, he hasn't had time to ride to Lyndhurst yet." +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet," cried Vixen despairingly, "not yet! And it has been so long. +Papa is getting so cold. The chill will be so bad for him." +</P> + +<P> +"Worse for you, miss. I do wish you'd let me take you home." +</P> + +<P> +"And leave papa here—alone—unconscious! How can you be so cruel as to +think of such a thing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Miss Tempest, we're not doing him any good, and you may be +getting a chill that will be nigh your death. If you would only go home +to your mamma, now—it's hard upon her not to know—she'll be fretting +about you, I daresay." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't waste your breath talking to me," cried Vixen indignantly; "I +shall not leave this spot till papa goes with me." +</P> + +<P> +They waited for another quarter of an hour in dismal silence. The +horses gnawed the lower branches of the trees, and gave occasional +evidence of their impatience. Bullfinch had gone home to his stable no +doubt. They were only about a mile-and-a-half from the Abbey House. +</P> + +<P> +Hark! what was that? The splish-splash of horses' hoofs on the soft +turf. Another minute and Rorie rode up to the gate with a stranger. +</P> + +<P> +"I was lucky enough to meet this gentleman," he said, "a doctor from +Southampton, who was at the hunt to-day. Violet dear, will you let me +take you home now, and leave the doctor and Mr. Wimble with your +father?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," answered Vixen decisively. +</P> + +<P> +The strange doctor knelt down and looked at his patient. He was a +middle-aged man, grave-looking, with iron-gray hair—a man who +impressed Vixen with a sense of power and authority. She looked at him +silently, with a despairing appealing look that thrilled him, familiar +as he was with such looks. He made his examination quietly, saying not +a word, and keeping his face hidden. Then he turned to the two men who +were standing close by, watching him anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"You must get some kind of litter to carry him home," he whispered. +</P> + +<P> +And then with gentle firmness, with strong irresistible hands, he +separated the living from the dead, lifted Violet from the ground and +led her towards her horse. +</P> + +<P> +"You must let Mr. Vawdrey take you home, my dear young lady," he said. +"You can do nothing here." +</P> + +<P> +"But you—you can do something," sobbed Violet, "you will bring him +back to life—you——" +</P> + +<P> +"I will do all that can be done," answered the doctor gently. +</P> + +<P> +His tone told her more than his words. She gave one wild shriek, and +threw herself down beside her dead father. A cloud came over the +distracted brain, and she lay there senseless. The doctor and Rorie +lifted her up and carried her to the gate where her horse was waiting. +The doctor forced a little brandy through the locked lips, and between +them Rorie and he placed her in the saddle. She had just consciousness +enough by this time to hold the bridle mechanically, and to sit upright +on her horse; and thus led by Roderick, she rode slowly back to the +home that was never any more to be the same home that she had known and +lived in through the joyous sixteen years of her life. All things were +to be different to her henceforward. The joy of life was broken short +off, like a flower snapped from its stem. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A House of Mourning. +</H3> + +<P> +There was sorrow at the Abbey House deeper and wilder than had entered +within those doors for many a year. To Mrs. Tempest the shock of her +husband's death was overwhelming. Her easy, luxurious, monotonous life +had been very sweet to her, but her husband had been the dearest part +of her life. She had taken little trouble to express her love for him, +quite willing that he should take it for granted. She had been +self-indulgent and vain; seeking her own ease, spending money and care +on her own adornment; but she had not forgotten to make the Squire's +life pleasant to him also. Newly-wedded lovers in the fair +honeymoon-stage of existence could not have been fonder of each other +than the middle-aged Squire and his somewhat faded wife. His loving +eyes had never seen Time's changes in Pamela Tempest's pretty face, the +lessening brightness of the eyes, the duller tints of the complexion, +the loss of youth's glow and glory. To him she had always appeared the +most beautiful woman in the world. +</P> + +<P> +And now the fondly-indulged wife could do nothing but lie on her sofa +and shed a rain of incessant tears, and drink strong tea, which had +lost its power to comfort or exhilarate. She would see no one. She +could not even be roused to interest herself in the mourning, though, +with a handsome widow, Pauline thought that ought to be all important. +</P> + +<P> +"There are so many styles of widows' caps now, ma'am. You really ought +to see them, and choose for yourself," urged Pauline, an honest young +Englishwoman, who had begun life as Polly, but whom Mrs. Tempest had +elevated into Pauline. +</P> + +<P> +"What does it matter, Pauline? Take anything you like. <I>He</I> will not be +there to see." +</P> + +<P> +Here the ready tears flowed afresh. That was the bitterest of all. That +she should look nice in her mourning, and Edward not be there to praise +her. In her feebleness she could not imagine life without him. She +would hear his step at her door surely, his manly voice in the +corridor. She would awake from this awful dream, in which he was not, +and find him, and fall into his arms, and sob out her grief upon his +breast, and tell him all she had suffered. +</P> + +<P> +That was the dominant feeling in this weak soul. He could not be gone +for ever. +</P> + +<P> +Yet the truth came back upon her in hideous distinctness every now and +then—came back suddenly and awfully, like the swift revelation of a +desolate plague-stricken scene under a lightning flash. He was gone. He +was lying in his coffin, in the dear old Tudor hall where they had sat +so cosily. Those dismal reiterated strokes of the funeral-bell meant +that his burial was at hand. They were moving the coffin already, +perhaps. His place knew him no more. +</P> + +<P> +She tottered to the darkened window, lifted the edge of the blind, and +looked out. The funeral train was moving slowly along the carriage +sweep, through the winding shrubberied road. How long, and black, and +solemnly splendid the procession looked. Everybody had loved and +respected him. It was a grand funeral. The thought of this general +homage gave a faint thrill of comfort to the widow's heart. +</P> + +<P> +"My noble husband," she ejaculated. "Who could help loving you?" +</P> + +<P> +It seemed to her only a little while ago that she had driven up to the +Tudor porch for the first time after her happy honeymoon, when she was +in the bloom of youth and beauty, and life was like a schoolgirl's +happy dream. +</P> + +<P> +"How short life is," she sobbed; "how cruelly short for those who are +happy!" +</P> + +<P> +With Violet grief was no less passionate; but it did not find its sole +vent in tears. The stronger soul was in rebellion against Providence. +She kept aloof from her mother in the time of sorrow. What could they +say to each other? They could only cry together. Violet shut herself in +her room, and refused to see anyone, except patient Miss McCroke, who +was always bringing her cups of tea, or basins of arrowroot, trying to +coax her to take some kind of nourishment, dabbing her hot forehead +with eau-de-Cologne—doing all those fussy little kindnesses which are +so acutely aggravating in a great sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me lie on the ground alone, and think of him, and wail for him." +</P> + +<P> +That is what Violet Tempest would have said, if she could have +expressed her desire clearly. +</P> + +<P> +Roderick Vawdrey went back to the Abbey House after the funeral, and +contrived to see Miss McCroke, who was full of sympathy for everybody. +</P> + +<P> +"Do let me see Violet, that's a dear creature," he said. "I can't tell +you how unhappy I am about her. I can't get her face out of my +thoughts, as I saw it that dreadful night when I led her horse +home—the wild sad eyes, the white lips." +</P> + +<P> +"She is not fit to see anyone," said Miss McCroke; "but perhaps it +might rouse her a little to see you." +</P> + +<P> +Miss McCroke had an idea that all mourners ought to be roused; that +much indulgence in grief for the dead was reprehensible. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," answered Rorie eagerly, "she would see me, I know. We are like +brother and sister." +</P> + +<P> +"Come into the schoolroom," said the governess, "and I'll see what I +can do." +</P> + +<P> +The schoolroom was Vixen's own particular den, and was not a bit like +the popular idea of a schoolroom. +</P> + +<P> +It was a pretty little room, with a high wooden dado, painted olive +green, and a high-art paper of amazing ugliness, whereon brown and red +storks disported themselves on a dull green ground. The high-art paper +was enlivened with horsey caricatures by Leech, and a menagerie of +pottery animals on various brackets. +</P> + +<P> +A pot or a pan had been stuck into every corner that would hold one. +There were desks, and boxes, and wickerwork baskets of every shape and +kind, a dwarf oak bookcase on either side of the fireplace, with the +books all at sixes and sevens, leaning against each other as if they +were intoxicated. The broad mantelpiece presented a confusion of +photographs, cups and saucers, violet jars, and Dresden shepherdesses. +Over the quaint old Venetian glass dangled Vixen's first trophy, the +fox's brush, tied with a scarlet ribbon. There were no birds, or +squirrels, or dormice, for Vixen was too fond of the animal creation to +shut her favourites up in cages; but there was a black bearskin spread +in a corner for Argus to lie upon. In the wide low windows there were +two banks of bright autumn flowers, pompons and dwarf roses, mignonette +and veronica. +</P> + +<P> +Miss McCroke drew up the blind, and stirred the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll go and ask her to come," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Do, like a dear," said Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +He paced the room while she was gone, full of sadness. He had been very +fond of the Squire, and that awfully sudden death, an apopleptic +seizure, instantaneous as a thunderbolt, had impressed him very +painfully. It was his first experience of the kind, and it was +infinitely terrible to him. It seemed to him a long time before Vixen +appeared, and then the door opened, and a slim black figure came in, a +white fixed face looked at him piteously, with tearless eyes made big +by a great grief. She came leaning on Miss McCroke, as if she could +hardly walk unaided. The face was stranger to him than an altogether +unknown face. It was Violet Tempest with all the vivid joyous life gone +out of her, like a lamp that is extinguished. +</P> + +<P> +He took her cold trembling hands and drew her gently to a chair, and +sat down beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"I wanted so much to see you, dear," he said, "to tell you how sorry we +all are for you—my mother, my aunt, and cousin"—Violet gave a faint +shiver—"all of us. The Duke liked your dear father so much. It was +quite a shock to him." +</P> + +<P> +"You are very good," Violet said mechanically. +</P> + +<P> +She sat by him, pale and still as marble, looking at the ground. His +voice and presence impressed her but faintly, like something a long way +off. She was thinking of her dead father. She saw nothing but that one +awful figure. They had laid him in his grave by this time. The cold +cruel earth had fallen upon him and hidden him for ever from the light; +he was shut away for ever from the fair glad world; he who had been so +bright and cheerful, whose presence had carried gladness everywhere. +</P> + +<P> +"Is the funeral quite over?" she asked presently, without lifting her +heavy eyelids. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear. It was a noble funeral. Everybody was there—rich and poor. +Everybody loved him." +</P> + +<P> +"The poor most of all," she said. "I know how good he was to them." +</P> + +<P> +Somebody knocked at the door and asked something of Miss McCroke, which +obliged the governess to leave her pupil. Roderick was glad at her +departure, That substantial figure in its new black dress had been a +hinderance to freedom of conversation. +</P> + +<P> +Miss McCroke's absence did not loosen Violet's tongue. She sat looking +at the ground, and was dumb. That silent grief was very awful to +Roderick. +</P> + +<P> +"Violet, why don't you talk to me about your sorrow?" he said. "Surely +you can trust me—your friend—your brother!" +</P> + +<P> +That last word stung her into speech. The hazel eyes shot a swift angry +glance at him. +</P> + +<P> +"You have no right to call yourself that," she said, "you have not +treated me like a sister." +</P> + +<P> +"How not, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"You should have told me about your engagement—that you were going to +marry Lady Mabel Ashbourne." +</P> + +<P> +"Should I?" exclaimed Rorie, amazed. "If I had I should have told you +an arrant falsehood. I am not engaged to my cousin Mabel. I am not +going to marry her." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it doesn't matter in the least whether you are or not," returned +Vixen, with a weary air. "Papa is dead, and trifles like that can't +affect me now. But I felt it unkind of you at the time I heard it." +</P> + +<P> +"And where and how did you hear this wonderful news, Vixen?" asked +Rorie, very pleased to get her thoughts away from her grief, were it +only for a minute. +</P> + +<P> +"Mamma told me that everybody said you were engaged, and that the fact +was quite obvious." +</P> + +<P> +"What everybody says, and what is quite obvious, is very seldom true, +Violet. You may take that for a first principle in social science. I am +not engaged to anyone. I have no thought of getting married—for the +next three years." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen received this information with chilling silence. She would have +been very glad to hear it, perhaps, a week ago—at which time she had +found it a sore thing to think of her old playfellow as Lady Mabel's +affianced husband—but it mattered nothing now. The larger grief had +swallowed up all smaller grievances. Roderick Vawdrey had receded into +remote distance. He was no one, nothing, in a world that was suddenly +emptied of all delight. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you going to do, dear?" asked Roderick presently. "If you +shut yourself up in your room and abandon yourself to grief, you will +make yourself very ill. You ought to go away somewhere for a little +while." +</P> + +<P> +"For ever!" exclaimed Vixen passionately. "Do you think I can ever +endure this dear home without papa? There is not a thing I look at that +doesn't speak to me of him. The dogs, the horses. I almost hate them +for reminding me so cruelly. Yes, we are going away at once, I believe. +Mamma said so when I saw her this morning." +</P> + +<P> +"Your poor mamma! How does she bear her grief?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, she cries, and cries, and cries," said Vixen, rather +contemptuously. "I think it comforts her to cry. I can't cry. I am like +the dogs. If I did not restrain myself with all my might I should howl. +I should like to lie on the ground outside his door—just as his dog +does—and to refuse to eat or drink till I died." +</P> + +<P> +"But, dear Violet, you are not alone in the world. You have your poor +mamma to think of." +</P> + +<P> +"Mamma—yes. I am sorry for her, of course. But she is only like a +lay-figure in my life. Papa was everything." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know where your mamma is going to take you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; I neither know nor care. It will be to a house with four walls and +a roof, I suppose. It will be all the same to me wherever it is." +</P> + +<P> +What could Roderick say? It was too soon to talk about hope or comfort. +His heart was rent by this dull silent grief; but he could do nothing +except sit there silently by Vixen's side with her cold unresponsive +hands held in his. +</P> + +<P> +Miss McCroke came back presently, followed by a maid carrying a pretty +little Japanese tea-tray. +</P> + +<P> +"I have just been giving your poor mamma a cup of tea, Violet," said +the governess. "Mr. Clements has been telling her about the will, and +it has been quite too much for her. She was almost hysterical. But +she's better now, poor dear. And now we'll all have some tea. Bring the +table to the fire, Mr. Vawdrey, please, and let us make ourselves +comfortable," concluded Miss McCroke, with an assumption of mild +cheerfulness. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps there is not in all nature so cheerful a thing as a good +sea-coal fire, with a log of beechwood on the top of the coals. It will +be cheerful in the face of affliction. It sends out its gushes of +warmth and brightness, its gay little arrowy flames that appear and +disappear like elves dancing their midnight waltzes on a barren moor. +It seems to say: "Look at me and be comforted! Look at me and hope! So +from the dull blackness of sorrow rise the many coloured lights of +new-born joy." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen suffered her chair to be brought near that cheery fire, and just +then Argus crept into the room and nestled at her knee. Roderick seated +himself at the other side of the hearth—a bright little fire-place +with its border of high-art tiles, illuminated with the story of "Mary, +Mary, quite contrary," after quaintly mediaeval designs, by Mr. Stacey +Marks. Miss McCroke poured out the tea in the quaint old red and blue +Worcester cups, and valiantly sustained that assumption of +cheerfulness. She would not have permitted herself to smile yesterday; +but now the funeral was over, the blinds were drawn up, and a mild +cheerfulness was allowable. +</P> + +<P> +"If you would condescend to tell me where you are going, Vixen, I might +contrive to come there too, by-and-by. We could have some rides +together. You'll take Arion, of course." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know that I shall ever ride again," answered Violet with a +shudder. +</P> + +<P> +Could she ever forget that awful ride? Roderick hated himself for his +foolish speech. +</P> + +<P> +"Violet will have to devote herself to her studies very assiduously for +the next two years," said Miss McCroke. "She is much more backwards +than I like a pupil of mine to be at sixteen." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I am going to grind at three or four foreign grammars, and to +give my mind to latitude and longitude, and fractions, and decimals," +said Vixen, with a bitter laugh. "Isn't that cheering?" +</P> + +<P> +"Whatever you do, Vixen," cried Roderick earnestly, "don't be a +paradigm." +</P> + +<P> +"What's that?" +</P> + +<P> +"An example, a model, a paragon, a perfect woman nobly planned, &c. Be +anything but that, Vixen, if you love me." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think there is much fear of any of us being perfect," said +Miss McCroke severely. "Imperfection is more in the line of humanity." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think so?" interrogated Rorie. "I find there is a great deal +too much perfection in this world, too many faultless people—I hate +them." +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't that a confession of faultiness on your side?" suggested Miss +McCroke. +</P> + +<P> +"It may be. But it's the truth." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen sat with dry hollow eyes staring at the fire. She had heard their +talk as if it had been the idle voices of strangers sounding in the +distance, ever so far away. Argus nestled closer and closer at her +knee, and she patted his big blunt head absently, with a dim sense of +comfort in this brute love, which she had not derived from human +sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +Miss McCroke went on talking and arguing with Rorie, with a view to +sustaining that fictitious cheerfulness which might beguile Vixen into +brief oblivion of her griefs. But Vixen was not so to be beguiled. She +was with them, but not of them. Her haggard eyes stared at the fire, +and her thoughts were with the dear dead father, over whose +newly-filled grave the evening shadows were closing. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Captain Winstanley. +</H3> + +<P> +Two years later, and Vixen was sitting with the same faithful Argus +nestling beside her, by the fireside of a spacious Brighton +drawing-room, a large, lofty, commonplace room, with tall windows +facing seawards. Miss McCroke was there too, standing at one of the +windows taking up a dropped stitch in her knitting, while Mrs. Tempest +walked slowly up and down the expanse of Brussels carpet, stopping now +and then at a window to look idly out at the red sunset beyond the +low-lying roofs and spars of Shoreham. Those two years had changed +Violet Tempest from a slender girl to a nobly-formed woman; a woman +whom a sculptor would have worshipped as his dream of perfection, whom +a painter would have reverenced for her glow and splendour of +colouring; but about whose beauty the common run of mankind, and more +especially womankind, had not quite made up their minds. The pretty +little women with eighteen-inch waists opined that Miss Tempest was too +big. +</P> + +<P> +"She's very handsome, you know, and all that," they said deprecatingly, +"and her figure is quite splendid; but she's on such a very large +scale. She ought to be painted in fresco, you know, on a high cornice. +As Autumn, or Plenty, or Ceres, or something of that kind, carrying a +cornucopia. But in a drawing-room she looks so very massive." +</P> + +<P> +The amber-haired women—palpably indebted to auricomous fluids for the +colour of their tresses—objected to the dark burnished gold of Violet +Tempest's hair. There was too much red in the gold, they said, and a +colour so obviously natural was very unfashionable. That cream-white +skin of hers, too, found objectors, on the score of a slight powdering +of freckles; spots which the kindly sun leaves on the fruit he best +loves. In fact, there were many reservations made by Miss Tempest's +pretended admirers when they summed up her good looks; but when she +rode her pretty bay horse along the King's Road, strangers turned to +look at her admiringly; when she entered a crowded room she threw all +paler beauties in the shade. The cabbage-rose is a vulgar flower +perhaps, but she is queen of the garden notwithstanding. +</P> + +<P> +Lest it should be supposed, after this, that Vixen was a giantess, it +may be as well to state that her height was five feet six, her waist +twenty-two inches at most, her shoulders broad but finely sloping, her +arms full and somewhat muscular, her hands not small, but exquisitely +tapering, her foot long and narrow, her instep arched like an Arab's, +and all her movements instinct with an untutored grace and dignity. She +held her head higher than is common to women, and on that score was +found guilty of pride. +</P> + +<P> +"I think we ought to go back before Christmas, Violet," said Mrs. +Tempest, continuing a discussion that had been dragging itself slowly +along for the last half-hour. +</P> + +<P> +"I am ready, mamma," answered Vixen submissively. "It will break our +hearts afresh when we go home, but I suppose we must go home some day." +</P> + +<P> +"But you would like to see the dear old house again, surely, Violet?" +</P> + +<P> +"Like to see the frame without the picture? No, no, no, mamma. The +frame was very dear while the picture was in it—but—yes," cried Vixen +passionately, "I should like to go back. I should like to see papa's +grave, and carry fresh flowers there every day. It has been too much +neglected." +</P> + +<P> +"Neglected, Violet! How can you say such a thing? When Manotti's bill for +the monument was over nine hundred pounds." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, mamma, there is more love in a bunch of primroses that my own hand +gathers and carries to the grave than in all the marble or granite in +Westminster Abbey." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, for poor people wild flowers are very nice, and show good +feeling—but the rich must have monuments. There could be nothing too +splendid for your dear papa," added the widow tearfully. +</P> + +<P> +She was always tearful when she spoke of her dear Edward, even now; +though she was beginning to find that life had some savour without him. +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Vixen, "but I think papa will like the flowers best." +</P> + +<P> +"Then if all is well, Miss McCroke," pursued Mrs. Tempest, "we will go +back at the end of November. It would be a pity to lose the season +here." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen yawned despondently. +</P> + +<P> +"What do we care about the season, mamma?" she exclaimed. "Can it +matter to us whether there are two or three thousand extra people in +the place? It only makes the King's Road a little more uncomfortable." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Violet, at your age gaiety is good for you," said Mrs. Tempest. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and, like most other things that are good, it's very +disagreeable," retorted Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"And now, about this ball," pursued Mrs. Tempest, taking up a dropped +stitch in the previous argument; "I really think we ought to go, if it +were only on Violet's account. Don't you, Maria?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest always called her governess Maria when she was anxious to +conciliate her. +</P> + +<P> +"Violet is old enough to enter society, certainly," said Miss McCroke, +with some deliberation; "but whether a public ball——" +</P> + +<P> +"If it's on my account, mamma, pray don't think of going," protested +Vixen earnestly. "I hate the idea of a ball—I hate——" +</P> + +<P> +"Captain Winstanley," announced Forbes, in the dusky end of the +drawing-room by the door. +</P> + +<P> +"He has saved me the trouble of finishing my sentence," +muttered Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +The visitor came smiling though the dusk into the friendly glow of the +fire. He shook hands with Mrs. Tempest with the air of an old friend, +went over to the window to shake hands with Miss McCroke, and then came +back to Vixen, who gave him a limp cold hand, with an indifference that +was almost insolent, while Argus lifted his head an inch or so from the +carpet and saluted him with a suppressed growl. Whether this arose from +a wise instinct in the animal, or from a knowledge that his mistress +disliked the gentleman, would be too nice a point to decide. +</P> + +<P> +"I was that moment thinking of you, Captain Winstanley," said the widow. +</P> + +<P> +"An honour and a happiness for me," murmured the Captain. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest seated herself in her own particular chair, beside which +was her own particular table with one of those pretty tea-services +which were her chief delight—a miniature silver tea-kettle with a +spirit-lamp, a cosy little ball-shaped teapot, cups and saucers of old +Battersea. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll take a cup of tea?" she said insinuatingly. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall be delighted. I feel as if I ought to go home and write verses +or smart paragraphs for the society papers after drinking your tea, it +is so inspiring. Addison ought to have drunk just such tea before +writing one of his Spectators, but unfortunately his muse required old +port." +</P> + +<P> +"If the Spectator came out nowadays I'm afraid we should think it +stupid." suggested Mrs. Tempest. +</P> + +<P> +"Simply because the slipshod writers of the present day have spoiled +our taste for fine English," interjected Miss McCroke severely. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I fear we should find Addison a little thin," said Captain +Winstanley; "I can't imagine London society existing for a week on such +literary pabulum as 'The Vision of Mirza.' We want something stronger +than that. A little scandal about our neighbours, a racy article on +field sports, some sharpish hits at the City, a libel or two upon men +we know, a social article sailing very near the wind, and one of +Addison's papers on cherry-coloured hoods, or breast-knots, patches or +powder, thrown in by the way of padding. Our dear Joseph is too purely +literary for the present age." +</P> + +<P> +"What monsters newspapers have grown," remarked Mrs. Tempest. "It's +almost impossible to get through them." +</P> + +<P> +"Not if you read anything else," answered the captain. "The majority do +not." +</P> + +<P> +"We were talking about the ball just as you came in," said Mrs. +Tempest. "I really think Vixen ought to go." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure she ought," said the Captain. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen sat looking at the fire and patting Argus. She did not favour the +Captain with so much as a glance; and yet he was a man upon whom the +eyes of women were apt to dwell favourably. He was not essentially +handsome. The most attractive men rarely are. He was tall and thin, +with a waist as small as a woman's, small hands, small feet—a general +delicacy of mould that was accounted thoroughbred. He had a long nose, +a darkly-pale complexion, keen gray eyes under dark brows, dark hair, +cropped close to his small head; thin lips, white teeth, a neat black +moustache, and a strictly military appearance, though he had sold out +of a line regiment three years ago, and was now a gentleman at large, +doing nothing, and living in a gentleman-like manner on a very small +income. He was not in debt, and was altogether respectable. Nothing +could be said against him, unless it were some dark hint of a gambling +transaction at a fast and furious club, some vague whisper about the +mysterious appearance of a king at écarté—the kind of a rumour which +is apt to pursue a man who, like Bulwer's Dudley Smooth, does not cheat +but always wins. +</P> + +<P> +Despite those vague slanders, which are generally baseless—the mere +expression of society's floating malice, the scum of ill-nature on the +ocean of talk—Captain Winstanley was a universal favourite. He went +everywhere, and was liked wherever he went. He was gifted with that +adaptability and hardiness which is, of all cleverness, most valuable +in polite society. Of him, as of Goldsmith, it might be said that he +touched nothing he did not adorn. True, that the things he touched were +for the most part small things, but they were things that kept him +before the eye of society, and found favour in that eye. +</P> + +<P> +He was a good horseman, a good oarsman, a good swimmer, a good +cricketer. He played and sang; he was a first-rate amateur actor; he +was great at billiards and all games of skill; he could talk any +language society wanted him to talk—society not requiring a man to +excel in Coptic or Chinese, or calling upon him suddenly for Japanese +or Persian; he dressed with perfect taste, and without the slightest +pretence of dandyism; he could write a first-rate letter, and +caricature his dearest friends of last year in pen and ink for the +entertainment of his dearest friends of this year; he was known to have +contributed occasionally to fashionable periodicals, and was supposed +to have a reserve of wit and satire which would quite have annihilated +the hack writers of the day had he cared to devote himself to +literature. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest and her daughter had met the Captain early in the previous +spring among the Swiss mountains. He knew some of Mrs. Tempest's +Hampshire friends, and with no other credentials had contrived to win +her friendship. Vixen took it into her obstinate young head to detest +him. But then, Vixen, at seventeen and a half, was full of ridiculous +dislikes and irrational caprices. Mrs. Tempest, in her lonely and +somewhat depressed condition, considered the Captain a particularly +useful acquaintance. Miss McCroke was dubious, but finding any +expression of her doubts ungraciously received, took the safer line of +silence. +</P> + +<P> +The ball in question was a charity ball at the Pavilion, a perfectly +unobjectionable ball. The list of patronesses bristled with noble +names. There was nothing to be said against Vixen's appearance there, +except Miss McCroke's objection that Squire Tempest's daughter and +heiress ought not to make her <I>début</I> in society at any public ball +whatever; ought, in a manner, hardly to be seen by the human eye as a +grown-up young lady, until she had been presented to her gracious +sovereign. But Mrs. Tempest had set her heart upon Vixen's going to the +ball; or, in other words, she had set her heart upon going herself. On +her way through Paris, in September, she had gone to Worth's—out of +curiosity, just to see what the great man's salons were like—and there +she had been tempted into the purchase of an artistic arrangement in +black silk and jet, velvet and passementerie. She did not require the +costume, but the thing in itself was so beautiful that she could not +help buying it. And having spent a hundred guineas on this masterpiece, +there arose in her mind a natural craving to exhibit it; to feel that +she was being pointed out as one of the best-dressed women in the +crowded room; to know that women were whispering to each other +significantly, "Worth," as the nocturn in velvet and silk and +glimmering jet swept by them. +</P> + +<P> +There was a good deal more discussion, and it was ultimately settled +that Vixen should go to the ball. She had no positive objection. She +would have liked the idea of the ball well enough perhaps, if it had +not been for Captain Winstanley. It was his advocacy that made the +subject odious. +</P> + +<P> +"How very rudely you behaved to Captain Winstanley, Violet," said Mrs. +Tempest, when her visitor had departed. +</P> + +<P> +"Did I, mamma?" inquired Vixen listlessly. "I thought I was +extraordinarily civil. If you knew how I should have liked to behave to +him, you would think so too." +</P> + +<P> +"I can not imagine why you are so prejudiced against him," pursued Mrs. +Tempest fretfully. +</P> + +<P> +"It is not prejudice, mamma, but instinct, like Argus's. That man is +destined to do us some great wrong, if we do not escape out of his +clutches." +</P> + +<P> +"It is shameful of you to say such things," cried the widow, pale with +anger. "What have you to say against him? What fault can you find with +him? You cannot deny that he is most gentlemanlike." +</P> + +<P> +"No, mamma; he is a little too gentlemanlike. He makes a trade of his +gentlemanliness. He is too highly polished for me." +</P> + +<P> +"You prefer a rough young fellow, like Roderick Vawdrey, who talks +slang, and smells of the stables." +</P> + +<P> +"I prefer anyone who is good and true," retorted Vixen. "Roderick is a +man, and not to be named in the same breath with your fine gentleman." +</P> + +<P> +"I admit that the comparison would be vastly to his disadvantage," said +the widow. "But it's time to dress for dinner." +</P> + +<P> +"And we are to dine with the Mortimers," yawned Vixen. "What a bore!" +</P> + +<P> +This young lady had not that natural bent for society which is +symptomatic of her age. The wound that pierced her young heart two +years ago had not healed so completely that she could find pleasure in +inane conversation across a primeval forest of sixpenny ferns, and the +factitious liveliness of a fashionable dinner-table. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"It shall be Measure for Measure." +</H3> + +<P> +The night of the ball came, and, in spite of her aversion for Captain +Winstanley, and general dislike of the whole thing, Violet Tempest +began the evening by enjoying herself. She was young and energetic, and +had an immense reserve of animal spirits after her two years of sadness +and mourning. She danced with the partners her friends brought +her—some of the most eligible men in the room—and was full of life +and gaiety; yet the festival seemed to her in somewise horrible all the +time. +</P> + +<P> +"If papa could know that we are dancing and smiling at each other, as +if all life was made up of gladness, when he is lying in his cold +grave!" thought Vixen, after joining hands with her mother in the +ladies' chain. +</P> + +<P> +The widow looked as if she had never known a care. She was conscious +that Worth's <I>chef-d'oeuvre</I> was not thrown away. She saw herself in +the great mirrors which once reflected George and his lovely +Fitzherbert in their days of gladness—which reflected the same George +later, old, and sick, and weary. +</P> + +<P> +"That French <I>grande dame</I> was right," thought Mrs. Tempest, "who said, +'<I>Le noir est si flattant pour les blondes</I>.'" +</P> + +<P> +Black was flattering for Vixen's auburn hair also. Though her +indifferent eye rarely glanced at the mirrored walls, she had never +looked lovelier. A tall graceful figure, in billowy black tulle, +wreathed with white chrysanthemums; a queen-like head, with a red-gold +coronal; a throat like an ivory pillar, spanned with a broad black +ribbon, fastened with a diamond clasp; diamond stars in her ears, and a +narrow belt of diamonds round each white arm. +</P> + +<P> +"How many waltzes have you kept for me?" Captain Winstanley asked +presently, coming up to Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"I have not kept waltzes for anyone," she answered indifferently. +</P> + +<P> +"But surely you were under a promise to keep some for me? I asked you a +week ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you? I am sure I never promised anything of the kind." +</P> + +<P> +"Here is only one little shabby waltz left," said the Captain, looking +at her programme. "May I put my name down for that?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you like," answered Vixen indifferently; and then, with the +faintest suspicion of malice, she added, "as mamma does not dance round +dances." +</P> + +<P> +She was standing up for the Lancers presently, and her partner had just +led her to her place, when she saw that she had her mother and Captain +Winstanley again for her <I>vis-à-vis</I>. She grew suddenly pale, and +turned away. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you let me sit this out?" she said. "I feel awfully ill." +</P> + +<P> +Her partner was full of concern, and carried her off at once to a +cooler room. +</P> + +<P> +"It is too bad!" she muttered to herself. "The Lancers! To go romping +round with a lot of wild young men and women. It is as bad as the Queen +in Hamlet." +</P> + +<P> +This was the last dance before supper. Vixen went in to the supper-room +presently with her attentive partner, who had kept by her side +devotedly while the lively scramble to good old English tunes was going +on in the dancing-room. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you better?" he asked tenderly, fanning her with her big black +fan, painted with violets and white chrysanthemums. "The room is +abominably hot." +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks. I'm quite well now. It was only a momentary faintness. But I +rather hate the Lancers, don't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I don't know. I think, sometimes, you know, with a nice partner, +they're good fun. Only one can't help treading on the ladies' trains, +and they wind themselves round one's legs like snakes. I've seen +fellows come awful croppers, and the lady who has done it look so +sweetly unconcerned. But if one tears a lace flounce, you know, they +look daggers. It's something too dreadful to feel oneself walking into +honiton at ten guineas a yard, and the more one tries to extricate +oneself the more harm one does." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen's supper was the merest pretence. Her mother sat opposite her, +with Captain Winstanley still in attendance. Vixen gave them one +scathing look, and then sat like an image of scorn. Her partner could +not get a word from her, and when he offered her the fringed end of a +cracker bonbon, she positively refused to have anything to do with it. +</P> + +<P> +"Please don't," she said. "It's too inane. I couldn't possibly pretend +to be interested in the motto." +</P> + +<P> +When she went back to the ball-room Captain Winstanley followed her and +claimed his waltz. The band was just striking up the latest love-sick +German melody, "<I>Weit von dir!</I>" a strain of drawling tenderness. +</P> + +<P> +"You had better go and secure your supper," said Vixen coldly. +</P> + +<P> +"I despise all ball-suppers. This one most particularly, if it were to +deprive me of my waltz." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen shrugged her shoulders, and submitted to take those few +preliminary steps which are like the strong swimmer's shiverings on the +bank ere he plunges in the stream. And then she was whirling round to +the legato strains, "<I>Weit von dir! Weit von dir! Wo ist mein Lebens +Lust?—Weit von dir—Weit von dir!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +Captain Winstanley's waltzing was simple perfection. It was not the +Liverpool Lurch, or the Scarborough Scramble, the Bermondsey Bounce, or +the Whitechapel Wiggle; it was waltzing pure and simple, unaffected, +graceful; the waltzing of a man with a musical ear, and an athlete's +mastery of the art of motion. Vixen hated the Captain, but she enjoyed +the waltz. They danced till the last bar died away in a tender +diminuendo. +</P> + +<P> +"You look pale," said the Captain, "let us go into the garden." He +brought her cloak and wrapped it round her, and she took his offered +arm without a word. It was one of those rare nights in late October, +when the wind is not cold. There was hardly the flutter of a leaf in +the Pavilion garden. The neighbouring sea made the gentlest music—a +melancholy ebb and flow of sound, like the murmuring of some great +imprisoned spirit. +</P> + +<P> +In the searching light of day, when its adjacent cab-stands and +commonnesses are visible, and its gravelled walks are peopled with +nursemaids and small children, the Pavilion garden can hardly be called +romantic. But by this tender moonlight, in this cool stillness of a +placid autumn midnight, even the Pavilion garden had its air of romance +and mystery. The various roofs and chimneys stood up against the sky, +picturesque as a city of old time. And, after all, this part of +Brighton has a peculiar charm which all the rest of Brighton lacks. It +speaks of the past, it tells its story of the dead. They were not great +or heroic, perhaps, those departed figures, whose ghosts haunt us in +the red and yellow rooms, and in the stiff town garden; but they had +their histories. They lived, and loved, and suffered; and, being dead +so long, come back to us in the softened light of vanished days, and +take hold of our fancy with their quaint garments and antique +head-gear, their powder, and court-swords, and diamond shoe-buckles, +and little loves and little sorrows. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen walked slowly along the shining gravel-path with her black and +gold mantle folded round her, looking altogether statuesque and +unapproachable. They took one turn in absolute silence, and then +Captain Winstanley, who was not inclined to beat about the bush when he +had something particular to say, and a good opportunity for saying it, +broke the spell. +</P> + +<P> +This was perhaps the first time, in an acquaintance of more than six +months, that he had ever found himself alone with Violet Tempest, +without hazard of immediate interruption. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Tempest," he began, with a firmness of tone that startled her, "I +want to know why you are so unkind to me." +</P> + +<P> +"I hardly know what you mean by unkindness. I hope I have never said +anything uncivil?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; but you have let me see very plainly that you dislike me." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry nature has given me an unpleasantly candid disposition." +</P> + +<P> +Those keen gray eyes of the Captain's were watching her intently. An +angry look shot at her from under the straight dark brows—swift as an +arrow. +</P> + +<P> +"You admit then that you do not like me?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen paused before replying. The position was embarrassing. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose if I were ladylike and proper, I should protest that I like +you immensely; that there is no one in the world, my mother excepted, +whom I like better. But I never was particularly proper or polite, +Captain Winstanley, and I must confess there are very few people I do +like, and——" +</P> + +<P> +"And I am not one of them," said the Captain. +</P> + +<P> +"You have finished the sentence for me." +</P> + +<P> +"That is hard upon me—no, Violet, you can never know how hard. Why +should you dislike me? You are the first woman who ever told me so" +(flushing with an indignant recollection of all his victories). "I have +done nothing to offend you. I have not been obtrusive. I have +worshipped at a distance—but the Persian's homage of the sun is not +more reverent——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, pray don't talk about Persians and the sun," cried Violet. "I am +not worthy that you should be so concerned about my likes and dislikes. +Please think of me as an untaught inexperienced girl. Two years ago I +was a spoiled child. You don't know how my dearest father spoiled me. +It is no wonder I am rude. Remember this, and forgive me if I am too +truthful." +</P> + +<P> +"You are all that is lovely," he exclaimed passionately, stung by her +scorn and fired by her beauty, almost beside himself as they stood +there in the magical moonlight—for once in his life forgetting to +calculate every move on life's chessboard. "You are too lovely for me. +From the very first, in Switzerland, when I was so happy——no, I will +not tell you. I will not lay down my heart to be trampled under your +feet." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't," cried Violet, transfixing him with the angry fire of her eyes, +"for I'm afraid I should trample on it. I am not one of those gentle +creatures who go out of their way to avoid treading on worms—or other +reptiles." +</P> + +<P> +"You are as cruel as you are lovely," he said, "and your cruelty is +sweeter than another woman's kindness. Violet, I laugh at your dislike. +Yes, such aversion as that is often the beginning of closest liking. I +will not be disheartened. I will not be put off by your scornful +candour. What if I were to tell you that you are the only woman I ever +loved?" +</P> + +<P> +"Pray do not. It would transform passive dislike into active hatred. I +should be sorry for that, because," looking at him deliberately, with a +slow scorn, "I think my mother likes you." +</P> + +<P> +"She has honoured me with her confidence, and I hope I shall not prove +unworthy of the trust. I rarely fail to repay any benefit that is +bestowed upon me." +</P> + +<P> +"October nights are treacherous," said Vixen, drawing her cloak closer +around her. "I think we had better go back to the ball-room." +</P> + +<P> +She was shivering a little with agitated feeling, in spite of that +mantle of scorn in which she had wrapped herself. This was the first +man who had ever called her lovely, who had ever talked to her of love +with manhood's strong passion. +</P> + +<P> +The Captain gave her his arm, and they went back to the glare and heat +of the yellow dragons and scarlet griffins. Another Lancer scramble was +in full progress, to the old-fashioned jigging tunes, but Mrs. Tempest +was sitting among the matrons in a corner by an open window. +</P> + +<P> +"Are we ever going home any more, mamma?" inquired Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Violet, I have been waiting for you ever so long." +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you leave so early?" exclaimed Captain Winstanley. "There +are half-a-dozen more dances, and you are engaged for them all, I +believe, Miss Tempest." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I will show mercy to my partners by going away," said Violet. +"Are all balls as long as this? We seem to have been here ages; I +expect to find my hair gray to-morrow morning." +</P> + +<P> +"I really think we had better go," said Mrs. Tempest, in her undecided +way. +</P> + +<P> +She was a person who never quite made up her mind about anything, but +balanced every question gently, letting somebody else turn the scale +for her—her maid, her governess, her daughter; she was always trying +to have her own way, but never quite knew what her own way was, and +just managed things skillfully enough to prevent other people having +theirs. +</P> + +<P> +"If you are determined, I will see you to your carriage, and then the +ball is over for me," said the Captain gallantly. +</P> + +<P> +He offered Mrs. Tempest his arm, and they went put into the vestibule, +where the Captain left them for a few minutes, while he went into the +porch to hasten the arrival of the carriage. +</P> + +<P> +"Where were you and Captain Winstanley all that time, Violet?" asked +Mrs. Tempest. +</P> + +<P> +"In the garden." +</P> + +<P> +"How imprudent!" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed, dear mamma, it wasn't cold." +</P> + +<P> +"But you were out there so long. What could you find to talk about all +that time?" +</P> + +<P> +"We were not talking all the time, only enjoying the cool air and the +moonlight." +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Tempest's carriage!" roared one of the door-keepers, as if it had +been his doing that the carriage had appeared so quickly. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Winstanley was ready to hand them to their brougham. +</P> + +<P> +"Come and take a cup of tea to-morrow afternoon, and let as talk over +the ball," said the widow. +</P> + +<P> +"With infinite pleasure." +</P> + +<P> +"Shall we drop you at your house?" +</P> + +<P> +"A thousand thanks—no—my lodgings are so close, I'll walk home." +</P> + +<P> +He went back for his overcoat, and then walked slowly away, without +another glance at the crowded ball-room, or the corridors where the +ladies who were waiting for their carriages were contriving to improve +the time by a good deal of quiet, or even noisy, flirtation. His +lodgings were on the Old Steine, close by. But he did not go home +immediately. There are times in a man's life when four walls are to +small too hold the bigness of his thoughts. Captain Winstanley paced +the Marine Parade for half-an-hour or so before he went home. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Va pour la mère</I>," he said to himself, at the close of that half +hour's meditations; "she is really very nice, and the position +altogether advantageous, perhaps as much as one has the right to expect +in the general decadence of things. But, good heavens, how lovely that +girl is! She is the first woman who ever looked me in the face and told +me she disliked me; the first woman who ever gave me contemptuous looks +and scornful words. And yet—for that very reason, perhaps—I——" +</P> + +<P> +The dark brows contracted over the keen eyes, which seemed closer than +usual to the hawk nose. +</P> + +<P> +"Look to yourself, my queen, in the time to come," he said, as he +turned his back on the silvery sea and moonlight sky. "You have been +hard to me and I will be hard to you. It shall be measure for measure." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"I have no Wrong, where I can claim no Right." +</H3> + +<P> +Going home again. That was hard to bear. It reopened all the old +wounds. Violet Tempest felt as if her heart must really break, as if +this new grief were sharper than the old one, when the carriage drove +in through the familiar gates, in the December dusk, and along the +winding shrubberied road, and up to the Tudor porch, where the lion of +the Tempests stood, <I>passant regardant</I>, with lifted paw and backwards +gaze, above the stone shield. The ruddy firelight was shining across +the wide doorway. The old hearth looked as cheerful as of old. And +there stood the empty chair beside it. That had been Vixen's particular +wish. +</P> + +<P> +"Let nothing be disturbed, dear mamma," she had said ever so many +times, when her mother was writing her orders to the housekeeper. "Beg +them to keep everything just as it was in papa's time." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, it will only make you grieve more." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; but I had rather grieve for him than forget him. I am more afraid +of forgetting him than of grieving too much for him," said Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +And now, as she stood on the hearth after her journey, wrapped in black +furs, a little black fur <I>toque</I> crowning her ruddy gold hair, fancy +filled the empty chair as she gazed at it. Yes, she could see her +father sitting there in his hunting-clothes, his whip across his knee. +</P> + +<P> +The old pointer, the Squire's favourite, came whining to her feet. How +old he looked! Old, and broken, and infirm, as if from much sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor Nip! poor Nip!" she said, patting him. "The joy of your life went +with papa, didn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's all very sad," murmured Mrs. Tempest, loosening her wraps. "A +sad, sad home-coming. And it seems only yesterday that I came here as a +bride. Did I ever tell you about my travelling-dress, Violet? It was a +shot-silk—they were fashionable then, you know—bronze and blue—the +loveliest combination of colour!" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't imagine a shot-silk being anything but detestable," said Vixen +curtly. "Poor Nip! How faithful dogs are! The dear thing is actually +crying!" +</P> + +<P> +Tears were indeed running from the poor old eyes, as the pointer's head +lay in Vixen's lap; as if memory, kindled by her image, brought back +the past too keenly for that honest canine heart. +</P> + +<P> +"It is very mournful," said Mrs. Tempest. "Pauline, let us have a cup +of tea." +</P> + +<P> +She sank into an arm-chair opposite the fire. Not the squire's old +carved oak-chair, with its tawny leather cushions. That must needs be +sacred evermore—a memento of the dead, standing beside the hearth, +revered as the image of an honoured ancestor in a Roman citizen's home. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder if anyone is alive that we knew here?" said Vixen, lying back +in her low chair, and idly caressing the dogs. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Violet, why should people be dead? We have only been away two +years." +</P> + +<P> +"No; but it seems so long. I hardly expect to see any of the old faces. +He is not here," with a sudden choking sob. "Why should all be +left—except him?" +</P> + +<P> +"The workings of Providence are full of mystery," sighed the widow. +"Dear Edward! How handsome he looked that day he brought me home. And +he was a noble-looking man to the last. Not more than two spoonfuls of +pekoe, Pauline. You ought to know how I like it by this time." +</P> + +<P> +This to the handmaiden, who was making tea at the gipsy table in front +of the fire—the table at which Vixen and Rorie had drunk tea so +merrily on that young man's birthday. +</P> + +<P> +After tea mother and daughter went the round of the house. How +familiar, how dear, how strange, how sad all things looked! The +faithful servants had done their duty. Everything was in its place. The +last room they entered was the Squire's study. Here were all his +favourite books. The "Sporting Magazine" from its commencement, in +crimson morocco. "Nimrod" and "The Druid," "Assheton Smith's Memoirs," +and many others of the same class. Books on farming and farriery, on +dogs and guns. Here were the Squire's guns and whips, a motley +collection, all neatly arranged by his own hands. The servants had done +nothing but keep them free from dust. There, by the low and cosy +fireplace, with its tiled hearth, stood the capacious crimson morocco +chair, in which the master of the Abbey House had been wont to sit when +he held audience with his kennel-huntsman, or gamekeeper, his +farm-bailiff, or stud-groom. +</P> + +<P> +"Mamma, I should like you to lock the door of this room and keep the +key, so that no one may ever come here," said Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, that is just the way to prolong your grief; but I will do it +if you like." +</P> + +<P> +"Do, dear mamma. Or, if you will let me keep the key, I will come in +and dust the room every day. It would be a pleasure for me, a mournful +one, perhaps, but still a pleasure." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest made no objection, and, when they left the room, Vixen +locked the door and put the key in her pocket. +</P> + +<P> +Christmas was close at hand. The saddest time for such a home-coming, +Vixen thought. The gardeners brought in their barrows of holly, and +fir, and laurel; but Vixen would take no part in the decoration of hall +and corridors, staircase and gallery—she who in former years had been +so active in the labour. The humble inhabitants of the village rejoiced +in the return of the family at the great house, and Vixen was pleased +to see the kind faces again, the old men and women, the rosy-cheeked +children, and careworn mothers, withered and wrinkled before their time +with manifold anxieties. She had a friendly word for everyone, and +gifts for all. Home was sweet to her after her two years' absence, +despite the cloud of sadness that overhung all things. She went out to +the stables and made friends with the old horses, which had been out at +grass all through the summer, and had enjoyed a paradise of rest for +the last two years. Slug and Crawler, Mrs. Tempest's carriage horses, +sleek even-minded bays, had been at Brighton, and so had Vixen's +beautiful thorough-bred, and a handsome brown for the groom; but all +the rest had stayed in Hampshire. Not one had been sold, though the +stud was a wasteful and useless one for a widow and her daughter. There +was Bullfinch, the hunter Squire Tempest had ridden in his last hour of +life. Violet went into his box, and caressed him, and fed him, and +cried over him with bitterest tears. This home-coming brought back the +old sorrow with overwhelming force. She ran out of the stables to hide +her tears, and ran up to her own room, and abandoned herself to her +grief, almost as utterly as she had done on those dark days when her +father's corpse was lying in the house. +</P> + +<P> +There was no friendly Miss McCroke now to be fussy and anxious, and to +interpose herself between Violet Tempest and her grief. Violet was +supposed to be "finished," or, in other words, to know everything under +the sun which a young lady of good birth and ample fortune can be +required to know. Everything, in this case, consisted of a smattering +of French, Italian, and German, a dubious recollection of the main +facts in modern history, hazy images of Sennacherib, Helen of Troy, +Semiramis, Cyrus, the Battle of Marathon, Romulus and Remus, the murder +of Julius Caesar, and the loves of Antony and Cleopatra flitting dimly +athwart the cloudy background of an unmapped ancient world, a few vague +notions about astronomy, some foggy ideas upon the constitution of +plants and flowers, sea-weeds and shells, rocks and hills—and a +general indifference for all literature except poetry and novels. +</P> + +<P> +Miss McCroke, having done her duty conscientiously after her lights, +had now gone to finish three other young ladies, the motherless +daughters of an Anglo-Indian colonel, over whom she was to exercise +maternal authority and guidance, in a tall narrow house in Maida Vale. +She had left Mrs. Tempest with all honours, and Violet had lavished +gifts upon her at parting, feeling fonder of her governess in the last +week of their association than at any other period of her tutelage. +To-day, in her sorrow, it was a relief to Violet to find herself free +from the futile consolations of friendship. She flung herself into the +arm-chair by the fire and sobbed out her grief. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, kindest, dearest, best of fathers," she cried, "what is home +without you!" +</P> + +<P> +And then she remembered that awful day of the funeral when Roderick +Vawdrey had sat with her beside this hearth, and had tried to comfort +her, and remembered how she had heard his voice as a sound far away, a +sound that had no meaning. That was the last time she had seen him. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't suppose I thanked him for his pity or his kindness," she +thought. "He must have gone away thinking me cold and ungrateful; but I +was like a creature at the bottom of some dark dismal pit. How could I +feel thankful to someone looking down at me and talking to me from the +free happy world at the top?" +</P> + +<P> +Her sobs ceased gradually, she dried her tears, and that unconscious +pleasure in life which is a part of innocent youth came slowly back. +She looked round the room in which so much of her childhood had been +spent, a room full of her own fancies and caprices, a room whose +prettiness had been bought with her own money, and was for the most +part the work of her own hands. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of home's sorrowful association she was glad to find herself +at home. Mountains, and lakes, and sunny bays, and dark pathless +forests, may be ever so good to see, but there is something sweet in +our return to the familiar rooms of home; some pleasure in being shut +snugly within four walls, surrounded by one's own belongings. +</P> + +<P> +The wood-fire burnt merrily, and sparkled on the many-coloured pots and +pans upon the panelled wall; here an Etruscan vase of India red, there +a Moorish water-jar of vivid amber. Outside the deep mullioned windows +the winter blast was blowing, with occasional spurts of flying snow. +Argus crept in presently, and stretched himself at full length upon the +fleecy rug. Vixen lay back in her low chair, musing idly in the glow of +the fire, and by-and-by the lips which had been convulsed with grief +parted in a smile, the lovely brown eyes shone with happy memories. +</P> + +<P> +She was thinking of her old playfellow and friend, Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder if he will come to-day?" she mused. "I think he will. He is +sure to be at home for the hunting. Yes, he will come to-day. What will +he be like, I wonder? Handsomer than he was two years ago? No, that +could hardly be. He is quite a man now. Three-and-twenty! I must not +laugh at him any more." +</P> + +<P> +The thought of his coming thrilled her with a new joy. She seemed to +have been living an artificial life in the two years of her absence, to +have been changed in her very self by change of surroundings. It was +almost as if the old Vixen had been sent into an enchanted sleep, while +some other young lady, a model of propriety and good manners, went +about the world in Vixen's shape. Her life had been made up, more or +less, of trifles and foolishness, with a background of grand scenery. +Tepid little friendships with agreeable fellow-travellers at Nice; +tepid little friendships of the same order in Switzerland; well-dressed +young people smiling at each other, and delighting in each other's +company; and parting, probably for ever, without a pang. +</P> + +<P> +But now she had come back to the friends, the horses, the dogs, the +rooms, the gardens, the fields, the forests of youth, and was going to +be the real Vixen again; the wild, thoughtless, high-spirited girl whom +Squire Tempest and all the peasantry round about had loved. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been ridiculously well-behaved," she said to herself, "quite a +second edition of mamma. But now I am back in the Forest my good +manners may go hang. 'My foot's on my native heath, and my name is +McGregor.'" +</P> + +<P> +Somehow in all her thoughts of home—after that burst of grief for her +dead father—Roderick Vawdrey was the central figure. He filled the gap +cruel death had made. +</P> + +<P> +Would Rorie come soon to see her? Would he be very glad to have her at +home again? What would he think of her? Would he fancy her changed? For +the worse? For the better? +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder whether he would like my good manners or the original Vixen +best?" she speculated. +</P> + +<P> +The morning wore on, and still Violet Tempest sat idly by the fire. She +had made up her mind that Roderick would come to see her at once. She +was sufficiently aware of her own importance to feel sure that the fact +of her return had been duly chronicled in the local papers. He would +come to-day—before luncheon, perhaps, and they three, mamma, Rorie, +and herself, would sit at the round table in the library—the snug warm +room where they had so often sat with papa. This thought brought back +the bitterness of her loss. +</P> + +<P> +"I can bear it better if Rorie is with us," she thought, "and he is +almost sure to come. He would not be so unkind as to delay bidding +welcome to such poor lonely creatures as mamma and I." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at her little watch—a miniature hunter in a case of black +enamel, with a monogram in diamonds, one of her father's last gifts. It +was one o'clock already, and luncheon would be at half-past. +</P> + +<P> +"Only half-an-hour for Rorie," she thought. +</P> + +<P> +The minute-hand crept slowly to the half-hour, the luncheon-gong +sounded below, and there had been no announcement of Mr. Vawdrey. +</P> + +<P> +"He may be downstairs with mamma all this time," thought Vixen. "Forbes +would not tell me, unless he were sent." +</P> + +<P> +She went downstairs and met Forbes in the hall. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, if you please, ma'am, Mrs. Tempest does not feel equal to coming +down to luncheon. She will take a wing of chicken in her own room." +</P> + +<P> +"And I don't feel equal to sitting in the library alone, Forbes," said +Violet; "so you may tell Phoebe to bring me a cup of tea and a biscuit. +Has nobody called this morning?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen went back to her room, out of spirits and out of temper. It was +unkind of Rorie, cold, neglectful, heartless. +</P> + +<P> +"If he had come home after an absence of two years—absence under such +sad circumstances—how anxious I should be to see him," she thought. +"But I don't suppose there is frost enough to stop the hunting, and I +daresay he is tearing across the heather on some big raw-boned horse, +and not giving me a thought. Or perhaps he is dancing attendance upon +Lady Mabel. But no, I don't think he cares much for that kind of thing." +</P> + +<P> +She moved about the room a little, rearranging things that were already +arranged exactly as she had left them two years ago. She opened a book +and flung it aside; tried the piano, which sounded muffled and woolly. +</P> + +<P> +"My poor little Broadwood is no better for being out at grass," she +said. +</P> + +<P> +She went to one of the windows, and stood there looking out, expecting +every instant to see a dog-cart with a rakish horse, a wasp-like body, +and high red wheels, spin round the curve of the shrubbery. She stood +thus for a long time, as she had done on that wet October afternoon of +Rorie's home-coming; but no rakish horse came swinging round the curve +of the carriage-drive. The flying snow drifted past the window; the +winter sky looked blue and clear between the brief showers, the tall +feathery fir-trees and straight slim cypresses stood up against the +afternoon light, and Vixen gazed at them with angry eyes, full of +resentment against Roderick Vawdrey. +</P> + +<P> +"The ground is too hard for the scent to lie well, that's one comfort," +she reflected savagely. +</P> + +<P> +And then she thought of the dear old kennels given over to a new +master; the hounds whose names and idiosyncrasies she had known as well +as if they had been human acquaintances. She had lost all interest in +them now. Pouto and Gellert, Lightfoot, Juno, Ringlet, Lord +Dundreary—they had forgotten her, no doubt. +</P> + +<P> +Here was someone at last, but not the one for whom she was watching. A +figure clothed in a long loose black cloak and slouched felt hat, and +carrying a weedy umbrella, trudged sturdily around the curve, and came +briskly towards the porch. It was Mr. Scobel, the incumbent of the +pretty little Gothic church in the village—a church like a toy. +</P> + +<P> +He was a good man and a benevolent, this Mr. Scobel; a hard-worker, and +a blessing in the neighbourhood. But just at this moment Violet Tempest +did not feel grateful to him for coming. +</P> + +<P> +"What does he want?" she thought. "Blankets and coals and things, I +suppose." +</P> + +<P> +She turned sullenly from the window, and went back to her seat by the +fire, and threw on a log, and gave herself up to disappointment. The +blue winter sky had changed to gray; the light was fading behind the +feathery fir-tops. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps he will come to afternoon tea," she thought; and then, with a +discontented shrug of her shoulders: "No, he is not coming at all. If +he cared about us, he would have been the first to bid us welcome; +knowing, as he must, how miserable it was for me to come home at +all—without papa!" +</P> + +<P> +She sat looking at the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"How idle I am!" she mused; "and poor Crokey did so implore me to go on +with my education, and read good useful books and enlarge my mind. I +don't think my poor little mind would bear any more stretching, or that +I should be much happier if I knew all about Central Africa, and the +nearest way from Hindostan to China, or old red sandstone, and +tertiary, and the rest of them. What does it matter to me what the +earth is made of, if I can but be happy upon it? No, I shall never try +to be a highly cultivated young woman. I shall read Byron, and +Tennyson, and Wordsworth, and Keats, and Bulwer, and Dickens, and +Thackeray, and remain an ignoramus all the days of my life. I think +that would be quite enough for Rorie, if he and I were to be much +together; for I don't believe he ever opens a book at all. And what +would be the use of my talking to him about old red sandstone or the +centre of Africa?" +</P> + +<P> +Phoebe, Miss Tempest's fresh-faced Hampshire maid, appeared at this +moment. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, if you please, miss, your ma says would you go to the +drawing-room? Mr. Scobel is with her, and would like to see you." +</P> + +<P> +Violet rose with a sigh. +</P> + +<P> +"Is my hair awfully untidy, Phoebe?" +</P> + +<P> +"I think I had better arrange the plaits, miss." +</P> + +<P> +"That means that I'm an object. It's four o'clock; I may as well change +my dress for dinner. I suppose I must go down to dinner?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lor' yes, miss; it will never do to shut yourself up in your own room +and fret. You're as pale as them there Christmas roses already." +</P> + +<P> +Ten minutes later Vixen went down to the drawing-room, looking very +stately in her black Irish poplin, whose heavy folds became the tall +full figure, and whose dense blackness set off the ivory skin and warm +auburn hair. She had given just one passing glance at herself in the +cheval-glass, and Vanity had whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps Rorie would have thought me improved; but he has not taken the +trouble to come and see. I might be honeycombed by the small-pox, or +bald from the effects of typhus, for aught he cares." +</P> + +<P> +The drawing-room was all aglow with blazing logs, and the sky outside +the windows looking pale and gray, when Violet went in. Mrs. Tempest +was in her favourite arm-chair by the fire, Tennyson's latest poem on +the velvet-coloured gipsy table at her side, in company with a large +black fan and a smelling-bottle. Mr. Scobel was sitting in a low chair +on the other side of the hearth, with his knees almost up to his chin +and his trousers wrinkled up ever so far above his stout Oxford shoes, +leaving a considerable interval of gray stocking. He was a man of about +thirty, pale, and unpretending of aspect, who fortified his native +modesty with a pair of large binoculars, which interposed a kind of +barrier between himself and the outer world. +</P> + +<P> +He rose as Violet came towards him, and turned the binoculars upon her, +glittering in the glow of the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"How tall you have grown," he cried, when they had shaken hands. "And +how——" here he stopped, with a little nervous laugh; "I really don't +think I should have known you if we had met elsewhere." +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps Rorie would hardly know me," thought Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"How are all the poor people?" she asked, when Mr. Scobel had resumed +his seat, and was placidly caressing his knees, and blinking, or +seeming to blink, at the fire with his binoculars. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, poor souls!" he sighed. "There has been a great deal of sickness +and distress, and want of work. Yes, a very great deal. The winter +began early, and we have had some severe weather. James Parsons is in +prison again for rabbit-snaring. I'm really afraid James is +incorrigible. Mrs. Roper's eldest son, Tom—I daresay you remember Tom, +an idle little ruffian, who was always birdnesting—has managed to get +himself run over by a pair of Lord Ellangowan's waggon-horses, and now +Lady Ellangowan is keeping the whole family. An aunt came from +Salisbury to sit up with the boy, and was quite angry because Lady +Ellangowan did not pay her for nursing him." +</P> + +<P> +"That's the worst of the poor," said Mrs. Tempest languidly, the +firelight playing upon her diamond rings, as she took her fan from the +velvet table and slowly unfolded it, to protect her cheek from the +glare, "they are never satisfied." +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't it odd they are not," cried Vixen, coming suddenly out of a deep +reverie, "when they have everything that can make life delightful?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know about everything, Violet; but really, when they have such +nice cottages as your dear papa built for them, so well-drained and +ventilated, they ought to be more contented." +</P> + +<P> +"What a comfort good drainage and ventilation must be, when there is no +bread in the larder!" said Violet. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, it is ridiculous to talk in that way; just in the style of +horrid Radical newspapers. I am sure the poor have an immense deal done +for them. Look at Mr. Scobel, is he not always trying to help them?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do what I can," said the clergyman modestly; "but I only wish it +were more. An income of sixteen shillings a week for a family of seven +requires a good deal of ekeing out. If it were not for the assistance I +get here, and in one or two other directions, things would be very bad +in Beechdale." +</P> + +<P> +Beechdale was the name of the village nearest the Abbey House, the +village to which belonged Mr. Scobel's toy-church. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, we must have the usual distribution of blanket and wearing +apparel on Christmas Eve," said Mrs. Tempest. "It will seem very sad +without my dear husband. But we came home before Christmas on purpose." +</P> + +<P> +"How good of you! It was very sad last year when the poor people came +up to the Hall to receive your gifts, and there were no familiar faces, +except the servants. There were a good many tears shed over last year's +blankets, I assure you." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor dear things!" sighed Mrs. Tempest, not making it too clear +whether she meant the blankets, or the recipients thereof. +</P> + +<P> +Violet said nothing after her little ironical protest about the poor. +She sat opposite the fire, between her mother and Mr. Scobel, but at +some distance from both. The ruddy light glowed on her ruddy hair, and +lit up her pale cheeks, and shone in her brilliant eyes. The incumbent +of Beechdale thought he had never seen anything so lovely. She was like +a painted window; a Madonna, with the glowing colour of Rubens, the +divine grace of Raffaelle. And those little speeches about the poor had +warmed his heart. He was Violet's friend and champion from that moment. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest fanned herself listlessly. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish Forbes would bring the tea," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I ring, mamma?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, dear. They have not finished tea in the housekeeper's room, +perhaps. Forbes doesn't like to be disturbed. Is there any news, Mr. +Scobel? We only came home yesterday evening, and have seen no one." +</P> + +<P> +"News! Well, no, I think not much. Lady Ellangowan has got a new +orchid." +</P> + +<P> +"And there has been a new baby, too, hasn't there?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes. But nobody talks about the baby, and everybody is in raptures +with the orchid." +</P> + +<P> +"What is it like?" +</P> + +<P> +"Rather a fine boy. I christened him last week." +</P> + +<P> +"I mean the orchid." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, something really magnificent; a brilliant blue, a butterfly-shaped +blossom that positively looks as if it were alive. They say Lord +Ellangowan gave five hundred guineas for it. People come from the other +side of the county to see it." +</P> + +<P> +"I think you are all orchid mad," exclaimed Mrs. Tempest. "Oh, here +comes the tea!" as Forbes entered with the old silver tray and Swansea +cups and saucers. "You'll take some, of course, Mr. Scobel. I cannot +understand this rage for orchids—old china, or silver, or lace, I can +understand, but orchids—things that require no end of trouble to keep +them alive, and which I daresay are as common as buttercups and daisies +in the savage places where they grow. There is Lady Jane Vawdrey now, a +perfect slave to the orchid-houses." +</P> + +<P> +Violet's face flamed crimson at this mention of Lady Jane. Not for +worlds would she have asked a question about her old playfellow, though +she was dying to hear about him. Happily no one saw that sudden blush, +or it passed for a reflection of the fire-glow. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor Lady Jane!" sighed the incumbent of Beechdale, looking very +solemn, "she has gone to a land in which there are fairer flowers than +ever grew on the banks of the Amazon." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" +</P> + +<P> +"Surely you have heard——" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," exclaimed Mrs. Tempest. "I have corresponded with nobody but +my housekeeper while I have been away. I am a wretched correspondent at +the best of times, and, after dear Edward's death, I was too weary, too +depressed, to write letters. What is the matter with Lady Jane Vawdrey?" +</P> + +<P> +"She died at Florence last November of bronchitis. She was very ill +last winter, and had to be taken to Cannes for the early part of the +year; but she came back in April quite well and strong, as everyone +supposed, and spent the summer at Briarwood. Her doctors told her, +however, that she was not to risk another winter in England, so in +September she went to Italy, taking Lady Mabel with her." +</P> + +<P> +"And Roderick?" inquired Vixen, "He went with them of course." +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally," replied Mr. Scobel. "Mr. Vawdrey was with his mother till +the last." +</P> + +<P> +"Very nice of him," murmured Mrs. Tempest approvingly; "for, in a +general way, I don't think they got on too well together. Lady Jane was +rather dictatorial. And now, I suppose, Roderick will marry his cousin +as soon as he is out of mourning." +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you suppose so, mamma?" exclaimed Violet. "It is quite a +mistake of yours about their being engaged. Roderick told me so +himself. He was not engaged to Lady Mabel. He had not the least idea of +marrying her." +</P> + +<P> +"He has altered his mind since then, I conclude," said Mr. Scobel +cheerily—those binoculars of his could never have seen through a +stone-wall, and were not much good at seeing things under his +nose—"for it is quite a settled thing that Mr. Vawdrey and Lady Mabel +are to be married. It will be a splendid match for him, and will make +him the largest landowner in the Forest, for Ashbourne is settled on +Lady Mabel. The Duke bought it himself, you know, and it is not in the +entail," added the incumbent, explaining a fact that was as familiar as +the church catechism to Violet, who sat looking straight at the fire, +holding her head as high as Queen Guinevere after she had thrown the +diamonds out of window. +</P> + +<P> +"I always knew that it would be so," said Mrs. Tempest, with the air of +a sage. "Lady Jane had set her heart upon it. Worldly greatness was her +idol, poor thing! It is sad to think of her being snatched away from +everything. What has become of the orchids?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lady Jane left them to her niece. They are building houses to receive +them at Ashbourne." +</P> + +<P> +"Rather a waste of money, isn't it?" suggested Violet, in a cold hard +voice. "Why not let them stay at Briarwood till Lady Mabel is mistress +there?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Scobel did not enter into this discussion. He sat serenely gazing +at the fire, and sipping his tea, enjoying this hour of rest and warmth +after a long day's fatigue and hard weather. He had an Advent service +at seven o'clock that evening, and would but just have time to tramp +home through the winter dark, and take a hurried meal, before he ran +across to his neat little vestry and shuffled on his surplice, while +Mrs. Scobel played her plaintive voluntary on the twenty-guinea +harmonium. +</P> + +<P> +"And where is young Vawdrey now?" inquired Mrs. Tempest blandly. +</P> + +<P> +She could only think of the Squire of Briarwood as the lad from +Eton—clumsy, shy, given to breaking teacups, and leaving the track of +his footsteps in clay or mud upon the Aubusson carpets. +</P> + +<P> +"He has not come home yet. The Duke and Duchess went to Florence just +before Lady Jane's death, and I believe Mr. Vawdrey is with them in +Rome. Briarwood has been shut up since September." +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't I tell you, mamma, that somebody would be dead," cried Violet. +"I felt when we came into this house yesterday evening, that everything +in our lives was changed." +</P> + +<P> +"I should hardly think mourning can be very becoming to Lady Mabel," +ruminated Mrs. Tempest. "Those small sylph-like figures rarely look +well in black." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Scobel rose with an effort to make his adieux. The delicious warmth +of the wood-fire, the perfume of arbutus logs, had made him sleepy. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll come and see our new school, I hope," he said to Violet, as +they shook hands. "You and your dear mamma have contributed so largely +to its erection that you have a right to be critical; but I really +think you will be pleased." +</P> + +<P> +"We'll come to-morrow afternoon, if it's fine," said Mrs. Tempest +graciously. "You must bring Mrs. Scobel to dinner at seven, and then we +can talk over all we have seen." +</P> + +<P> +"You are very kind. I've my young women's scripture-class at a +quarter-past eight; but if you will let me run away for an hour——" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly." +</P> + +<P> +"I can come back for Mrs. Scobel. Thanks. We shall be delighted." +</P> + +<P> +When he was gone, Violet walked towards the door without a word to her +mother. +</P> + +<P> +"Violet, are you going away again? Pray stop, child, and let us have a +chat." +</P> + +<P> +"I have nothing to talk about, mamma." +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense. You have quite deserted me since we came home. And do you +suppose I don't feel dull and depressed as well as you? It is not +dutiful conduct, Violet. I shall really have to engage a companion if +you go on so. Miss McCroke was dreary, but she was not altogether +uncompanionable. One could talk to her." +</P> + +<P> +"You had better have a companion, mamma. Someone who will be lively, +and talk pleasantly about nothing particular all day long. No doubt a +well-trained companion can do that. She has an inexhaustible +well-spring of twaddle in her own mind. I feel as if I could never be +cheerful again." +</P> + +<P> +"We had better have stopped at Brighton——" +</P> + +<P> +"I hate Brighton!" +</P> + +<P> +"Where we knew so many nice people——" +</P> + +<P> +"I detest nice people!" +</P> + +<P> +"Violet, do you know that you have an abominable temper?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know that I am made up of wickedness!" answered Vixen vehemently. +</P> + +<P> +She left the room without another word, and went straight to her den +upstairs, not to throw herself on the ground, and abandon herself to a +childish unreasoning grief, as she had done on the night of Roderick's +coming of age, but to face the situation boldly. She walked up and down +the dim fire-lit room, thinking of what she had just heard. +</P> + +<P> +"What does it matter to me? Why should I be so angry?" she asked +herself. "We were never more than friends and playfellows. And I think +that, on the whole, I rather disliked him. I know I was seldom civil to +him. He was papa's favourite. I should hardly have tolerated him but +for that." +</P> + +<P> +She felt relieved at having settled this point in her mind. Yet there +was a dull blank sense of loss, a vague aching in her troubled heart, +which she could not get rid of easily. She walked to and fro, to and +fro, while the fire faded out and the pale windows darkened. +</P> + +<P> +"I hate myself for being so vexed about this," she said, clasping her +hands above her head with a vehemence that showed the intensity of her +vexation. "Could I—I—Violet Tempest—ever be so despicable a creature +as to care for a man who does not care for me; to be angry, sorry, +broken-hearted, because a man does not want me for his wife? Such a +thing is not possible; if it were, I think I would kill myself. I +should be ashamed to live. I could not look human beings in the face. I +should take poison, or turn Roman Catholic and go into a convent, where +I should never see the face of a man again. No; I am not such an odious +creature. I have no regard for Rorie except as my old playfellow, and +when he comes home I will walk straight up to him and give him my hand, +and congratulate him heartily on his approaching marriage. Perhaps Lady +Mabel will ask me to be one of her bridesmaids. She will have a round +dozen, I daresay. Six in pink, and six in blue, no doubt, like wax +dolls at a charity-fair. Why can't people be married without making +idiots of themselves?" +</P> + +<P> +The half-hour gong sounded at this moment, and Vixen ran down to the +drawing-room, where the candles and lamps were lighted, and where there +was plenty of light literature lying about to distract the troubled +mind. Violet went to her mother's chair and knelt beside it. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear mamma, forgive me for being cross just now," she said gently; "I +was out of spirits. I will try to be better company in future—so that +you may not be obliged to engage a companion." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, I don't wonder at your feeling low-spirited," replied Mrs. +Tempest graciously. "This place is horribly dull. How we ever endured +it, even in your dear papa's time, is more than I can understand. It is +like living on the ground-floor of one of the Egyptian pyramids. We +must really get some nice people about us, or we shall both go +melancholy mad." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"He belongs to the Tame-Cat Species." +</H3> + +<P> +Life went on smoothly enough at the Abbey House after that evening. +Violet tried to make herself happy among the surroundings of her +childhood, petted the horses, drove her basket-carriage with the +favourite old pony, went among the villagers, rode her thoroughbred bay +for long wild explorations of the Forest and neighbouring country, +looked with longing eyes, sometimes, at the merry groups riding to the +meet, and went her lonely way with a heavy heart. No more hunting for +her. She could not hunt alone, and she had declined all friendly offers +of escort. It would have seemed a treason against her beloved dead to +ride across country by anyone else's side. +</P> + +<P> +Everyone had called at the Abbey House and welcomed Mrs. Tempest and +her daughter back to Hampshire. They had been asked to five-o'clock at +Ellangowan Park, to see the marvellous orchid. They had been invited to +half-a-dozen dinner-parties. +</P> + +<P> +Violet tried her utmost to persuade her mother that it was much too +soon after her father's death to think of visiting. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Violet," cried the widow, "after going to that ball at +Brighton, we could not possibly decline invitations here. It would be +an insult to our friends. If we had not gone to the ball——" +</P> + +<P> +"We ought not to have gone," exclaimed Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"My love, you should have said so at the time." +</P> + +<P> +"Mamma, you know I was strongly against it." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest shrugged her shoulders as who should say, "This is too +much!" +</P> + +<P> +"I know your dress cost a small fortune, and that you danced every +waltz, Violet," she answered, "that is about all I do know." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, mamma, let us accept all the invitations. Let us be as +merry as grigs. Perhaps it will make papa more comfortable in Paradise +to know how happy we are without him. He won't be troubled by any +uneasy thoughts about our grief, at all events," added Vixen, with a +stifled sob. +</P> + +<P> +"How irreverently you talk. Mr. Scobel would be dreadfully shocked to +hear you." said Mrs. Tempest. +</P> + +<P> +The invitations were all accepted, and Mrs. Tempest for the rest of the +winter was in a flutter about her dresses. She was very particular as +to the exact shade of silver-gray or lavender which might be allowed to +relieve the sombre mass of black; and would spend a whole morning in +discussing the propriety of a knot of scarlet ribbon, or a border of +gold passementerie. +</P> + +<P> +They went to Ellangowan Park and did homage to the wonderful orchid, +and discussed Roderick's engagement to the Duke's only daughter. +Everybody said that it was Lady Jane's doing, and there were some who +almost implied that she had died on purpose to bring about the happy +conjuncture. Violet was able to talk quite pleasantly about the +marriage, and to agree with everybody's praises of Lady Mabel's beauty, +elegance, good style, and general perfection. +</P> + +<P> +Christmas and the New Year went by, not altogether sadly. It is not +easy for youth to be full of sorrow. The clouds come and go, there are +always glimpses of sunshine. Violet was grateful for the kindness that +greeted her everywhere among her old friends, and perhaps a little glad +of the evident admiration accorded to her beauty in all circles. Life +was just tolerable, after all. She thought of Roderick Vawdrey as of +something belonging to the past; something which had no part, never +would have any part, in her future life. He too was dead and passed +away, like her father. Lady Mabel's husband, the master of Briarwood +<I>in esse</I>, and of Ashbourne <I>in posse</I>, was quite a different being +from the rough lad with whom she had played at battledore and +shuttlecock, billiards, croquet, and rounders. +</P> + +<P> +Early in February Mrs. Tempest informed her daughter that she was going +to give a dinner. +</P> + +<P> +"It will seem very dreadful without dearest Edward," she said; "but of +course having accepted hospitalities, we are bound to return them." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you really think we ought to burst out into dinner-parties so soon, +mamma?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear, as we accepted the dinners. If we had not gone it would +have been different." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," sighed Vixen, "I suppose it all began with that ball at Brighton, +like 'Man's first disobedience, and the fruit——'" +</P> + +<P> +"I shall miss poor McCroke to fill in the invitation cards." +</P> + +<P> +"Let me do it, mamma. I can write a decent hand. That is one of the few +ladylike accomplishments I have been able to master; and even that is +open to objection as being too masculine." +</P> + +<P> +"If you would slope more, Violet, and make your up-strokes finer, and +not cross your T's so undeviatingly," Mrs. Tempest murmured amiably. "A +lady's T ought to be less pronounced. There is something too assertive +in your consonants." +</P> + +<P> +Violet wrote the cards. The dinner was to be quite a grand affair, +three weeks' notice, and a French cook from The Dolphin at Southampton +to take the conduct of affairs in the kitchen; whereby the Abbey House +cook declared afterwards that there was nothing that Frenchman did +which she could not have done as well, and that his wastefulness was +enough to make a Christian woman's hair stand on end. +</P> + +<P> +Three days before the dinner, Vixen, riding Arion home through the +shrubbery, after a long morning in the Forest, was startled by the +vision of a dog-cart a few yards in front of her, a cart, which, at the +first glance, she concluded must belong to Roderick Vawdrey. The wheels +were red, the horse had a rakish air, the light vehicle swung from side +to side as it spun around the curve. +</P> + +<P> +No, that slim figure, that neat waist, that military air did not belong +to Roderick Vawdrey. +</P> + +<P> +"He here!" ejaculated Vixen inwardly, with infinite disgust. "I thought +we had seen the last of him." +</P> + +<P> +She had been out for two hours and a half, and felt that Arion had done +quite enough, or she would have turned her horse's head and gone back +to the Forest, in order to avoid this unwelcome visitor. +</P> + +<P> +"I only hope mamma won't encourage him to come here," she thought; "but +I'm afraid that smooth tongue of his has too much influence over her. +And I haven't even poor Crokey to stand by me. I shall feel like a bird +transfixed by the wicked green eyes of a velvet-pawed murdering cat." +</P> + +<P> +"And I have not a friend in the world," she thought. "Plenty of +pleasant acquaintance, ready to simper at me and pay me compliments, +because I am Miss Tempest of the Abbey House, but not one honest friend +to stand by me, and turn that man out of doors. How dare he come here? +I thought I spoke plainly enough that night at Brighton." +</P> + +<P> +She rode slowly up to the house, slipped lightly out of her saddle, and +led her horse round to the stables, just as she had led the pony in her +happy childish days. The bright thoroughbred bay was as fond of her as +if he had been a dog, and as tame. She stood by his manger caressing +him while he ate his corn, and feeling very safe from Captain +Winstanley's society in the warm clover-scented stable. +</P> + +<P> +She dawdled away half-a-hour in this manner, before she went back to +the house, and ran up to her dressing-room. +</P> + +<P> +"If mamma sends for me now, I shan't be able to go down," she thought. +"He can hardly stay more than an hour. Oh, horror! he is a tea-drinker; +mamma will persuade him to stop till five o'clock." +</P> + +<P> +Violet dawdled over her change of dress as she had dawdled in the +stable. She had never been more particular about her hair. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll have it all taken down, Phoebe," she told her Abigail; "I'm in no +hurry." +</P> + +<P> +"But really, miss, it's beautiful——" +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense after a windy ride; don't be lazy, Phoebe. You may give my +hair a good brushing while I read." +</P> + +<P> +A tap at the door came at this moment, and Phoebe ran to open it. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Tempest wishes Miss Tempest to come down to the drawing-room +directly," said a voice in the corridor. +</P> + +<P> +"There now, miss," cried Phoebe, "how lucky I didn't take your hair +down. It never was nicer." +</P> + +<P> +Violet put on her black dress, costly and simple as the attire Polonius +recommended to his son. Mrs. Tempest might relieve her costume with +what bright or delicate hues she liked. Violet had worn nothing but +black since her father's death. Her sole ornaments were a pair of black +earrings, and a large black enamel locket, with one big diamond shining +in the middle of it, like an eye. This locket held the Squire's +portrait, and his daughter wore it constantly. +</P> + +<P> +The Louis Quatorze clock on the staircase struck five as Violet went +down. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course he is staying for tea," she thought, with an impatient shrug +of her shoulders. "He belongs to the tame-cat species, and has an +inexhaustible flow of gossip, spiced with mild malevolence. The kind of +frivolous ill-nature which says: 'I would not do anyone harm for the +world, but one may as well think the worst of everybody.'" +</P> + +<P> +Yes, kettledrum was in full swing. Mrs. Scobel had come over from her +tiny Vicarage for half-an-hour's chat, and was sitting opposite her +hostess's fire, while Captain Winstanley lounged with his back to the +canopied chimneypiece, and looked benignantly down upon the two ladies. +The Queen Anne kettle was hissing merrily over its spirit-lamp, the +perfume of the pekoe was delicious, the logs blazed cheerily in the low +fireplace, with its shining brass andirons. Not a repulsive picture, +assuredly; yet Vixen came slowly towards this charming circle, looking +black as thunder. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Winstanley hurried forward to receive her. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do?" she said, as stiffly as a child brought down to the +drawing-room, bristling in newly-brushed hair and a best frock, and +then turning to her mother, she asked curtly: "What did you want with +me, mamma?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was Captain Winstanley who asked to see you, my dear. Won't you +have some tea?" +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks, no," said Vixen, seating herself in a corner between Mrs. +Scobel and the mantelpiece, and beginning to talk about the schools. +</P> + +<P> +Conrad Winstanley gave her a curious look from under his dark brows, +and then went on talking to her mother. He seemed hardly disconcerted +by her rudeness. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I assure you, if it hadn't been for the harriers, Brighton would +have been unbearable after you left," he said. "I ran across to Paris +directly the frost set in. But I don't wonder you were anxious to come +back to such a lovely old place as this." +</P> + +<P> +"I felt it a duty to come back," said Mrs. Tempest, with a pious air. +"But it was very sad at first. I never felt so unhappy in my life. I am +getting more reconciled now. Time softens all griefs." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said the Captain, in a louder tone than before, "Time is a +clever horse. There is nothing he won't beat if you know how to ride +him." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll take some tea?" insinuated Mrs. Tempest, her attention absorbed +by the silver kettle, which was just now conducting itself as +spitfireishly as any blackened block-tin on a kitchen hob. +</P> + +<P> +"I can never resist it. And perhaps after tea you will be so good as to +give me the treat you talked about just now." +</P> + +<P> +"To show you the house?" said Mrs. Tempest. "Do you think we shall have +light enough?" +</P> + +<P> +"Abundance. An old house like this is seen at its best in the twilight. +Don't you think so, Mrs. Scobel?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, yes," exclaimed Mrs. Scobel, with a lively recollection of her +album. "'They who would see Melrose aright, should see it'—I think, +by-the-bye, Sir Walter Scott says, 'by moonlight.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, for an ancient Gothic abbey; but twilight is better for a Tudor +manor-house. Are you sure it will not fatigue you?" inquired the +Captain, with an air of solicitude, as Mrs. Tempest rose languidly. +</P> + +<P> +"No; I shall be very pleased to show you the dear old place. It is full +of sad associations, of course, but I do not allow my mind to dwell +upon them more than I can help." +</P> + +<P> +"No," cried Vixen bitterly. "We go to dinner-parties and kettledrums, +and go into raptures about orchids and old china, and try to cure our +broken hearts that way." +</P> + +<P> +"Are you coming, Violet?" asked her mother sweetly. +</P> + +<P> +"No, thanks, mamma. I am tired after my ride. Mrs. Scobel will help you +to play cicerone." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Winstanley left the room without so much as a look at Violet +Tempest. Yet her rude reception had galled him more than any cross that +fate had lately inflicted upon him. He had fancied that time would have +softened her feeling towards him, that rural seclusion and the society +of rustic nobodies would have made him appear at an advantage, that she +would have welcomed the brightness and culture of metropolitan life in +his person. He had hoped a great deal from the lapse of time since +their last meeting. But this sullen reception, this silent expression +of dislike, told him that Violet Tempest's aversion was a plant of deep +root. +</P> + +<P> +"The first woman who ever disliked me," he thought. "No wonder that she +interests me more than other women. She is like that chestnut mare that +threw me six times before I got the better of her. Yet she proved the +best horse I ever had, and I rode her till she hadn't a leg to stand +upon, and then sold her for twice the money she cost me. There are two +conquests a man can make over a woman, one to make her love him, the +other——" +</P> + +<P> +"That suit of chain-armour was worn by Sir Gilbert Tempest at Acre," +said the widow. "The plate-armour belonged to Sir Percy, who was killed +at Barnet. Each of them was knighted before he was five-and-twenty +years old, for prowess in the field. The portrait over the chimneypiece +is the celebrated Judge Tempest, who was famous for——Well, he did +something wonderful, I know. Perhaps Mrs. Scobel remembers," concluded +Mrs. Tempest, feebly. +</P> + +<P> +"It was at the trial of the seven bishops," suggested the Vicar's wife. +</P> + +<P> +"In the time of Queen Elizabeth," assented Mrs. Tempest. "That one with +the lace cravat and steel breastplate was an admiral in Charles the +Second's reign, and was made a baronet for his valiant behaviour when +the Dutch fleet were at Chatham. The baronetcy died with his son, who +left only daughters. The eldest married a Mr. Percival, who took the +name of Tempest, and sat for the borough of——Perhaps Mrs. Scobel +knows. I have such a bad memory for these things; though I have heard +my dear husband talk about them often." +</P> + +<P> +Captain Winstanley looked round the great oak-panelled hall dreamily, +and heard very little of Mrs. Tempest's vague prattling about her +husband's ancestors. +</P> + +<P> +What a lovely old place, he was thinking. A house that would give a man +importance in the land, supported, as it was, by an estate bringing in +something between five and six thousand a year. How much military +distinction, how many battles must a soldier win before he could make +himself master of such a fortune? +</P> + +<P> +"And it needed but for that girl to like me, and a little gold ring +would have given me the freehold of it all," thought Conrad Winstanley +bitterly. +</P> + +<P> +How many penniless girls, or girls with fortunes so far beneath the +measure of a fine gentleman's needs as to be useless, had been over +head and ears in love with the elegant Captain; how many pretty girls +had tempted him by their beauty and winsomeness to be false to his +grand principle that marriage meant promotion. And here was an +obstinate minx who would have realised all his aims, and whom he felt +himself able to love to distraction into the bargain; and, behold, some +adverse devil had entered into her mind, and made Conrad Winstanley +hateful to her. +</P> + +<P> +"It's like witchcraft," he said to himself. "Why should this one woman +be different from all other women? Perhaps it's the colour. That ruddy +auburn hair, the loveliest I ever saw, means temper. But I conquered +the chestnut, and I'll conquer Miss Tempest—or make her smart for it." +</P> + +<P> +"A handsome music-gallery, is it not?" said the widow. "The carved +balustrade is generally admired." +</P> + +<P> +Then they went into the dining-room, and looked cursorily at about a +dozen large dingy pictures of the Italian school, which a man who knew +anything about art would have condemned at a glance. Fine examples of +brown varnish, all of them. Thence to the library, lined with its +carved-oak dwarf bookcases, containing books which nobody had opened +for a generation—Livy, Gibbon, Hume, Burke, Smollett, Plutarch, +Thomson. These sages, clad in shiny brown leather and gilding, made as +good a lining for the walls as anything else, and gave an air of +snugness to the room in which the family dined when there was no +company. +</P> + +<P> +They came presently to the Squire's den, at the end of a corridor. +</P> + +<P> +"That was my dear husband's study," sighed Mrs. Tempest. "It looks +south, into the rose garden, and is one of the prettiest rooms in the +house. But we keep it locked, and I think Violet has the key." +</P> + +<P> +"Pray don't let Miss Tempest be disturbed," said Captain Winstanley. "I +have seen quite enough to know what a delightful house you have—all +the interest of days that are gone, all the luxuries of to-day. I think +that blending of past and present is most fascinating. I should never +be a severe restorer of antiquity, or refuse to sit in a chair that +wasn't undeniably Gothic." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," sighed the Vicar's wife, who was an advanced disciple in the +school of Eastlake, "but don't you think everything should be in +harmony? If I were as rich as Mrs. Tempest, I wouldn't have so much as +a teapot that was not strictly Tudor." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'm afraid you'd have to go without a teapot, and drink your tea +out of a tankard," retorted Captain Winstanley. +</P> + +<P> +"At any rate, I would be as Tudor as I could be." +</P> + +<P> +"And not have a brass bedstead, a spring mattress, a moderator lamp, or +a coal-scuttle in your house," said the captain. "My dear madam, it is +all very well to be mediaeval in matters ecclesiastic, but home +comforts must not be sacrificed in the pursuit of the aesthetic, or a +modern luxury discarded because it looks like an anachronism." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Scobel was delighted with Captain Winstanley. He was just the kind +of man to succeed in a rustic community. His quiet self-assurance set +other people at their ease. He carried with him an air of life and +movement, as if he were the patentee of a new pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +"My husband would be so pleased to see you at the Vicarage, if you are +staying any time in the neighbourhood," she said. +</P> + +<P> +But after this little gush of friendliness, she reflected<BR> +that there could not be much sympathy between the man of society and +her Anglican parson; and that it was she, and not Ignatius Scobel, who +would be glad to see Captain Winstanley at the Vicarage. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall be charmed," he replied. "I never was so delighted with any +place as your Forest. It is a new world to me. I hate myself for having +lived in England so long without knowing this beautiful corner of the +land. I am staying with my old chief, Colonel Pryke, at Warham Court, +and I'm only here for a few days." +</P> + +<P> +"But you are coming to my dinner-party?" said Mrs. Tempest. +</P> + +<P> +"That is a pleasure I cannot deny myself." +</P> + +<P> +"And you will come and see our church and schools?" said Mrs. Scobel. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall be more than pleased. I passed your pretty little church, I +think, on my way here. There was a tin tea-ket—a bell ringing——" +</P> + +<P> +"For vespers," exclaimed Mrs. Scobel. +</P> + +<P> +The exploration of the house took a long time, conducted in this +somewhat desultory and dawdling manner; but the closing in of night and +the sound of the dinner-gong gave the signal for Captain Winstanley's +departure. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest would have liked to ask him to dinner; but she had an idea +that Violet might make herself objectionable, and refrained from this +exercise of hospitality. He was coming to the great dinner. He would +see her dress with the feather trimming, which was really prettier than +Worth's masterpiece, or, at any rate, newer; though it only came from +Madame Theodore, of Bruton Street. Sustained by this comforting +reflection, she parted with him quite cheerfully. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"He was worthy to be loved a Lifetime." +</H3> + +<P> +Conrad Winstanley had come to the New Forest with his mind resolved +upon one of two things. He meant to marry Violet Tempest or her mother. +If the case was quite hopeless with the daughter, he would content +himself with winning the lesser prize; and though Vanity whispered that +there was no woman living he might not win for himself if he chose to +be sufficiently patient and persevering, instinct told him that Violet +frankly detested him. +</P> + +<P> +"After all," argued Worldly Wisdom, "the alternative is not to be +despised. The widow is somewhat rococo; an old-fashioned jewel kept in +cotton-wool, and brought out on occasions to shine with a factitious +brilliancy, like old Dutch garnets backed with tinfoil; but she is +still pretty. She is ductile, amiable, and weak to a degree that +promises a husband the sovereign dominion. Why break your heart for +this fair devil of a daughter, who looks capable, if offended, of +anything in the way of revenge, from a horsewhip to slow poison? Are a +pair of brown eyes and a coronal of red gold hair worth all this wasted +passion?" +</P> + +<P> +"But the daughter is the greater catch," urged Ambition. "The dowager's +jointure is well enough, and she has the Abbey House and gardens for +her life, but Violet will be sole mistress of the estate when she comes +of age. As Violet's husband, your position would be infinitely better +than it could be as her stepfather. Unhappily, the cantankerous minx +has taken it into her head to dislike you." +</P> + +<P> +"Stay," interjected the bland voice of Vanity; "may not this dislike be +only an assumption, a mask for some deeper feeling? There are girls who +show their love in that way. Do not be in a hurry to commit yourself to +the mother until you have made yourself quite sure about the daughter." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest's dinner-party was a success. It introduced Captain +Winstanley to all that was best in the surrounding society; for +although in Switzerland he had seemed very familiar with the best +people in the Forest, in Hampshire he appeared almost a stranger to +them. It was generally admitted, however, that the Captain was an +acquisition, and a person to be cultivated. He sang a French comic song +almost as well as Monsieur de Roseau, recited a short Yankee poem, +which none of his audience had ever heard before, with telling force. +He was at home upon every subject, from orchids to steam-ploughs, from +ordnance to light literature. A man who sang so well, talked so well, +looked so well, and behaved so well, could not be otherwise than +welcome in county society. Before the evening was over, Captain +Winstanley had been offered three hunters for the next day's run, and +had been asked to write in four birthday-books. +</P> + +<P> +Violet did not honour him with so much as a look, after her one cold +recognition of his first appearance in the drawing-room. It was a party +of more than twenty people, and she was able to keep out of his way +without obvious avoidance of him. He was stung, but had no right to be +offended. +</P> + +<P> +He took Mrs. Scobel in to dinner, and Mrs. Scobel played the +accompaniment of his song, being a clever little woman, able to turn +her hand to any thing. He would have preferred to be told off to some +more important matron, but was not sorry to be taken under Mrs. +Scobel's wing. She could give him the carte du pays, and would be +useful to him, no doubt, in the future; a social Iris, to fetch and +carry for him between Beechdale and the Abbey House. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know that I am quite in love with your Forest?" he said to Mrs. +Tempest, standing in front of the ottoman where that lady sat with two +of her particular friends; "so much so, that I am actually in treaty +for Captain Hawbuck's cottage, and mean to stay here till the end of +the hunting." +</P> + +<P> +Everybody knew Captain Hawbuck's cottage, a verandahed box of a house, +on the slope of the hill above Beechdale. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid you'll find the drawing-room chimney smokes," said a +matter-of-fact lady in sea-green; "poor Mrs. Hawbuck was a martyr to +that chimney." +</P> + +<P> +"What does a bachelor want with a drawing-room? If there is one +sitting-room in which I can burn a good fire, I shall be satisfied. The +stable is in very fair order." +</P> + +<P> +"The Hawbucks kept a pony-carriage," assented the sea-green lady. +</P> + +<P> +"If Mrs. Hawbuck accepts my offer, I shall send for my horses next +week," said the Captain. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest blushed. Her life had flowed in so gentle and placid a +current, that the freshness of her soul had not worn off, and at +nine-and-thirty she was able to blush. There was something so +significant in Captain Winstanley's desire to establish himself at +Beechdale, that she could not help feeling fluttered by the fact. It +might be on Violet's account, of course, that he came; yet Violet and +he had never got on very well together. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor fellow!" she thought blandly, "if he for a moment supposes that +anything would tempt me to marry again, he is egregiously mistaken." +</P> + +<P> +And then she looked round the lovely old room, brightened by a crowd of +well-dressed people, and thought that next to being Edward Tempest's +wife, the best thing in life was to be Edward Tempest's widow. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Edward!" she mused, "how strange that we should miss him so +little to-night." +</P> + +<P> +It had been with everyone as if the squire had never lived. Politeness +exacted this ignoring of the past, no doubt; but the thing had been so +easily done. The noble presence, the jovial laugh, the friendly smile +were gone, and no one seemed conscious of the void—no one but Violet, +who looked round the room once when conversation was liveliest, with a +pale indignant face, resenting this forgetfulness. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish papa's ghost would come in at that door and scare his +hollow-hearted friends," she said to herself; and she felt as if it +would hardly have been a surprise to her to see the door open slowly +and that familiar figure appear. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Violet," Mrs. Temple said sweetly, when the guests were gone, +"how do you think it all went off?" +</P> + +<P> +"It," of course, meant the dinner-party. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose, according to the nature of such things, it was all right +and proper," Vixen answered coldly; "but I should think it must have +been intensely painful to you, mamma." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest sighed. She had always a large selection of sighs in +stock, suitable to every occasion. +</P> + +<P> +"I should have felt it much worse if I had sat in my old place at +dinner," she said; "but sitting at the middle of the table instead of +at the end made it less painful. And I really think it's better style. +How did you like the new arrangement of the glasses?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't notice anything new." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Violet, you are frightfully unobservant." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I am not," answered Vixen quickly. "My eyes are keen enough, +believe me." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Tempest felt uncomfortable. She began to think that, after all, it +might be a comfortable thing to have a companion—as a fender between +herself and Violet. A perpetually present Miss Jones or Smith would +ward off these unpleasantnesses. +</P> + +<P> +There are occasions, however, on which a position must be faced +boldly—in proverbial phrase, the bull must be taken by the horns. And +here, Mrs. Tempest felt, was a bull which must be so encountered. She +knew that her poor little hands were too feeble for the office; but she +told herself that she must make the heroic attempt. +</P> + +<P> +"Violet, why have you such a rooted dislike to Captain Winstanley?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why is my hair the colour it is, mamma, or why are my eyes brown +instead of blue? If you could answer my question, I might be able to +answer yours. Nature made me what I am, and nature has implanted a +hatred of Captain Winstanley in my mind." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you not think it wrong to hate anyone—the very word hate was +considered unladylike when I was a girl—without cause?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have cause to hate him, good cause, sufficient cause. I hate all +self-seekers and adventurers." +</P> + +<P> +"You have no right to call him one or the other." +</P> + +<P> +"Have I not? What brings him here, but the pursuit of his own interest? +Why does he plant himself at our door as if he were come to besiege a +town? Do you mean to say, mamma, that you can be so blind as not to see +what he wants?" +</P> + +<P> +"He has come for the hunting." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but not to hunt our foxes or our stags. He wants a rich wife, +mamma. And he thinks that you or I will be foolish enough to marry him." +</P> + +<P> +"There would be nothing unnatural in his entertaining some idea of that +kind about you," replied Mrs. Tempest, with a sudden assertion of +matronly dignity. "But for him to think of me in that light would be +too absurd. I must be some years, perhaps four or five years, his +senior, to begin with." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he would forgive you that; he would not mind that." +</P> + +<P> +"And he ought to know that I should never dream of marrying again." +</P> + +<P> +"He ought, if he had any idea of what is right and noble in a woman," +answered Vixen. "But he has not. He has no ideas that do not begin and +end in himself and his own advantage. He sees you here with a handsome +house, a good income, and he thinks that he can persuade you to marry +him." +</P> + +<P> +"Violet, you must know that I shall never marry." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope I do know it. But the world ought to know it too. People ought +not to be allowed to whisper, and smile, and look significant; as I saw +some of them do to-night when Captain Winstanley was hanging over your +chair. You ought not to encourage him, mamma. It is a treason against +my father to have that man here." +</P> + +<P> +Here was a bull that required prompt and severe handling, but Mrs. +Tempest felt her powers inadequate to the effort. +</P> + +<P> +"I am surprised at you, Violet!" she exclaimed; "as if I did not know, +as well as you, what is due to my poor Edward; as if I should do +anything to compromise my own dignity. Is it to encourage a man to ask +him to a dinner-party, when he happens to be visiting in the +neighbourhood? Can I forbid Captain Winstanley to take the Hawbucks' +cottage?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, you have gone too far already. You gave him too much encouragement +in Switzerland, and at Brighton. He has attached himself to us, like a +limpet to a rock. You will not easily get rid of him; unless you let +him see that you understand and despise him." +</P> + +<P> +"I see nothing despicable in him, and I am not going to insult him at +your bidding," answered the widow, tremulous with anger. "I do not +believe him to be a schemer or an adventurer. He is a gentleman by +birth, education, profession. It is a supreme insolence on your part to +speak of him as you do. What can you know of the world? How can you +judge and measure a man like Captain Winstanley? A girl like you, +hardly out of the nursery! It is too absurd. And understand at once and +for ever, Violet, that I will not be hectored or lectured in this +manner, that I will not be dictated to, or taught what is good taste, +in my own house. This is to be my own house, you know, as long as I +live." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; unless you give it a new master," said Violet gravely. "Forgive +me if I have been too vehement, mamma. It is my love that is bold. Whom +have I in this world to love now, except you? And when I see you in +danger—when I see the softness of your nature—— Dear mother, there +are some instincts that are stronger than reason. There are some +antipathies which are implanted in us for warnings. Remember what a +happy life you led with my dear father—his goodness, his overflowing +generosity, his noble heart. There is no man worthy to succeed him, to +live in his house. Dear mother, for pity's sake——" +</P> + +<P> +She was kneeling at her mother's feet, clinging to her hands, her voice +half-choked with sobs. Mrs. Tempest began to cry too. +</P> + +<P> +"My dearest Violet, how can you be so foolish? My love, don't cry. I +tell you that I shall never marry again—never. Not if I were asked to +become a countess. My heart is true to your dear father; it always will +be. I am almost sorry that I consented to these scarlet bows on my +dress, but the feather trimming looked so heavy without them, and +Theodore's eye for colour is perfect. My dear child, be assured I shall +carry his image with me to my grave." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear mother, that is all I ask. Be as happy as you can; but be true to +him. He was worthy to be loved for a lifetime; not to be put off with +half a life, half a heart." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Lady Southminster's Ball. +</H3> + +<P> +Captain Winstanley closed with Mrs. Hawbuck for the pretty little +verandah-surrounded cottage on the slope of the hill above Beechdale. +Captain Hawbuck, a retired naval man, to whom the place had been very +dear, was in his grave, and his wife was anxious to try if she and her +hungry children could not live on less money in Belgium than they could +in England. The good old post-captain had improved and beautified the +place from a farm-labourer's cottage into a habitation which was the +quintessence of picturesque inconvenience. Ceilings which you could +touch with your hand; funny little fireplaces in angles of the rooms; a +corkscrew staircase, which a stranger ascended or descended at peril of +life or limb; no kitchen worth mentioning, and stuffy little bedrooms +under the thatch. Seen from the outside the cottage was charming; and +if the captain and his family could only have lived over the way, and +looked at it, they would have had full value for the money invested in +its improvement. Small as the rooms were, however, and despite that +dark slander which hung over the chimneys, Captain Winstanley declared +that the cottage would suit him admirably. +</P> + +<P> +"I like the situation," he said, discussing his bargain in the +coffee-room at The Crown, Lyndhurst. +</P> + +<P> +"I should rather think you did!" cried Mr. Bell, the local surgeon. +"Suits you down to the ground, doesn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +Whereby it will be seen that there was already a certain opinion in the +neighbourhood as to the Captain's motive for planting himself at +Beechdale—so acute is a quiet little community of this kind in +divining the intentions of a stranger. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Winstanley took up his quarters at Beechdale +Cottage in less than a week after Mrs. Tempest's dinner-party. He sent +for his horses, and began the business of hunting in real earnest. His +two hunters were unanimously pronounced screws; but it is astonishing +how well a good rider can get across country on a horse which other +people call a screw. Nobody could deny Captain Winstanley's merits as a +horseman. His costume and appointments had all the finish of Melton +Mowbray, and he was always in the first flight. +</P> + +<P> +Before he had occupied Captain Hawbuck's cottage a month the new-comer +had made friends for himself in all directions. He was as much at home +in the Forest as if he had been native and to the manner born. His +straight riding, his good looks, and agreeable manners won him +everybody's approval. There was nothing dissipated or Bohemian about +him. His clothes never smelt of stale tobacco. He was as punctual at +church every Sunday morning as if he had been a family man, bound to +set a good example. He subscribed liberally to the hounds, and was +always ready with those stray florins and half-crowns by which a man +purchases a cheap popularity among the horse-holding and +ragged-follower class. +</P> + +<P> +Having distinctly asserted her intention of remaining a widow to +Violet, Mrs. Tempest allowed herself the privilege of being civil to +Captain Winstanley. He dropped in at afternoon tea at least twice a +week; he dined at the Abbey House whenever the Scobels or any other +intimate friends were there "in a quiet way." He generally escorted +Mrs. Tempest and her daughter from church on Sunday morning, Violet +persistently loitering twenty yards or so behind them on the narrow +woodland path that led from Beechdale to the Abbey House. +</P> + +<P> +After walking home from church with Mrs. Tempest, it was only natural +that the Captain should stop to luncheon, and after luncheon—the +Sabbath afternoon being, in a manner, a legitimate occasion for +dawdling—it was equally natural for him to linger, looking at the +gardens and greenhouses, or talking beside the drawing-room fire, till +the appearance of the spitfire Queen Anne tea-kettle and Mrs. Tempest's +infusion of orange pekoe. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes the Scobels were present at these Sunday luncheons, sometimes +not. Violet was with her mother, of course, on these occasions; but, +while bodily present, she contrived to maintain an attitude of +aloofness which would have driven a less resolute man than Conrad +Winstanley to absent himself. A man more sensitive to the opinions of +others could hardly have existed in such an atmosphere of dislike; but +Captain Winstanley meant to live down Miss Tempest's aversion, or to +give her double cause for hating him. +</P> + +<P> +"Why have you given up hunting, Miss Tempest?" he asked one Sunday +afternoon, when they had gone the round of the stables, and Arion had +been fondled and admired—a horse as gentle as an Italian greyhound in +his stable, as fiery as a wild-cat out of it. +</P> + +<P> +"Because I have no one I care to hunt with, now papa is gone." +</P> + +<P> +"But here in the Forest, where everybody knows you, where you might +have as many fathers as the Daughter of the Regiment——" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I have many kind friends. But there is not one who could fill my +father's place—for an hour." +</P> + +<P> +"It is a pity," said the Captain sympathetically. "You were so fond of +hunting, were you not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Passionately." +</P> + +<P> +"Then it is a shame you should forego the pleasure. And you must find +it very dull, I should think, riding alone in the forest." +</P> + +<P> +"Alone! I have my horse." +</P> + +<P> +"Surely he does not count as a companion." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed he does. I wish for no better company than Arion, now papa is +gone." +</P> + +<P> +"Violet is so eccentric!" Mrs. Tempest murmured gently. +</P> + +<P> +Captain Winstanley had taken Mrs. Hawbuck's cottage till the first of +May. The end of April would see the last of the hunting, so this +arrangement seemed natural enough. He hunted in good earnest. There was +no pretence about him. It was only the extra knowing ones, the little +knot of choice spirits at The Crown, who saw some deeper motive than a +mere love of sport for his residence at Beechdale. These advanced minds +had contrived to find out all about Captain Winstanley by this +time—the date of his selling out, his ostensible and hidden reasons +for leaving the army, the amount of his income, and the general +complexion of his character. There was not much to be advanced against +him. No dark stories; only a leading notion that he was a man who +wanted to improve his fortunes, and would not be over-scrupulous as to +the means. But as your over-scrupulous man is one in a thousand, this +was ranking Captain Winstanley with the majority. +</P> + +<P> +The winter was over; there were primroses peeping out of the moss and +brambles, and a shy little dog-violet shining like a blue eye here and +there. The flaunting daffodils were yellow in every glade, and the +gummy chestnut buds were beginning to swell. It was mid-March, and as +yet there had been no announcement of home-coming from Roderick Vawdrey +or the Dovedales. The Duke was said to have taken a fancy to the Roman +style of fox-hunting; Lady Mabel was studying art; the Duchess was +suspected of a leaning to Romanism; and Roderick was dancing attendance +upon the family generally. +</P> + +<P> +"Why should he not stay there with them?" said Mr. Scobel, sipping his +pekoe in a comfortable little circle of gossipers round Mrs. Tempest's +gipsy table. "He has very little else to do with his life. He is a +young man utterly without views or purpose. He is one of our many +Gallios. You could not rouse him to an interest in those stirring +questions that are agitating the Catholic Church to her very +foundation. He has no mission. I have sounded him, and found him full +of a shallow good-nature. He would build a church if people asked him, +and hardly know, when it was finished, whether he meant it for Jews or +Gentiles." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen sat in her corner and said nothing. It amused her—rather with a +half-bitter sense of amusement—to hear them talk about Roderick. He +had quite gone out of her life. It interested her to know what people +thought of him in his new world. +</P> + +<P> +"If the Duke doesn't bring them all home very soon the Duchess will go +over to Rome," said Mrs. Scobel, with conviction. "She has been +drifting that way for ever so long. Ignatius isn't high enough for her." +</P> + +<P> +The Reverend Ignatius sighed. He hardly saw his way to ascending any +higher. He had already, acting always in perfect good faith and +conscientious desire for the right, made his pretty little church +obnoxious to many of the simple old Foresters, to whom a pair of brazen +candlesticks on an altar were among the abominations of Baal, and a +crucifix as hateful as the image of Ashtaroth; obstinate old people of +limited vision, who wanted Mr. Scobel to stick to what they called the +old ways, and read the Liturgy as they had heard it when they were +children. In the minds of these people, Mr. Scobel's self-devotion and +hard service were as nothing, while he cut off the ten commandments +from the Sunday morning service, and lighted his altar candles at the +early celebration. +</P> + +<P> +It was in this month of March that an event impended which caused a +considerable flutter among the dancing population of the Forest. Lord +Southminster's eldest daughter, Lady Almira Ringwood, was to marry Sir +Ponto Jones, the rich ironmaster—an alliance of ancient aristocracy +and modern wealth which was considered one of the grandest achievements +of the age, like the discovery of steam or the electric telegraph; and +after the marriage, which was to be quietly performed in the presence +of about a hundred and fifty blood relations, there was to be a ball, +to which all the county families were bidden, with very little more +distinction or favouritism than in the good old fairy-tale times, when +the king's herald went through the streets of the city to invite +everybody, and only some stray Cinderella, cleaning boots and knives in +a back kitchen, found herself unintentionally excluded. Lady +Southminster drew the line at county families, naturally, but her +kindly feelings allowed a wide margin for parsons, doctors, and +military men—and among these last Captain Winstanley received a card. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Scobel declared that this ball would be a grand thing for Violet. +"You have never properly come out, you know, dear," she said; "but at +Southminster you will be seen by everybody; and, as I daresay Lady +Ellangowan will take you under her wing, you'll be seen to the best +advantage." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think Lady Ellangowan's wing will make any difference—in me?" +inquired Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"It will make a great deal of difference in the Southminster set," +replied Mrs. Scobel, who considered herself an authority upon all +social matters. +</P> + +<P> +She was a busy good-natured little woman, the chosen confidante of all +her female friends. People were always appealing to her on small social +questions, what they ought to do or to wear on such and such an +occasion. She knew the wardrobes of her friends as well as she knew her +own. "I suppose you'll wear that lovely pink," she would say when +discussing an impending dinner-party. She gave judicious assistance in +the composition of a <I>menu</I>. "My love, everyone has pheasants at this +time of year. Ask your poulterer to send you guinea-fowls, they are +more <I>distingué</I>," she would suggest. Or: "If you have dessert ices, +let me recommend you coffee-cream. We had it last week at Ellangowan +Park." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen made no objection to the Southminster ball. She was young, and +fond of waltzing. Whirling easily round to the swing of some German +melody, in a great room garlanded with flowers, was a temporary +cessation of all earthly care, the idea of which was in no wise +unpleasant to her. She had enjoyed her waltzes even at that +charity-ball at the Pavilion, to which she had gone so unwillingly. +</P> + +<P> +The March night was fine, but blustery, when Mrs. Tempest and her +daughter started for the Southminster ball. The stars were shining in a +windy sky, the tall forest trees were tossing their heads, the brambles +were shivering, and a shrill shriek came up out of the woodland every +now and then like a human cry for help. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs Tempest had offered to take Mrs. Scobel and Captain Winstanley in +her roomy carriage. Mr. Scobel was not going to the ball. All such +entertainments were an abhorrence to him; but this particular ball, +being given in Lent, was more especially abhorrent. +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't think of going for my own amusement," Mrs. Scobel told her +husband, "but I want to see Violet Tempest at her first local ball +dance. I want to see the impression she makes. I believe she will be +the belle of the ball." +</P> + +<P> +"That would mean the belle of South Hants," said the parson. "She has a +beautiful face for a painted window—there is such a glow of colour." +</P> + +<P> +"She is absolutely lovely, when she likes," replied his wife; "but she +has a curious temper; and there is something very repellent about her +when she does not like people. Strange, is it not, that she should not +like Captain Winstanley?" +</P> + +<P> +"She would be a very noble girl under more spiritual influences," +sighed the Reverend Ignatius. "Her present surroundings are appallingly +earthly. Horses, dogs, a table loaded with meat in Lent and Advent, a +total ignoring of daily matins and even-song. It is sad to see those we +like treading the broad path so blindly. I feel sorry, my dear, that +you should go to this ball." +</P> + +<P> +"It is only on Violet's account," repeated Mrs. Scobel. "Mrs. Tempest +will be thinking of nothing but her dress; there will be nobody +interested in that poor girl." +</P> + +<P> +Urged thus, on purely benevolent grounds, Mr. Scobel could not withhold +his consent; more especially as he had acquired the habit of letting +his wife do what she liked on most occasions—a marital custom not +easily broken through. So Mrs. Scobel, who was an economical little +woman, "did up" her silver-gray silk dinner-dress with ten shillings' +worth of black tulle and pink rosebuds, and felt she had made a success +that Madame Elise might have approved. Her faith in the silver-gray and +the rosebuds was just a little shaken by her first view of Mrs. Tempest +and Violet; the widow in black velvet, rose-point, and scarlet—Spanish +as a portrait by Velasquez; Violet in black and gold, with white +stephanotis in her hair. +</P> + +<P> +The drive was a long one, well over ten miles, along one of those +splendid straight roads which distinguish the New Forest. Mrs. Tempest +and Mrs. Scobel were in high spirits, and prattled agreeably all the +way, only giving Captain Winstanley time to get a word in edgeways now +and then. Violet looked out of the window and held her peace. There was +always a charm for her in that dark silent forest, those waving +branches and flitting clouds, stars gleaming like lights on a stormy +sea. She was not much elated at the idea of the ball, and "that small, +small, imperceptibly small talk" of her mother's and Mrs. Scobel's was +beyond measure wearisome to her. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope we shall get there after the Ellangowans," said Mrs. Scobel, +when they had driven through the little town of Ringwood, and were +entering a land of level pastures and fertilising streams, which seemed +wonderfully tame after the undulating forest; "it would be so much +nicer for Violet to be in the Ellangowan set from the first." +</P> + +<P> +"I beg to state that Miss Tempest has promised me the first waltz," +said Captain Winstanley. "I am not going to be ousted by any offshoot +of nobility in Lady Ellangowan's set." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, of course, if Violet has promised—— What a lot of carriages! I +am afraid there'll be a block presently." +</P> + +<P> +There was every prospect of such a calamity. A confluence of vehicles +had poured into a narrow lane bounded on one side by a treacherous +water-meadow, on the other by a garden-wall. They all came to a +standstill, as Mrs. Scobel had prophesied. For a quarter of an hour +there was no progress whatever, and a good deal of recrimination among +coachmen, and then the rest of the journey had to be done at a walking +pace. +</P> + +<P> +The reward was worth the labour when, at the end of a long winding +drive, the carriage drew up before the Italian front of Southminster +House; a white marble portico, long rows of tall windows brilliantly +lighted, a vista of flowers, and statues, and lamps, and pictures, and +velvet hangings, seen through the open doorway. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, it is too lovely!" cried Violet, fresh as a schoolgirl in this new +delight; "first the dark forest and then a house like this—it is like +Fairyland." +</P> + +<P> +"And you are to be the queen of it—my queen," said Conrad Winstanley +in a low voice. "I am to have the first waltz, remember that. If the +Prince of Wales were my rival I would not give way." +</P> + +<P> +He detained her hand in his as she alighted from the carriage. She +snatched it from him angrily. +</P> + +<P> +"I have a good mind not to dance at all," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is paying too dearly for the pleasure to be obliged to dance with +you." +</P> + +<P> +"In what school did you learn politeness, Miss Tempest?" +</P> + +<P> +"If politeness means civility to people I despise, I have never learned +it," answered Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +There was no time for further skirmishing. He had taken her cloak from +her, and handed it to the attendant nymph, and received a ticket; and +now they were drifting into the tea-room, where a row of ministering +footmen were looking at the guests across a barricade of urns and +teapots, with countenances that seemed to say, "If you want anything, +you must ask for it. We are here under protest, and we very much wonder +how our people could ever have invited such rabble!" +</P> + +<P> +"I always feel small in a tea-room when there are only men in +attendance," whispered Mr. Scobel, "they are so haughty. I would sooner +ask Gladstone or Disraeli to pour me out a cup of tea than one of those +supercilious creatures." +</P> + +<P> +Lady Southminster was stationed in the Teniers room—a small apartment +at the beginning of the suite which ended in the picture-gallery or +ball-room. She was what Joe Gargery called a "fine figure of a woman," +in ruby velvet and diamonds, and received her guests with an indiscriminating cordiality which went far to heal the gaping wounds of +county politics. +</P> + +<P> +The Ellangowans had arrived, and Lady Ellangowan, who was full of +good-nature, was quite ready to take Violet under her wing when Mrs. +Scobel suggested that operation. +</P> + +<P> +"I can find her any number of partners," she said. "Oh, there she +goes—off—already with Captain Winstanley." +</P> + +<P> +The Captain had lost no time in exacting his waltz. It was the third on +the programme, and the band were beginning to warm to their work. They +were playing a waltz by Offenbach—"<I>Les Traîneaux</I>"—with an +accompaniment of jingling sleigh-bells—music that had an almost +maddening effect on spirits already exhilarated. +</P> + +<P> +The long lofty picture-gallery made a magnificent ball-room—a polished +floor of dark wood—a narrow line of light under the projecting +cornice, the famous Paul Veronese, the world-renowned Rubens, the +adorable Titian—ideal beauty looking down with art's eternal +tranquillity upon the whisk and whirl of actual life—here a calm +Madonna, contemplating, with deep unfathomable eyes, these brief +ephemera of a night—there Judith with a white muscular arm holding the +tyrant's head aloft above the dancers—yonder Philip of Spain frowning +on this Lenten festival. +</P> + +<P> +Violet and Captain Winstanley waltzed in a stern silence. She was vexed +with herself for her loss of temper just now. In his breast there was a +deeper anger. "When would my day come?" he asked himself. "When shall I +be able to bow this proud head, to bend this stubborn will?" It must be +soon—he was tired of playing his submissive part—tired of holding his +cards hidden. +</P> + +<P> +They held on to the end of the waltz—the last clash of the +sleigh-bells. +</P> + +<P> +"Who's that girl in black and gold?" asked a Guardsman of Lady +Ellangowan; "those two are the best dancers in the room—it's a +thousand to nothing on them." +</P> + +<P> +That final clash of the bells brought the Captain and his partner to +anchor at the end of the gallery, which opened through an archway into +a spacious palm-house with a lofty dome. In the middle of this archway, +looking at the dancers, stood a figure at sight of which Violet +Tempest's heart gave a great leap, and then stood still. +</P> + +<P> +It was Roderick Vawdrey. He was standing alone, listlessly +contemplating the ball-room, with much less life and expression in his +face than there was in the pictured faces on the walls. +</P> + +<P> +"That was a very nice waltz thanks," said Vixen, giving the captain a +little curtsey. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I take you back to Mrs. Tempest?" +</P> + +<P> +Roderick had seen her by this time, and was coming towards her with a +singularly grave and distant countenance, she thought; not at all like +the Rorie of old times. But of course that was over and done with. She +must never call him Rorie any more, not even in her own thoughts. A +sharp sudden memory thrilled her, as they stood face to face in that +brilliant gallery—the memory of their last meeting in the darkened +room on the day of her father's funeral. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you do?" said Roderick, with a gush of originality. "Your mamma +is here, I suppose." +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't you seen her?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; we've only just come." +</P> + +<P> +"We," no doubt, meant the Dovedale party, of which Mr. Vawdrey was +henceforth a part. +</P> + +<P> +"I did not know you were to be here," said Vixen, "or then that you +were in England." +</P> + +<P> +"We only came home yesterday, or I should have called at the Abbey +House. We have been coming home, or talking about it, for the last +three weeks. A few days ago the Duchess took it into her head that she +ought to be at Lady Almira's wedding—there's some kind of +relationship, you know, between the Ashbournes and the +Southminsters—so we put on a spurt, and here we are." +</P> + +<P> +"I am very glad," said Vixen, not knowing very well what to say; and +then seeing Captain Winstanley standing stiffly at her side, with an +aggrieved expression of countenance, she faltered: "I beg your pardon; +I don't think you have ever met Mr. Vawdrey. Captain Winstanley—Mr. +Vawdrey." +</P> + +<P> +Both gentlemen acknowledged the introduction with the stiffest and +chilliest of bows; and then the Captain offered Violet his arm, and +she, having no excuse for refusing it, submitted quietly to be taken +away from her old friend. Roderick made no attempt to detain her. +</P> + +<P> +The change in him could hardly have been more marked, Vixen thought. +Yes, the old Rorie—playfellow, scapegoat, friend of the dear old +childish days—was verily dead and gone. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall we go and look at the presents?" asked Captain +Winstanley. +</P> + +<P> +"What presents?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lady Almira's wedding presents. They are all laid out in the library. +I hear they are very splendid. Everybody is crowding to see them." +</P> + +<P> +"I daresay mamma would like to go, and Mrs. Scobel," suggested Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"Then we will all go together." +</P> + +<P> +They found the two matrons side by side on a settee, under a lovely +girlish head by Greuze. They were both delighted at the idea of seeing +the presents. It was something to do. Mrs. Tempest had made up her mind +to abjure even square dances this evening. There was something +incongruous in widowhood and the Lancers; especially in one's own +neighbourhood. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Rorie asks a Question. +</H3> + +<P> +The library was one of the finest rooms at Southminster. It was not +like the library at Althorpe—a collection for a nation to be proud of. +There was no priceless Decameron, no Caxton Bible, no inestimable "Book +of Hours," or early Venetian Virgil; but as a library of reference, a +library for all purposes of culture or enjoyment, it left nothing to be +desired. It was a spacious and lofty room, lined from floor to ceiling +with exquisitely bound books; for, if not a collector of rare editions, +Lord Southminster was at least a connoisseur of bindings. Creamy +vellum, flowered with gold, antique brown calf, and russia in every +shade of crimson and brown, gave brightness to the shelves, while the +sombre darkness of carved oak made a background for this variety of +colour. +</P> + +<P> +Not a mortal in the crowded library this evening thought of looking at +the books. The room had been transformed into a bazaar. Two long tables +were loaded with the wedding gifts which rejoicing friends and aspiring +acquaintances had lavished upon Lady Almira. Each gift was labelled +with the name of the giver; the exhibition was full of an intensely +personal interest. Everybody wanted to see what everybody had given. +Most of the people looking at the show had made their offerings, and +were anxious to see if their own particular contribution appeared to +advantage. +</P> + +<P> +Here Mrs. Scobel was in her element. She explained everything, +expatiated upon the beauty and usefulness of everything. If she had +assisted at the purchase of all these gifts, or had actually chosen +them, she could not have been more familiar with their uses and merits. +</P> + +<P> +"You must look at the silver candelabra presented by Sir Ponto's +workpeople, so much more sensible than a bracelet. I don't think +Garrard—yes, it is Garrard—ever did anything better; so sweetly +mythological—a goat and a dear little chubby boy, and ever so many +savage-looking persons with cymbals." +</P> + +<P> +"The education of Jupiter, perhaps," suggested Captain Winstanley. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course. The savage persons must be teaching him music. Have you +seen this liqueur cabinet, dear Mrs. Tempest? The most exquisite thing, +from the servants at Southminster. Could anything be nicer?" +</P> + +<P> +"Looks rather like a suggestion that Lady Almira may be given to +curaçoa on the quiet," said the Captain. +</P> + +<P> +"And this lovely, lovely screen in crewels, by the Ladies Ringwood, +after a picture by Alma Tadema," continued Mrs. Scobel. "Was there ever +anything so perfect? And to think that our poor mothers worked staring +roses and gigantic lilies in Berlin wool and glass beads, and imagined +themselves artistic!" +</P> + +<P> +The ladies went the round of the tables, in a crush of other ladies, +all rapturous. The Louis Quatorze fans, the carved ivory, the Brussels +point, the oxydised silver glove-boxes, and malachite blotting-books, +the pearls, opals, ormolu; the antique tankards and candlesticks, +Queen-Anne teapots; diamond stars, combs, tiaras; prayer-books, and +"Christian Years." The special presents which stood out from this chaos +of common place were—a <I>rivière</I> of diamonds from the Earl of +Southminster, a cashmere shawl from Her Majesty, a basket of orchids, +valued at five hundred guineas, from Lady Ellangowan, a pair of +priceless crackle jars, a Sèvres dinner-service of the old +<I>bleu-du-roi</I>, a set of knives of which the handles had all been taken +from stags slaughtered by the Southminster hounds. +</P> + +<P> +"This is all very well for the wallflowers," said Captain Winstanley to +Violet, "but you and I are losing our dances." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't much care about dancing," answered Vixen wearily. +</P> + +<P> +She had been looking at this gorgeous display of bracelets and teacups, +silver-gilt dressing-cases, and ivory hairbrushes, without seeing +anything. She was thinking of Roderick Vawdrey, and how odd a thing it +was that he should seem so utter a stranger to her. +</P> + +<P> +"He has gone up into the ducal circle," she said to herself. "He is +translated. It is almost as if he had wings. He is certainly as far +away from me as if he were a bishop." +</P> + +<P> +They struggled back to the picture-gallery, and here Lady Ellangowan +took possession of Violet, and got her distinguished partners for all +the dances till supper-time. She found herself receiving a gracious +little nod from Lady Mabel Ashbourne in the ladies' chain. Neither the +lapse of two years nor the experience of foreign travel had made any +change in the hope of the Dovedales. She was still the same sylph-like +being, dressed in palest green, the colour of a duck's egg, with +diamonds in strictest moderation, and pearls that would have done +honour to a princess. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think Lady Mabel Ashbourne very beautiful?" Vixen asked Lady +Ellangowan, curious to hear the opinion of experience and authority. +</P> + +<P> +"No; she's too shadowy for my taste," replied her ladyship, who was the +reverse of sylph-like. "Wasn't there someone in Greek mythology who +fell in love with a cloud? Lady Mabel would just suit that sort of +person. And then she is over-educated and conceited; sets up for a +modern Lady Jane Grey, quotes Greek plays, I believe, and looks +astounded if people don't understand her. She'll end by establishing a +female college, like Tennyson's princess." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but she is engaged to be married to Mr. Vawdrey." +</P> + +<P> +"Her cousin? Very foolish! That may go off by-and-by. First engagements +seldom come to anything." +</P> + +<P> +Violet thought herself a hateful creature for being inwardly grateful +to Lady Ellangowan for this speech. +</P> + +<P> +She had seen Roderick spinning round with his cousin. He was a good +waltzer, but not a graceful one. He steered his way well, and went with +a strong swing that covered a great deal of ground; but there was a +want of finish. Lady Mabel looked as if she were being carried away by +a maelstrom. And now people began to move towards the supper-rooms, of +which there were two, luxuriously arranged with numerous round tables +in the way that was still a novelty when "Lothair" was written. This +gave more room for the dancers. The people for whom a ball meant a +surfeit of perigord pie, truffled turkey, salmon <I>mayonnaise</I>, and +early strawberries, went for their first innings, meaning to return to +that happy hunting-ground as often as proved practicable. Violet was +carried off by a partner who was so anxious to take her to supper that +she felt sure he was dying to get some for himself. +</P> + +<P> +Her cavalier found her a corner at a snug little table with three +gorgeous matrons. She ate a cutlet and a teaspoonful of peas, took +three sips from a glass of champagne, and wound up with some +strawberries, which tasted as if they had been taken by mistake out of +the pickle-jar. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid you haven't had a very good supper." said her partner, who +had been comfortably wedged between two of the matrons, consuming +mayonnaise and pâté to his heart's content. +</P> + +<P> +"Excellent, thanks. I shall be glad to make room for someone else." +Whereat the unfortunate young man was obliged to stand up, leaving the +choicest morsel of truffled goose-liver on his plate. +</P> + +<P> +The crowd in the picture-gallery was thinner when Violet went back. In +the doorway she met Roderick Vawdrey. +</P> + +<P> +"Haven't you kept a single dance for me, Violet?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"You didn't ask me to keep one." +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't I? Perhaps I was afraid of Captain Winstanley's displeasure. He +would have objected, no doubt." +</P> + +<P> +"Why should he object, unless I broke an engagement to him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Would he not? Are you actually free to be asked by anyone? If I had +known that two hours ago! And now, I suppose your programme is full. +Yes, to the very last galop; for which, of course, you won't stop. But +there's to be an extra waltz presently. You must give me that." +</P> + +<P> +She said neither yes nor no, and he put her hand through +his arm and led her up the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you seen mamma?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. She thinks I am grown. She forgets that I was one-and-twenty when +we last met. That does not leave much margin for growing, unless a man +went on getting taller indefinitely, like Lord Southminster's palms. He +had to take the roof off his palm-house last year, you know. What a +dreadful thing if I were to become a Norfolk giant—giants are +indigenous to Norfolk, aren't they?—and were obliged to take the roof +off Briarwood. Have you seen the Duchess?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only in the distance. I hardly know her at all, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"That's absurd. You ought to know her very well. You must be quite +intimate with her by-and-by, when we are all settled down as +steady-going married people." +</P> + +<P> +The little gloved hand on his arm quivered ever so slightly. This was a +distinct allusion to his approaching marriage. +</P> + +<P> +"Lovely room, isn't it? Just the right thing for a ball. How do you +like the Rubens? Very grand—a magnificent display of +carmines—beautiful, if you are an admirer of Rubens. What a +draughtsman! The Italian school rarely achieved that freedom of pencil. +Isn't that Greuze enchanting? There is an innocence, a freshness, about +his girlish faces that nobody has ever equalled. His women are not +Madonnas, or Junos, or Helens—they are the incarnation of girlhood; +girlhood without care or thought; girlhood in love with a kitten, or +weeping over a wounded robin-redbreast." +</P> + +<P> +How abominably he rattled on. Was it the overflow of joyous spirits? No +doubt. He was so pleased with life and fate, that he was obliged to +give vent to his exuberance in this gush of commonplace. +</P> + +<P> +"You remind me of Miss Bates, in Jane Austen's 'Emma,'" said Vixen, +laughing. +</P> + +<P> +The band struck up "<I>Trauriges Herz</I>," a waltz like a wail, but with a +fine swing in it. +</P> + +<P> +"Now for the old three-time," said Roderick; and the next minute they +were sailing smoothly over the polished floor, with all the fair +pictured faces, the crimson draperies, the pensive Madonnas, Dutch +boors, Italian temples, and hills, and skies, circling round them like +the figures in a kaleidoscope. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you remember our boy-and-girl waltzes in the hall at the Abbey +House?" asked Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +Happily for Vixen her face was so turned that he could not see the +quiver on her lips, the sudden look of absolute pain that paled her +cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not likely to forget any part of my childhood," she answered +gravely. "It was the one happy period of my life." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't expect me to believe that the last two years have been +altogether unhappy." +</P> + +<P> +"You may believe what you like. You who knew my father, ought to +know——" +</P> + +<P> +"The dear Squire! do you think I am likely to undervalue him, or to +forget your loss? No, Violet, no. But there are compensations. I heard +of you at Brighton. You were very happy there, were you not?" +</P> + +<P> +"I liked Brighton pretty well. And I had Arion there all the while. +There are some capital rides on the Downs." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, and you had agreeable friends there." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, we knew a good many pleasant people, and went to a great many +concerts. I heard all the good singers, and Madame Goddard ever so many +times." +</P> + +<P> +They went on till the end of the waltz, and then walked slowly round +the room, glancing at the pictures as they went by. The Duchess was not +in sight. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall we go and look at the palms?" asked Roderick, when they came to +the archway at the end of the gallery. +</P> + +<P> +"If you like." +</P> + +<P> +"This was the roof that had to be taken off, you know. It is a +magnificent dome, but I daresay the palms will outgrow it within Lord +Southminster's time." +</P> + +<P> +It was like entering a jungle in the tropics; if one could fancy a +jungle paved with encaustic tiles, and furnished with velvet-covered +ottomans for the repose of weary sportsmen. +</P> + +<P> +There was only a subdued light, from lamps thinly sprinkled among the +ferns and flowers. There were four large groups of statuary, placed +judiciously, and under the central dome there was a fountain, where, +half hidden by a veil of glittering spray, Neptune was wooing Tyro, +under the aspect of a river-god, amongst bulrushes, lilies, and +water-plants. +</P> + +<P> +Violet and her companion looked at the tropical plants, and admired, +with a delightful ignorance of the merits of these specimens. The tall +shafts and the thick tufts of huge leaves were not Vixen's idea of +beauty. +</P> + +<P> +"I like our beeches and oaks in the Forest ever so much better," she +exclaimed. +</P> + +<P> +"Everything in the Forest is dear," said Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen felt, with a curious choking sensation, that this was a good +opening for her to say something polite. She had always intended to +congratulate him, in a straightforward sisterly way, upon his +engagement to Lady Mabel. +</P> + +<P> +"I am so glad to hear you say that," she began. "And how happy you must +be to think that your fate is fixed here irrevocably; doubly fixed now; +for you can have no interest to draw you away from us, as you might if +you were to marry a stranger. Briarwood and Ashbourne united will make +you the greatest among us." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't highly value that kind of greatness, Violet—a mere question +of acreage; but I am glad to think myself anchored for life on my +native soil." +</P> + +<P> +"And you will go into Parliament and legislate for us, and take care +that we are not disforested. They have taken away too much already, +with their horrid enclosures." +</P> + +<P> +"The enclosures will make splendid pine-woods by-and-by." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, when we are all dead and gone." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know about Parliament. So long as my poor mother was living I +had an incentive to turn senator, she was so eager for it. But now that +she is gone, I don't feel strongly drawn that way. I suppose I shall +settle down into the approved pattern of country squire: breed fat +cattle—the aristocratic form of cruelty to animals—spend the best +part of my income upon agricultural machinery, talk about guano, like +the Duke, and lecture delinquents at quarter-sessions." +</P> + +<P> +"But Lady Mabel will not allow that. She will be ambitious for you." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not. I can fancy no affliction greater than an ambitious wife. +No. My poor mother left Mabel her orchids. Mabel will confine her +ambition to orchids and literature. I believe she writes poetry, and +some day she will be tempted to publish a small volume, I daresay. +'Æolian Echoes,' or 'Harp Strings,' or 'Broken Chords,' 'Consecutive +Fifths,' or something of that kind." +</P> + +<P> +"You believe!" exclaimed Vixen. "Surely you have read some of Lady +Mabel's poetry, or heard it read. She must have read some of her verses +to you." +</P> + +<P> +"Never. She is too reserved, and I am too candid. It would be a +dangerous experiment. I should inevitably say something rude. Mabel +adores Shelley and Browning; she reads Greek, too. Her poetry is sure +to be unintelligible, and I should expose my obtuseness of intellect. I +couldn't even look as if I understood it." +</P> + +<P> +"If I were Lady Mabel, I think under such circumstances I should leave +off writing poetry." +</P> + +<P> +"That would be quite absurd. Mabel has a hundred tastes which I do not +share with her. She is devoted to her garden and hot-houses. I hardly +know one flower from another, except the forest wildlings. She detests +horses and dogs. I am never happier than when among them. She reads +Æschylus as glibly as I can read a French newspaper. But she will make +an admirable mistress for Briarwood. She has just that tranquil +superiority which becomes the ruler of a large estate. You will see +what cottages and schools we shall build. There will not be a weed in +our allotment gardens, and our farm-labourers will get all the prizes +at cottage flower-shows." +</P> + +<P> +"You will hunt, of course?" +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally; don't you know that I am to have the hounds next year? It +was all arranged a few days ago. Poor Mabel was strongly opposed to the +plan. She thought it was the first stage on the road to ruin; but I +think I convinced her that it was the natural thing for the owner of +Briarwood; and the Duke was warmly in favour of it." +</P> + +<P> +"The dear old kennels!" said Vixen, "I have never seen them +since—since I came home. I ride by the gate very often, but I have +never had the courage to go inside. The hounds wouldn't know me now." +</P> + +<P> +"You must renew your friendship with them. You will hunt, of course, +next year?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I shall never hunt again!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, nonsense; I hear that Captain Winstanley is a mighty Nimrod—quite +a Leicestershire man. He will wish you to hunt." +</P> + +<P> +"What can Captain Winstanley have to do with it?" asked Vixen, turning +sharply upon him. +</P> + +<P> +"A great deal, I should imagine, by next season." +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't the least idea what you mean." +</P> + +<P> +It was Roderick Vawdrey's turn to look astonished. He looked both +surprised and angry. +</P> + +<P> +"How fond young ladies are of making mysteries about these things," he +exclaimed impatiently; "I suppose they think it enhances their +importance. Have I made a mistake? Have my informants misled me? Is +your engagement to Captain Winstanley not to be talked about yet—only +an understood thing among your own particular friends? Let me at least +be allowed the privilege of intimate friendship. Let me be among the +first to congratulate you." +</P> + +<P> +"What folly have you been listening to?" cried Vixen; "you, Roderick +Vawdrey, my old play-fellow—almost an adopted brother—to know me so +little." +</P> + +<P> +"What could I know of you to prevent my believing what I was told? Was +there anything strange in the idea that you should be engaged to +Captain Winstanley? I heard that he was a universal favourite." +</P> + +<P> +"And did you think that I should like a universal favourite?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you not? It seemed credible enough, and my informant was +positive; he saw you together at a picnic in Switzerland. It was looked +upon as a settled thing by all your friends." +</P> + +<P> +"By Captain Winstanley's friends, you mean. They may have looked upon +it as a settled thing that he should marry someone with plenty of +money, and they may have thought that my money would be as useful as +anyone else's." +</P> + +<P> +"Violet, are you mystifying me? are you trying to drive me crazy? or is +this the simple truth?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is the simple truth." +</P> + +<P> +"You are not engaged to this man?—you never have been?—you don't care +for him, never have cared for him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never, never, never, never!" said Violet, with unmistakable emphasis. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I have been the most consummate——" +</P> + +<P> +He did not finish his sentence, and Violet did not ask him to finish +it. The ejaculation seemed involuntary. He sat staring at the palms, +and said nothing for the next minute and a half, while Vixen unfurled +her great black and gold fan, and looked at it admiringly, as if she +had never seen it before. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you really think those palms will break through the roof again in +the present Lord Southminster's time?" Roderick inquired presently, +with intense interest. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen did not feel herself called upon to reply to a question so purely +speculative. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I had better go and look for mamma and Mrs. Scobel," she said; +"they must have come back from the supper-room by this time." +</P> + +<P> +Roderick rose and offered her his arm. She was surprised to see how +pale he looked when they came out of the dusk into the brilliant light +of the gallery. But in a heated room, and between two and three o'clock +in the morning, a man may naturally be a little paler than usual. +</P> + +<P> +Roderick took Violet straight to the end of the room, where his quick +eye had espied Mrs. Tempest in her striking black and scarlet costume. +He said nothing more about the Duchess or Lady Mabel; and, indeed, took +Violet past the elder lady, who was sitting in one of the deep-set +windows with Lady Southminster, without attempting to bring about any +interchange of civilities. +</P> + +<P> +"Captain Winstanley has been kind enough to go and look for the +carriage, Violet," said Mrs. Tempest. "I told him we would join him in +the vestibule directly I could find you. Where have you been all this +time? You were not in the Lancers. Such a pretty set. Oh, here is Mrs. +Scobel!" as the Vicar's wife approached them on her partner's arm, in a +piteous state of dilapidation—not a bit of tulle puffing left, and all +her rosebuds crushed as flat as dandelions. +</P> + +<P> +"Such a delightful set!" she exclaimed gaspingly. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid your dress has suffered," said her partner. +</P> + +<P> +"Not in the least." protested Mrs. Scobel, with the fortitude of that +ladylike martyr to a clumsy carver, celebrated by Sydney Smith, who, +splashed from head to foot, and with rills of brown gravy trickling +down her countenance, vowed that not a drop had reached her. +</P> + +<P> +"This," says the reverend wit, "I esteem the highest triumph of +civilisation." +</P> + +<P> +"Your carriage will be the third," the captain told Mrs. Tempest, while +Roderick was putting Violet's cloak round her in the vestibule; "there +are a good many people leaving already." +</P> + +<P> +Roderick went with them to the carriage door, and stayed in the porch +till they were gone. The last object Vixen saw under the Southminster +lamps was the pale grave face of her old playfellow. +</P> + +<P> +He went straight from the porch to the supper-room, not to find himself +a place at one of the snug little tables, but to go to the buffet and +pour out a glass of brandy, which he drank at a draught. Yet, in a +general way, there was no man more abstemious than Roderick Vawdrey. +</P> + +<P> +A quarter of an hour afterwards he was waltzing with Lady +Mabel—positively the last dance before their departure. +</P> + +<P> +"Roderick," she said in an awe-stricken undertone, "I am going to say +something very dreadful. Please forgive me in advance." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly," he said, with a somewhat apprehensive look. +</P> + +<P> +"Just now, when you were talking to me, I fancied you had been drinking +brandy." +</P> + +<P> +"I had." +</P> + +<P> +"Absolute undiluted brandy!" +</P> + +<P> +"Neat brandy, sometimes denominated 'short.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Good heavens! were you ill?" +</P> + +<P> +"I had had what people call 'a turn.'" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVII. +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +Where the Red King was slain. +</H3> + +<P> +May had come. The red glow of the beech-branches had changed to a +tender green; the oaks were amber; the winding forest-paths, the deep +inaccessible glades where the cattle led such a happy life, were blue +with dog-violets and golden with primroses. Whitsuntide was close at +hand, and good Mr. Scobel had given up his mind to church decoration, +and the entertainment of his school-children with tea and buns in that +delightful valley, where an iron monument, a little less artistic than +a pillar post-office marks the spot where the Red King fell. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen, though not particularly fond of school-feasts, had promised to +assist at this one. It was not to be a stiff or ceremonious affair. +There was to be no bevy of young ladies, oppressively attentive to +their small charges, causing the children to drink scalding tea in a +paroxysm of shyness. The whole thing was to be done in an easy and +friendly manner; with no aid but that of the school-mistress and +master. The magnates of the land were to have no part in the festival. +</P> + +<P> +"The children enjoy themselves so much more when there are no +finely-dressed people making believe to wait upon them," said Mrs. +Scobel; "but I know they'll be delighted to have you, Violet. They +positively adore you!" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure I can't imagine why they should," answered Violet truthfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but they do. They like to look at you. When you come into the +school-room they're all in a flutter; and they point at you awfully, +don't they, Miss Pierson?" said Mrs. Scobel, appealing to the +school-mistress. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am. I can't cure them of pointing, do what I will." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, they are dear little children," exclaimed Violet, "and I don't +care how much they point at me if they really like me. They make me +such nice little bob-curtsies when I meet them in the Forest, and they +all seem fond of Argus. I'm sure you have made them extremely polite, +Miss Pierson. I shall be very pleased to come to your school-feast, +Mrs. Scobel; and I'll tell our good old Trimmer to make no end of +cakes." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Violet, pray don't think of putting Mrs. Trimmer to any +trouble. Your dear mamma might be angry." +</P> + +<P> +"Angry at my asking for some cakes for the school-children, after being +papa's wife for seventeen years! That couldn't be." +</P> + +<P> +The school-feast was fixed, three weeks in advance, for the Wednesday +in Whitsun week, and during the interval there were many small +meteorologists in Beechdale school intent upon the changes of the moon, +and all those varied phenomena from which the rustic mind draws its +auguries of coming weather. The very crowing of early village cocks was +regarded suspiciously by the school children at this period; and even +the harmless domestic pussy, sitting with his back to the fire, was +deemed a cat of evil omen. +</P> + +<P> +It happened that the appointed Wednesday was a day on which Mrs. +Tempest had chosen to invite a few friends in a quiet way to her seven +o'clock dinner; among the few Captain Winstanley, who had taken Mrs. +Hawbuck's cottage for an extended period of three months. Mrs. Tempest +had known all about the school-feast a fortnight before she gave her +invitations, but had forgotten the date at the moment when she arranged +her little dinner. Yet she felt offended that Violet should insist upon +keeping her engagement to the Scobels. +</P> + +<P> +"But, dear mamma, I am of no use to you at our parties," pleaded Vixen; +"if I were at all necessary to your comfort I would give up the +school-feast." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear Violet, it is not my comfort I am considering; but I cannot +help feeling annoyed that you should prefer to spend your evening with +a herd of vulgar children—playing Oranges and Lemons, or Kiss in the +Ring, or some other ridiculous game, and getting yourself into a most +unbecoming perspiration—to a quiet home evening with a few friends." +</P> + +<P> +"You see, mamma, I know our quiet home evenings with a few friends so +well. I could tell you beforehand exactly what will happen, almost the +very words people will say—how your <I>jardinières</I> will be admired, and +how the conversation will glance off from your ferns and pelargoniums +to Lady Ellangowan's orchids, and then drift back to your old china; +after which the ladies will begin to talk about dress, and the +wickedness of giving seven guineas for a summer bonnet, as Mrs Jones, +or Green, or Robinson has just done; from which their talk will glide +insensibly to the iniquities of modern servants; and when those have +been discussed exhaustively, one of the younger ladies will tell you +the plot of the last novel she has had from Mudie's, with an infinite +number of you knows and you sees, and then perhaps Captain +Winstanley—he is coming, I suppose—will sing a French song, of which +the company will understand about four words in every verse, and then +you will show Mrs. Carteret your last piece of art needlework—" +</P> + +<P> +"What nonsense you talk, Violet. However, if you prefer the children at +Stony Cross to the society of your mother and your mother's friends, +you must take your own way." +</P> + +<P> +"And you will forgive me in advance, dear mamma?" +</P> + +<P> +"My love, I have nothing to forgive. I only deplore a bent of mind +which I can but think unladylike." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen was glad to be let off with so brief a lecture. In her heart of +hearts she was not at all sorry that her mother's friendly dinner +should fall on a day which she had promised to spend elsewhere. It was +a treat to escape the sameness of that polite entertainment. Yes, +Captain Winstanley was to be there of course, and prolonged +acquaintance had not lessened her dislike to that gentleman. She had +seen him frequently during his residence at the Hawbuck cottage, not at +her mother's house only, but at all the best houses in the +neighbourhood. He had done nothing to offend her. He had been +studiously polite; and that was all. Not by one word had he reminded +Violet of that moonlight walk in the Pavilion garden; not by so much as +a glance or a sigh had he hinted at a hidden passion. So far she could +make no complaint against him. But the attrition of frequent +intercourse did not wear off the sharp edge of her dislike. +</P> + +<P> +Wednesday afternoon came, and any evil auguries that had been drawn +from the noontide crowing of restless village cocks was set at naught, +for the weather was peerless: a midsummer sky and golden sunlight shone +upon all things; upon white-walled cottages and orchards, and gardens +where the pure lilies were beginning to blow, upon the yellow-green oak +leaves and deepening bloom of the beech, and the long straight roads +cleaving the heart of the Forest. +</P> + +<P> +Violet had arranged to drive Mr. and Mrs. Scobel in her pony-carriage. +She was at the door of their snug little Vicarage at three o'clock; the +vivacious Titmouse tossing his head and jingling his bit in a burst of +pettishness at the aggravating behaviour of the flies. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Scobel came fluttering out, with the Vicar behind her. Both +carried baskets, and behind them came an old servant, who had been Mrs. +Scobel's nurse, a woman with a figure like a hogshead of wine, and a +funny little head at the top, carrying a third basket. +</P> + +<P> +"The buns and bread have gone straight from the village," said the +Vicar's wife. "How well you are looking, Violet. I hope dear Mrs. +Tempest was not very angry at your coming with us." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Mrs. Tempest didn't care a straw," Vixen answered, laughing. "But +she thinks me wanting in dignity for liking to have a romp with the +school-children." +</P> + +<P> +All the baskets were in by this time, and Titmouse was in a paroxysm of +impatience; so Mr. and Mrs. Scobel seated themselves quickly, and Vixen +gave her reins a little shake that meant Go, and off went the pony at a +pace which was rather like running away. +</P> + +<P> +The Vicar looked slightly uneasy. +</P> + +<P> +"Does he always go as fast as this?" he inquired. +</P> + +<P> +"Sometimes a good deal faster. He's an old fencer, you know, and hasn't +forgotten his jumping days. But of course I don't let him jump with the +carriage." +</P> + +<P> +"I should think not," ejaculated the Vicar; "unless you wanted to +commit murder and suicide. Don't you think you could make him go a +little steadier? He's going rather like a dog with a tin kettle at his +tail, and if the kettle were to tip over——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he'll settle down presently," said Vixen coolly. "I don't want to +interfere with him; it makes him ill-tempered. And if he were to take +to kicking——" +</P> + +<P> +"If you'll pull him up, I think I'll get out and walk," said Mr. +Scobel, the back of whose head was on a level with the circle which the +pony's hoofs would have been likely to describe in the event of kicking. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, please don't!" cried Vixen. "If you do that I shall think you've +no confidence in my driving." +</P> + +<P> +She pulled Titmouse together, and coaxed him into an unobjectionable +trot; a trot which travelled over the ground very fast, without giving +the occupants of the carriage the uncomfortable sensation of sitting +behind a pony intent on getting to the sharp edge of the horizon and +throwing himself over. +</P> + +<P> +They were going up a long hill. Halfway up they came to the gate of the +kennels. Violet looked at it with a curious half-reluctant glance that +expressed the keenest pain. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor papa," she sighed. "He never seemed happier than when he used to +take me to see the hounds." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Vawdrey is to have them next year," said Mrs. Scobel. "That seems +right and proper. He will be the biggest man in this part of the +country when the Ashbourne and Briarwood estates are united. And the +Duke cannot live very long—a man who gives his mind to eating and +drinking, and is laid up with the gout twice a year." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know when they are to be married?" asked Vixen, with an +unconcerned air. +</P> + +<P> +"At the end of this year, I am told. Lady Jane died last November. They +would hardly have the wedding before a twelvemonth was over. Have you +seen much of Mr. Vawdrey since he came back?" +</P> + +<P> +"I believe I have seen him three times: once at Lady Southminster's +ball; once when he came to call upon mamma; once at kettledrum at +Ellangowan, where he was in attendance upon Lady Mabel. He looked +rather like a little dog at the end of a string; he had just that +meekly-obedient look, combined with an expression of not wanting to be +there, which you see in a dog. If I were engaged, I would not take my +<I>fiancée</I> to kettledrums." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Violet, when are you going to be engaged?" cried Mrs. Scobel, in a +burst of playfulness. "Where is the man worthy of you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nowhere; unless Heaven would make me such a man as my father." +</P> + +<P> +"You and Mr. Vawdrey were such friends when you were girl and boy. I +used sometimes to fancy that childish friendship of yours would lead to +a lasting attachment." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you? That was a great mistake. I am not half good enough for Mr. +Vawdrey. I was well enough for a playfellow, but he wants something +much nearer perfection in a wife." +</P> + +<P> +"But your tastes are so similar." +</P> + +<P> +"The very reason we should not care for each other." +</P> + +<P> +"'In joining contrasts lieth love's delight.' That's what a poet has +said, yet I can't quite believe that, Violet." +</P> + +<P> +"But you see the event proves the poet's axiom true. Here is my old +playfellow, who cares for nothing but horses and hounds and a country +life, devotedly attached to Lady Mabel Ashbourne, who reads Greek plays +with as much enjoyment as other young ladies derive from a stirring +novel, and who hasn't an idea or an attitude that is not strictly +aesthetic." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know, Violet, I am very much afraid that this marriage is +rather the result of calculation than of genuine affection?" said Mrs. +Scobel solemnly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no doubt it will be a grand thing to unite Ashbourne and +Briarwood, but Roderick Vawdrey is too honourable to marry a girl he +could not love. I would never believe him capable of such baseness," +answered Violet, standing up for her old friend. +</P> + +<P> +Here they turned out of the Forest and drove through a peaceful colony +consisting of half-a-dozen cottages, a rustic inn where reigned a +supreme silence and sleepiness, and two or three houses in old-world +gardens. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen changed the conversation to buns and school-children, which +agreeable theme occupied them till Titmouse had walked up a +tremendously steep hill, the Vicar trudging through the dust beside +him; and then the deep green vale in which Rufus was slain lay smiling +in the sunshine below their feet. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps the panorama to be seen from the top of that hill is absolutely +the finest in the Forest—a vast champaign, stretching far away to the +white walls, tiled roofs, and ancient abbey-church of Romsey; here a +glimpse of winding water, there a humble village—nameless save for its +inhabitants—nestling among the trees, or basking in the broad sunshine +of a common. +</P> + +<P> +At the top of the hill, Bates, the gray-headed groom, who had attended +Violet ever since her first pony-ride, took possession of Titmouse and +the chaise, while the baskets were handed over to a lad, who had been +on the watch for their arrival. Then they all went down the steep path +into the valley, at the bottom of which the children were swarming in a +cluster, as thick as bees, while a pale flame and a cloud of white +smoke went up from the midst of them like the fire beneath a sacrifice. +This indicated the boiling of the kettle, in true gipsy fashion. +</P> + +<P> +For the next hour and a half tea-drinking was the all-absorbing +business with everybody. The boiling of the kettle was a grand feature +in the entertainment. Cups and saucers were provided by a little colony +of civilised gipsies, who seem indigenous to the spot, and whose summer +life is devoted to assisting at picnics and tea-drinkings, telling +fortunes, and selling photographs. White cloths were spread upon the +short sweet turf, and piles of bread-and-butter, cake and buns, invited +the attention of the flies. +</P> + +<P> +Presently arose the thrilling melody of a choral grace, with the sweet +embellishment of a strong Hampshire accent. And then, with a swoop as +of eagles on their quarry, the school-children came down upon the +mountains of bread-and-butter, and ate their way manfully to the buns +and cake. +</P> + +<P> +Violet had never been happier since her return to Hampshire than she +felt that sunny afternoon, as she moved quickly about, ministering to +these juvenile devourers. The sight of their somewhat bovine +contentment took her thoughts away from her own cares and losses; and +presently, when the banquet was concluded—a conclusion only arrived at +by the total consumption of everything provided, whereby the +hungry-eyed gipsy attendants sunk into despondency—Vixen constituted +herself Lord of Misrule, and led off a noisy procession in the +time-honoured game of Oranges and Lemons, which entertainment continued +till the school-children were in a high fever. After this they had Kiss +in the Ring; Vixen only stipulating, before she began, that nobody +should presume to drop the handkerchief before her. Then came +Touchwood—a game charmingly adapted to that wooded valley, where the +trees looked as if they had been planted at convenient distances on +purpose for this juvenile sport. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I am so tired," cried Violet at last, when church clocks—all out +of earshot in this deep valley—were striking eight, and the low sun +was golden on the silvery beech-boles, and the quiet half-hidden +water-pools under the trees yonder; "I really don't think I can have +anything to do with the next game." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, if you please, miss," cried twenty shrill young voices, "oh, if +you please, miss, we couldn't play without you—you're the best on us!" +</P> + +<P> +This soothing flattery had its effect. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but I really don't think I can do more than start you," sighed +Vixen, flushed and breathless, "what is it to be?" +</P> + +<P> +"Blindman's Buff," roared the boys. +</P> + +<P> +"Hunt the Slipper," screamed the girls. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Blindman's Buff is best," said Vixen. "This little wood is a +splendid place for Blindman's Buff. But mind, I shall only start you. +Now then, who's to be Blindman?" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Scobel volunteered. He had been a tranquil spectator of the sports +hitherto; but this was the last game, and he felt that he ought to do +something more than look on. Vixen blindfolded him, asked him the usual +question about his father's stable, and then sent him spinning amongst +the moss-grown beeches, groping his way fearfully, with outstretched +arms, amidst shrillest laughter and noisiest delight. +</P> + +<P> +He was not long blindfold, and had not had many bumps against the trees +before he impounded the person of a fat and scant-of-breath scholar, a +girl whose hard breathing would have betrayed her neighbourhood to the +dullest ear. +</P> + +<P> +"That's Polly Sims, I know," said the Vicar. +</P> + +<P> +It was Polly Sims, who was incontinently made as blind as Fortune or +Justice, or any other of the deities who dispense benefits to man. +Polly floundered about among the trees for a long time, making frantic +efforts to catch the empty air, panting like a human steam-engine, and +nearly knocking out what small amount of brains she might possess +against the gray branches, outstretched like the lean arms of Macbeth's +weird women across her path. Finally Polly Sims succeeded in catching +Bobby Jones, whom she clutched with the tenacity of an octopus; and +then came the reign of Bobby Jones, who was an expert at the game, and +who kept the whole party on the <I>qui vive</I> by his serpentine windings +and twistings among the stout old trunks. +</P> + +<P> +Presently there was a shrill yell of triumph. Bobby had caught Miss +Tempest. +</P> + +<P> +"I know'd her by her musling gownd, and the sweet-smelling stuff upon +her pocket-handkercher," he roared. +</P> + +<P> +Violet submitted with a good grace. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm dreadfully tired," she said, "and I'm sure I shan't catch anyone." +</P> + +<P> +The sun had been getting lower and lower. There were splashes of ruddy +light on the smooth gray beech-boles, and that was all. Soon these +would fade, and all would be gloom. The grove had an awful look +already. One would expect to meet some ghostly Druid, or some witch of +eld, among the shadowy tracks left by the forest wildings. Vixen went +about her work languidly. She was really tired, and was glad to think +her day's labours were over. She went slowly in and out among the +trees, feeling her way with outstretched arms, her feet sinking +sometimes into deep drifts of last year's leaves, or gliding +noiselessly over the moss. The air was soft and cool and dewy, with a +perfume of nameless wild flowers—a faint aromatic odour of herbs, +which the wise women had gathered for medicinal uses in days of old, +when your village sorceress was your safest doctor. Everywhere there +was the hush and coolness of fast-coming night. The children's voices +were stilled. This last stage of the game was a thing of breathless +interest. +</P> + +<P> +Vixen's footsteps drifted lower down into the wooded hollow; insensibly +she was coming towards the edge of the treacherously green bog which +has brought many a bold rider to grief in these districts, and still +she had caught no one. She began to think that she had roamed ever so +far away, and was in danger of losing herself altogether, or at least +losing everybody else, and being left by herself in the forest +darkness. The grassy hollow in which she was wandering had an +atmosphere of solitude. +</P> + +<P> +She was on the point of taking off the handkerchief that Mr. Scobel had +bound so effectually across her eyes, when her outstretched hands +clasped something—a substantial figure, distinctly human, clad in +rough cloth. +</P> + +<P> +Before she had time to think who it was she had captured, a pair of +strong arms clasped her; she was drawn to a broad chest; she felt a +heart beating strong and fast against her shoulder, while lips that +seemed too familiar to offend kissed hers with all the passion of a +lover's kiss. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be angry," said a well-known voice; "I believe it's the rule of +the game. If it isn't I'm sure it ought to be." +</P> + +<P> +A hand, at once strong and gentle, took off the handkerchief, and in +the soft woodland twilight she looked up at Roderick Vawdrey's face, +looking down upon her with an expression which she presumed must mean a +brotherly friendliness—the delight of an old friend at seeing her +after a long interval. +</P> + +<P> +She was not the less angry at that outrageous unwarrantable kiss. +</P> + +<P> +"It is not the rule of the game amongst civilised people; though it +possibly may be among plough-boys and servant-maids!" she exclaimed +indignantly. "You are really a most ungentlemanlike person! I wonder +Lady Mabel Ashbourne has not taught you better manners." +</P> + +<P> +"Is that to be my only reward for saving you from plunging—at least +ankle-deep—in the marshy ground yonder? But for me you would have been +performing a boggy version of Ophelia by this time." +</P> + +<P> +"How did you come here?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have been to Langley Brook for a day's fly-fishing, and was tramping +home across country in a savage humour at my poor sport, when I heard +the chatter of small voices, and presently came upon the Scobels and +the school-children. The juveniles were in a state of alarm at having +lost you. They had been playing the game in severe silence, and at a +turn in the grove missed you altogether. Oh, here comes Scobel, with +his trencher on the back of his head." +</P> + +<P> +The Vicar came forward, rejoicing at sight of Violet's white gown. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, what a turn you have given us!" he cried; "those silly +children, to let you out of their sight! I don't think a wood is a good +place for Blindman's Buff." +</P> + +<P> +"No more do I," answered Vixen, very pale. +</P> + +<P> +"You look as if you had been frightened, too," said the Vicar. +</P> + +<P> +"It did feel awfully lonely; not a sound, except the frogs croaking +their vespers, and one dismal owl screaming in the distance. And how +cold it has turned now the sun has gone down; and how ghostly the +beeches look in their green mantles; there is something awful in a wood +at sunset." +</P> + +<P> +She ran on in an excited tone, masking her agitation under +an unnatural vivacity. Roderick watched her keenly. Mr. and Mrs. Scobel +went back to their business of getting the children together, and the +pots, pans, and baskets packed for the return-journey. The children +were inclined to be noisy and insubordinate. They would have liked to +make a night of it in this woody hollow, or in the gorse-clothed +heights up yonder by Stony Cross. To go home after such a festival, and be +herded in small stuffy cottages, was doubtless trying to free-born +humanity, always more or less envious of the gipsies. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall we walk up the hill together?" Roderick asked Violet humbly, +"while the Scobels follow with their flock?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am going to drive Mr. and Mrs. Scobel," replied Vixen curtly. +</P> + +<P> +"But where is your carriage?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don t know. I rather think it was to meet us at the top of the hill." +</P> + +<P> +"Then let us go up together and find it—unless you hate me too much to +endure my company for a quarter of an hour—or are too angry with me +for my impertinence just now." +</P> + +<P> +"It is not worth being serious about," answered Vixen quietly, after a +little pause. "I was very angry at the moment, but after all—between +you and me—who were like brother and sister a few years ago, it can't +matter very much. I daresay you may have kissed me in those days, +though I have forgotten all about it." +</P> + +<P> +"I think I did—once or twice," admitted Rorie with laudable gravity. +</P> + +<P> +"Then let your impertinence just now go down to the old account, which +we will close, if you please, to-night. But," seeing him drawing nearer +her with a sudden eagerness, "mind, it is never to be repeated. I could +not forgive that." +</P> + +<P> +"I would do much to escape your anger," said Rorie softly. +</P> + +<P> +"The whole situation just now was too ridiculous," pursued Vixen, with +a spurious hilarity. "A young woman wandering blindfold in a wood all +alone—it must have seemed very absurd." +</P> + +<P> +"It seemed very far from absurd—to me," said Rorie. +</P> + +<P> +They were going slowly up the grassy hill, the short scanty herbage +looking gray in the dimness. Glow-worms were beginning to shine here +and there at the foot of the furze-bushes. A pale moon was rising above +the broad expanse of wood and valley, which sank with gentle +undulations to the distant plains, where the young corn was growing and +the cattle were grazing in a sober agricultural district. Here all was +wild and beautiful—rich, yet barren. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid when we met last—at Lady Southminster's ball—that I +forgot to congratulate you upon your engagement to your cousin," said +Violet by-and-by, when they had walked a little way in perfect silence. +</P> + +<P> +She was trying to carry out an old determination. She had always meant +to go up to him frankly, with outstretched hand, and wish him joy. And +she fancied that at the ball she had said too little. She had not let +him understand that she was really glad. "Believe me, I am very glad +that you should marry someone close at home—that you should widen your +influence among us." +</P> + +<P> +"You are very kind," answered Rorie, with exceeding coldness. "I +suppose all such engagements are subjects for congratulation, from a +conventional point of view. My future wife is both amiable and +accomplished, as you know. I have reason to be very proud that she has +done me so great an honour as to prefer me to many worthier suitors; +but I am bound to tell you—as we once before spoke of this subject, at +the time of your dear father's death, and I then expressed myself +somewhat strongly—I am bound to tell you that my engagement to Mabel +was made to please my poor mother. It was when we were all in Italy +together. My mother was dying. Mabel's goodness and devotion to her had +been beyond all praise; and my heart was drawn to her by affection, by +gratitude; and I knew that it would make poor mother happy to see us +irrevocably bound to each other—and so—the thing came about somehow, +almost unawares, and I have every reason to be proud and happy that +fate should have favoured me so far above my deserts." +</P> + +<P> +"I am very glad that you are happy," said Violet gently. +</P> + +<P> +After this there was a silence which lasted longer than the previous +interval in their talk. They were at the top of the ill before either +of them spoke. +</P> + +<P> +Then Vixen laid her hand lightly upon her old playfellow's arm, and +said, with extreme earnestness: +</P> + +<P> +"You will go into Parliament by-and-by, no doubt, and have great +influence. Do not let them spoil the Forest. Do not let horrid +grinding-down economists, for the sake of saving a few pounds or +gaining a few pounds, alter and destroy scenes that are so beautiful +and a delight to so many. England is a rich country, is she not? Surely +she can afford to keep something for her painters and her poets, and +even for the humble holiday-folks who come to drink tea at Rufus's +stone. Don't let our Forest be altered, Rorie. Let all things be as +they were when we were children." +</P> + +<P> +"All that my voice and influence can do to keep them so shall be done, +Violet," he answered in tones as earnest. "I am glad that you have +asked me something to-night. I am glad, with all my heart, that you +have given me something to do for you. It shall be like a badge in my +helmet, by-and-by, when I enter the lists. I think I shall say: 'For +God and for Violet,' when I run a tilt against the economic devastators +who want to clear our woods and cut off our commoners." +</P> + +<P> +He bent down and kissed her hand, as in token of knightly allegiance. +He had just time to do it comfortably before Mr. and Mrs. Scobel, with +the children and their master and mistress, came marching up the hill, +singing, with shrill glad voices, one of the harvest-home processional +hymns. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "All good gifts around us<BR> + Are sent from heaven above,<BR> + Then thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord,<BR> + For all His love."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"What a delicious night!" cried Mr. Scobel. "I think we ought all to +walk home. It would be much nicer than being driven." +</P> + +<P> +This he said with a lively recollection of Titmouse's performances on +the journey out, and a lurking dread that he might behave a little +worse on the journey home. A lively animal of that kind, going home to +his stable, through the uncertain lights and shadows of woodland roads, +and driven by such a charioteer as Violet Tempest, was not to be +thought of without a shudder. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I had better walk, in any case," said Mr. Scobel thoughtfully. +"I shall be wanted to keep the children together." +</P> + +<P> +"Let us all walk home," suggested Roderick. "We can go through the +plantations. It will be very jolly in the moonlight. Bates can drive +your pony back, Violet." +</P> + +<P> +Vixen hesitated. +</P> + +<P> +"It's not more than four miles through the plantations," said Roderick. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think I am afraid of a long walk?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course not. You were a modern Atalanta three years ago. I don't +suppose a winter in Paris and a season at Brighton have quite spoiled +you." +</P> + +<P> +"It shall be as you like, Mrs. Scobel," said Vixen, appealing to the +Vicar's wife. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, let us walk by all means," replied Mrs. Scobel, divining her +husband's feelings with respect to Titmouse. +</P> + +<P> +"Then, you may drive the pony home, Bates," said Violet; "and be sure +you give him a good supper." +</P> + +<P> +Titmouse went rattling down the hill at a pace that almost justified +the Vicar's objection to him. He gave a desperate shy in the hollow at +sight of a shaggy donkey, with a swollen appearance about the head, +suggestive, to the equine mind, of hobgoblins. Convulsed at this +appalling spectre, Titmouse stood on end for a second or two, and then +tore violently off, swinging his carriage behind him, so that the +groom's figure swayed to and fro in the moonlight. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God we're not sitting behind that brute!" ejaculated the Vicar +devoutly. +</P> + +<P> +The pedestrians went off in the other direction, along the brow of the +hill, by a long white road that crossed a wide sweep of heathy country, +brown ridges and dark hollows, distant groups of firs standing black +against the moonlit sky, here and there a solitary yew that looked as +if it were haunted—just such a landscape as that Scottish heath upon +which Macbeth met the three weird women at set of sun, when the battle +was lost and won. Vixen and Rorie led the way; the procession of +school-children followed, singing hymns as they went with a vocal power +that gave no token of diminution. +</P> + +<P> +"Their singing is very melodious when the sharp edge is taken off by +distance," said Rorie; and he and Violet walked at a pace which soon +left the children a good way behind them. +</P> + +<P> +Mellowed by a quarter of a mile or so of interesting space, the music +lent a charm to the tranquil, perfumed night. +</P> + +<P> +By-and-by they came to the gate of an enclosure which covered a large +extent of ground, and through which there was a near way to Beechdale +and the Abbey House. They walked along a grassy track through a +plantation of young pines—a track which led them down into a green and +mossy bottom, where the trees were old and beautiful, and the shadows +fell darker. The tall beech-trunks shone like silver, or like wonderful +frozen trees in some region of eternal ice and snow. It was a +wilderness in which a stranger would incontinently lose himself; but +every foot of the way was familiar to Vixen and Rorie. They had +followed the hounds by these green ways, and ridden and rambled here in +all seasons. +</P> + +<P> +For some time they walked almost in silence, enjoying the beauty of the +night, the stillness only broken by the distant chorus of children +singing their pious strains—old hymn-tunes that Violet had known and +loved all her life. +</P> + +<P> +"Doesn't it almost seem as if our old childish days had come back?" +said Roderick by-and-by. "Don't you feel as if you were a little girl +again, Vixen, going for a ramble with me—fern-hunting or +primrose-gathering?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," answered Vixen firmly. "Nothing can ever bring the past back for +me. I shall never forget that I had a father—the best and dearest—and +that I have lost him." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Violet," Roderick began, very gently, "life cannot be made up of +mourning for the dead. We may keep their images enshrined in our hearts +for ever, but we must not shut our youth from the sunshine. Think how +few years of youth God gives us; and if we waste those upon vain +sorrow——" +</P> + +<P> +"No one can say that I have wasted my youth, or shut myself from the +sunshine. I go to kettle-drums and dancing-parties. My mother and I +have taken pains to let the world see how happy we can be without papa." +</P> + +<P> +"The dear old Squire!" said Rorie tenderly; "I think he loved me." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure he did," answered Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you and I seem to have entered upon a new life since last we +rode through these woods together. I daresay you are right, and that it +is not possible to fancy oneself back in the past, even for a moment. +Consciousness of the present hangs so heavily upon us." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," assented Vixen. +</P> + +<P> +They had come to the end of the enclosure, and stood leaning against a +gate, waiting for the arrival of the children. +</P> + +<P> +"And after all, perhaps, it is better to live in the present, and look +back at the past, as at an old picture which we shall sooner or later +turn with its face to the wall." +</P> + +<P> +"I like best to think of my old self as if it were someone else," said +Violet. "I know there was a little girl whom her father called Vixen, +who used to ride after the hounds, and roam about the Forest on her +pony; and who was herself almost as wild as the Forest ponies. But I +can't associate her with this present me," concluded Violet, pointing +to herself with a half-scornful gesture. +</P> + +<P> +"And which is the better, do you think," asked Rorie, "the wild Violet +of the past, or the elegant exotic of the present?" +</P> + +<P> +"I know which was the happier." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah," sighed Rorie, "happiness is a habit we outgrow when we get out of +our teens. But you, at nineteen, ought to have a year or so to the +good." +</P> + +<P> +The children came in sight, tramping along the rutty green walk, +singing lustily, Mr. Scobel walking at their head, and swinging his +stick in time with the tuneful choir. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "He only is the Maker<BR> + Of all things near and far;<BR> + He paints the wayside flower,<BR> + He lights the evening star."<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3> +END OF VOL. I. +</H3> + +<BR><BR> + +<H5> +PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<PRE> +Transcriber's note: Typographical errors silently corrected: + +volume 1 =XI. "It shall be Measure for Measure= replaced by + =XI. "It shall be Measure for Measure"=< + +volume 1 chapter 1: =trainante= replaced by =traînante= + +volume 1 chapter 4: =I I shan't be for two years= replaced by + =I shan't be for two years= + +volume 1 chapter 12: =with the orchid?= replaced by + =with the orchid.= + +volume 1 chapter 12: =hade made him sleepy= replaced by + =had made him sleepy= + +volume 1 chapter 13: =cat species.= replaced by cat =species."= + +volume 1 chapter 15: =Les Traineaux= replaced by =Les Traîneaux= + +volume 1 chapter 17: =children together.= replaced by + =children together."= +</PRE> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vixen, Volume I., by M. E. 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Braddon + +Release Date: August 9, 2008 [EBook #26236] +[Last updated: June 14, 2013] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIXEN, VOLUME I. *** + + + + +Produced by Daniel Fromont. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + COLLECTION + OF + BRITISH AUTHORS + + TAUCHNITZ EDITION. + + VOL. 1809. + + VIXEN BY M. E. BRADDON + IN THREE VOLUMES. + VOL. I. + + TAUCHNITZ EDITION. + + + +VIXEN + + +A NOVEL + + +BY + +M. E. BRADDON, + +AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," ETC. ETC. + + +_COPYRIGHT EDITION_. + + +IN THREE VOLUMES. + +VOL. I. + + + + +By the same Author, + + LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET 2 vols. + AURORA FLOYD 2 vols. + ELEANOR'S VICTORY 2 vols. + JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY 2 vols. + HENRY DUNBAR 2 vols. + THE DOCTOR'S WIFE 2 vols. + ONLY A CLOD 2 vols. + SIR JASPER'S TENANT 2 vols. + THE LADY'S MILE 2 vols. + RUPERT GODWIN 2 vols. + DEAD-SEA FRUIT 2 vols. + RUN TO EARTH 2 vols. + FENTON'S QUEST 2 vols. + THE LOVELS OF ARDEN 2 vols. + STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS 2 vols. + LUCIUS DAVOREN 3 vols. + TAKEN AT THE FLOOD 3 vols. + LOST FOR LOVE 2 vols. + A STRANGE WORLD 2 vols. + HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE 2 vols. + DEAD MEN'S SHOES 2 vols. + JOSHUA HAGGARD'S DAUGHTER 2 vols. + WEAVERS AND WEFT 1 vol. + IN GREAT WATERS & OTHER TALES 1 vol. + AN OPEN VERDICT 3 vols. + + + + +LEIPZIG + +BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ + +1879. + + +_The Right of Translation is reserved_. + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. + + +CHAPTER I. A Pretty Horsebreaker + +CHAPTER II. Lady Jane Vawdrey + +CHAPTER III. "I Want a Little Serious Talk with You" + +CHAPTER IV. Rorie comes of Age + +CHAPTER V. Rorie makes a Speech + +CHAPTER VI. How She took the News + +CHAPTER VII. Rorie has Plans of his own + +CHAPTER VIII. Glas ist der Erde Stolz und Glueck + +CHAPTER IX. A House of Mourning + +CHAPTER X. Captain Winstanley + +CHAPTER XI. "It shall be Measure for Measure" + +CHAPTER XII. "I have no Wrong, where I can claim no Right" + +CHAPTER XIII. "He belongs to the Tame-Cat Species" + +CHAPTER XIV. "He was worthy to be loved a Lifetime" + +CHAPTER XV. Lady Southminster's Ball + +CHAPTER XVI. Rorie asks a Question + +CHAPTER XVII. Where the Red King was slain + + + +VIXEN. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A Pretty Horsebreaker. + +The moon had newly risen, a late October moon, a pale almost +imperceptible crescent, above the dark pine spires in the thicket +through which Roderick Vawdrey came, gun in hand, after a long day's +rabbit-shooting. It was not his nearest way home, but he liked the +broad clearing in the pine wood, which had a ghostly look at dusk, and +was so still and lonely that the dart of a squirrel through the fallen +leaves was a startling event. Here and there a sturdy young oak that +had been newly stripped of its bark lay among the fern, like the naked +corpse of a giant. Here and there a tree had been cut down and slung +across the track, ready for barking. The ground was soft and spongy, +slippery with damp dead leaves, and inclined in a general way to +bogginess; but it was ground that Roderick Vawdrey had known all his +life, and it seemed more natural to him than any other spot upon mother +earth. + +On the edge of this thicket there was a broad ditch, with more mud and +dead fern in it than water, a ditch strongly suspected of snakes, and +beyond the ditch the fence that enclosed Squire Tempest's domain--an +old manor house in the heart of the New Forest. It had been an abbey +before the Reformation, and was still best known as the Abbey House. + +"I wonder whether I'm too late to catch her," speculated Roderick, +shifting his bag from one shoulder to the other; "she's no end of fun." + +In front of the clearing there was a broad five-barred gate, and +beside the gate a keeper's cottage. The flame of a newly-lighted candle +flashed out suddenly upon the autumn dusk, while Roderick stood +looking at the gate. + +"I'll ask at the lodge," he said; "I should like to say good-bye to the +little thing before I go back to Oxford." + +He walked quickly on to the gate. The keeper's children were playing at +nothing particular just inside it. + +"Has Miss Tempest gone for her ride this afternoon?" he asked. + +"Ya-ase," drawled the eldest shock-headed youngster. + +"And not come back yet?" + +"Noa. If she doant take care her'll be bogged." + +Roderick hitched his bag on to the top of the gate, and stood at ease +waiting. It was late for the little lady of Tempest Manor to be out on +her pony; but then it was an understood thing within a radius of ten +miles or so that she was a self-willed young person, and even at +fifteen years of age she had a knack of following her own inclination +with that noble disregard of consequences which characterises the +heaven-born ruler. + +Mr. Vawdrey had not waited more than ten minutes when there came the +thud of hoofs upon the soft track, a flash of gray in the distance, +something flying over those forky branches sprawling across the way, +then a half-sweet, half-shrill call, like a bird's, at which the +keeper's children scattered themselves like a brood of scared chickens, +and now a rush, and a gray pony shooting suddenly into the air and +coming down on the other side of the gate, as if he were a new kind of +skyrocket. + +"What do you think of that, Rorie?" cried the shrill sweet voice of the +gray pony's rider! + +"I'm ashamed of you, Vixen," said Roderick, "you'll come to a bad end +some of these days." + +"I don't care if I do, as long as I get my fling first," replied Vixen, +tossing her tawny mane. + +She was a slim young thing, in a short Lincoln-green habit. She had a +small pale face, brown eyes that sparkled with life and mischief, and a +rippling mass of reddish-auburn hair falling down her back under a +coquettish little felt hat. + +"Hasn't your mamma forbidden jumping, Vixen?" remonstrated Roderick, +opening the gate and coming in. + +"Yes, that she has, sir," said the old groom, riding up at a jog-trot +on his thickset brown cob. "It's quite against Mrs. Tempest's orders, +and it's a great responsibility to go out with Miss Violet. She will do +it." + +"You mean the pony will do it, Bates," cried Vixen. "I don't jump. How +can I help it if papa has given me a jumping pony? If I didn't let +Titmouse take a gate when he was in the humour, he'd kick like old +boots, and pitch me a cropper. It's an instinct of self-preservation +that makes me let him jump. And as for poor dear, pretty little mamma," +continued Vixen, addressing herself to Roderick, and changing her tone +to one of patronising tenderness, "if she had her way, I should be +brought up in a little box wrapped in jeweller's wool, to keep me safe. +But you see I take after papa, Rorie; and it comes as natural to me to +fly over gates as it does to you to get ploughed for smalls. There, +Bates," jumping off the pony, "you may take Titmouse home, and I'll +come presently and give him some apples, for he has been a dear, +darling, precious treasure of a ponykins." + +She emphasised this commendation with a kiss on Titmouse's gray nose, +and handed the bridle to Bates. + +"I'm going to walk home with Mr. Vawdrey," she said. + +"But, Vixen, I can't, really," said Roderick; "I'm due at home at this +moment, only I couldn't leave without saying good-bye to little Vix." + +"And you're over due at Oxford, too, aren't you?" cried Vixen, +laughing; "you're always due somewhere--never in the right place. But +whether you are due or not, you're coming up to the stables with me to +give Titmouse his apples, and then you're coming to dine with us on +your last night at home. I insist upon it; papa insists; mamma +insists--we all insist." + +"My mother will be as angry as----" + +"Old boots!" interjected Vixen. "That's the best comparison I know." + +"Awfully vulgar for a young lady." + +"You taught it me. How can I help being vulgar when I associate with +you? You should hear Miss McCroke preach at me sermons so long"--here +Vixen extended her arms to the utmost--"and I'm afraid they'd make as +much impression on Titmouse as they do upon me. But she's a dear old +thing, and I love her immensely." + +This was Vixen's usual way, making up for all shortcomings with the +abundance of her love. The heart was always atoning for the errors of +the head. + +"I wouldn't be Miss McCroke for anything. She must have a bad time of +it with you." + +"She has," assented Vixen, with a remorseful sigh; "I fear I'm bringing +her sandy hairs with sorrow to the grave. That hair of hers never could +be gray, you know, it's too self-opinionated in its sandiness. Now come +along, Rorie, do. Titmouse will be stamping about his box like a maniac +if he doesn't get those apples." + +She gave a little tug with both her small doeskin-covered hands at +Roderick's arm. He was still standing by the gate irresolute, +inclination drawing him to the Abbey House, duty calling him home to +Briarwood, five miles off, where his widowed mother was expecting his +return. + +"My last night at home, Vix," he said remonstrantly; "I really ought to +dine with my mother." + +"Of course you ought, and that's the very reason why you'll dine with +us. So 'kim over, now,' as Bates says to the horses; I don't know what +there is for dinner," she added confidentially, "but I feel sure it's +something nice. Dinner is papa's particular vanity, you know. He's very +weak about dinner." + +"Not so weak as he is about you, Vixen." + +"Do you really think papa is as fond of me as he is of his dinner?" + +"I'm sure of it!" + +"Then he must be very fond of me," exclaimed Vixen, with conviction. +"Now, are you coming?" + +Who could resist those little soft hands in doeskin? Certainly not +Rorie. He resigned himself to the endurance of his mother's anger in +the future as a price to be paid for the indulgence of his inclination +in the present, gave Vixen his arm, and turned his face towards the +Abbey House. + +They walked through shrubberies that would have seemed a pathless +wilderness to a stranger, but every turn in which was familiar to these +two. The ground was undulating, and vast thickets of rhododendron and +azalea rose high above them, or sank in green valleys below their path. +Here and there a group of tall firs towered skyward above the dark +entanglement of shrubs, or a great beech spread its wide limbs over the +hollows; here and there a pool of water reflected the pale moonshine. + +The house lay low, sheltered and shut in by those rhododendron +thickets, a long, rambling pile of building, which had been added to, +and altered, and taken away from, and added to again, like that +well-known puzzle in mental arithmetic which used to amuse us in our +childhood. It was all gables, and chimney-stacks, and odd angles, and +ivy-mantled wall, and richly-mullioned windows, or quaint little +diamond-paned lattices, peeping like a watchful eye from under the +shadow of a jutting cornice. The stables had been added in Queen +Elizabeth's time, after the monks had been routed from their snug +quarters, and the Abbey had been bestowed upon one of the Tudor +favourites. These Elizabethan stables formed the four sides of a +quadrangle, stone-paved, with an old marble basin in the centre--a +basin which the Vicar pronounced to be an early Saxon font, but which +Squire Tempest refused to have removed from the place it had occupied +ever since the stables were built. There were curious carvings upon the +six sides, but so covered with mosses and lichens that nobody could +tell what they meant; and the Squire forbade any scraping process by +officious antiquarians, which might lead to somebody's forcible +appropriation of the ancient basin. + +The Squire was not so modern in his ideas as to set up his own +gasometer, so the stables were lighted by lanterns, with an oil-lamp +fixed here and there against the wall. Into this dim uncertain light +came Roderick and Vixen, through the deep stone archway which opened +from the shrubbery into the stable-yard, and which was solid enough for +the gate of a fortified town. + +Titmouse's stable was lighted better then the rest. The door stood +open, and there was Titmouse, with the neat little quilted doeskin +saddle still on his back, waiting to be fed and petted by his young +mistress. It was a pretty picture, the old low-ceiled stable, with its +wide stalls and roomy loose-boxes and carpet of plaited straw, golden +against the deep brown of the woodwork. + +Vixen ran into the box, and took off Titmouse's bridle, he holding down +his head, like a child submitting to be undressed. Then, with many +vigorous tugs at straps and buckles, and a good deal of screwing up of +her rosy lips in the course of the effort, Vixen took off her pony's +saddle. + +"I like to do everything I can for him," she explained, as Rorie +watched her with an amused smile; "I'd wisp him down if they'd let me." + +She left the leather panel on Titmouse's back, hung up saddle and +bridle, and skipped off to a corn-chest to hunt for apples. Of these +she brought half-a-dozen or so in the skirt of her habit, and then, +swinging herself lightly into a comfortable corner of the manger, began +to carry out her system of reward for good conduct, with much coquetry +on her part and Titmouse's, Rorie watching it all from the empty stall +adjoining, his folded arms resting on the top of the partition. He said +not another word about his mother, or the duty that called him home to +Briarwood, but stood and watched this pretty horsebreaker in a dreamy +contentment. + +What was Violet Tempest, otherwise Vixen, like, this October evening, +just three months before her fifteenth birthday? She made a lovely +picture in this dim light, as she sat in the corner of the old manger, +holding a rosy-cheeked apple at a tantalising distance from Titmouse's +nose: yet she was perhaps not altogether lovely. She was brilliant +rather than absolutely beautiful. The white skin was powdered with +freckles. The rippling hair was too warm an auburn to escape an +occasional unfriendly remark from captious critics; but it was not red +hair for all that. The eyes were brownest of the brown, large, bright, +and full of expression. The mouth was a thought too wide, but it was a +lovely mouth notwithstanding. The lips were full and firmly +moulded--lips that could mean anything, from melting tenderness to +sternest resolve. Such lips, a little parted to show the whitest, +evenest teeth in Hampshire, seemed to Rorie lovely enough to please the +most critical connoisseur of feminine beauty. The nose was short and +straight, but had a trick of tilting itself upward with a little +impatient jerk that made it seem _retrousse;_ the chin was round and +full and dimpled; the throat was full and round also, a white column +supporting the tawny head, and indicated that Vixen was meant to be a +powerful woman, and not one of those ethereal nymphs who lend +themselves most readily to the decorative art of a court milliner. + +"I'm afraid Violet will be a dreadfully large creature," Mrs. Tempest +murmured plaintively, as the girl grew and flourished; that lady +herself being ethereal, and considering her own appearance a strictly +correct standard of beauty. How could it be otherwise, when she had +been known before her marriage as "the pretty Miss Calthorpe?" + +"This is very nice, you know, Vixen," said Roderick critically, as +Titmouse made a greedy snap at an apple, and was repulsed with a gentle +pat on his nose, "but it can't go on for ever. What'll you do when you +are grown up?" + +"Have a horse instead of a pony," answered Vixen unhesitatingly. + +"And will that be all the difference?" + +"I don't see what other difference there can be. I shall always love +papa, I shall always love hunting, I shall always love mamma--as much +as she'll let me. I shall always have a corner in my heart for deal old +Crokey; and, perhaps," looking at him mischievously, "even an odd +corner for you. What difference can a few more birthdays make in me? I +shall be too big for Titmouse, that's the only misfortune; but I shall +always keep him for my pet, and I'll have a basket-carriage and drive +him when I go to see my poor people. Sitting behind a pony is an awful +bore when one's natural place is on his back, but I'd sooner endure it +than let Titmouse fancy himself superannuated." + +"But when you're grown up you'll have to come out, Vixen. You'll be +obliged to go to London for a season, and be presented, and go to no +end of balls, and ride in the Row, and make a grand marriage, and have +a page all to yourself in the _Court Journal_." + +"Catch me--going to London!" exclaimed Vixen, ignoring the latter part +of the sentence. "Papa hates London, and so do I. And as to riding in +Rotten Row, _je voudrais bien me voir faisant cela_," added Vixen, +whose study of the French language chiefly resulted in the endeavour to +translate English slang into that tongue. "No, when I grow up I shall +take papa the tour of Europe. We'll see all those places I'm worried +about at lessons--Marathon, Egypt, Naples, the Peloponnesus, _tout le +tremblement_--and I shall say to each of them, 'Oh, this is you, is it? +What a nuisance you've been to me on the map.' We shall go up Mount +Vesuvius, and the Pyramids, and do all sorts of wild things; and by the +time I come home I shall have forgotten the whole of my education." + +"If Miss McCroke could hear you!" + +"She does, often. You can't imagine the wild things I say to her. But I +love her--fondly." + +A great bell clanged out with a vigorous peal, that seemed to shake the +old stable. + +"There's the first bell. I must run and dress. Come to the drawing-room +and see mamma." + +"But, Vixen, how can I sit down to dinner in such a costume," +remonstrated Rorie, looking down at his brown shooting-suit, leather +gaiters, and tremendous boots--boots which, instead of being beautified +with blacking, were suppled with tallow; "I can't do it, really." + +"Nonsense," cried Vixen, "what does it matter? Papa seldom dresses for +dinner. I believe he considers it a sacrifice to mamma's sense of +propriety when he washes his hands after coming in from the home farm. +And you are only a boy--I beg pardon--an undergraduate. So come along." + +"But upon my word, Vixen, I feel too much ashamed of myself." + +"I've asked you to dinner, and you've accepted," cried Vixen, pulling +him out of the stable by the lapel of his shooting-jacket. + +He seemed to relish that mode of locomotion, for he allowed himself to +be pulled all the way to the hall-door, and into the glow of the great +beech-wood fire; a ruddy light which shone upon many a sporting trophy, +and reflected itself on many a gleaming pike and cuirass, belonging to +days of old, when gentlemanly sport for the most part meant man-hunting. + +It was a fine old vaulted hall, a place to love and remember lovingly +when far away. The walls were all of darkly bright oak panelling, save +where here and there a square of tapestry hung before a door, or a +painted window let in the moonlight. At one end there was a great +arched fireplace, the arch surmounted with Squire Tempest's armorial +bearings, roughly cut in freestone. A mailed figure of the usual stumpy +build, in helm and hauberk, stood on each side of the hearth; a large +three-cornered chair covered with stamped and gilded leather was drawn +up to the fireside, the Squire's favourite seat on an autumn or winter +afternoon. The chair was empty now, but, stretched at full length +before the blazing logs, lay the Squire's chosen companion, Nip, a +powerful liver-coloured pointer; and beside him in equally luxurious +rest, reclined Argus, Vixen's mastiff. There was a story about Vixen +and the mastiff, involving the only incident in that young lady's life +the recollection whereof could make her blush. + +The dog, apparently coiled in deepest slumber, heard the light +footsteps on the hall floor, pricked up his tawny ears, sprang to his +feet, and bounded over to his young mistress, whom he nearly knocked +down in the warmth of his welcome. Nip, the pointer, blinked at the +intruders, yawned desperately, stretched himself a trifle longer, and +relapsed into slumber. + +"How fond that brute is of you," said Rorie; "but it's no wonder, when +one considers what you did for him." + +"If you say another word I shall hate you," cried Vixen savagely. + +"Well, but you know when a fellow fights another fellow's battles, the +other fellow's bound to be fond of him; and when a young lady pitches +into a bird-boy with her riding-whip to save a mastiff pup from +ill-usage, that mastiff pup is bound----" + +"Mamma," cried Vixen, flinging aside a tapestry _portiere_, and +bouncing into the drawing-room, "here's Roderick, and he's come to +dinner, and you must excuse his shooting-dress, please. I'm sure pa +will." + +"Certainly, my dear Violet," replied a gentle, _trainante_ voice from +the fire-lit dimness near the velvet-curtained hearth. "Of course I am +always glad to see Mr. Vawdrey when your papa asks him. Where did you +meet the Squire, Roderick?" + +"Upon my word, Mrs. Tempest," faltered Rorie, coming slowly forward +into the ruddy glow, "I feel quite awfully ashamed of myself; I've been +rabbit-shooting, and I'm a most horrid object. It wasn't the Squire +asked me to stay. It was Vixen." + +Vixen made a ferocious grimace at him--he could just see her distorted +countenance in the fire-light--and further expressed her aggravation by +a smart crack of her whip. + +"Violet, my love, you have such startling ways," exclaimed Mrs. +Tempest, with a long-suffering air. "Really, Miss McCroke, you ought to +try and correct her of those startling ways." + +On this Roderick became aware of a stout figure in a tartan dress, +knitting industriously on the side of the hearth opposite Mrs. +Tempest's sofa. He could just see the flash of those active needles, +and could just hear Miss McCroke murmur placidly that she had corrected +Violet, and that it was no use. + +Rorie remembered that plaid poplin dress when he was at Eton. It was a +royal Stuart, too brilliant to be forgotten. He used to wonder whether +it would ever wear out, or whether it was not made of some +indestructible tissue, like asbestos--a fabric that neither time nor +fire could destroy. + +"It was Rorie's last night, you see, mamma," apologised Vixen, "and I +knew you and papa would like him to come, and that you wouldn't mind +his shooting-clothes a bit, though they do make him look like the +under-keeper, except that the under-keeper's better looking than Rorie, +and has finished growing his whiskers, instead of living in the +expectation of them." + +And with this Parthian shot, Vixen made a pirouette on her neat little +morocco-shod toes, and whisked herself out of the room; leaving +Roderick Vawdrey to make the best of his existence for the next twenty +minutes with the two women he always found it most difficult to get on +with, Mrs. Tempest and Miss McCroke. + +The logs broke into a crackling blaze just at this moment, and lighted +up that luxurious hearth and the two figures beside it. + +It was the prettiest thing imaginable in the way of a drawing-room, +that spacious low-ceiled chamber in the Abbey House. + +The oak panelling was painted white, a barbarity on the part of those +modern Goths the West End decorators, but a charming background for +quaint Venetian mirrors, hanging shelves of curious old china, dainty +little groups of richly-bound duodecimos, brackets, bronzes, freshest +flowers in majolica jars; water-colour sketches by Hunt, Prout, +Cattermole, and Edward Duncan; sage-green silk curtains; black and gold +furniture, and all the latest prettinesses of the new Jacobean school. +The mixture of real medievalism and modern quaintness was delightful. +One hardly knew where the rococo began or the mediaeval left off. The +good old square fireplace, with its projecting canopy, and columns in +white and coloured marbles, was as old as the days of Inigo Jones; but +the painted tiles, with their designs from the Iliad and Odyssey after +Dante Rossetti, were the newest thing from Minton's factory. + +Even Rorie felt that the room was pretty, though he did above all +things abhor to be trapped in it, as he found himself this October +evening. + +"There's a great lot of rubbish in it," he used to say of Mrs. +Tempest's drawing-room, "but it's rather nice altogether." + +Mrs. Tempest, at five-and-thirty, still retained the good looks which +had distinguished Miss Calthorpe at nineteen. She was small and slim, +with a delicate complexion. She had large soft eyes of a limpid +innocent azure, regular features, rosebud lips, hands after Velasquez, +and an unexceptionable taste in dress, the selection of which formed +one of the most onerous occupations of her life. To attire herself +becomingly, and to give the Squire the dinners he best liked, in an +order of succession so dexterously arranged as never to provoke +satiety, were Mrs. Tempest's cardinal duties. In the intervals of her +life she read modern poetry, unobjectionable French novels, and +reviews. She did a little high-art needle-work, played Mendelssohn's +Lieder, sang three French _chansons_ which her husband liked, slept, +and drank orange pekoe. In the consumption of this last article Mrs. +Tempest was as bad as a dram-drinker. She declared her inability to +support life without that gentle stimulant, and required to be wound up +at various hours of her languid day with a dose of her favourite +beverage. + +"I think I'll take a cup of tea," was Mrs. Tempest's inevitable remark +at every crisis of her existence. + +"And so you are going back to Oxford, Roderick?" the lady began with a +languid kindness. + +Mrs. Tempest had never been known to be unkind to anyone. She regarded +all her fellow-creatures with a gentle tolerance. They were there, a +necessary element of the universe, and she bore with them. But she had +never attached herself particularly to anybody except the Squire. Him +she adored. He took all the trouble of life off her hands, and gave her +all good things. She had been poor, and he had made her rich; nobody, +and he had elevated her into somebody. She loved him with a canine +fidelity, and felt towards him as a dog feels towards his master--that +in him this round world begins and ends. + +"Yes," assented Rorie, with a sigh, "I'm going up to-morrow." + +"Why up?" inquired Miss McCroke, without lifting her eyes from her +needles. "It isn't up on the map." + +"I hope you are going to get a grand degree," continued Mrs. Tempest, +in that soft conciliatory voice of hers; "Senior Wrangler, or +something." + +"That's the other shop," exclaimed Rorie; "they grow that sort of +timber at Cambridge. However, I hope to pull myself through somehow or +other this time, for my mother's sake. She attaches a good deal of +importance to it, though for my own part I can't see what good it can +do me. It won't make me farm my own land better, or ride straighter to +hounds, or do my duty better to my tenants." + +"Education," said Miss McCroke sententiously, "is always a good, and we +cannot too highly estimate its influence upon----" + +"Oh yes, I know," answered Rorie quickly, for he knew that when the +floodgates of Miss McCroke's eloquence were once loosened the tide ran +strong, "when house and lands are gone and spent a man may turn usher +in an academy, and earn fifty pounds a year and his laundress's bill by +grinding Caesar's Commentaries into small boys. But I shouldn't lay in +a stock of learning with that view. When my house and lands are gone +I'll go after them--emigrate, and go into the lumber trade in Canada." + +"What a dreadful idea," said Mrs. Tempest; "but you are not going to +lose house and lands, Roderick--such a nice place as Briarwood." + +"To my mind it's rather a commonplace hole," answered the young man +carelessly, "but the land is some of the best in the county." + +It must be nearly seven by this time, he thought. He was getting +through this period of probation better than he had expected. Mrs. +Tempest gave a little stifled yawn behind her huge black fan, upon +which Cupids and Graces, lightly sketched in French gray, were depicted +dancing in the airiest attitudes, after Boucher. Roderick would have +liked to yawn in concert, but at this juncture a sudden ray of light +flashed upon him and showed him a way of escape. + +"I think I'll go to the gentleman's room, and make myself decent before +the second bell rings," he said. + +"Do," assented Mrs. Tempest, with another yawn; and the young man fled. + +He had only time to scramble through a hurried toilet, and was still +feeling very doubtful as to the parting of his short crisp hair, when +the gong boomed out its friendly summons. The gentleman's room opened +from the hall, and Rorie heard the Squire's loud and jovial voice +uplifted as he raised the tapestry curtain. + +Mr. Tempest was standing in front of the log fire, pulling Vixen's +auburn hair. The girl had put on a picturesque brown velvet frock. A +scarlet sash was tied loosely round her willowy waist, and a scarlet +ribbon held back the rippling masses of her bright hair. + +"A study in red and brown," thought Rorie, as the fire-glow lit up the +picture of the Squire in his hunting-dress, and the girl in her warm +velvet gown. + +"Such a run, Rorie," cried the Squire; "we dawdled about among the +furze from twelve till four doing nothing, and just as it was getting +dark started a stag up on the high ground this side of Pickett's Post, +and ran him nearly into Ringwood. Go in and fetch my wife, Rorie. Oh, +here she is"--as the _portiere_ was lifted by a white hand, all +a-glitter with diamonds--"you must excuse me sitting down in pink +to-day, Pamela; I only got in as the gong began to sound, and I'm as +hungry as the proverbial hunter." + +"You know I always think you handsomest in your scarlet coat, Edward," +replied the submissive wife, "but I hope you're not very muddy." + +"I won't answer for myself; but I haven't been actually up to my neck +in a bog." + +Rorie offered his arm to Mrs. Tempest, and they all went in to dinner, +the squire still playing with his daughter's hair, and Miss McCroke +solemnly bringing up the rear. + +The dining-room at the Abbey House was the ancient refectory, large +enough for a mess-room; so, when there were no visitors, the Tempests +dined in the library--a handsome square room, in which old family +portraits looked down from the oak panelling above the bookcases, and +where the literary element was not obtrusively conspicuous. You felt +that it was a room quite as well adapted for conviviality as for study. +There was a cottage piano in a snug corner by the fireplace. The +Squire's capacious arm-chair stood on the other side of the hearth, +Mrs. Tempest's low chair and gipsy table facing it. The old oak buffet +opposite the chimney-piece was a splendid specimen of Elizabethan +carving, and made a rich background for the Squire's racing-cups, and a +pair of Oliver Cromwell tankards, plain and unornamental as that +illustrious Roundhead himself. + +It was a delightful room on a chill October evening like this: the logs +roaring up the wide chimney, a pair of bronze candelabra lighting +buffet and table, Mrs. Tempest smiling pleasantly at her unbidden +guest, and the squire stooping, red-faced and plethoric, over his +mulligatawny; while Vixen, who was at an age when dinner is a secondary +consideration, was amusing herself with the dogs, gentlemanly animals, +too wellbred to be importunate in their demands for an occasional +tid-bit, and content to lie in superb attitudes, looking up at the +eaters patiently, with supplication in their great pathetic brown eyes. + +"Rorie is going up to-morrow--not in a balloon, but to Magdalen +College, Oxford--so, as this was his last night, I made him come to +dinner," explained Vixen presently. "I hope I didn't do wrong." + +"Rorie knows he's always welcome. Have some more of that mulligatawny, +my lad, it's uncommonly good." + +Rorie declined the mulligatawny, being at this moment deeply engaged in +watching Vixen and the dogs. Nip, the liver-coloured pointer, was +performing his celebrated statue feat. With his forelegs stiffly +extended, and his head proudly poised, he simulated a dog of marble; +and if it had not been for the occasional bumping of his tail upon the +Persian carpet, in an irresistible wag of self-approbation, the +simulation would have been perfect. + +"Look, papa! isn't it beautiful? I went out of the room the other day, +while Nip was doing the statue, after I'd told him not to move a paw, +and I stayed away quite five minutes, and then stole quietly back; and +there he was, lying as still as if he'd been carved out of stone. +Wasn't that fidelity?" + +"Nonsense!" cried the Squire. "How do you know that Nip didn't wind you +as you opened the door, and get himself into position? What are these?" +as the old silver _entree_ dishes came round. "Stewed eels? You never +forget my tastes, Pamela." + +"Stewed eels, sir; _sole maitre d'hotel_," said the butler, in the +usual suppressed and deferential tone. + +Rorie helped himself automatically, and went on looking at Vixen. + +Her praises of Nip had kindled jealous fires in the breast of Argus, +her own particular favourite; and the blunt black muzzle had been +thrust vehemently under her velvet sleeve. + +"Argus is angry." said Rorie. + +"He's a dear old foolish thing to be jealous," answered Vixen, "when he +knows I'd go through fire and water for him." + +"Or even fight a big boy," cried the Squire, throwing himself back in +his chair with the unctuous laughter of a man who is dining well, and +knows it. + +Vixen blushed rosiest red at the allusion. + +"Papa, you oughtn't to say such things," she cried; "I was a little bit +of a child then." + +"Yes, and flew at a great boy of fourteen and licked him," exclaimed +the Squire, rapturously. "You know the story, don't you, Rorie?" + +Rorie had heard it twenty times, but looked the picture of ignorant +expectancy. + +"You know how Vixen came by Argus? What, you don't? Well, I'll tell +you. This little yellow-haired lass of mine was barely nine years old, +and she was riding through the village on her pony, with young Stubbs +behind her on the sorrel mare--and, you know, to her dying day, that +sorrel would never let anyone dismount her quietly. Now what does Vixen +spy but a lubberly lad and a lot of small children ill-using a mastiff +pup. They'd tied a tin-kettle to the brute's tail, and were doing their +best to drown him. There's a pond just beyond Mrs. Farley's cottage, +you know, and into that pond they'd pelted the puppy, and wouldn't let +him get out of it. As fast as the poor little brute scrambled up the +muddy bank they drove him back into the water." + +"Papa darling," pleaded Vixen despairingly, "Rorie has heard it all a +thousand times before. Haven't you now, Rorie?" + +"It's as new to me as to-morrow's _Times_," said Roderick with +effrontery. + +"Vixen was off the pony before you could say 'Jack Robinson.' She flew +into the midst of the dirty little ragamuffins, seized the biggest +ruffian by the collar, and trundled him backwards into the pond. Then +she laid about her right and left with her whip till the wretches +scampered off, leaving Vixen and the puppy masters of the situation; +and by this time the sorrel mare had allowed Stubbs to get off her, and +Stubbs rushed to the rescue. The young ringleader had been too much +surprised by his ducking to pull himself together again before this, +but he came up to time now, and had it out with Stubbs, while the +sorrel was doing as much damage as she conveniently could to Mrs. +Farley's palings. 'Don't quite kill him, please, Stubbs,' cried Vixen, +'although he richly deserves it;' and then she took the muddy little +beast up in her arms and ran home, leaving her pony to fate and Stubbs. +Stubbs told me the whole story, with tears in his eyes. 'Who'd ha' +thought, Squire, the little lady would ha' been such a game 'un?' said +Stubbs." + +"It's very horrid of you, papa, to tell such silly old stories," +remonstrated Vixen. "That was nearly seven years ago, and Dr. Dewsnap +told us the other day that everybody undergoes a complete change +of--what is it?--all the tissues--in seven years. I'm not the same +Vixen that pushed the boy into the pond. There's not a bit of her left +in me." + +And so the dinner went on and ended, with a good deal of distraction, +caused by the dogs, and a mild little remark now and then from Mrs. +Tempest, or an occasional wise interjection from Miss McCroke, who in a +manner represented the Goddess of Wisdom in this somewhat frivolous +family, and came in with a corrective and severely rational observation +when the talk was drifting towards idiocy. + +The filberts, bloomy purple grapes, and ruddy pippins, and yellow +William pears had gone their rounds--all home produce--and had been +admired and praised, and the Squire's full voice was mellowing after +his second glass of port, when the butler came in with a letter on a +salver, and carried it, with muffled footfall and solemn visage, as of +one who entrusted with the delivery of a death-warrant, straight to +Roderick Vawdrey. + +The young man looked at it as if he had encountered an unexpected +visitor of the adder tribe. + +"My mother," he faltered. + +It was a large and handsome letter with a big red seal. + +"May I?" asked Rorie, with a troubled visage, and having received his +host and hostess's assent, broke the seal. + + +"Dear Roderick,--Is it quite kind of you to absent yourself on this +your last night at home? I feel very sure that this will find you at +the Abbey House, and I send the brougham at a venture. Be good enough +to come home at once. The Dovedales arrived at Ashbourne quite +unexpectedly this afternoon, and are dining with me on purpose to see +you before you go back to Oxford. If your own good feeling did not urge +you to spend this last evening with me, I wonder that Mr. and Mrs. +Tempest were not kind enough to suggest to you which way your duty +lay.--Yours anxiously, + +"JANE VAWDREY." + + +Roderick crumpled the letter with an angry look. That fling at the +Tempests hit him hard. Why was it that his mother was always so ready +to find fault with these chosen friends of his? + +"Anything wrong, Rorie?" asked the Squire. + +"Nothing; except that the Dovedales are dining with my mother; and I'm +to go home directly." + +"If you please, ma'am, Master Vawdrey's servant has come for him," said +Vixen, mimicking the style of announcement at a juvenile party. "It's +quite too bad, Rorie," she went on, "I had made up my mind to beat you +at pyramids. However I daresay you're very glad to have the chance of +seeing your pretty cousin before you leave Hampshire." + +But Rorie shook his head dolefully, made his adieux, and departed. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +Lady Jane Vawdrey. + +"It is not dogs only that are jealous!" thought Roderick, as he went +home in the brougham, with all the windows down, and the cool night +breeze blowing his cigar smoke away into the forest, to mix with the +mist wreaths that were curling up from the soft ground. It was an +offence of the highest grade to smoke in his mother's carriage; but +Rorie was in an evil temper just now, and found a kind of bitter +pleasure in disobedience. + +The carriage bowled swiftly along the straight, well-made road, but +Rorie hated riding in a brougham. The soft padded confinement galled +him. + +"Why couldn't she send me my dog-cart?" he asked himself indignantly. + +Briarwood was a large white house in a small park. It stood on much +higher ground than the Abbey House, and was altogether different from +that good old relic of a bygone civilisation. Briarwood was distinctly +modern. Its decorations savoured of the Regency: its furniture was +old-fashioned, without being antique. The classic stiffness and +straightness of the First French Empire distinguished the gilded chairs +and tables in the drawing-room. There were statues by Chantrey and +Canova in the spacious lofty hall; portraits by Lawrence and Romney in +the dining-room; a historical picture by Copley over the elephantine +mahogany sideboard; a Greek sarcophagus for wines under it. + +At its best, the Briarwood house was commonplace; but to the mind of +Lady Jane Vawdrey, the gardens and hot-houses made amends. She was a +profound horticulturist, and spent half her income on orchids and rare +newly-imported flowers, and by this means she had made Briarwood one of +the show places of the neighbourhood. + +"A woman must be distinguished for something, or she is no better than +her scullery-maid," said Lady Jane to her son, excusing herself for +these extravagances. "I have no talent for music, painting, or poetry, +so I devote myself to orchids; and perhaps my orchids turn out better +than many people's music and poetry." + +Lady Jane was not a pleasant-tempered woman, and enjoyed the privilege +of being more feared than liked; a privilege of which she made the +most, and which secured her immunity from many annoyances to which +good-natured people are subject. She did good to her poor neighbours, +in her own cold set way, but the poor people about Briarwood did not +send to her for wine and brandy as if she kept a public-house, and was +benefited by their liberal patronage; the curate at the little Gothic +church, down in the tiny village in a hollow of the wooded hills, did +not appeal to Lady Jane in his necessities for church or parish. She +subscribed handsomely to all orthodox well-established charities, but +was not prone to accidental benevolence. Nobody ever disappointed her +when she gave a dinner, or omitted the duty-call afterwards; but she +had no unceremonious gatherings, no gossipy kettle-drums, no +hastily-arranged picnics or garden parties. When people in the +neighbourhood wanted to take their friends to see the orchids, they +wrote to Lady Jane first, and made it quite a state affair; and on an +appointed afternoon, the lady of Briarwood received them, richly clad +in a dark velvet gown and a point-lace cap, as if she had just walked +out of an old picture, and there were three or four gardeners in +attendance to open doors, and cut specimen blossoms for the guests. + +"She's a splendid woman, admirable in every way," said Roderick to an +Oxford chum, with whom he had been discussing Lady Jane's virtues; "but +if a fellow could have a voice in the matter, she's not the mother I +should have chosen for myself." + +Ambition was the leading characteristic of Lady Jane's mind. As a girl, +she had been ambitious for herself, and that ambition had been +disappointed; as a woman, her ambition transferred itself to her son. +She was the eldest daughter of the Earl of Lodway, a nobleman who had +been considerably overweighted in the handicap of life, having nine +children, seats in three counties, a huge old house in St. James's +Square, and a small income--his three estates consisting of some of the +barrenest and most unprofitable land in Great Britain. Of Lord Lodway's +nine children, five were daughters, and of these Lady Jane was the +eldest and the handsomest. Even in her nursery she had a very distinct +notion that, for her, marriage meant promotion. She used to play at +being married at St. George's, Hanover Square, and would never consent +to have the ceremony performed by less than two bishops; even though +the part of one hierarch had to be represented by the nursery +hearth-broom. In due course Lady Jane Umleigh made her debut in +society, in all the bloom and freshness of her stately Saxon beauty. +She was admired and talked about, and acknowledged as one of the belles +of that season; her portrait was engraved in the Book of Beauty, and +her ball programmes were always filled with the very best names; but at +the end of the season, Lady Lodway went back to the Yorkshire Wolds +with a biting sense of failure and mortification. Her handsome daughter +had not sent her arrow home to the gold. She had not received a single +offer worth talking about. + +"Don't you think you could consent to be married by one bishop and a +dean, Jenny, if the Marquis comes to the scratch soon after the +twelfth?" asked Lady Jane's youngest brother derisively. + +He had been made to do bishop in those play-weddings of Lady Jane's, +very often when the function went against the grain. + +The Marquis thus familiarly spoken about was Lord Strishfogel, the +richest nobleman in Ireland, and a great sea-rover, famous for his +steam yachts, and his importance generally. He had admired Lady Jane's +statuesque beauty, and had been more particular in his attentions than +the rest of her satellites, who for the most part merely worshipped her +because it was the right thing to do. Lord Strishfogel had promised to +come to Heron's Nest, Lord Lodway's place in the Wolds, for the +grouse-shooting; but instead of keeping his promise, this erratic young +peer went off to the Golden Horn, to race his yacht against the vessel +of a great Turkish official. This was Lady Jane Umleigh's first +disappointment. She had liked Lord Strishfogel just well enough to +fancy herself deeply in love with him, and she was unconscious of the +influence his rank and wealth had exercised upon her feelings. She had +thought of herself so often as the Marchioness of Strishfogel, had so +completely projected her mind into that brilliant future, that to +descend from this giddy height to the insignificance of unwedded +girlhood was as sharp a fall as if she had worn a crown and lost it. + +Her second season began, and Lord Strishfogel was still a rover; He was +in the South Seas by this time, writing a book, and enjoying halcyon +days among the friendly natives, swimming like a dolphin in those +summery seas, and indulging in harmless flirtations with dusky +princesses, whose chief attire was made of shells and flowers, and +whose untutored dancing was more vigorous than refined. At the end of +that second season, Jane Umleigh had serious thoughts of turning +philanthropist, and taking a shipload of destitute young women to +Australia. Anything would be better than this sense of a wasted life +and ignominious failure. + +She was in this frame of mind when Mr. Vawdrey came to Heron's Nest for +the shooting. He was a commoner, but his family was one of the oldest +in Hampshire, and he had lately distinguished himself by some rather +clever speeches in the House of Commons. His estate was worth fifteen +thousand a year, and he was altogether a man of some mark. Above all, +he was handsome, manly, and a gentleman to the marrow of his bones, and +he was the first man who ever fell over head and ears in love with Jane +Umleigh. + +The charms that had repelled more frivolous admirers attracted John +Vawdrey. That proud calm beauty of Lady Jane's seemed to his mind the +perfection of womanly grace. Here was a wife for a man to adore upon +his knees, a wife to be proud of, a wife to rule her vassals like a +queen, and to lead him, John Vawdrey, on to greatness. + +He was romantic, chivalrous, aspiring, and Lady Jane Umleigh was the +first woman he had met who embodied the heroine of his youthful dreams. +He proposed and was refused, and went away despairing. It would have +been a good match, undoubtedly--a truth which Lord and Lady Lodway +urged with some iteration upon their daughter--but it would have been a +terrible descent from the ideal marriage which Lady Jane had set up in +her own mind, as the proper prize for so fair a runner in life's race. +She had imagined herself a marchioness, with a vast territory of +mountain, vale, and lake, and an influence in the sister island second +only to that of royalty. She could not descend all at once to behold +herself the wife of a plain country gentleman, whose proudest privilege +it was to write M.P. after his name. + +The Earl and Countess were urgent, for they had another daughter ready +for the matrimonial market, and were inclined to regard Lady Jane as an +"old shopkeeper," but they knew their eldest daughter's temper, and did +not press the matter too warmly. + +Another season, Lady Jane's fourth, and Lady Sophia's first, began and +ended. Lady Sophia was piquant and witty, with a snub nose and a +playful disposition. She was a first-rate horsewoman, an exquisite +waltzer, good at croquet, archery, billiards, and all games requiring +accuracy of eye and aim, and Lady Sophia brought down her bird in a +single season. She went home to Heron's Nest a duchess in embryo. The +Duke of Dovedale, a bulky, middle-aged nobleman, with a passion for +fieldsports and high farming, had seen Lady Sophia riding a dangerous +horse in Rotten Row, and had been so charmed by her management of the +brute, as to become from that hour her slave. A pretty girl, with such +a seat in her saddle, and such a light hand for a horse's mouth, was +the next best thing to a goddess. Before the season was over the Duke +had proposed, and had been graciously accepted by the young lady, who +felt an inward glow of pride at having done so much better than the +family beauty. + +"Can I ever forget how that girl Jane has snubbed me?" said Lady Sophia +to her favourite brother. "And to think that I shall be sitting in +ermine robes in the House of Lords, while she is peeping through the +nasty iron fretwork in the Ladies' Gallery to catch a glimpse of the +top of her husband's head in the House of Commons." + +This splendid engagement of Lady Sophia's turned the tide for the +faithful John Vawdrey. Lady Jane met her rejected lover at Trouville, +and was so gracious to him that he ventured to renew his suit, and, to +his delighted surprise, was accepted. Anything was better than standing +out in the cold while the ducal engagement was absorbing everybody's +thoughts and conversation. Lady Sophia had boasted, in that playful way +of hers, of having her beauty-sister for chief bridesmaid; and the +beauty-sister had made up her mind that this thing should not be. +Perhaps she would have married a worse man than John Vawdrey to escape +such infamy. + +And John Vawdrey was by no means disagreeable to her; nay, it had been +pride, and not any disinclination for the man himself that had bidden +her reject him. He was clever, distinguished, and he loved her with a +romantic devotion which flattered and pleased her. Yes, she would marry +John Vawdrey. + +Everybody was delighted at this concession, the lady's parents and +belongings most especially so. Here were two daughters disposed of; and +if the beauty had made the inferior match, it was only one of those +capricious turns of fortune that are more to be expected than the +common order of things. + +So there was a double marriage the following spring at St. George's, +and Lady Jane's childish desire was gratified. There were two bishops +at the ceremony. True that one was only colonial, and hardly ranked +higher than the nursery hearth brush. + +Fate was not altogether unkind to Lady Jane. Her humble marriage was +much happier than her sister's loftier union. The Duke, who had been so +good-natured as a lover, proved stupid and somewhat tiresome as a +husband. He gave his mind to hunting and farming, and cared for nothing +else. His chief conversation was about cattle and manure, guano and +composts, the famous white Chillingham oxen, or the last thing in +strawberry roans. He spent a small fortune that would have been large +for a small man--in the attempt to acclimatise strange animals in his +park in the Midlands. Sophia, Duchess of Dovedale, had seven country +seats, and no home. Her children were puny and feeble. They sickened in +the feudal Scotch castle, they languished in the Buckinghamshire +Eden--a freestone palace set among the woods that overhang the valley +of the Thames. No breezes that blow could waft strength or vitality to +those feeble lungs. At thirty the Duchess of Dovedale had lost all her +babies, save one frail sapling, a girl of two years old, who promised +to have a somewhat better constitution than her perished brothers and +sisters. On this small paragon the Duchess concentrated her cares and +hopes. She gave up hunting--much to the disgust of that Nimrod, her +husband--in order to superintend her nursery. From the most +pleasure-loving of matrons, she became the most domestic. Lady Mabel +Ashbourne was to grow up the perfection of health, wisdom, and beauty, +under the mother's loving care. She would have a great fortune, for +there was a considerable portion of the Duke's property which he was +free to bequeath to his daughter. He had coal-pits in the North, and a +tin-mine in the West. He had a house at Kensington which he had built +for himself, a model Queen Anne mansion, with every article of +furniture made on the strictest aesthetic principles, and not an +anachronism from the garrets to the cellars. You might have expected to +meet Marlborough on the stairs, and to find Addison reading in the +library. The Scottish castle and the Buckinghamshire Paradise would go +with the title; but the Duke, delighted with the easy-going sport of +the New Forest, had bought six hundred acres between Stony Cross and +Romsey--a wide stretch of those low level pastures across which you see +the distant roofs and spires of the good old market town--and had made +for himself an archetypal home-farm, and had built himself a +hunting-box, with stables and kennels of the most perfect kind; and +this estate, with the Queen Anne house, and the pits, and the mine, was +his very own to dispose of as he pleased. + +Lady Jane's marriage had proved happy. Her husband, always egged on by +her ambitious promptings, had made himself an important figure in the +senate, and had been on the eve of entering the cabinet as Colonial +Secretary, when death cut short his career. A hard winter and a sharp +attack of bronchitis nipped the aspiring senator in the bud. + +Lady Jane was as nearly broken-hearted as so cold a woman could be. She +had loved her husband better than anything in this life, except +herself. He left her with one son and a handsome jointure, with the +full possession of Briarwood until her son's majority. Upon that only +child Lady Jane lavished all her care, but did not squander the wealth +of her affection. Perhaps her capacity for loving had died with her +husband. She had been proud and fond of him, but she was not proud of +the little boy in velvet knickerbockers, whose good looks were his only +merit, and who was continually being guilty of some new piece of +mischief; laming ponies, smashing orchids, glass, china, and generally +disturbing the perfect order which was Briarwood's first law. + +When the boy was old enough to go to Eton, he seemed still more remote +from his mother's love and sympathy. He was passionately fond of field +sports, and those Lady Jane Vawdrey detested. He was backwards in all +his studies, despite the careful coaching he had received from the mild +Anglican curate of Briarwood village. He was intensely pugilistic, and +rarely came home for the holidays without bringing a black eye or a +swollen nose as the result of his latest fight. He spent a good deal of +money, and in a manner that to his mother's calm sense appeared simply +idiotic. His hands were always grubby, his nails wore almost perpetual +mourning, his boots were an outrage upon good taste, and he generally +left a track of muddy foot-marks behind him along the crimson-carpeted +corridors. What could any mother do for such a boy, except tolerate +him? Love was out of the question. How could a delicate, high-bred +woman, soft-handed, velvet robed, care to have such a lad about her? a +boy who smelt of stables and wore hob-nailed boots, whose pockets were +always sticky with toffee, and his handkerchiefs a disgrace to +humanity, who gave his profoundest thoughts to pigeon-fancying, and his +warmest affections to ratting terriers, nay, who was capable of having +a live rat in his pocket at any moment of his life. + +But while all these habits made the lad abominable in the eyes of his +mother, the Duke and Duchess of Dovedale admired the young Hercules +with a fond and envious admiration. The Duke would have given coal-pits +and tin-mine, all the disposable property he held, and deemed it but a +small price for such a son. The Duchess thought of her feeble +boy-babies who had been whooping-coughed or scarlet-fevered out of the +world, and sighed, and loved her nephew better than ever his mother had +loved him since his babyhood. When the Dovedales were at their place in +the Forest, Roderick almost lived with them; or, at any rate, divided +his time between Ashbourne Park and the Abbey House, and spent as +little of his life at home as he could. He patronised Lady Mabel, who +was his junior by five years, rode her thorough-bred pony for her under +the pretence of improving its manners, until he took a header with it +into a bog, out of which pony and boy rolled and struggled +indiscriminately, boy none the worse, pony lamed for life. He played +billiards with the Duke, and told the Duchess all his school +adventures, practical jokes, fights, apple-pie beds, booby-traps, +surreptitious fried sausages, and other misdemeanours. + +Out of this friendship arose a brilliant vision which reconciled Lady +Jane Vawdrey to her son's preference for his aunt's house and his +aunt's society. Why should he not marry Mabel by-and-by, and unite the +two estates of Ashbourne and Briarwood, and become owner of the pits +and the mine, and distinguish himself in the senate, and be created a +peer? As the husband of Lady Mabel Ashbourne, he would be rich enough +to command a peerage, almost as a right; but his mother would have had +him deserve it. With this idea Lady Jane urged on her son's education. +All his Hampshire friends called him clever, but he won no laurels at +school. Lady Jane sent for grinders and had the boy ground; but all the +grinding could not grind a love of classics or metaphysics into this +free son of the forest. He went to Oxford, and got himself ploughed for +his Little Go, with a wonderful facility. For politics he cared not a +jot, but he could drive tandem better than any other undergraduate of +his year. He never spoke at the Union, but he pulled stroke in the +'Varsity boat. He was famous for his biceps, his good-nature, and his +good looks; but so far he had distinguished himself for nothing else, +and to this stage of nonperformance had he come when the reader first +beheld him. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +"I Want a Little Serious Talk with You." + +It was only half-past nine when the brougham drove up to the pillared +porch at Briarwood. The lighted drawing-room windows shone out upon the +vaporous autumn darkness--a row of five tall French casements--and the +sound of a piano caught Roderick's ear as he tossed the end of his +cigar in the shrubbery, and mounted the wide stone door-steps. + +"At it again," muttered Rorie with a shrug of disgust, as he entered +the hall, and heard, through the half-open drawing-room door, an +interlacement of pearly runs. At this stage of his existence, Rorie had +no appreciation of brilliant pianoforte playing. The music he liked +best was of the simplest, most inartificial order. + +"Are the Duke and Duchess here?" he asked the butler. + +"Her Grace and Lady Mabel is here, sir; not the Dook." + +"I suppose I must dress before I face the quality," muttered Rorie +sulkily, and he went leaping upstairs--three steps at a time--to +exchange his brown shooting-clothes and leather gaiters for that +dress-suit of his which was continually getting too small for him. +Rorie detested himself in a dress-suit and a white tie. + +"You beast," he cried, addressing his reflection in the tall glass door +of his armoire, "you are the image of a waiter at The Clarendon." + +The Briarwood drawing-room looked a great deal too vast and too lofty +for the three women who were occupying it this evening. It was a +finely-proportioned room, and its amber satin hangings made a pleasing +background for the white and gold furniture. White, gold, and amber +made up the prevailing tone of colour. Clusters of wax lights against +the walls and a crystal chandelier with many candles, filled the room +with a soft radiance. It was a room without shadow. There were no +recesses, no deep-set windows or doors. All was coldly bright, +faultlessly elegant. Rorie detested his mother's drawing-room almost as +much as he detested himself in a dress-coat that was too short in the +sleeves. + +The matrons were seated on each side of the shining gold and steel +fireplace, before which there stretched an island of silky white fur. +Lady Jane Vawdrey's younger sister was a stout, comfortable-looking +woman in gray silk, who hardly realised one's preconceived notion of a +duchess. Lady Jane herself had dignity enough for the highest rank in +the "Almanach de Gotha." She wore dark green velvet and old rose-point, +and looked like a portrait of an Austrian princess by Velasquez. Years +had not impaired the purity of her blonde complexion. Her aquiline +nose, thin lips, small firm chin, were the features of one born to +rule. Her light brown hair showed no streak of gray. An admirable +woman, no doubt, for anybody else's mother, as Rorie so often said to +himself. + +The young lady was still sitting at the piano, remote from the two +elders, her slim white fingers running in and out and to and fro in +those wondrous intricacies and involutions which distinguish modern +classical music. Rorie hated all that running about the piano to no +purpose, and could not perceive his cousin's merit in having devoted +three or four hours of her daily life for the last seven years to the +accomplishment of this melodious meandering. She left off playing, and +held out her small white hand to him as he came to the piano, after +shaking hands with his aunt. + +What was she like, this paragon formed by a mother's worshipping love +and ceaseless care, this one last pearl in the crown of domestic life, +this child of so many prayers and hopes, and fears, and deep pathetic +rejoicings? + +She was very fair to look upon--complete and beautiful as a pearl--with +that outward purity, that perfect delicacy of tint and harmony of +detail which is in itself a charm. Study her as captiously as you +would, you could find no flaw in this jewel. The small regular features +were so delicately chiselled, the fair fine skin was so transparent, +the fragile figure so exquisitely moulded, the ivory hand and arm so +perfect--no, you could discover no bad drawing or crude colouring in +this human picture. She lifted her clear blue eyes to Rorie's face, and +smiled at him in gentle welcome; and though he felt intensely cross at +having been summoned home like a school-boy, he could not refuse her a +responsive smile, or a gentle pressure of the taper fingers. + +"And so you have been dining with those horrid people!" she exclaimed +with an air of playful reproach, "and on your last night in +Hampshire--quite too unkind to Aunt Jane." + +"I don't know whom you mean by horrid people, Mabel," answered Rorie, +chilled back into sulkiness all at once; "the people I was with are all +that is good and pleasant." + +"Then you've not been at the Tempests' after all?" + +"I have been at the Tempests'. What have you to say against the +Tempests?" + +"Oh, I have nothing to say against them," said Lady Mabel, shrugging +her pretty shoulders in her fawn-coloured silk gown. "There are some +things that do not require to be said." + +"Mr. Tempest is the best and kindest of men; his wife is--well, a +nonentity, perhaps, but not a disagreeable one; and his daughter----" + +Here Rorie came to a sudden stop, which Lady Mabel accentuated with a +silvery little laugh. + +"His daughter is charming," she cried, when she had done laughing; "red +hair, and a green habit with brass buttons, a yellow waistcoat like her +papa's, and a rose in her button-hole. How I should like to see her in +Rotten Row!" + +"I'll warrant there wouldn't be a better horse-woman or a prettier girl +there," cried Rorie, scarlet with indignation. + +His mother looked daggers. His cousin gave another silvery laugh, clear +as those pearly treble runs upon the Erard; but that pretty artificial +laugh had a ring which betrayed her mortification. + +"Rorie is thorough," she said; "when he likes people he thinks them +perfection. You do think that little red-haired girl quite perfection, +now don't you, Rorie?" pursued Lady Mabel, sitting down before the +piano again, and touching the notes silently as she seemed to admire +the slender diamond hoops upon her white fingers--old-fashioned rings +that had belonged to a patrician great-grandmother. "You think her +quite a model young lady, though they say she can hardly read, and +makes her mark--like William the Conqueror--instead of signing her +name, and spends her life in the stables, and occasionally, when the +fox gets back to earth--swears." + +"I don't know who they may be," cried Roderick, savagely, "but they say +a pack of lies. Violet Tempest is as well educated as--any girl need +be. All girls can't be paragons; or, if they could, this earth would be +intolerable for the rest of humanity. Lord deliver us from a world +overrun with paragons. Violet Tempest is little more than a child, a +spoiled child, if you like, but she has a heart of gold, and a firmer +seat in her saddle than any other woman in Hampshire." + +Roderick had turned from scarlet to pale by the time he finished this +speech. His mother had paled at the first mention of poor Vixen. That +young lady's name acted upon Lady Jane's feelings very much as a red +rag acts on a bull. + +"I think, after keeping you away from your mother on the last night of +your vacation, Mr. Tempest might at least have had the good taste to +let you come home sober," said Lady Jane, with suppressed rage. + +"I drank a couple of glasses of still hock at dinner, and not a drop of +anything else from the time I entered the Abbey till I left it; and I +don't think, considering how I've seasoned myself with Bass at Oxford, +that two glasses of Rudesheimer would floor me," explained Rorie, with +recovered calmness. + +"Oh, but you were drinking deep of a more intoxicating nectar," cried +Lady Mabel, with that provokingly distinct utterance of hers. She had +been taught to speak as carefully as girls of inferior rank are taught +to play Beethoven--every syllable studied, every tone trained and +ripened to the right quality. "You were with Violet Tempest." + +"How you children quarrel!" exclaimed the Duchess; "you could hardly be +worse if you were lovers. Come here, Rorie, and tell me all that has +happened to you since we saw you at Lord's in July. Never mind these +Tempest people. They are of the smallest possible importance. Of +course, Rorie must have somebody to amuse himself with while we are +away." + +"And now we are come back, he is off to Oxford," said Mabel with an +aggrieved air. + +"You shouldn't have stayed so long in Switzerland then," retorted Rorie. + +"Oh, but it was my first visit, and everything is so lovely. After all +the Swiss landscapes I have done in chalk, and pencil, and +water-colours, I was astonished to find what a stranger I was to the +scenery. I blushed when I remembered those dreadful landscapes of mine. +I was ashamed to look at Mont Blanc. I felt as if the Matterhorn would +fall and crush me." + +"I think I shall do Switzerland next long," said Rorie patronisingly, +as if it would be a good thing for Switzerland. + +"You might have come this year while we were there," said Lady Mabel. + +"No, I mightn't. I've been grinding. If you knew what a dose of +Aristotle I've had, you'd pity me. That's where you girls have the best +of it. You learn to read a story-book in two or three modern languages, +to meander up and down the piano, and spoil Bristol board, or Whatman's +hot-pressed imperial, and then you call yourselves educated; while we +have to go back to the beginning of civilisation, and find out what a +lot of old Greek duffers were driving at when they sat in the sunshine +and prosed like old boots." + +Lady Mabel looked at him with a serene smile. + +"Would you be surprised to hear that I know a little Greek," she said, +"just enough to struggle through the Socratic dialogues with the aid of +my master?" + +Roderick started as if he had been stung. + +"What a shame!" he cried. "Aunt Sophia, what do you mean by making a +Lady Jane Grey or an Elizabeth Barrett Browning of her?" + +"A woman who has to occupy a leading position can hardly know too +much," answered the Duchess sententiously. + +"Ah, to be sure, Mabel will marry some diplomatic swell, and be +entertaining ambassadors by-and-by. And when some modern Greek envoy +comes simpering up to her with a remark about the weather, it will be +an advantage for her to know Plato. I understand. Wheels within wheels." + +"The Duchess of Dovedale's carriage," announced the butler, rolling out +the syllables as if it were a personal gratification to announce them. + +Mabel rose at once from the piano, and came to say good-night to her +aunt. + +"My dear child, it's quite early," said Lady Jane; "Roderick's last +night, too. And your mamma is in no hurry." + +Mabel looked at Roderick, but that young gentleman was airing himself +on the hearth-rug, and gazing absently up at the ceiling. It evidently +signified very little to him whether his aunt and cousin went or stayed. + +"You know you told papa you would be home soon after ten," said Lady +Mabel, and the Duchess rose immediately. + +She had a way of yielding to her only daughter which her +stronger-minded sister highly disapproved. The first duty of a mother, +in Lady Jane's opinion, was to rule her child, the second, to love it. +The idea was no doubt correct in the abstract; but the practice was not +succeeding too well with Roderick. + +"Good-night and good-bye," said Lady Mabel, when the maid had brought +her wraps, and Rorie had put them on. + +"Not good-bye," said the good-natured Duchess; "Rorie must come to +breakfast to-morrow, and see the Duke. He has just bought some +wonderful short-horns, and I am sure he would like to show them to you, +Rorie, because you can appreciate them. He was too tired to come out +to-night, but I know he wants to see you." + +"Thanks, I'll be there," answered Rorie, and he escorted the ladies to +their carriage; but not another word did Mabel speak till the brougham +had driven away from Briarwood. + +"What a horrid young man Roderick has grown, mamma!" she remarked +decisively, when they were outside the park-gates. + +"My love, I never saw him look handsomer." + +"I don't mean his looks. Good looks in a man are a superfluity. But his +manners--I never saw anything so underbred. Those Tempest people are +spoiling him." + + +"Roderick," said Lady Jane, just as Rorie was contemplating an escape +to the billiard-room and his cigar, "I want a little serious talk with +you." + +Rorie shivered in his shoes. He knew too well what his mother's serious +talk meant. He shrugged his shoulders with a movement that indicated a +dormant resistance, and went quietly into the drawing-room. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +Rorie comes of Age. + +"Bless my soul!" cried the Squire; "it's a vixen, after all." + +This is how Squire Tempest greeted the family doctor's announcement of +the his baby's sex. He had been particularly anxious for a son to +inherit the Abbey House estate, succeed to his father's dignities as +master of the fox-hounds, and in a general way sustain the pride and +glory of the family name; and, behold! Providence had given him a +daughter. + +"The deuce is in it," ejaculated the Squire; "to think that it should +be a vixen!" + +This is how Violet Tempest came by her curious pet name. Before she was +short-coated, she had contrived to exhibit a very spirited, and even +vixenish temper, and the family doctor, who loved a small joke, used to +ask after Miss Vixen when he paid his professional visits. As she grew +older, her tawny hair was not unlike a red fox's brush in its bright +golden-brown hue, and her temper proved decidedly vixenish. + +"I wish you wouldn't call Violet by that dreadful nickname, dear," Mrs. +Tempest remonstrated mildly. + +"My darling, it suits her to a nicety," replied the Squire, and he took +his own way in this as in most things. + +The earth rolled round, and the revolving years brought no second baby +to the Abbey House. Every year made the Squire fonder of his little +golden-haired girl. He put her on a soft white ball of a pony as soon +as she could sit up straight, and took her about the Forest with a +leading-rein. No one else was allowed to teach Vixen to ride. Young as +she was, she soon learnt to do without the leading-rein, and the gentle +white pony was discarded as too quiet for little Miss Tempest. Before +her eleventh birthday she rode to hounds, rose before the sun to hunt +the young fox-cubs in early autumn, and saw the stag at bay on the wild +heathery downs above the wooded valleys that sink and fall below +Boldrewood with almost Alpine grandeur. She was a creature full of +life, and courage, and generous impulses, and spontaneous leanings to +all good thoughts; but she was a spoiled child, liked her own way, and +had no idea of being guided by anybody else's will--unless it had been +her father's, and he never thwarted her. + +Him she adored with the fondest love that child ever gave to parent: a +blind worshipping love, that saw in him the perfection of manhood, the +beginning and end of earthly good. If anyone had dared to say in +Vixen's hearing that her father could, by any possible combination of +circumstances, do wrong, act unjustly, or ungenerously, it would have +been better for that man to have come to handy grips with a tiger-cat +than with Violet Tempest. Her reverence for her father, and her belief +in him, were boundless. + +There never, perhaps, was a happier childhood than Violet's. She was +daughter and heiress to one of the most popular men in that part of the +country, and everybody loved her. She was not much given to visiting in +a methodical way among the poor, and it had never entered into her +young mind that it was her mission to teach older people the way to +heaven; but if there was trouble in the village--a sick child, a +husband in prison for rabbit snaring, a dead baby, a little boy's +pinafore set fire--Vixen and her pony were always to the fore; and it +was an axiom in the village that, where Miss Tempest did "take," it was +very good for those she took to. Violet never withdrew her hand when +she had put it to the plough. If she made a promise, she always kept +it. However long the sickness, however dire the poverty, Vixen's +patience and benevolence lasted to the end. + +The famous princess in the story, whose sleep was broken because there +was a pea under her seven feather-beds, had scarcely a more untroubled +life than Vixen. She had her own way in everything. She did exactly +what she liked with her comfortable, middle-aged governess, Miss +McCroke, learnt what she pleased, and left what she disliked unlearned. +She had the prettiest ponies in Hampshire to ride, the prettiest +dresses to wear. Her mother was not a woman to bestow mental culture +upon her only child, but she racked her small brain to devise becoming +costumes for Violet: the coloured stockings which harmonised best with +each particular gown, the neat little buckled shoes, the fascinating +Hessian boots. Nothing was too beautiful or too costly for Violet. She +was the one thing her parents possessed in the world, and they lavished +much love upon her; but it never occurred to Mr. and Mrs. Tempest, as +it had occurred to the Duchess of Dovedale--to make their daughter a +paragon. + +In this perpetual sunshine Violet grew up, fair as most things are that +grow in the sunshine. She loved her father with all her heart, and +mind, and soul; she loved her mother with a lesser love; she had a +tolerant affection for Miss McCroke; she loved her ponies, and the dog +Argus; she loved the hounds in the kennels; she loved every honest +familiar face of nurse, servant, and stable-man, gardener, keeper, and +huntsman, that had looked upon her with friendly, admiring eyes, ever +since she could remember. + +Not to be loved and admired would have been the strangest thing to +Violet. She would hardly have recognised herself in an unappreciative +circle. If she could have heard Lady Mabel talking about her, it would +have been like the sudden revelation of an unknown world--a world in +which it was possible for people to dislike and misjudge her. + +This is one of the disadvantages of being reared in a little heaven of +domestic love. The outside world seems so hard, and black, and dreary +afterwards, and the inhabitants thereof passing cruel. + +Miss Tempest looked upon Roderick Vawdrey as her own particular +property--a person whom she had the right to order about as she +pleased. Rorie had been her playfellow and companion in his +holiday-time for the last five years. All their tastes were in common. +They had the same love for the brute creation, the same wild delight in +rushing madly through the air on the backs of unreasoning animals; +widely different in their tastes from Lady Mabel, who had once been run +away with in a pony-carriage, and looked upon all horses as incipient +murderers. They had the same love of nature, and the same indifference +to books, and the same careless scorn of all the state and ceremony of +life. + +Vixen was "rising fifteen," as her father called it, and Rorie was just +five years her senior. The Squire saw them gay and happy together, +without one serious thought of what might come of their childish +friendship in the growth of years. That his Vixen could ever care for +anyone but her "old dad," was a notion that had not yet found its way +into the Squire's brain. She seemed to him quite as much his own +property, his own to do what he liked with, singly and simply attached +to him, as his favourite horse or his favourite dog. So there were no +shadowings forth in the paternal mind as to any growth and development +which the mutual affection of these two young people might take in the +future. + +It was very different with Lady Jane Vawdrey, who never saw her son and +his cousin Mabel together without telling herself how exactly they were +suited to each other, and what a nice thing it would be for the +Briarwood and Ashbourne estates to be united by their marriage. + +Rorie went back to college, and contrived to struggle through his next +examinations with an avoidance of actual discredit; but when Christmas +came he did not return to the Forest, though Violet had counted on his +coming, and had thought that it would be good fun to have his help in +the decorations for the little Gothic church in the valley--a pretty +little new church, like a toy, which the Squire had built and paid for, +and endowed with a perpetual seventy pounds a year out of his own +pocket. It would have been fun to see poor Rorie prick his clumsy +fingers with the holly. Vixen laughed at his awkwardness in advance, +when she talked to Miss McCroke about him, and drew upon herself that +lady's mild reproval. + +But Christmas came and brought no Rorie. He had gone off to spend his +Christmas at the Duke of Dovedale's Scotch castle. Easter came, and +still no Rorie. He was at Putney, with the 'Varsity crew, or in London +with the Dovedales, riding in the Row, and forgetting dear old +Hampshire and the last of the hunting, for which he would have been +just in time. + +Even the long vacation came without Rorie. He had gone for that +promised tour in Switzerland, at his mother's instigation, and was only +to come back late in the year to keep his twenty-first birthday, which +was to be honoured in a very subdued and unhilarious fashion at +Briarwood. + +"Mamma," said Violet, at breakfast-time one August morning, with her +nose scornfully tilted, "what is Mr. Vawdrey like--dark or fair?" + +"Why Violet, you can't have forgotten him," protested her mother, with +languid astonishment. + +"I think he has been away long enough for me to forget even the colour +of his hair, mamma; and as he hasn't written to anybody, we may fairly +suppose he has forgotten us." + +"Vixen misses her old playfellow," said the Squire, busy with the +demolition of a grouse. "But Rorie is a young man now, you know, dear, +and has work to do in the world--duties, my pet--duties." + +"And is a young man's first duty to forget his old friends?" inquired +Vixen naively. + +"My pet, you can't expect a lad of that kind to write letters. I am a +deuced bad hand at letter-writing myself, and always was. I don't think +a man's hand was ever made to pinch a pen. Nature has given us a broad +strong grasp, to grip a sword or a gun. Your mother writes most of my +letters, Vixen, you know, and I shall expect you to help her in a year +or two. Let me see; Rorie will be one-and-twenty in October, and there +are to be high jinks at Briarwood, I believe, so there's something for +you to look forward to, my dear." + +"Edward!" exclaimed Mrs. Tempest reproachfully; "you forget that Violet +is not out. She will not be sixteen till next February." + +"Bless her!" cried the Squire, with a tender look at his only child, +"she has grown up like a green bay-tree. But if this were to be quite a +friendly affair at Briarwood, she might go, surely." + +"It will not be a friendly affair," said Mrs. Tempest; "Lady Jane never +gives friendly parties. There is nothing friendly in her nature, and I +don't think she likes us--much. But I daresay we shall be asked, and if +we go I must have a new dress," added the gentle lady with a sigh of +resignation. "It will be a dinner, no doubt; and the Duke and Duchess +will be there, of course." + +The card of invitation came in due course, three weeks before the +birthday. It was to be a dinner, as Mrs. Tempest had opined. She wrote +off to her milliner at once, and there was a passage of letters and +fashion-plates and patterns of silk to and fro, and some of Mrs. +Tempest's finest lace came out of the perfumed chest in which she kept +her treasures, and was sent off to Madame Theodore. + +Poor Vixen beheld these preparations with an aching heart. She did not +care about dinner-parties in the least, but she would have liked to be +with Roderick on his birthday. She would have liked it to have been a +hunting-day, and to have ridden for a wild scamper across the hills +with him--to have seen the rolling downs of the Wight blue in the +distance--to have felt the soft south wind blowing in her face, and to +have ridden by his side, neck and neck, all day long; and then to have +gone home to the Abbey House to dinner, to the snug round table in the +library, and the dogs, and papa in his happiest mood, expanding over +his port and walnuts. That would have been a happy birthday for all of +them, in Violet's opinion. + +The Squire and his daughter had plenty of hunting in this merry month +of October, but there had been no sign of Rorie and his big raking +chestnut in the field, nor had anyone in the Forest heard of or seen +the young Oxonian. + +"I daresay he is only coming home in time for the birthday," Mrs. +Tempest remarked placidly, and went on with her preparations for that +event. + +She wanted to make a strong impression on the Duchess, who had not +behaved too well to her, only sending her invitations for +indiscriminate afternoon assemblies, which Mrs. Tempest had graciously +declined, pleading her feeble health as a reason for not going to +garden-parties. + +Vixen was in a peculiar temper during those three weeks, and poor Miss +McCroke had hard work with her. + +"_Der_, _die_, _das_," cried Vixen, throwing down her German grammar in +a rage one morning, when she had been making a muddle of the definite +article in her exercise, and the patient governess had declared that +they really must go back to the very beginning of things. "What stupid +people the Germans are! Why can't they have one little word for +everything, as we have? T, h, e, the. Any child can learn that. What do +they mean by chopping up their language into little bits, like the +pieces in a puzzle? Why, even the French are more reasonable--though +they're bad enough, goodness knows, with their hes and shes--feminine +tables, and masculine beds. Why should I be bothered to learn all this +rubbish? I'm not going to be a governess, and it will never be any use +to me. Papa doesn't know a single sentence in French or German, and +he's quite happy." + +"But if your papa were travelling on the Continent, Violet, he would +find his ignorance of the language a great deprivation." + +"No, he wouldn't. He'd have a courier." + +"Are you aware, my dear, that we have wasted five minutes already in +this discursive conversation?" remarked Miss McCroke, looking at a fat +useful watch, which she wore at her side in the good old fashion. "We +will leave the grammar for the present, and you can repeat Schiller's +Song of the Bell." + +"I'd rather say the Fight with the Dragon," said Vixen; "there's more +fire and life in it. I do like Schiller, Crokey dear. But isn't it a +pity he didn't write it in English?" + +And Vixen put her hands behind her, and began to recite the wonderful +story of the knight who slew the dragon, and very soon her eyes kindled +and her cheeks were aflame, and the grand verses were rolled out +rapidly, with a more or less faulty pronunciation, but plenty of life +and vehemence. This exercise of mind and memory suited Vixen a great +deal better than dull plodding at the first principles of grammar, and +the perpetual _der_, _die_, _das_. + +This day was the last of October, and Roderick Vawdrey's birthday. He +had not been seen at the Abbey House yet. He had returned to Briarwood +before this, no doubt, but had not taken the trouble to come and see +his old friends. + +"He's a man now, and has duties, and has done with us," thought Vixen +savagely. + +She was very glad that it was such a wretched day--a hideous day for +anyone's twenty-first birthday, ominous of all bad things, she thought. +There was not a rift in the dull gray sky; the straight fine rain came +down persistently, soaking into the sodden earth, and sending up an +odour of dead leaves. The smooth shining laurels in the shrubbery were +the only things in nature that seemed no worse for the perpetual +downpour. The gravel drives were spongy and sloppy. There was no +hunting, or Vixen would have been riding her pony through rain and foul +weather, and would have been comparatively independent of the elements. +But to be at home all day, watching the rain, and thinking what a +horrid, ungrateful young man Rorie was! That was dreary. + +Mrs. Tempest went to her room to lie down directly after luncheon. She +wanted to keep herself fresh for the evening. She made quite a solemn +business of this particular dinner-party. At five precisely, Pauline +was to bring her a cup of tea. At half-past five she was to begin to +dress. This would give her an hour and a half for her toilet, as +Briarwood was only half-an-hour's drive from the Abbey House. So for +the rest of that day--until she burst upon their astonished view in her +new gown--Mrs. Tempest would be invisible to her family. + +"What a disgusting birthday!" cried Vixen, sitting in the deep +embrasure of the hall window, with Argus at her side, dog and girl +looking out at the glistening shrubbery. + +Miss McCroke had gone to her room to write letters, or Vixen would have +hardly been allowed to remain peacefully in such an inelegant position, +her knees drawn up to her chin, her arms embracing her legs, her back +against the stout oak shutter. Yet the girl and dog made rather a +pretty picture, despite the inelegance of Vixen's attitude. The tawny +hair, black velvet frock, and careless amber sash, amber stockings, and +broad-toed Cromwell shoes; the tawny mastiff curled in the opposite +corner of the deep recess; the old armorial bearings, sending pale +shafts of parti-coloured light across Vixen's young head;--these things +made a picture full framed of light and colour, in the dark brown oak. + +"What an abominable birthday!" ejaculated Vixen; "if it were such +weather as this on my twenty-first birthday, I should think Nature had +taken a dislike to me. But I don't suppose Rorie cares. He is playing +billiards with a lot of his friends, and smoking, and making a horror +of himself, I daresay, and hardly knows whether it rains or shines." + +Drip, drip, drip, came the rain on the glistening leaves, berberis and +laurel, bay and holly, American oaks of richest red and bronze, copper +beeches, tall rhododendrons, cypress of every kind, and behind them a +dense black screen of yew. The late roses looked miserable. Vixen would +have liked to have brought them in and put them by the hall fire--the +good old hearth with its pile of blazing logs, before which Nip the +pointer was stretched at ease, his muscular toes stiffening themselves +occasionally, as if he was standing at a bird in his dreams. + +Vixen went on watching the rain. It was rather a lazy way of spending +the afternoon certainly, but Miss Tempest was out of humour with her +little world, and did not feel equal to groping out the difficulties, +the inexorable double sharps and odious double flats, in a waltz of +Chopin's. She watched the straight thin rain, and thought about +Rorie--chiefly to the effect that she hated him, and never could, by +any possibility, like him again. + +Gradually the trickle of the rain from an overflowing waterpipe took +the sound of a tune. No _berceuse_ by Gounod was ever more +rest-compelling. The full white lids drooped over the big brown eyes, +the little locked hands loosened, the soft round chin fell forward on +the knees; Argus gave a snort of satisfaction, and laid his heavy head +on the velvet gown. Girl and dog were asleep. There was no sound in the +wide old hall except the soft falling of wood ashes, the gentle +breathing of girl and dogs. + +Too pretty a picture assuredly to be lost to the eye of mankind. + +Whose footstep was this sounding on the wet gravel half-an-hour later? +Too quick and light for the Squire's. Who was this coming in softly out +of the rain, all dripping like a water god? Who was this whose falcon +eye took in the picture at a glance, and who stole cat-like to the +window, and bending down his dark wet head, gave Violet's sleeping lips +the first lover's kiss that had ever saluted them? + +Violet awoke with a faint shiver of surprise and joy. Instinct told her +from whom that kiss came, though it was the first time Roderick had +kissed her since he went to Eton. The lovely brown eyes opened and +looked into the dark gray ones. The ruddy brown head rested on Rorie's +shoulder. The girl--half child, half woman, and all loving +trustfulness, looked up at him with a glad smile. His heart was stirred +with a new feeling as those softly bright eyes looked into his. It was +the early dawn of a passionate love. The head lying on his breast +seemed to him the fairest thing on earth. + +"Rorie, how disgracefully you have behaved, and how utterly I detest +you!" exclaimed Vixen, giving him a vigorous push, and scrambling down +from the window-seat. "To be all this time in Hampshire and never come +near us." + +A moment ago, in that first instant of a newly awakened delight, she +was almost betrayed into telling him that she loved him dearly, and had +found life empty without him. But having had just time enough to +recover herself, she drew herself up as straight as a dart, and looked +at him as Kate may have looked at Petruchio during their first +unpleasant interview in which they made each other's acquaintance. + +"All this time!" cried Rorie. "Do you know how long I have been in +Hampshire?" + +"Haven't the least idea," retorted Vixen haughtily. + +"Just half-an-hour--or, at least it is exactly half-an-hour since I was +deposited with all my goods and chattels at the Lyndhurst Road Station." + +"You are only just home from Switzerland?" + +"Within this hour!" + +"And you have not even been to Briarwood?" + +"My honoured mother still awaits my duteous greetings." + +"And this is your twenty-first birthday, and you came here first of +all." + +And, almost uninvited, the tawny head dropped on to his shoulder again, +and the sweet childish lips allowed themselves to be kissed. + +"Rorie, how brown you have grown.'" + +"Have I!" + +The gray eyes were looking into the brown ones admiringly, and the +conversation was getting a trifle desultory. + +Swift as a flash Violet recollected herself. It dawned upon her that it +was not quite the right thing for a young lady "rising sixteen" to let +herself be kissed so tamely. Besides, Rorie never used to do it. The +thing was a new development, a curious outcome of his Swiss tour. +Perhaps people did it in Switzerland, and Rorie had acquired the habit. + +"How dare you do such a thing?" exclaimed Vixen, shaking herself free +from the traveller's encircling arm. + +"I didn't think you minded," said Rorie innocently; "and when a fellow +comes home from a long journey he expects a warm welcome!" + +"And I am glad to see you," cried Vixen, giving him both her hands with +a glorious frankness; "but you don't know how I have been hating you +lately." + +"Why, Vixen?" + +"For being always away. I thought you had forgotten us all--that you +did not care a jot for any of us." + +"I had not forgotten any of you, and I did care--very much--for some of +you." + +This, though vague, was consoling. + +The brown became Roderick. Dark of visage always, he was now tanned to +a bronze as of one born under southern skies. Those deep gray eyes of +his looked black under their black lashes. His black hair was cut close +to his well-shaped head. An incipient moustache shaded his upper lip, +and gave manhood to the strong, firm mouth. A manly face altogether, +Roderick's, and handsome withal. Vixen's short life had shown her none +handsomer. + +He was tall and strongly built, with a frame that had been developed by +many an athletic exercise--from throwing the hammer to pugilism. Vixen +thought him the image of Richard Coeur de Lion. She had been reading +"The Talisman" lately, and the Plantagenet was her ideal of manly +excellence. + +"Many happy returns of the day, Rorie," she said softly. "To think that +you are of age to-day. Your own master." + +"Yes, my infancy ceased and determined at the last stroke of midnight +yesterday. I wonder whether my anxious mother will recognise that fact?" + +"Of course you know what is going to happen at Briarwood. There is to +be a grand dinner-party." + +"And you are coming? How jolly!" + +"Oh, no, Rorie. I am not out yet, you know. I shan't be for two years. +Papa means to give me a season in town. He calls it having me broken to +harness. He'll take a furnished house, and we shall have the horses up, +and I shall ride in the Row, You'll be with us part of the time, won't +you, Rorie?" + +"_Ca se peut_. If papa will invite me." + +"Oh, he will, if I wish it. It's to be my first season, you know, and +I'm to have everything my own way." + +"Will that be a novelty?" demanded Roderick, with intention. + +"I don't know. I haven't had my own way in anything lately." + +"How is that?" + +"You have been away." + +At this naive flattery, Roderick almost blushed. + +"How you've grown. Vixen," he remarked presently. + +"Have I really? Yes, I suppose I do grow. My frocks are always getting +too short." + +"Like the sleeves of my dress-coats a year or two ago." + +"But now you are of age, and can't grow any more. What are you going to +be, Rorie? What are you going to do with your liberty? Are you going +into Parliament?" + +Mr. Vawdrey indulged in a suppressed yawn. + +"My mother would like it," he said, "but upon my word I don't care +about it. I don't take enough interest in my fellow-creatures." + +"If they were foxes, you'd be anxious to legislate for them," suggested +Vixen. + +"I would certainly try to protect them from indiscriminate slaughter. +And in fact, when one considers the looseness of existing game-laws, I +think every country gentleman ought to be in Parliament." + +"And there is the Forest for you to take care of." + +"Yes, forestry is a subject on which I should like to have my say. I +suppose I shall be obliged to turn senator. But I mean to take life +easily--you may be sure of that, Vixen; and I intend to have the best +stud of hunters in Hampshire. And now I think I must be off." + +"No, you mustn't," cried Violet. "The dinner is not till eight. If you +leave here at six you will have no end of time for getting home to +dress. How did you come?" + +"On these two legs." + +"You shall have four to take you to Briarwood. West shall drive you +home in papa's dog-cart, with the new mare. You don't know her, do you? +Papa only bought her last spring. She is such a beauty, and +goes--goes--oh, like a skyrocket. She bolts occasionally; but you don't +mind that, do you?" + +"Not in the least. It would be rather romantic to be smashed on one's +twenty-first birthday. Will you tell them to order West to get ready at +once." + +"Oh, but you are to stop to tea with Miss McCroke and me--that's part +of our bargain. No kettledrum, no Starlight Bess! And you'd scarcely +care about walking to Briarwood under such rain as that!" + +"So be it, then; kettledrum and Starlight Bess, at any hazard of +maternal wrath. But really now I'm doing a most ungentlemanly thing, +Vixen, to oblige you!" + +"Always be ungentlemanly then for my sake--if it's ungentlemanly to +come and see me," said Vixen coaxingly. + +They were standing side by side in the big window looking out at the +straight thin rain. The two pairs of lips were not very far away from +each other, and Rorie might have been tempted to commit a third offence +against the proprieties, if Miss McCroke had not fortunately entered at +this very moment. She was wonderfully surprised at seeing Mr. Vawdrey, +congratulated him ceremoniously upon his majority, and infused an +element of stiffness into the small assembly. + +"Rorie is going to stay to tea," said Vixen. "We'll have it here by the +fire, please, Crokey dear. One can't have too much of a good fire this +weather. Or shall we go to my den? Which would you like best, Rorie?" + +"I think we had better have tea here, Violet," interjected Miss +McCroke, ringing the bell. + +Her pupil's _sanctum sanctorum_--that pretty up-stairs room, half +schoolroom, half boudoir, and wholly untidy--was not, in Miss McCroke's +opinion, an apartment to be violated by the presence of a young man. + +"And as Rory hasn't had any luncheon, and has come ever so far out of +his way to see me, please order something substantial for him," said +Vixen. + +Her governess obeyed. The gipsy table was wheeled up to the broad +hearth, and presently the old silver tea-pot and kettle, and the yellow +cups and saucers, were shining in the cheery firelight. The old butler +put a sirloin and a game-pie on the sideboard, and then left the little +party to shift for themselves, in pleasant picnic fashion. + +Vixen sat down before the hissing tea-kettle with a pretty important +air, like a child making tea out of toy tea-things. Rorie brought a low +square stool to a corner close to her, and seated himself with his chin +a little above the tea-table. + +"You can't eat roast beef in that position," said Vixen. + +"Oh yes I can--I can do anything that's mad or merry this evening. But +I'm not at all sure that I want beef, though it is nearly three months +since I've seen an honest bit of ox beef. I think thin bread and +butter--or roses and dew even--quite substantial enough for me this +evening." + +"You're afraid of spoiling your appetite for the grand dinner," said +Vixen. + +"No, I'm not. I hate grand dinners. Fancy making a fine art of eating, +and studying one's _menu_ beforehand to see what combination of dishes +will harmonise best with one's internal economy. And then the names of +the things are always better than the things themselves. It's like a +show at a fair, all the best outside. Give me a slice of English beef +or mutton, and a bird that my gun has shot, and let all the fine-art +dinners go hang." + +"Cut him a slice of beef, dear Miss McCroke," said Vixen. + +"Not now, thanks; I can't eat now. I'm going to drink orange pekoe." + +Argus had taken up his position between Violet and her visitor. He sat +bolt upright, like a sentinel keeping guard over his mistress; save +that a human sentinel, unless idiotic or intoxicated, would hardly sit +with jaws wide apart, and his tongue hanging out of one side of his +mouth, as Argus did. But this lolloping attitude of the canine tongue +was supposed to indicate a mind at peace with creation. + +"Are you very glad to come of age, Rorie?" asked Vixen, turning her +bright brown eyes upon him, full of curiosity. + +"Well, it will be rather nice to have as much money as I want without +asking my mother for it. She was my only guardian, you know. My father +had such confidence in her rectitude and capacity that he left +everything in her hands." + +"Do you find Briarwood much improved?" inquired Miss McCroke. + +Lady Jane had been doing a good deal to her orchid-houses lately. + +"I haven't found Briarwood at all yet," answered Rorie, "and Vixen +seems determined I shan't find it." + +"What, have you only just returned?" + +"Only just," + +"And you have not seen Lady Jane yet?" exclaimed Miss McCroke with a +horrified look. + +"It sounds rather undutiful, doesn't it? I was awfully tired, after +travelling all night; and I made this a kind of halfway house." + +"Two sides of a triangle are invariably longer than any one side," +remarked Vixen, gravely. "At least that's what Miss McCroke has taught +me." + +"It was rather out of my way, of course. But I wanted to see whether +Vixen had grown. And I wanted to see the Squire." + +"Papa has gone to Ringwood to look at a horse; but you'll see him at +the grand dinner. He'll be coming home to dress presently." + +"I hope you had an agreeable tour, Mr. Vawdrey?" said Miss McCroke. + +"Oh, uncommonly jolly." + +"And you like Switzerland?" + +"Yes; it's nice and hilly." + +And then Roderick favoured them with a sketch of his travels, while +they sipped their tea, and while Vixen made the dogs balance pieces of +cake on their big blunt noses. + +It was all very nice--the Tete Noire, and Mont Blanc, and the +Matterhorn. Rorie jumbled them all together, without the least regard +to geography. He had done a good deal of climbing, had worn out and +lost dozens of alpenstocks, and had brought home a case of Swiss carved +work for his friends. + +"There's a clock for your den, Vixen--I shall bring it to-morrow--with +a little cock-robin that comes out of his nest and sings--no end of +jolly." + +"How lovely!" cried Violet. + +The tall eight-day clock in a corner of the hall chimed the half-hour. + +"Half-past five, and Starlight Bess not ordered," exclaimed Roderick. + +"Let's go out to the stables and see about her," suggested Vixen. "And +then I can show you my pony. You remember Titmouse, the one that +_would_ jump?" + +"Violet!" ejaculated the aggrieved governess. "Do you suppose I would +permit you to go out of doors in such weather?" + +"Do you think it's still raining?" asked Vixen innocently. "It may have +cleared up. Well, we'd better order the cart," she added meekly, as she +rang the bell. "I'm not of age yet, you see, Rorie. Please, Peters, +tell West to get papa's dog-cart ready for Mr. Vawdrey, and to drive +Starlight Bess." + +Rorie looked at the bright face admiringly. The shadows had deepened; +there was no light in the great oak-panelled room except the ruddy +fire-glow, and in this light Violet Tempest looked her loveliest. The +figures in the tapestry seemed to move in the flickering +light--appeared and vanished, vanished and appeared, like the phantoms +of a dream. The carved bosses of the ceiling were reflected grotesquely +on the oaken wall above the tapestry. The stags' heads had a goblin +look. It was like a scene of enchantment, and Violet, in her black +frock and amber sash, looked like the enchantress--Circe, Vivien, +Melusine, or somebody of equally dubious antecedents. + +It was Miss McCroke's sleepiest hour. Orange pekoe, which has an +awakening influence upon most people, acted as an opiate upon her. She +sat blinking owlishly at the two young figures. + +Rorie roused himself with a great effort. + +"Unless Starlight Bess spins me along the road pretty quickly, I shall +hardly get to Briarwood by dinner-time," he said; "and upon my honour, +I don't feel the least inclination to go." + +"Oh, what fun if you were absent at your coming-of-age dinner!" cried +Vixen, with her brown eyes dancing mischievously. "They would have to +put an empty chair for you, like Banquo's." + +"It would be a lark," acquiesced Rorie, "but it wouldn't do; I should +hear too much about it afterwards. A fellow's mother has some kind of +claim upon him, you know. Now for Starlight Bess." + +They went into the vestibule, and Rorie opened the door, letting in a +gust of wind and rain, and the scent of autumn's last ill-used flowers. + +"Oh, I so nearly forgot," said Violet, as they stood on the threshold, +side by side, waiting for the dog-cart to appear. "I've got a little +present for you--quite a humble one for a grand young land-owner like +you--but I never could save much of my pocket-money; there are so many +poor children always having scarlet-fever, or tumbling into the fire, +or drinking out of boiling tea-kettles. But here it is, Rorie. I hope +you won't hate it very much." + +She put a little square packet into his hand, which he proceeded +instantly to open. + +"I shall love it, whatever it is." + +"It's a portrait." + +"You darling! The very thing I should have asked for." + +"The portrait of someone you're fond of." + +"Someone I adore," said Rorie. + +He had extracted the locket from its box by this time. It was a thick +oblong locket of dead gold, plain and massive; the handsomest of its +kind that a Southampton jeweller could supply. + +Rorie opened it eagerly, to look at the portrait. + +There was just light enough from the newly-kindled vestibule lamp to +show it to him. + +"Why it's a dog," cried Rorie, with deep-toned disgust. "It's old +Argus." + +"Who did you think it was?" + +"You, of course." + +"What an idea! As if I should give anyone my portrait. I knew you were +fond of Argus. Doesn't his head come out beautifully? The photographer +said he was the best sitter he had had for ever so long. I hope you +don't quite detest the locket, Rorie." + +"I admire it intensely, and I'm deeply grateful. But I feel +inexpressibly sold, all the same. And I am to go about the world with +Argus dangling at my breast. Well, for your sake, Vixen, I'll submit +even to that degradation." + +Here came the cart, with two flaming lamps, like angry eyes flashing +through the shrubberies. It pulled up at the steps. Rorie and Vixen +clasped hands and bade good-night, and then the young man swung himself +lightly into the seat beside the driver, and away went Starlight Bess +making just that sort of dashing and spirited start which inspires the +timorous beholder with the idea that the next proceeding will be the +bringing home of the driver and his companion upon a brace of shutters. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Rorie makes a Speech. + +Somewhat to his surprise, and much to his delight, Roderick Vawdrey +escaped that maternal lecture which he was wont undutifully to describe +as a "wigging." When he entered the drawing-room in full dress just +about ten minutes before the first of the guests was announced, Lady +Jane received him with a calm affectionateness, and asked him no +questions about his disposal of the afternoon. Perhaps this unusual +clemency was in honour of his twenty-first birthday, Rorie thought. A +man could not come of age more than once in his life. He was entitled +to some favour. + +The dinner-party was as other dinners at Briarwood; all the +arrangements perfect; the _menu_ commendable, if not new; the general +result a little dull. + +The Ashbourne party were among the first to arrive; the Duke portly and +affable; the Duchess delighted to welcome her favourite nephew; Lady +Mabel looking very fragile, flower-like, and graceful, in her pale blue +gauze dinner-dress. Lady Mabel affected the palest tints, half-colours, +which were more like the shadows in a sunset sky than any earthly hues. + +She took possession of Rorie at once, treating him with a calm +superiority, as if he had been a younger brother. + +"Tell me all about Switzerland," she said, as they sat side by side on +one of the amber ottomans. "What was it that you liked best?" + +"The climbing, of course," he answered. + +"But which of all the landscapes? What struck you most? What impressed +you most vividly? Your first view of Mont Blanc, or that marvellous +gorge below the Tete Noire,--or----?" + +"It was all uncommonly jolly. But there's a family resemblance in Swiss +mountains, don't you know? They're all white--and they're all peaky. +There's a likeness in Swiss lakes, too, if you come to think of it. +They're all blue, and they're all wet. And Swiss villages, now--don't +you think they are rather disappointing?--such a cruel plagiarism of +those plaster chalets the image-men carry about the London streets, and +no candle-ends burning inside to make 'em look pretty. But I liked +Lucerne uncommonly, there was such a capital billiard-table at the +hotel." + +"Roderick!" cried Lady Mabel, with a disgusted look. "I don't think you +have a vestige of poetry in your nature." + +"I hope I haven't," replied Rorie devoutly. + +"You could see those sublime scenes, and never once feel your heart +thrilled or your mind exalted--you can come home from your first Swiss +tour and talk about billiard-tables!" + +"The scenery was very nice," said Rorie thoughtfully. "Yes; there were +times, perhaps, when I was a trifle stunned by all that grand calm +beauty, the silence, the solitude, the awfulness of it all; but I had +hardly time to feel the thrill when I came bump up against a party of +tourists, English or American, all talking the same twaddle, and all +patronising the scenery. That took the charm out of the landscape +somehow, and I coiled up, as the Yankees say. And now you want me to go +into second-hand raptures, and repeat my emotions, as if I were writing +a tourist's article for a magazine. I can't do it, Mabel." + +"Well, I won't bore you any more about it," said Lady Mabel, "but I +confess my disappointment. I thought we should have such nice long +talks about Switzerland." + +"What's the use of talking of a place? If it's so lovely that one can't +live without it, one had better go back there." + +This was a practical way of putting things which was too much for Lady +Mabel. She fanned herself gently with a great fan of cloudy looking +feathers, such as Titania might have used that midsummer night near +Athens. She relapsed into a placid silence, looking at Rorie +thoughtfully with her calm blue eyes. + +His travels had improved him. That bronze hue suited him wonderfully +well. He looked more manly. He was no longer a beardless boy, to be +patronised with that gracious elder-sister air of Lady Mabel's. She +felt that he was further off from her than he had been last season in +London. + +"How late you arrived this evening," she said, after a pause. "I came +to five-o'clock with my aunt, and found her quite anxious about you. If +it hadn't been for your telegram from Southampton, she would have +fancied there was something wrong." + +"She needn't have fidgeted herself after three o'clock," answered Rorie +coolly; "my luggage must have come home by that time." + +"I see. You sent the luggage on before, and came by a later train?" + +"No, I didn't. I stopped halfway between here and Lyndhurst to see some +old friends." + +"Flattering for my aunt," said Mabel. "I should have thought she was +your oldest friend." + +"Of course she has the prior claim. But as I was going to hand myself +over to her bodily at seven o'clock, to be speechified about and +rendered generally ridiculous, after the manner of young men who come +of age, I felt I was entitled to do what I liked in the interval." + +"And therefore you went to the Tempests'," said Mabel, with her blue +eyes sparkling. "I see. That is what you do when you do what you like." + +"Precisely. I am very fond of Squire Tempest. When I first rode to +hounds it was under his wing. There's my mother beckoning me; I am to +go and do the civil to people." + +And Roderick walked away from the ottoman to the spot where his mother +stood, with the Duke of Dovedale at her side, receiving her guests. + +"It was a very grand party, in the way of blue blood, landed estate, +diamonds, lace, satin and velvet, and self-importance. All the magnates +of the soil, within accessible distance of Briarwood, had assembled to +do honour to Rorie's coming of age. The dining-tables had been arranged +in a horse-shoe, so as to accommodate fifty people in a room which, in +its every-day condition, would not have been too large for thirty. The +orchids and ferns upon this horse-shoe table made the finest +floricultural show that had been seen for a long time. There were rare +specimens from New Granada and the Philippine Islands; wondrous flowers +lately discovered in the Sierra Madre; blossoms of every shape and +colour from the Cordilleras; richest varieties of hue--golden yellow, +glowing crimson, creamy white; rare eccentricities of form and colour +beside which any other flower would have looked vulgar; butterfly +flowers and pitcher-shaped flowers, that had cost as much money as +prize pigeons, and seemed as worthless, save to the connoisseur in the +article. The Vawdrey racing-plate, won by Roderick's grandfather, was +nowhere by comparison with those marvellous tropical blossoms, that +fairy forest of fern. Everybody talked about the orchids, confessed his +or her comparative ignorance of the subject, and complimented Lady Jane. + +"The orchids made the hit of the evening," Rorie said afterwards. "It +was their coming of age, not mine." + +There was a moderate and endurable amount of speechifying by-and-by, +when the monster double-crowned pines had been cut, and the purple +grapes, almost as big as pigeons' eggs, had gone round. + +The Duke of Dovedale assured his friends that this was one of the +proudest moments of his life, and that if Providence had permitted a +son of his own to attain his majority, he, the Duke, could have hardly +felt a deeper interest in the occasion than he felt to-day. He +had--arra--arra--known this young man from childhood, and +had--er--um--never found him guilty of a mean +action--or--arra--discovered in him a thought unworthy of an English +gentleman. + +This last was felt to be a strong point, as it implied that an English +gentleman must needs be much better than any other gentleman. + +A continental gentleman might, of course, be guilty of an unworthy +thought and yet pass current, according to the loose morality of his +nation. But the English article must be flawless. + +And thus the Duke meandered on for five minutes or so, and there was a +subdued gush of approval, and then an uncomfortable little pause, and +then Rorie rose in his place, next to the Duchess, and returned thanks. + +He told them all how fond he was of them and the soil that bred them. +How he meant to be a Hampshire squire, pure and simple, if he could. +How he had no higher ambition than to be useful and to do good in this +little spot of England which Providence had given him for his +inheritance. How, if he should go into Parliament by-and-by, as he had +some thoughts of attempting to do, it would be in their interests that +he would join that noble body of legislators; that it would be they and +their benefit he would have always nearest his heart. + +"There is not a tree in the Forest that I do not love," cried Rorie, +fired with his theme, and forgetting to stammer; "and I believe there +is not a tree, from the Twelve Apostles to the Knightwood Oak, or a +patch of gorse from Picket Post to Stony Cross, that I do not know as +well as I know the friends round me to-night. I was born in the Forest, +and may I live and die and be buried here. I have just come back from +seeing some of the finest scenery in Europe; yet, without blushing for +my want of poetry, I will confess that the awful grandeur of those +snow-clad mountains did not touch my heart so deeply as our beechen +glades and primrose-carpeted bottoms close at home." There was a burst +of applause after Rorie's speech that made all the orchids shiver, and +nearly annihilated a thirty-guinea _Odontoglossum Vexillarium_. His +talk about the Forest, irrelevant as it might be, went home to the +hearts of the neighbouring landowners. But, by-and-by, in the +drawing-room, when he rejoined his cousin, he found that fastidious +young lady by no means complimentary. + +"Your speech would have been capital half a century ago, Rorie," she +said, "and you don't arra--arra--as poor papa does, which is something +to be thankful for; but all that talk about the Forest seemed to be an +anachronism. People are not rooted in their native soil nowadays, as +they used to be in the old stage-coach times, when it was a long day's +journey to London. One might as well be a vegetable at once if one is +to be pinned down to one particular spot of earth. Why, the Twelve +Apostles," exclaimed Mabel, innocent of irreverence, for she meant +certain ancient and fast-decaying oaks so named, "see as much of life +as your fine old English gentleman. Men have wider ideas nowadays. The +world is hardly big enough for their ambition." + +"I would rather live in a field, and strike my roots deep down like one +of those trees, than be a homeless nomad with a world-wide ambition," +answered Rorie. "I have a passion for home." + +"Then I wonder you spend so little time in it." + +"Oh, I don't mean a home inside four walls. The Forest is my home, and +Briarwood is no dearer to me than any other spot in it." + +"Not so dear as the Abbey House, perhaps?" + +"Well, no. I confess that fine old Tudor mansion pleases me better than +this abode of straight lines and French windows, plate glass and gilt +mouldings." + +They sat side by side upon the amber ottoman, Rorie with Mabel's blue +feather fan in his hand, twirling and twisting it as he talked, and +doing more damage to that elegant article in a quarter of an hour than +a twelvemonth's legitimate usage would have done. People, looking at +the pretty pair, smiled significantly, and concluded that it would be a +match, and went home and told less privileged people about the evident +attachment between the Duke's daughter and the young commoner. But +Rorie was not strongly drawn towards his cousin this evening. It seemed +to him that she was growing more and more of a paragon; and he hated +paragons. + +She played presently, and afterwards sang some French _chansons_. Both +playing and singing were perfect of their kind. Rorie did not +understand Chopin, and thought there was a good deal of unnecessary +hopping about the piano in that sort of thing--nothing concrete, or +that came to a focus; a succession of airy meanderings, a fairy dance +in the treble, a goblin hunt in the bass. But the French _chansons_, +the dainty little melodies with words of infantile innocence, all about +leaves and buds, and birds'-nests and butterflies, pleased him +infinitely. He hung over the piano with an enraptured air; and again +his friends made note of his subjugation, and registered the fact for +future discussion. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +How she took the News. + +It was past midnight when the Tempest carriage drove through the dark +rhododendron shrubberies up to the old Tudor porch. There was a great +pile of logs burning in the hall, giving the home-comers cheery +welcome. There was an antique silver spirit stand with its +accompaniments on one little table for the Squire, and there was +another little table on the opposite side of the hearth for Mrs. +Tempest, with a dainty tea-service sparkling and shining in the red +glow. + +A glance at these arrangements would have told you that there were old +servants at the Abbey House, servants who knew their master's and +mistress's ways, and for whom service was more or less a labour of love. + +"How nice," said the lady, with a contented sigh. "Pauline has thought +of my cup of tea." + +"And Forbes has not forgotten my soda-water," remarked the Squire. + +He said nothing about the brandy, which he was pouring into the tall +glass with a liberal hand. + +Pauline came to take off her mistress's cloak, and was praised for her +thoughtfulness about the tea, and then dismissed for the night. + +The Squire liked to stretch his legs before his own fireside after +dining out; and with the Squire, as with Mr. Squeers, the +leg-stretching process involved the leisurely consumption of a good +deal of brandy and water. + +Mr. and Mrs. Tempest talked over the Briarwood dinner-party, and +arrived--with perfect good nature--at the conclusion that it had been a +failure. + +"The dinner was excellent," said the Squire, "but the wine went round +too slow; my glasses were empty half the time. That's always the way +when you've a woman at the helm. She never fills her cellars properly, +or trusts her butler thoroughly." + +"The dresses were lovely," said Mrs. Tempest, "but everyone looked +bored. How did you like my dress, Edward? I think it's rather good +style. Theodore will charge me horribly for it, I daresay." + +"I don't know much about your dress, Pam, but you were the prettiest +woman in the room." + +"Oh Edward, at my age!" exclaimed Mrs. Tempest, with a pleased look, +"when there was that lovely Lady Mabel Ashbourne." + +"Do you call her lovely?--I don't. Lips too thin; waist too slim; too +much blood, and too little flesh." + +"Oh, but surely, Edward, she is grace itself; quite an ethereal +creature. If Violet had more of that refined air----" + +"Heaven forbid. Vixen is worth twenty such fine-drawn misses. Lady +Mabel has been spoiled by over-training." + +"Roderick is evidently in love with her," suggested Mrs. Tempest, +pouring out another cup of tea. + +The clocks had just struck two, the household was at rest, the logs +blazed and cracked merrily, the red light shining on those mail-clad +effigies in the corners, lighting up helm and hauberk, glancing on +greaves and gauntlets. It was an hour of repose and gossip which the +Squire dearly loved. + +Hush! what is this creeping softly down the old oak staircase? A +slender white figure with cloudy hair; a small pale face, and two dark +eyes shining with excitement; little feet in black velvet slippers +tripping lightly upon the polished oak. + +Is it a ghost? No; ghosts are noiseless, and those little slippers +descend from stair to stair with a gentle pit-a-pit. + +"Bless my soul and body!" cried the Squire; "what's this?" + +A gush of girlish laughter was his only answer. + +"Vixen!" + +"Did you take me for a ghost, papa?" cried Violet, descending the last +five stairs with a flying leap, and then, bounding across the hall to +perch, light as a bird, upon her father's knee. "Did I really frighten +you? Did you think the good old Abbey House was going to set up a +family ghost; a white lady, with a dismal history of a broken heart? +You darling papa! I hope you took me for a ghost!" + +"Well, upon my word, you know, Vixen, I was just the least bit +staggered. Your little white figure looked like something uncanny +against the black oak balustrades, half in light, half in shadow." + +"How nice!" exclaimed Violet. + +"But, my dear Violet, what can have induced you to come downstairs at +such an hour?" ejaculated Mrs. Tempest in an aggrieved voice. + +"I want to hear all about the party, mamma," answered Vixen coaxingly. +"Do you think I could sleep a wink on the night of Rorie's coming of +age? I heard the joy-bells ringing in my ears all night." + +"That was very ridiculous." said Mrs. Tempest, "for there were no +joy-bells after eleven o'clock yesterday." + +"But they rang all the same, mamma. It was no use burying my head in +the pillows; those bells only rang the louder. Ding-dong, ding-dong, +dell, Rorie's come of age; ding-dong, dell, Rorie's twenty-one. Then I +thought of the speeches that would be made, and I fancied I could hear +Rorie speaking. Did he make a good speech, papa?" + +"Capital, Vix; the only one that was worth hearing!" + +"I am so glad! And did he look handsome while he was speaking? I think +the Swiss sunshine has rather over-cooked him, you know; but he is not +unbecomingly brown." + +"He looked as handsome a young fellow as you need wish to set eyes on." + +"My dear Edward," remonstrated Mrs. Tempest, languidly, too thoroughly +contented with herself to be seriously vexed about anything, "do you +think it is quite wise of you to encourage Violet in that kind of talk?" + +"Why should she not talk of him? She never had a brother, and he stands +in the place of one to her. Isn't Rorie the same to you as an elder +brother, Vix?" + +The girl's head was on her father's shoulder, one slim arm round his +neck, her face hidden against the Squire's coat-collar. He could not +see the deep warm blush that dyed his daughter's cheek at this home +question. + +"I don't quite know what an elder brother would be like, papa. But I'm +very fond of Rorie--when he's nice, and comes to see us before anyone +else, as he did to-day." + +"And when he stays away?" + +"Oh, then I hate him awfully," exclaimed Vixen, with such energy that +the slender figure trembled faintly as she spoke. "But tell me all +about the party, mamma. Your dress was quite the prettiest, I am sure?" + +"I'm not certain of that, Violet," answered Mrs. Tempest with grave +deliberation, as if the question were far too serious to be answered +lightly. "There was a cream-coloured silk, with silver bullion fringe, +that was very striking. As a rule, I detest gold or silver trimmings; +but this was really elegant. It had an effect like moonlight." + +"Was that Lady Mabel Ashbourne's dress?" asked Vixen eagerly. + +"No; Lady Mabel wore blue gauze--the very palest blue, all puffings and +ruchings--like a cloud." + +"Oh mamma! the clouds have no puffings and ruchings." + +"My dear, I mean the general effect--a sort of shadowiness which suits +Lady Mabel's ethereal style." + +"Ethereal!" repeated Violet thoughtfully; "you seem to admire her very +much, mamma." + +"Everybody admires her, my dear." + +"Because she is a duke's only daughter." + +"No; because she is very lovely, and extremely elegant, and most +accomplished. She played and sang beautifully to-night." + +"What did she play, mamma?" + +"Chopin!" + +"Did she!" cried Vixen. "Then I pity her. Yes, even if she were my +worst enemy I should still pity her." + +"People who are fond of music don't mind difficulties," said Mrs. +Tempest. + +"Don't they? Then I suppose I'm not fond of it, because I shirk my +practice. But I should be very fond of music if I could grind it on a +barrel organ." + +"Oh, Violet, when will you be like Lady Mabel Ashbourne?" + +"Never, I devoutly hope," said the Squire. + +Here the Squire gave his daughter a hug which might mean anything. + +"Never, mamma," answered Violet with conviction. "First and foremost, I +never can be lovely, because I have red hair and a wide mouth. +Secondly, I can never be elegant--much less ethereal--because it isn't +in me. Thirdly, I shall never be accomplished, for poor Miss McCroke is +always giving me up as the baddest lot in the shape of pupils that ever +came in her way." + +"If you persist in talking in that horrible way, Violet----" + +"Let her talk as she likes, Pam," said the fond father. "I won't have +her bitted too heavily." + +Mrs. Tempest breathed a gentle sigh of resignation. The Squire was all +that is dear and good as husband and father, but refinement was out of +his line. + +"Do go on about the party, mamma. Did Rorie seem to enjoy himself very +much----" + +"I think so. He was very devoted to his cousin all the evening. I +believe they are engaged to be married." + +"Mamma!" exclaimed Vixen, starting up from her reclining attitude upon +her father's shoulder, and looking intently at the speaker; "Rorie +engaged to Lady Mabel Ashbourne!" + +"So I am told," replied Mrs. Tempest. "It will be a splendid match for +him." + +The pretty chestnut head dropped back into its old place upon the +Squire's shoulder, and Violet answered never a word. + +"Past two o'clock," cried her mother. "This is really too dreadful. +Come, Violet, you and I must go upstairs at any rate." + +"We'll all go," said the Squire, finishing his second brandy and soda. + +So they all three went upstairs together. Vixen had grown suddenly +silent and sleepy. She yawned dolefully, and kissed her mother and +father at the end of the gallery, without a word; and then scudded off, +swift as a scared rabbit, to her own room. + +"God bless her!" exclaimed the Squire; "she grows prettier and more +winning every day." + +"If her mouth were only a little smaller," sighed Mrs. Tempest. + +"It's the prettiest mouth I ever saw upon woman--bar one," said the +Squire. + +What was Vixen doing while the fond father was praising her? + +She had locked her door, and thrown herself face downwards on the +carpet, and was sobbing as if her heart would break. + +Rorie was going to be married. Her little kingdom had been overturned +by a revolution: her little world had crumbled all to pieces. Till +to-night she had been a queen in her own mind; and her kingdom had been +Rorie, her subjects had begun and ended in Rorie. All was over. He +belonged to some one else. She could never tyrannise over him +again--never scold him and abuse him and patronise him and ridicule him +any more. He was her Rorie no longer. + +Had she ever thought that a time might come when he would be something +more to her than playfellow and friend? No, never. The young bright +mind was too childishly simple for any such foresight or calculation. +She had only thought that he was in somewise her property, and would be +so till the end of both their lives. He was hers, and he was very fond +of her, and she thought him a rather absurd young fellow, and looked +down upon him with airs of ineffable superiority from the altitude of +her childish womanliness. + +And now he was gone. The earth had opened all at once and swallowed +him, like that prophetic gentleman in the Greek play, whose name Vixen +could never remember--chariot and horses and all. He belonged +henceforth to Lady Mabel Ashbourne. She could never be rude to him any +more. She could not take such a liberty with another young lady's lover. + +"And to think that he should never have told me he was going to be +engaged to her," she said. "He must have been fond of her from the very +beginning; and he never said a word; and he let me think he rather +liked me--or at least tolerated me. And how could he like two people +who are the very antipodes of each other? If he is fond of her, he must +detest me. If he respects her, he must despise me." + +The thought of such treachery rankled deep in the young warm heart. +Vixen started up to her feet, and stood in the midst of the firelit +room, with clinched fists, like a young fury. The light chestnut +tresses should have been Medusa's snakes to have harmonised with that +set white face. God had given Violet Tempest a heart to feel deeply, +too deeply for perfect peace, or that angelic softness which seems to +us most worthy in woman--the power to suffer and be patient. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Rorie has Plans of his own. + +Roderick Vawdrey's ideas of what was due to a young man who attains his +majority were in no wise satisfied by his birthday dinner-party. It had +been pleasant enough in its way, but far too much after the pattern of +all other dinner-parties to please a young man who hated all common and +hackneyed things, and all the beaten tracks of life--or who, at any +rate, fancied he did, which comes to nearly the same thing. + +"Mother," he began at breakfast next morning, in his loud cheery voice, +"we must have something for the small tenants, and shopkeepers, and +cottagers." + +"What do you mean, Roderick?" + +"Some kind of entertainment to celebrate my majority. The people will +expect it. Last night polished off the swells very nicely. The whole +thing did you credit, mother." + +"Thank you," said Lady Jane, with a slight contraction of her thin lips. + +This October morning, so pleasant for Rorie, was rather a bitter day +for his mother. She had been reigning sovereign at Briarwood hitherto; +henceforth she could only live there on sufferance. The house was +Rorie's. Even the orchid-houses were his. He might take her to task if +he pleased for having spent so much money on glass. + +"But I must have my humble friends round me," continued Rorie. "The +young people, too--the boys and girls. I'll tell you what, mother. We +must have a lawn meet. The hounds have never met here since my +grandfather's time--fifty years ago. The Duke's stud-groom was telling +me about it last year. He's a Hampshire man, you know, born and bred in +the Forest. We'll have a lawn meet and a hunting breakfast; and it +shall be open house for everyone--high and low, rich and poor, gentle +and simple. Don't be frightened, mother," interjected Rorie, seeing +Lady Jane's look of horror; "we won't do any mischief. Your gardens +shall be respected." + +"They are your gardens now, Roderick. You are sole master here, and can +do what you please." + +"My dear mother, how can you talk like that? Do you suppose I shall +ever forget who made the place what it is? The gardens have been your +particular hobby, and they shall be your gardens to the end of time." + +"That is very generous of you, my dear Roderick; but you are promising +too much. When you marry, your wife will be mistress of Briarwood, and +it will be necessary for me to find a new home." + +"I am in no hurry to get married. It will be half-a-dozen years before +I shall even think of anything so desperate." + +"I hope not, Roderick. With your position and your responsibilities you +ought to marry young. Marriage--a suitable marriage, that is to +say--would give you an incentive to earnestness and ambition. I want to +see you follow your father's footsteps; I want you to make a name +by-and-by." + +"I'm afraid it will be a distant by-and-by," said Rorie, with a yawn. +"I don't feel at all drawn towards the senate. I love the country, my +dogs, my horses, the free fresh air, the stir and movement of life too +well to pen myself up in a study and pore over blue-books, or to waste +the summer evenings listening to the member for Little Peddlington +laying down the law about combination drainage, or the proposed +loop-line that is intended to connect his borough with the world in +general. I'm afraid it isn't in me, mother, and that you'll be sorely +disappointed if you set your heart upon my making a figure as a +senator." + +"I should like to see you worthy of your father's name," Lady Jane +said, with a regretful sigh. + +"Providence hasn't made me in the same pattern," answered Rorie. "Look +at my grandfather's portrait over the mantelpiece, in pink and mahogany +tops. What a glorious fellow he must have been. You should hear how the +old people talk of him. I think I inherit his tastes, instead of my +father's. Hereditary genius crops up in curious ways, you know. +Perhaps, if I have a son, he will be a heaven-born statesman, and you +may have your ambition gratified by a grandson. And now about the +hunting breakfast. Would this day week suit you?" + +"This is your house, Roderick. It is for you to give your orders." + +"Bosh!" exclaimed the son impatiently. "Don't I tell you that you are +mistress here, and will be mistress----" + +"My dear Roderick, let us look things straight in the face," said Lady +Jane. "If I were sole mistress here there would be no hunting +breakfast. It is just the very last kind of entertainment I should ever +dream of giving. I am not complaining, mind. It is natural enough for +you to like that kind of thing; and, as master of this house, it is +your right to invite whomsoever you please. I am quite happy that it +should be so, but let there be no more talk about my being mistress of +this house. That is too absurd." + +Rorie felt all his most generous impulses turned to a sense of +constraint and bitterness. He could say no more. + +"Will you give me a list of the people you would like to be asked?" +said his mother, after rather an uncomfortable silence. + +"I'll go and talk it over with the Duke," answered Rorie. "He'll enter +into the spirit of the thing." + +Rorie found the Duke going the round of the loose-boxes, and uncle and +nephew spent an hour together pleasantly, overhauling the fine stud of +hunters which the Duke kept at Ashbourne, and going round the paddocks +to look at the brood-mares and their foals; these latter being +eccentric little animals, all head and legs, which nestled close to the +mother's side for a minute, and then took fright at their own tails, +and shot off across the field, like a skyrocket travelling +horizontally, or suddenly stood up on end, and executed a wild waltz in +mid air. + +The Duke and Roderick decided which among these leggy little beasts +possessed the elements of future excellence; and after an hour's +perambulation of the paddocks they went to the house, where they found +the Duchess and Lady Mabel in the morning-room; the Duchess busy making +scarlet cloth cloaks for her school-children, Lady Mabel reading a +German critic on Shakespeare. + +Here the hunt breakfast was fully discussed. Everybody was to be asked. +The Duchess put in a plea for her school-children. It would be such a +treat for the little things to see the hounds, and their red cloaks and +hoods would look so pretty on the lawn. + +"Let them come, by all means," said Roderick; "your +school--half-a-dozen schools. I'll have three or four tents rigged up +for refreshments. There shall be plenty to eat and drink for everybody. +And now I'm off to the Tempests' to arrange about the hounds. The +Squire will be pleased, I know." + +"Of course," said Lady Mabel, "and the Squire's daughter." + +"Dear little thing!" exclaimed Rorie, with an elder brother's +tenderness; "she'll be as pleased as Punch. You'll hunt, of course, +Mabel?" + +"I don't know. I don't shine in the field, as Miss Tempest does." + +"Oh, but you must come, Mab. The Duke will find you a safe mount." + +"She has a hunter I bred on purpose for her," said the Duke; "but +she'll never be such a horsewoman as her mother." + +"She looks lovely on Mazeppa," said Rorie; "and she must come to my +hunting breakfast." + +"Of course, Rorie, if you wish I shall come." + +Rorie stayed to luncheon, and then went back to Briarwood to mount his +horse to ride to the Abbey House. + +The afternoon was drawing in when Rorie rode up to the old Tudor +porch--a soft, sunless, gray afternoon. The door stood open, and he saw +the glow of the logs on the wide hearth, and the Squire's stalwart +figure sitting in the great arm-chair, leaning forward with a newspaper +across his knee, and Vixen on a stool at his feet, the dogs grouped +about them. + +"Shall I send my horse round to the stables, Squire?" asked Rorie. + +"Do, my lad," answered Mr. Tempest, ringing the bell, at which summons +a man appeared and took charge of Roderick's big chestnut. + +"Been hunting to-day, Squire?" asked Rorie, when he had shaken hands +with Mr. Tempest and his daughter, and seated himself on the opposite +side of the hearth. + +"No," answered the Squire, in a voice that had a duller sound than +usual. "We had the hounds out this morning at Hilberry Green, and there +was a good muster, Jack Purdy says; but I felt out of sorts, and +neither Vixen nor I went. It was a loss for Vixen, poor little girl." + +"It was a grief to see you ill, papa," said Violet, nestling closer to +him. + + She had hardly taken any notice of Roderick to-day, shaking +hands with him in an absent-minded way, evidently full of anxiety about +her father. She was very pale, and looked older and more womanly than +when he saw her yesterday, Roderick thought. + +"I'm not ill, my dear," said the Squire, "only a little muddled and +queer in my head; been riding too hard lately, perhaps. I don't get +lighter, you know, Rorie, and a quick run shakes me more than it used. +Old Martin, our family doctor, has been against my hunting for a long +time; but I should like to know what kind of life men of my age would +lead if they listened to the doctors. They wouldn't let us have a +decent dinner." + +"I'm so sorry!" said Rorie. "I came to ask you a favour, and now I feel +as it I hardly ought to say anything about it." + +And then Roderick proceeded to tell the Squire his views about a lawn +meet at Briarwood, and a hunting breakfast for rich and poor. + +"It shall be done, my boy," answered the Squire heartily. "It's just +the sort of thing you ought to do to make yourself popular. Lady Jane +is a charming woman, you know, thoroughbred to the finger-nails; but +she has kept herself a little too much to herself. There are people old +enough to remember what Briarwood was in your grandfather's time. This +day week you say. I'll arrange everything. We'll have such a gathering +as hasn't been seen for the last twenty years." + +"Vixen must come with you," said Rorie. + +"Of course." + +"If papa is well and strong enough to hunt." + +"My love, there is nothing amiss with me--nothing that need trouble me +this day week. A man may have a headache, mayn't he, child, without +people making any fuss about it?" + +"I should like you to see Dr. Martin, papa. Don't you think he ought to +see the doctor, Rorie? It's not natural for him to be ill." + +"I'm not going to be put upon half-rations, Vixen. Martin would starve +me. That's his only idea of medical treatment. Yes, Vixen shall come, +Rorie." + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Glas ist der Erde Stolz und Glueck. + +The morning of the Briarwood Meet dawned fairly. Roderick watched the +first lifting of the darkness from his bed-room window, and rejoiced in +the promise of a fine weather. The heavens, which had been so +unpropitious upon his birthday, seemed to promise better things to-day. +He did not desire the traditional hunting morning--a southerly wind and +a cloudy sky. He cared very little about the scent lying well, or the +actual result of the day's sport. He wanted rather to see the kind +familiar faces round him, the autumn sunshine lighting up all the glow +and colour of the picture, the scarlet coats, the rich bay and brown of +the horses, the verdant background of lawn and shrubberies. Two huge +marquees had been erected for the commonalty--one for the +school-children, the other for the villagers. There were long tables in +the billiard-room for the farming class; and for the quality there was +the horse-shoe table in the dining-room, as at Roderick's birthday +dinner. But on this occasion the table was decorated only with hardy +ferns and flowers. The orchids were not allowed to appear. + +Roderick noticed the omission. + +"Why, where are the thing-um-tites, mother?" he asked, with some +surprise; "the pitcher-plants and tropical what's-its-names?" + +"I did not think there was any occasion to have them brought out of the +houses, Roderick," Lady Jane answered quietly; "there is always a risk +of their being killed, or some of your sporting friends might be +picking my prize blossoms to put in their button-holes. Men who give +their minds to horses would hardly appreciate orchids." + +"All right, mother. As long as there is plenty to eat, I don't suppose +it much matters," answered Rorie. + +He had certainly no cause for complaint upon this score. Briarwood had +been amply provisioned for an unlimited hospitality. The red coats and +green coats, and blue coats and brown coats, came in and out, slashed +away at boar's head and truffled turkey, sent champagne corks flying, +and added more dead men to the formidable corps of tall hock bottles, +dressed in uniform brown, which the astonished butler ranged rank and +file in a lobby outside the dining-room. He had never seen this kind of +thing at Briarwood since he had kept the keys of the cellars; and he +looked upon this promiscuous hospitality with a disapproving eye. + +The Duke supported his nephew admirably, and was hail-fellow-well-met +with everybody. He had always been popular at Ashbourne. It was his own +place, his particular selection, bought with his own money, improved +under his own eye, and he liked it better than any of his hereditary +seats. + +"If I had only had a son like you, Rorie," he said, as he stood beside +the young man, on the gravel sweep before the hall-door, welcoming the +new-comers, "I should have been a happy man. Well, I suppose I must be +satisfied with a grandson; but it's a hard thing that the title and +estates are to go to that scamp of a cousin of mine." + +Roderick, on this particular morning, was a nephew whom any uncle might +be proud to own. His red coat and buckskins became him; so did his +position as host and master at Briarwood. His tall erect figure showed +to advantage amidst the crowd. His smile lit up the dark sunburnt face +like sunshine. He had a kind word, a friendly hand-clasp for +everybody--even for gaffers and goodies who had hobbled from their +village shanties to see the sport, and to get their share of cold +sirloin and old October. He took the feeble old creatures into the +tent, and saw that they found a place at the board. + +Squire Tempest and his daughter were among the later arrivals. The meet +was to be at one, and they only rode into the grounds at half-past +twelve, when everyone else had breakfasted. Mrs. Tempest had not come. +The entertainment was much too early for a lady who never left her +rooms till after noon. + +Vixen looked lovely in her smart little habit. It was not the Lincoln +green with the brass buttons, which Lady Mabel had laughed at a year +ago. To-day Miss Tempest wore a dark brown habit, moulded to the full +erect figure, with a narrow rim of white at the throat, a little felt +hat of the same dark brown with a brown feather, long white gauntlets, +and a whip with a massive ivory handle. + +The golden bay's shining coat matched Violet's shining hair. It was the +prettiest picture in the world, the little rider in dark brown on the +bright bay horse, the daintily quilted saddle, the gauntleted hands +playing so lightly with the horse's velvet mouth--horse and rider +devotedly attached to each other. + +"How do you like him?" asked Vixen, directly she and Rorie had shaken +hands. "Isn't he absolutely lovely?' + +"Absolutely lovely," said Rorie, patting the horse's shoulder and +looking at the rider. + +"Papa gave him to me on my last birthday. I was to have ridden Titmouse +another year; but I got the brush one day after a hard run when almost +everybody else was left behind, and papa said I should have a horse. +Poor Titmouse is put into a basket-chaise. Isn't it sad for him?' + +"Awfully humiliating." + +Lady Mabel was close by on her chestnut thoroughbred, severely costumed +in darkest blue and chimney-pot hat. + +"I don't think you've ever met my cousin?" said Rorie. "Mabel, this is +Miss Tempest, whom you've heard me talk about. Miss Tempest, Lady Mabel +Ashbourne." + +Violet Tempest gave a startled look, and blushed crimson. Then the two +girls bowed and smiled: a constrained smile on Vixen's part, a prim and +chilly smile from Lady Mabel. + +"I want you two to be awful good friends," said Rorie; "and when you +come out, Vixen, Lady Mabel will take you under her wing. She knows +everybody, and the right thing to be done on every occasion." + +Vixen turned from red to pale, and said nothing. Lady Mabel looked at +the distant blue line of the Wight, and murmured that she would be +happy to be of use to Miss Tempest if ever they met in London. Rorie +felt, somehow, that it was not encouraging. Vixen stole a glance at her +rival. Yes, she was very pretty--a delicate patrician beauty which +Vixen had never seen before. No wonder Rorie was in love with her. +Where else could he have seen anything so exquisite? It was the most +natural thing in the world that these cousins should be fond of each +other, and engaged to be married. Vixen wondered that the thing had +never occurred to her as inevitable--that it should have come upon her +as a blow at the last. + +"I think Rorie ought to have told me," she said to herself. "He is like +my brother; and a brother would not hide his love affairs from his +sister. It was rather mean of Rorie." + +The business of the day began presently. Neither Vixen nor the Squire +dismounted. They had breakfasted at home; and Vixen, who did not care +much for Lady Jane Vawdrey, was glad to escape with no further +communication than a smile and a bow. At a quarter-past one they were +all riding away towards the Forest, and presently the serious business +began. + +Vixen and her father were riding side by side. + +"You are so pale, papa. Is your head bad again to-day?" + +"Yes, my dear. I'm afraid I've started a chronic headache. But the +fresh air will blow it away presently, I daresay. You're not looking +over-well yourself, Vixen. What have you done with your roses?" + +"I--I--don't care much about hunting to-day, papa," said Violet, sudden +tears rushing into her eyes. "Shall we go home together? You're not +well, and I'm not enjoying myself. Nobody wants us, either; so why +should we stay?" + +Rorie was a little way behind them, taking care of Lady Mabel, whose +slim-legged chestnut went through as many manoeuvres as if he had been +doing the manege business in a circus, and got over the ground very +slowly. + +"Nonsense, child! Go back! I should think not! Jack Purdy may do all +the work, but people like to see me to the fore. We shall find down in +Dingley Bottom, I daresay, and get a capital run across the hills to +Beaulieu." + +They found just as the Squire had anticipated, and after that there was +a hard run for the next hour and a quarter. Roderick was at the heel of +the hunt all the time, opening gates, and keeping his cousin out of +bogs and dangers of all kinds. They killed at last on a wild bit of +common near Beaulieu, and there were only a few in at the death, +amongst them Vixen on her fast young bay, flushed with excitement and +triumph by this time, and forgetting all her troubles in the delight of +winning one of the pads. Mrs Millington, the famous huntress from the +shires, was there to claim the brush. + + +"How tired you look, papa," said Vixen, as they rode quietly homewards. + +"A little done up, my dear, but a good dinner will set me all right +again. It was a capital run, and your horse behaved beautifully. I +don't think I made a bad choice for you. Rorie and his cousin were +miles behind, I daresay. Pretty girl, and sits her horse like a +picture--but she can't ride. We shall meet them going home, perhaps." + +A mile or two farther on they met Roderick alone. His cousin had gone +home with her father. + +"It was rather a bore losing the run," he said, as he turned his +horse's head and rode by Vixen, "but I was obliged to take care of my +cousin." + +One of the Squire's tenants, a seventeen-stone farmer, on a stout gray +cob, overtook them presently, and Mr. Tempest rode on by his side, +talking agricultural talk about over-fed beasts and cattle shows, the +last popular form of cruelty to animals. + +Roderick and Violet were alone, riding slowly side by side in the +darkening gray, between woods where solitary robins carolled sweetly, +or the rare gurgle of the thrush sounded now and then from thickets of +beech and holly. + +A faint colour came back to Vixen's cheek. She was very angry with her +playfellow for his want of confidence, for his unfriendly reserve. Yet +this was the one happy hour of her day. There had been a flavour of +desolateness and abandonment in all the rest. + +"I hope you enjoyed the run," said Rorie. + +"I don't think you can care much whether we did or didn't," retorted +Vixen, shrouding her personality in a vague plural. "If you had cared +you would have been with us. Sultan," meaning the chestnut "must have +felt cruelly humiliated by being kept so far behind." + +"If a man could be in two places at once, half of me, the better half +of me, would have been with you, Vixen; but I was bound to take care of +my cousin. I had insisted upon her coming." + +"Of course," answered Vixen, with a little toss of her head; "it would +have been quite wrong if she had been absent." + +They rode on in silence for a little while after this. Vixen was +longing to say: "Rorie, you have treated me very badly. You ought to +have told me you were going to be married." But something restrained +her. She patted her horse's neck, listened to the lonely robins, and +said not a word. The Squire and his tenant were a hundred yards ahead, +talking loudly. + +Presently they came to a point at which their roads parted, but Rorie +still rode on by Vixen. + +"Isn't that your nearest way?" asked Vixen, pointing down the +cross-road with the ivory handle of her whip. + +"I am not going the nearest way. I am going to the Abbey House with +you." + +"I wouldn't be so rude as to say Don't, but I think poor Sultan must be +tired." + +"Sultan shall have a by-day to-morrow." + +They went into an oak plantation, where a broad open alley led from one +side of the enclosure to the other. The wood had a mysterious look in +the late afternoon, when the shadows were thickening under the tall +thin trees. There was an all-pervading ghostly grayness as in a shadowy +under-world. They rode silently over the thick wet carpet of fallen +leaves, the horses starting a little now and then at the aspect of a +newly-barked trunk lying white across the track. They were silent, +having, in sooth, very little to say to each other just at this time. +Vixen was nursing her wrathful feelings; Rorie felt that his future was +confused and obscure. He ought to do something with his life, perhaps, +as his mother had so warmly urged. But his soul was stirred by no +ambitious promptings. + +They were within two hundred yards of the gate at the end of the +enclosure, when Vixen gave a sudden cry: + +"Did papa's horse stumble?" she asked; "look how he sways in his +saddle." + +Another instant, and the Squire reeled forward, and fell headforemost +across his horse's shoulder. The fall was so sudden and so heavy, that +the horse fell with him, and then scrambled up on to his feet again +affrighted, swung himself round, and rushed past Roderick and Vixen +along the plashy track. + +Vixen was off her horse in a moment, and had flown to her father's +side. He lay like a log, face downwards upon the sodden leaves just +inside the gate. The farmer had dismounted and was stooping over him, +bridle in hand, with a frightened face. + +"Oh, what is it?" cried Violet frantically. "Did the horse throw +him?--Bullfinch, his favourite horse. Is he much hurt? Oh, help me to +lift him up--help me--help me!" + +Rorie was by her side by this time, kneeling down with her beside the +prostrate Squire, trying to raise the heavy figure which lay like lead +across his arm. + +"It wasn't the horse, miss," said the farmer. "I'm afraid it's a +seizure." + +"A fit!" cried Vixen. "Oh, papa, papa----darling--darling----" + +She was sobbing, clinging to him, trembling like a leaf, and turning a +white, stricken face up towards Roderick. + +"Do something to help him--for God's sake--do something," she cried; +"you won't let him lie there and die for want of help. Some +brandy--something," she gasped, stretching out her trembling hand. + +The farmer had anticipated her thought. He had taken his flask from the +saddle pocket, and was kneeling down by the Squire. Roderick had lifted +the heavy head, and turned the ghastly face to the waning light. He +tried to force a little brandy between the livid lips--but vainly. + +"For God's sake get her away," he whispered to John Wimble, the farmer. +"It's all over with him." + +"Come away with me, my dear Miss Tempest," said Wimble, trying to raise +Violet from her knees beside the Squire. She was gazing into that awful +face distractedly--half divining its solemn meaning--yet watching for +the kind eyes to open and look at her again. "Come away with me, and +we'll get a doctor. Mr. Vawdrey will take care of your father." + +"You go for the doctor," she answered firmly. "I'll stay with papa. +Take my horse, he's faster than yours. Oh, he'll carry you well enough. +You don't know how strong he is--go, quick--quick--Dr. Martin, at +Lyndhurst--it's a long way, but you must get him. Papa will recover, +and be able to ride home, perhaps, before you can get back to us, but +go, go." + +"You go for the doctor, miss; your horse will carry you fast enough. +He'd never carry such a heavy weight as me, and my cob is dead beat. +You go, and Mr. Vawdrey will go with you. I'll take care of the Squire." + +Violet looked from one to the other helplessly. + +"I'd rather stay with papa," she said. "You go--yes--go, go. I'll stay +with papa." + +She crouched down beside the prostrate figure on the damp marshy +ground, took the heavy head on her lap, and looked up at the two men +with a pale set face which indicated a resolve that neither of them was +strong enough to overrule. They tried their utmost to persuade her, but +in vain. She was fixed as a new Niobe--a stony image of young despair. +So Roderick mounted his horse and rode off towards Lyndhurst, and +honest Jack Wimble tied the other two horses to the gate, and took his +stand beside them, a few paces from those two motionless figures on the +ground, patiently waiting for the issue of this bitter hour. + +It was one of the longest, weariest, saddest hours that ever youth and +hope lived through. There was an awful heart-sickening fear in Violet's +mind, but she gave it no definite shape. She would not say to herself, +"My father is dead." The position in which he was lying hampered her +arms so that she could not reach out her hand to lay it upon his heart. +She bent her face down to his lips. + +Oh God! not a flutter stirred upon her soft cheek as she laid it +against those pallid lips. The lower jaw had fallen in an awful-looking +way; but Violet had seen her father look like that sometimes as he +slept, with open mouth, before the hall fire. It might be only a long +swoon, a suspension of consciousness. Dr. Martin would come +presently--oh, how long, how long the time seemed--and make all things +right. + +The crescent moon shone silver pale above that dim gray wood. The +barked trunks gleamed white and spectral in the gathering dark. Owls +began to hoot in the distance, frogs were awaking near at hand, belated +rabbits flitted ghost-like across the track. All nature seemed of one +gray or shadowy hue--silvery where the moonbeams fell. + +The October air was chill and penetrating. There was a dull aching in +Violet's limbs from the weight of her burden, but she was hardly +conscious of physical pain. It seemed to her that she had been sitting +there for hours waiting for the doctor's help. She thought the night +must have nearly worn itself out. + +"Dr. Martin could not have been at home," she said, speaking for the +first time since Roderick rode away. "Mr. Vawdrey would fetch someone +else, surely." + +"My dear young lady, he hasn't had time to ride to Lyndhurst yet." + +"Not yet," cried Vixen despairingly, "not yet! And it has been so long. +Papa is getting so cold. The chill will be so bad for him." + +"Worse for you, miss. I do wish you'd let me take you home." + +"And leave papa here--alone--unconscious! How can you be so cruel as to +think of such a thing?" + +"Dear Miss Tempest, we're not doing him any good, and you may be +getting a chill that will be nigh your death. If you would only go home +to your mamma, now--it's hard upon her not to know--she'll be fretting +about you, I daresay." + +"Don't waste your breath talking to me," cried Vixen indignantly; "I +shall not leave this spot till papa goes with me." + +They waited for another quarter of an hour in dismal silence. The +horses gnawed the lower branches of the trees, and gave occasional +evidence of their impatience. Bullfinch had gone home to his stable no +doubt. They were only about a mile-and-a-half from the Abbey House. + +Hark! what was that? The splish-splash of horses' hoofs on the soft +turf. Another minute and Rorie rode up to the gate with a stranger. + +"I was lucky enough to meet this gentleman," he said, "a doctor from +Southampton, who was at the hunt to-day. Violet dear, will you let me +take you home now, and leave the doctor and Mr. Wimble with your +father?" + +"No," answered Vixen decisively. + +The strange doctor knelt down and looked at his patient. He was a +middle-aged man, grave-looking, with iron-gray hair--a man who +impressed Vixen with a sense of power and authority. She looked at him +silently, with a despairing appealing look that thrilled him, familiar +as he was with such looks. He made his examination quietly, saying not +a word, and keeping his face hidden. Then he turned to the two men who +were standing close by, watching him anxiously. + +"You must get some kind of litter to carry him home," he whispered. + +And then with gentle firmness, with strong irresistible hands, he +separated the living from the dead, lifted Violet from the ground and +led her towards her horse. + +"You must let Mr. Vawdrey take you home, my dear young lady," he said. +"You can do nothing here." + +"But you--you can do something," sobbed Violet, "you will bring him +back to life--you----" + +"I will do all that can be done," answered the doctor gently. + +His tone told her more than his words. She gave one wild shriek, and +threw herself down beside her dead father. A cloud came over the +distracted brain, and she lay there senseless. The doctor and Rorie +lifted her up and carried her to the gate where her horse was waiting. +The doctor forced a little brandy through the locked lips, and between +them Rorie and he placed her in the saddle. She had just consciousness +enough by this time to hold the bridle mechanically, and to sit upright +on her horse; and thus led by Roderick, she rode slowly back to the +home that was never any more to be the same home that she had known and +lived in through the joyous sixteen years of her life. All things were +to be different to her henceforward. The joy of life was broken short +off, like a flower snapped from its stem. + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A House of Mourning. + +There was sorrow at the Abbey House deeper and wilder than had entered +within those doors for many a year. To Mrs. Tempest the shock of her +husband's death was overwhelming. Her easy, luxurious, monotonous life +had been very sweet to her, but her husband had been the dearest part +of her life. She had taken little trouble to express her love for him, +quite willing that he should take it for granted. She had been +self-indulgent and vain; seeking her own ease, spending money and care +on her own adornment; but she had not forgotten to make the Squire's +life pleasant to him also. Newly-wedded lovers in the fair +honeymoon-stage of existence could not have been fonder of each other +than the middle-aged Squire and his somewhat faded wife. His loving +eyes had never seen Time's changes in Pamela Tempest's pretty face, the +lessening brightness of the eyes, the duller tints of the complexion, +the loss of youth's glow and glory. To him she had always appeared the +most beautiful woman in the world. + +And now the fondly-indulged wife could do nothing but lie on her sofa +and shed a rain of incessant tears, and drink strong tea, which had +lost its power to comfort or exhilarate. She would see no one. She +could not even be roused to interest herself in the mourning, though, +with a handsome widow, Pauline thought that ought to be all important. + +"There are so many styles of widows' caps now, ma'am. You really ought +to see them, and choose for yourself," urged Pauline, an honest young +Englishwoman, who had begun life as Polly, but whom Mrs. Tempest had +elevated into Pauline. + +"What does it matter, Pauline? Take anything you like. _He_ will not be +there to see." + +Here the ready tears flowed afresh. That was the bitterest of all. That +she should look nice in her mourning, and Edward not be there to praise +her. In her feebleness she could not imagine life without him. She +would hear his step at her door surely, his manly voice in the +corridor. She would awake from this awful dream, in which he was not, +and find him, and fall into his arms, and sob out her grief upon his +breast, and tell him all she had suffered. + +That was the dominant feeling in this weak soul. He could not be gone +for ever. + +Yet the truth came back upon her in hideous distinctness every now and +then--came back suddenly and awfully, like the swift revelation of a +desolate plague-stricken scene under a lightning flash. He was gone. He +was lying in his coffin, in the dear old Tudor hall where they had sat +so cosily. Those dismal reiterated strokes of the funeral-bell meant +that his burial was at hand. They were moving the coffin already, +perhaps. His place knew him no more. + +She tottered to the darkened window, lifted the edge of the blind, and +looked out. The funeral train was moving slowly along the carriage +sweep, through the winding shrubberied road. How long, and black, and +solemnly splendid the procession looked. Everybody had loved and +respected him. It was a grand funeral. The thought of this general +homage gave a faint thrill of comfort to the widow's heart. + +"My noble husband," she ejaculated. "Who could help loving you?" + +It seemed to her only a little while ago that she had driven up to the +Tudor porch for the first time after her happy honeymoon, when she was +in the bloom of youth and beauty, and life was like a schoolgirl's +happy dream. + +"How short life is," she sobbed; "how cruelly short for those who are +happy!" + +With Violet grief was no less passionate; but it did not find its sole +vent in tears. The stronger soul was in rebellion against Providence. +She kept aloof from her mother in the time of sorrow. What could they +say to each other? They could only cry together. Violet shut herself in +her room, and refused to see anyone, except patient Miss McCroke, who +was always bringing her cups of tea, or basins of arrowroot, trying to +coax her to take some kind of nourishment, dabbing her hot forehead +with eau-de-Cologne--doing all those fussy little kindnesses which are +so acutely aggravating in a great sorrow. + +"Let me lie on the ground alone, and think of him, and wail for him." + +That is what Violet Tempest would have said, if she could have +expressed her desire clearly. + +Roderick Vawdrey went back to the Abbey House after the funeral, and +contrived to see Miss McCroke, who was full of sympathy for everybody. + +"Do let me see Violet, that's a dear creature," he said. "I can't tell +you how unhappy I am about her. I can't get her face out of my +thoughts, as I saw it that dreadful night when I led her horse +home--the wild sad eyes, the white lips." + +"She is not fit to see anyone," said Miss McCroke; "but perhaps it +might rouse her a little to see you." + +Miss McCroke had an idea that all mourners ought to be roused; that +much indulgence in grief for the dead was reprehensible. + +"Yes," answered Rorie eagerly, "she would see me, I know. We are like +brother and sister." + +"Come into the schoolroom," said the governess, "and I'll see what I +can do." + +The schoolroom was Vixen's own particular den, and was not a bit like +the popular idea of a schoolroom. + +It was a pretty little room, with a high wooden dado, painted olive +green, and a high-art paper of amazing ugliness, whereon brown and red +storks disported themselves on a dull green ground. The high-art paper +was enlivened with horsey caricatures by Leech, and a menagerie of +pottery animals on various brackets. + +A pot or a pan had been stuck into every corner that would hold one. +There were desks, and boxes, and wickerwork baskets of every shape and +kind, a dwarf oak bookcase on either side of the fireplace, with the +books all at sixes and sevens, leaning against each other as if they +were intoxicated. The broad mantelpiece presented a confusion of +photographs, cups and saucers, violet jars, and Dresden shepherdesses. +Over the quaint old Venetian glass dangled Vixen's first trophy, the +fox's brush, tied with a scarlet ribbon. There were no birds, or +squirrels, or dormice, for Vixen was too fond of the animal creation to +shut her favourites up in cages; but there was a black bearskin spread +in a corner for Argus to lie upon. In the wide low windows there were +two banks of bright autumn flowers, pompons and dwarf roses, mignonette +and veronica. + +Miss McCroke drew up the blind, and stirred the fire. + +"I'll go and ask her to come," she said. + +"Do, like a dear," said Rorie. + +He paced the room while she was gone, full of sadness. He had been very +fond of the Squire, and that awfully sudden death, an apopleptic +seizure, instantaneous as a thunderbolt, had impressed him very +painfully. It was his first experience of the kind, and it was +infinitely terrible to him. It seemed to him a long time before Vixen +appeared, and then the door opened, and a slim black figure came in, a +white fixed face looked at him piteously, with tearless eyes made big +by a great grief. She came leaning on Miss McCroke, as if she could +hardly walk unaided. The face was stranger to him than an altogether +unknown face. It was Violet Tempest with all the vivid joyous life gone +out of her, like a lamp that is extinguished. + +He took her cold trembling hands and drew her gently to a chair, and +sat down beside her. + +"I wanted so much to see you, dear," he said, "to tell you how sorry we +all are for you--my mother, my aunt, and cousin"--Violet gave a faint +shiver--"all of us. The Duke liked your dear father so much. It was +quite a shock to him." + +"You are very good," Violet said mechanically. + +She sat by him, pale and still as marble, looking at the ground. His +voice and presence impressed her but faintly, like something a long way +off. She was thinking of her dead father. She saw nothing but that one +awful figure. They had laid him in his grave by this time. The cold +cruel earth had fallen upon him and hidden him for ever from the light; +he was shut away for ever from the fair glad world; he who had been so +bright and cheerful, whose presence had carried gladness everywhere. + +"Is the funeral quite over?" she asked presently, without lifting her +heavy eyelids. + +"Yes, dear. It was a noble funeral. Everybody was there--rich and poor. +Everybody loved him." + +"The poor most of all," she said. "I know how good he was to them." + +Somebody knocked at the door and asked something of Miss McCroke, which +obliged the governess to leave her pupil. Roderick was glad at her +departure, That substantial figure in its new black dress had been a +hinderance to freedom of conversation. + +Miss McCroke's absence did not loosen Violet's tongue. She sat looking +at the ground, and was dumb. That silent grief was very awful to +Roderick. + +"Violet, why don't you talk to me about your sorrow?" he said. "Surely +you can trust me--your friend--your brother!" + +That last word stung her into speech. The hazel eyes shot a swift angry +glance at him. + +"You have no right to call yourself that," she said, "you have not +treated me like a sister." + +"How not, dear?" + +"You should have told me about your engagement--that you were going to +marry Lady Mabel Ashbourne." + +"Should I?" exclaimed Rorie, amazed. "If I had I should have told you +an arrant falsehood. I am not engaged to my cousin Mabel. I am not +going to marry her." + +"Oh, it doesn't matter in the least whether you are or not," returned +Vixen, with a weary air. "Papa is dead, and trifles like that can't +affect me now. But I felt it unkind of you at the time I heard it." + +"And where and how did you hear this wonderful news, Vixen?" asked +Rorie, very pleased to get her thoughts away from her grief, were it +only for a minute. + +"Mamma told me that everybody said you were engaged, and that the fact +was quite obvious." + +"What everybody says, and what is quite obvious, is very seldom true, +Violet. You may take that for a first principle in social science. I am +not engaged to anyone. I have no thought of getting married--for the +next three years." + +Vixen received this information with chilling silence. She would have +been very glad to hear it, perhaps, a week ago--at which time she had +found it a sore thing to think of her old playfellow as Lady Mabel's +affianced husband--but it mattered nothing now. The larger grief had +swallowed up all smaller grievances. Roderick Vawdrey had receded into +remote distance. He was no one, nothing, in a world that was suddenly +emptied of all delight. + +"What are you going to do, dear?" asked Roderick presently. "If you +shut yourself up in your room and abandon yourself to grief, you will +make yourself very ill. You ought to go away somewhere for a little +while." + +"For ever!" exclaimed Vixen passionately. "Do you think I can ever +endure this dear home without papa? There is not a thing I look at that +doesn't speak to me of him. The dogs, the horses. I almost hate them +for reminding me so cruelly. Yes, we are going away at once, I believe. +Mamma said so when I saw her this morning." + +"Your poor mamma! How does she bear her grief?" + +"Oh, she cries, and cries, and cries," said Vixen, rather +contemptuously. "I think it comforts her to cry. I can't cry. I am like +the dogs. If I did not restrain myself with all my might I should howl. +I should like to lie on the ground outside his door--just as his dog +does--and to refuse to eat or drink till I died." + +"But, dear Violet, you are not alone in the world. You have your poor +mamma to think of." + +"Mamma--yes. I am sorry for her, of course. But she is only like a +lay-figure in my life. Papa was everything." + +"Do you know where your mamma is going to take you?" + +"No; I neither know nor care. It will be to a house with four walls and +a roof, I suppose. It will be all the same to me wherever it is." + +What could Roderick say? It was too soon to talk about hope or comfort. +His heart was rent by this dull silent grief; but he could do nothing +except sit there silently by Vixen's side with her cold unresponsive +hands held in his. + +Miss McCroke came back presently, followed by a maid carrying a pretty +little Japanese tea-tray. + +"I have just been giving your poor mamma a cup of tea, Violet," said +the governess. "Mr. Clements has been telling her about the will, and +it has been quite too much for her. She was almost hysterical. But +she's better now, poor dear. And now we'll all have some tea. Bring the +table to the fire, Mr. Vawdrey, please, and let us make ourselves +comfortable," concluded Miss McCroke, with an assumption of mild +cheerfulness. + +Perhaps there is not in all nature so cheerful a thing as a good +sea-coal fire, with a log of beechwood on the top of the coals. It will +be cheerful in the face of affliction. It sends out its gushes of +warmth and brightness, its gay little arrowy flames that appear and +disappear like elves dancing their midnight waltzes on a barren moor. +It seems to say: "Look at me and be comforted! Look at me and hope! So +from the dull blackness of sorrow rise the many coloured lights of +new-born joy." + +Vixen suffered her chair to be brought near that cheery fire, and just +then Argus crept into the room and nestled at her knee. Roderick seated +himself at the other side of the hearth--a bright little fire-place +with its border of high-art tiles, illuminated with the story of "Mary, +Mary, quite contrary," after quaintly mediaeval designs, by Mr. Stacey +Marks. Miss McCroke poured out the tea in the quaint old red and blue +Worcester cups, and valiantly sustained that assumption of +cheerfulness. She would not have permitted herself to smile yesterday; +but now the funeral was over, the blinds were drawn up, and a mild +cheerfulness was allowable. + +"If you would condescend to tell me where you are going, Vixen, I might +contrive to come there too, by-and-by. We could have some rides +together. You'll take Arion, of course." + +"I don't know that I shall ever ride again," answered Violet with a +shudder. + +Could she ever forget that awful ride? Roderick hated himself for his +foolish speech. + +"Violet will have to devote herself to her studies very assiduously for +the next two years," said Miss McCroke. "She is much more backwards +than I like a pupil of mine to be at sixteen." + +"Yes, I am going to grind at three or four foreign grammars, and to +give my mind to latitude and longitude, and fractions, and decimals," +said Vixen, with a bitter laugh. "Isn't that cheering?" + +"Whatever you do, Vixen," cried Roderick earnestly, "don't be a +paradigm." + +"What's that?" + +"An example, a model, a paragon, a perfect woman nobly planned, &c. Be +anything but that, Vixen, if you love me." + +"I don't think there is much fear of any of us being perfect," said +Miss McCroke severely. "Imperfection is more in the line of humanity." + +"Do you think so?" interrogated Rorie. "I find there is a great deal +too much perfection in this world, too many faultless people--I hate +them." + +"Isn't that a confession of faultiness on your side?" suggested Miss +McCroke. + +"It may be. But it's the truth." + +Vixen sat with dry hollow eyes staring at the fire. She had heard their +talk as if it had been the idle voices of strangers sounding in the +distance, ever so far away. Argus nestled closer and closer at her +knee, and she patted his big blunt head absently, with a dim sense of +comfort in this brute love, which she had not derived from human +sympathy. + +Miss McCroke went on talking and arguing with Rorie, with a view to +sustaining that fictitious cheerfulness which might beguile Vixen into +brief oblivion of her griefs. But Vixen was not so to be beguiled. She +was with them, but not of them. Her haggard eyes stared at the fire, +and her thoughts were with the dear dead father, over whose +newly-filled grave the evening shadows were closing. + + + +CHAPTER X. + +Captain Winstanley. + +Two years later, and Vixen was sitting with the same faithful Argus +nestling beside her, by the fireside of a spacious Brighton +drawing-room, a large, lofty, commonplace room, with tall windows +facing seawards. Miss McCroke was there too, standing at one of the +windows taking up a dropped stitch in her knitting, while Mrs. Tempest +walked slowly up and down the expanse of Brussels carpet, stopping now +and then at a window to look idly out at the red sunset beyond the +low-lying roofs and spars of Shoreham. Those two years had changed +Violet Tempest from a slender girl to a nobly-formed woman; a woman +whom a sculptor would have worshipped as his dream of perfection, whom +a painter would have reverenced for her glow and splendour of +colouring; but about whose beauty the common run of mankind, and more +especially womankind, had not quite made up their minds. The pretty +little women with eighteen-inch waists opined that Miss Tempest was too +big. + +"She's very handsome, you know, and all that," they said deprecatingly, +"and her figure is quite splendid; but she's on such a very large +scale. She ought to be painted in fresco, you know, on a high cornice. +As Autumn, or Plenty, or Ceres, or something of that kind, carrying a +cornucopia. But in a drawing-room she looks so very massive." + +The amber-haired women--palpably indebted to auricomous fluids for the +colour of their tresses--objected to the dark burnished gold of Violet +Tempest's hair. There was too much red in the gold, they said, and a +colour so obviously natural was very unfashionable. That cream-white +skin of hers, too, found objectors, on the score of a slight powdering +of freckles; spots which the kindly sun leaves on the fruit he best +loves. In fact, there were many reservations made by Miss Tempest's +pretended admirers when they summed up her good looks; but when she +rode her pretty bay horse along the King's Road, strangers turned to +look at her admiringly; when she entered a crowded room she threw all +paler beauties in the shade. The cabbage-rose is a vulgar flower +perhaps, but she is queen of the garden notwithstanding. + +Lest it should be supposed, after this, that Vixen was a giantess, it +may be as well to state that her height was five feet six, her waist +twenty-two inches at most, her shoulders broad but finely sloping, her +arms full and somewhat muscular, her hands not small, but exquisitely +tapering, her foot long and narrow, her instep arched like an Arab's, +and all her movements instinct with an untutored grace and dignity. She +held her head higher than is common to women, and on that score was +found guilty of pride. + +"I think we ought to go back before Christmas, Violet," said Mrs. +Tempest, continuing a discussion that had been dragging itself slowly +along for the last half-hour. + +"I am ready, mamma," answered Vixen submissively. "It will break our +hearts afresh when we go home, but I suppose we must go home some day." + +"But you would like to see the dear old house again, surely, Violet?" + +"Like to see the frame without the picture? No, no, no, mamma. The +frame was very dear while the picture was in it--but--yes," cried Vixen +passionately, "I should like to go back. I should like to see papa's +grave, and carry fresh flowers there every day. It has been too much +neglected." + +"Neglected, Violet! How can you say such a thing? When Manotti's bill for +the monument was over nine hundred pounds." + +"Oh, mamma, there is more love in a bunch of primroses that my own hand +gathers and carries to the grave than in all the marble or granite in +Westminster Abbey." + +"My dear, for poor people wild flowers are very nice, and show good +feeling--but the rich must have monuments. There could be nothing too +splendid for your dear papa," added the widow tearfully. + +She was always tearful when she spoke of her dear Edward, even now; +though she was beginning to find that life had some savour without him. + +"No," said Vixen, "but I think papa will like the flowers best." + +"Then if all is well, Miss McCroke," pursued Mrs. Tempest, "we will go +back at the end of November. It would be a pity to lose the season +here." + +Vixen yawned despondently. + +"What do we care about the season, mamma?" she exclaimed. "Can it +matter to us whether there are two or three thousand extra people in +the place? It only makes the King's Road a little more uncomfortable." + +"My dear Violet, at your age gaiety is good for you," said Mrs. Tempest. + +"Yes, and, like most other things that are good, it's very +disagreeable," retorted Vixen. + +"And now, about this ball," pursued Mrs. Tempest, taking up a dropped +stitch in the previous argument; "I really think we ought to go, if it +were only on Violet's account. Don't you, Maria?" + +Mrs. Tempest always called her governess Maria when she was anxious to +conciliate her. + +"Violet is old enough to enter society, certainly," said Miss McCroke, +with some deliberation; "but whether a public ball----" + +"If it's on my account, mamma, pray don't think of going," protested +Vixen earnestly. "I hate the idea of a ball--I hate----" + +"Captain Winstanley," announced Forbes, in the dusky end of the +drawing-room by the door. + +"He has saved me the trouble of finishing my sentence," muttered Vixen. + +The visitor came smiling though the dusk into the friendly glow of the +fire. He shook hands with Mrs. Tempest with the air of an old friend, +went over to the window to shake hands with Miss McCroke, and then came +back to Vixen, who gave him a limp cold hand, with an indifference that +was almost insolent, while Argus lifted his head an inch or so from the +carpet and saluted him with a suppressed growl. Whether this arose from +a wise instinct in the animal, or from a knowledge that his mistress +disliked the gentleman, would be too nice a point to decide. + +"I was that moment thinking of you, Captain Winstanley," said the widow. + +"An honour and a happiness for me," murmured the Captain. + +Mrs. Tempest seated herself in her own particular chair, beside which +was her own particular table with one of those pretty tea-services +which were her chief delight--a miniature silver tea-kettle with a +spirit-lamp, a cosy little ball-shaped teapot, cups and saucers of old +Battersea. + +"You'll take a cup of tea?" she said insinuatingly. + +"I shall be delighted. I feel as if I ought to go home and write verses +or smart paragraphs for the society papers after drinking your tea, it +is so inspiring. Addison ought to have drunk just such tea before +writing one of his Spectators, but unfortunately his muse required old +port." + +"If the Spectator came out nowadays I'm afraid we should think it +stupid." suggested Mrs. Tempest. + +"Simply because the slipshod writers of the present day have spoiled +our taste for fine English," interjected Miss McCroke severely. + +"Well, I fear we should find Addison a little thin," said Captain +Winstanley; "I can't imagine London society existing for a week on such +literary pabulum as 'The Vision of Mirza.' We want something stronger +than that. A little scandal about our neighbours, a racy article on +field sports, some sharpish hits at the City, a libel or two upon men +we know, a social article sailing very near the wind, and one of +Addison's papers on cherry-coloured hoods, or breast-knots, patches or +powder, thrown in by the way of padding. Our dear Joseph is too purely +literary for the present age." + +"What monsters newspapers have grown," remarked Mrs. Tempest. "It's +almost impossible to get through them." + +"Not if you read anything else," answered the captain. "The majority do +not." + +"We were talking about the ball just as you came in," said Mrs. +Tempest. "I really think Vixen ought to go." + +"I am sure she ought," said the Captain. + +Vixen sat looking at the fire and patting Argus. She did not favour the +Captain with so much as a glance; and yet he was a man upon whom the +eyes of women were apt to dwell favourably. He was not essentially +handsome. The most attractive men rarely are. He was tall and thin, +with a waist as small as a woman's, small hands, small feet--a general +delicacy of mould that was accounted thoroughbred. He had a long nose, +a darkly-pale complexion, keen gray eyes under dark brows, dark hair, +cropped close to his small head; thin lips, white teeth, a neat black +moustache, and a strictly military appearance, though he had sold out +of a line regiment three years ago, and was now a gentleman at large, +doing nothing, and living in a gentleman-like manner on a very small +income. He was not in debt, and was altogether respectable. Nothing +could be said against him, unless it were some dark hint of a gambling +transaction at a fast and furious club, some vague whisper about the +mysterious appearance of a king at ecarte--the kind of a rumour which +is apt to pursue a man who, like Bulwer's Dudley Smooth, does not cheat +but always wins. + +Despite those vague slanders, which are generally baseless--the mere +expression of society's floating malice, the scum of ill-nature on the +ocean of talk--Captain Winstanley was a universal favourite. He went +everywhere, and was liked wherever he went. He was gifted with that +adaptability and hardiness which is, of all cleverness, most valuable +in polite society. Of him, as of Goldsmith, it might be said that he +touched nothing he did not adorn. True, that the things he touched were +for the most part small things, but they were things that kept him +before the eye of society, and found favour in that eye. + +He was a good horseman, a good oarsman, a good swimmer, a good +cricketer. He played and sang; he was a first-rate amateur actor; he +was great at billiards and all games of skill; he could talk any +language society wanted him to talk--society not requiring a man to +excel in Coptic or Chinese, or calling upon him suddenly for Japanese +or Persian; he dressed with perfect taste, and without the slightest +pretence of dandyism; he could write a first-rate letter, and +caricature his dearest friends of last year in pen and ink for the +entertainment of his dearest friends of this year; he was known to have +contributed occasionally to fashionable periodicals, and was supposed +to have a reserve of wit and satire which would quite have annihilated +the hack writers of the day had he cared to devote himself to +literature. + +Mrs. Tempest and her daughter had met the Captain early in the previous +spring among the Swiss mountains. He knew some of Mrs. Tempest's +Hampshire friends, and with no other credentials had contrived to win +her friendship. Vixen took it into her obstinate young head to detest +him. But then, Vixen, at seventeen and a half, was full of ridiculous +dislikes and irrational caprices. Mrs. Tempest, in her lonely and +somewhat depressed condition, considered the Captain a particularly +useful acquaintance. Miss McCroke was dubious, but finding any +expression of her doubts ungraciously received, took the safer line of +silence. + +The ball in question was a charity ball at the Pavilion, a perfectly +unobjectionable ball. The list of patronesses bristled with noble +names. There was nothing to be said against Vixen's appearance there, +except Miss McCroke's objection that Squire Tempest's daughter and +heiress ought not to make her _debut_ in society at any public ball +whatever; ought, in a manner, hardly to be seen by the human eye as a +grown-up young lady, until she had been presented to her gracious +sovereign. But Mrs. Tempest had set her heart upon Vixen's going to the +ball; or, in other words, she had set her heart upon going herself. On +her way through Paris, in September, she had gone to Worth's--out of +curiosity, just to see what the great man's salons were like--and there +she had been tempted into the purchase of an artistic arrangement in +black silk and jet, velvet and passementerie. She did not require the +costume, but the thing in itself was so beautiful that she could not +help buying it. And having spent a hundred guineas on this masterpiece, +there arose in her mind a natural craving to exhibit it; to feel that +she was being pointed out as one of the best-dressed women in the +crowded room; to know that women were whispering to each other +significantly, "Worth," as the nocturn in velvet and silk and +glimmering jet swept by them. + +There was a good deal more discussion, and it was ultimately settled +that Vixen should go to the ball. She had no positive objection. She +would have liked the idea of the ball well enough perhaps, if it had +not been for Captain Winstanley. It was his advocacy that made the +subject odious. + +"How very rudely you behaved to Captain Winstanley, Violet," said Mrs. +Tempest, when her visitor had departed. + +"Did I, mamma?" inquired Vixen listlessly. "I thought I was +extraordinarily civil. If you knew how I should have liked to behave to +him, you would think so too." + +"I can not imagine why you are so prejudiced against him," pursued Mrs. +Tempest fretfully. + +"It is not prejudice, mamma, but instinct, like Argus's. That man is +destined to do us some great wrong, if we do not escape out of his +clutches." + +"It is shameful of you to say such things," cried the widow, pale with +anger. "What have you to say against him? What fault can you find with +him? You cannot deny that he is most gentlemanlike." + +"No, mamma; he is a little too gentlemanlike. He makes a trade of his +gentlemanliness. He is too highly polished for me." + +"You prefer a rough young fellow, like Roderick Vawdrey, who talks +slang, and smells of the stables." + +"I prefer anyone who is good and true," retorted Vixen. "Roderick is a +man, and not to be named in the same breath with your fine gentleman." + +"I admit that the comparison would be vastly to his disadvantage," said +the widow. "But it's time to dress for dinner." + +"And we are to dine with the Mortimers," yawned Vixen. "What a bore!" + +This young lady had not that natural bent for society which is +symptomatic of her age. The wound that pierced her young heart two +years ago had not healed so completely that she could find pleasure in +inane conversation across a primeval forest of sixpenny ferns, and the +factitious liveliness of a fashionable dinner-table. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +"It shall be Measure for Measure." + +The night of the ball came, and, in spite of her aversion for Captain +Winstanley, and general dislike of the whole thing, Violet Tempest +began the evening by enjoying herself. She was young and energetic, and +had an immense reserve of animal spirits after her two years of sadness +and mourning. She danced with the partners her friends brought +her--some of the most eligible men in the room--and was full of life +and gaiety; yet the festival seemed to her in somewise horrible all the +time. + +"If papa could know that we are dancing and smiling at each other, as +if all life was made up of gladness, when he is lying in his cold +grave!" thought Vixen, after joining hands with her mother in the +ladies' chain. + +The widow looked as if she had never known a care. She was conscious +that Worth's _chef-d'oeuvre_ was not thrown away. She saw herself in +the great mirrors which once reflected George and his lovely +Fitzherbert in their days of gladness--which reflected the same George +later, old, and sick, and weary. + +"That French _grande dame_ was right," thought Mrs. Tempest, "who said, +'_Le noir est si flattant pour les blondes_.'" + +Black was flattering for Vixen's auburn hair also. Though her +indifferent eye rarely glanced at the mirrored walls, she had never +looked lovelier. A tall graceful figure, in billowy black tulle, +wreathed with white chrysanthemums; a queen-like head, with a red-gold +coronal; a throat like an ivory pillar, spanned with a broad black +ribbon, fastened with a diamond clasp; diamond stars in her ears, and a +narrow belt of diamonds round each white arm. + +"How many waltzes have you kept for me?" Captain Winstanley asked +presently, coming up to Vixen. + +"I have not kept waltzes for anyone," she answered indifferently. + +"But surely you were under a promise to keep some for me? I asked you a +week ago." + +"Did you? I am sure I never promised anything of the kind." + +"Here is only one little shabby waltz left," said the Captain, looking +at her programme. "May I put my name down for that?" + +"If you like," answered Vixen indifferently; and then, with the +faintest suspicion of malice, she added, "as mamma does not dance round +dances." + +She was standing up for the Lancers presently, and her partner had just +led her to her place, when she saw that she had her mother and Captain +Winstanley again for her _vis-a-vis_. She grew suddenly pale, and +turned away. + +"Will you let me sit this out?" she said. "I feel awfully ill." + +Her partner was full of concern, and carried her off at once to a +cooler room. + +"It is too bad!" she muttered to herself. "The Lancers! To go romping +round with a lot of wild young men and women. It is as bad as the Queen +in Hamlet." + +This was the last dance before supper. Vixen went in to the supper-room +presently with her attentive partner, who had kept by her side +devotedly while the lively scramble to good old English tunes was going +on in the dancing-room. + +"Are you better?" he asked tenderly, fanning her with her big black +fan, painted with violets and white chrysanthemums. "The room is +abominably hot." + +"Thanks. I'm quite well now. It was only a momentary faintness. But I +rather hate the Lancers, don't you?" + +"Well, I don't know. I think, sometimes, you know, with a nice partner, +they're good fun. Only one can't help treading on the ladies' trains, +and they wind themselves round one's legs like snakes. I've seen +fellows come awful croppers, and the lady who has done it look so +sweetly unconcerned. But if one tears a lace flounce, you know, they +look daggers. It's something too dreadful to feel oneself walking into +honiton at ten guineas a yard, and the more one tries to extricate +oneself the more harm one does." + +Vixen's supper was the merest pretence. Her mother sat opposite her, +with Captain Winstanley still in attendance. Vixen gave them one +scathing look, and then sat like an image of scorn. Her partner could +not get a word from her, and when he offered her the fringed end of a +cracker bonbon, she positively refused to have anything to do with it. + +"Please don't," she said. "It's too inane. I couldn't possibly pretend +to be interested in the motto." + +When she went back to the ball-room Captain Winstanley followed her and +claimed his waltz. The band was just striking up the latest love-sick +German melody, "_Weit von dir!_" a strain of drawling tenderness. + +"You had better go and secure your supper," said Vixen coldly. + +"I despise all ball-suppers. This one most particularly, if it were to +deprive me of my waltz." + +Vixen shrugged her shoulders, and submitted to take those few +preliminary steps which are like the strong swimmer's shiverings on the +bank ere he plunges in the stream. And then she was whirling round to +the legato strains, "_Weit von dir! Weit von dir! Wo ist mein Lebens +Lust?--Weit von dir--Weit von dir!_" + +Captain Winstanley's waltzing was simple perfection. It was not the +Liverpool Lurch, or the Scarborough Scramble, the Bermondsey Bounce, or +the Whitechapel Wiggle; it was waltzing pure and simple, unaffected, +graceful; the waltzing of a man with a musical ear, and an athlete's +mastery of the art of motion. Vixen hated the Captain, but she enjoyed +the waltz. They danced till the last bar died away in a tender +diminuendo. + +"You look pale," said the Captain, "let us go into the garden." He +brought her cloak and wrapped it round her, and she took his offered +arm without a word. It was one of those rare nights in late October, +when the wind is not cold. There was hardly the flutter of a leaf in +the Pavilion garden. The neighbouring sea made the gentlest music--a +melancholy ebb and flow of sound, like the murmuring of some great +imprisoned spirit. + +In the searching light of day, when its adjacent cab-stands and +commonnesses are visible, and its gravelled walks are peopled with +nursemaids and small children, the Pavilion garden can hardly be called +romantic. But by this tender moonlight, in this cool stillness of a +placid autumn midnight, even the Pavilion garden had its air of romance +and mystery. The various roofs and chimneys stood up against the sky, +picturesque as a city of old time. And, after all, this part of +Brighton has a peculiar charm which all the rest of Brighton lacks. It +speaks of the past, it tells its story of the dead. They were not great +or heroic, perhaps, those departed figures, whose ghosts haunt us in +the red and yellow rooms, and in the stiff town garden; but they had +their histories. They lived, and loved, and suffered; and, being dead +so long, come back to us in the softened light of vanished days, and +take hold of our fancy with their quaint garments and antique +head-gear, their powder, and court-swords, and diamond shoe-buckles, +and little loves and little sorrows. + +Vixen walked slowly along the shining gravel-path with her black and +gold mantle folded round her, looking altogether statuesque and +unapproachable. They took one turn in absolute silence, and then +Captain Winstanley, who was not inclined to beat about the bush when he +had something particular to say, and a good opportunity for saying it, +broke the spell. + +This was perhaps the first time, in an acquaintance of more than six +months, that he had ever found himself alone with Violet Tempest, +without hazard of immediate interruption. + +"Miss Tempest," he began, with a firmness of tone that startled her, "I +want to know why you are so unkind to me." + +"I hardly know what you mean by unkindness. I hope I have never said +anything uncivil?" + +"No; but you have let me see very plainly that you dislike me." + +"I am sorry nature has given me an unpleasantly candid disposition." + +Those keen gray eyes of the Captain's were watching her intently. An +angry look shot at her from under the straight dark brows--swift as an +arrow. + +"You admit then that you do not like me?" he said. + +Vixen paused before replying. The position was embarrassing. + +"I suppose if I were ladylike and proper, I should protest that I like +you immensely; that there is no one in the world, my mother excepted, +whom I like better. But I never was particularly proper or polite, +Captain Winstanley, and I must confess there are very few people I do +like, and----" + +"And I am not one of them," said the Captain. + +"You have finished the sentence for me." + +"That is hard upon me--no, Violet, you can never know how hard. Why +should you dislike me? You are the first woman who ever told me so" +(flushing with an indignant recollection of all his victories). "I have +done nothing to offend you. I have not been obtrusive. I have +worshipped at a distance--but the Persian's homage of the sun is not +more reverent----" + +"Oh, pray don't talk about Persians and the sun," cried Violet. "I am +not worthy that you should be so concerned about my likes and dislikes. +Please think of me as an untaught inexperienced girl. Two years ago I +was a spoiled child. You don't know how my dearest father spoiled me. +It is no wonder I am rude. Remember this, and forgive me if I am too +truthful." + +"You are all that is lovely," he exclaimed passionately, stung by her +scorn and fired by her beauty, almost beside himself as they stood +there in the magical moonlight--for once in his life forgetting to +calculate every move on life's chessboard. "You are too lovely for me. +From the very first, in Switzerland, when I was so happy----no, I will +not tell you. I will not lay down my heart to be trampled under your +feet." + +"Don't," cried Violet, transfixing him with the angry fire of her eyes, +"for I'm afraid I should trample on it. I am not one of those gentle +creatures who go out of their way to avoid treading on worms--or other +reptiles." + +"You are as cruel as you are lovely," he said, "and your cruelty is +sweeter than another woman's kindness. Violet, I laugh at your dislike. +Yes, such aversion as that is often the beginning of closest liking. I +will not be disheartened. I will not be put off by your scornful +candour. What if I were to tell you that you are the only woman I ever +loved?" + +"Pray do not. It would transform passive dislike into active hatred. I +should be sorry for that, because," looking at him deliberately, with a +slow scorn, "I think my mother likes you." + +"She has honoured me with her confidence, and I hope I shall not prove +unworthy of the trust. I rarely fail to repay any benefit that is +bestowed upon me." + +"October nights are treacherous," said Vixen, drawing her cloak closer +around her. "I think we had better go back to the ball-room." + +She was shivering a little with agitated feeling, in spite of that +mantle of scorn in which she had wrapped herself. This was the first +man who had ever called her lovely, who had ever talked to her of love +with manhood's strong passion. + +The Captain gave her his arm, and they went back to the glare and heat +of the yellow dragons and scarlet griffins. Another Lancer scramble was +in full progress, to the old-fashioned jigging tunes, but Mrs. Tempest +was sitting among the matrons in a corner by an open window. + +"Are we ever going home any more, mamma?" inquired Vixen. + +"My dear Violet, I have been waiting for you ever so long." + +"Why should you leave so early?" exclaimed Captain Winstanley. "There +are half-a-dozen more dances, and you are engaged for them all, I +believe, Miss Tempest." + +"Then I will show mercy to my partners by going away," said Violet. +"Are all balls as long as this? We seem to have been here ages; I +expect to find my hair gray to-morrow morning." + +"I really think we had better go," said Mrs. Tempest, in her undecided +way. + +She was a person who never quite made up her mind about anything, but +balanced every question gently, letting somebody else turn the scale +for her--her maid, her governess, her daughter; she was always trying +to have her own way, but never quite knew what her own way was, and +just managed things skillfully enough to prevent other people having +theirs. + +"If you are determined, I will see you to your carriage, and then the +ball is over for me," said the Captain gallantly. + +He offered Mrs. Tempest his arm, and they went put into the vestibule, +where the Captain left them for a few minutes, while he went into the +porch to hasten the arrival of the carriage. + +"Where were you and Captain Winstanley all that time, Violet?" asked +Mrs. Tempest. + +"In the garden." + +"How imprudent!" + +"Indeed, dear mamma, it wasn't cold." + +"But you were out there so long. What could you find to talk about all +that time?" + +"We were not talking all the time, only enjoying the cool air and the +moonlight." + +"Mrs. Tempest's carriage!" roared one of the door-keepers, as if it had +been his doing that the carriage had appeared so quickly. + +Captain Winstanley was ready to hand them to their brougham. + +"Come and take a cup of tea to-morrow afternoon, and let as talk over +the ball," said the widow. + +"With infinite pleasure." + +"Shall we drop you at your house?" + +"A thousand thanks--no--my lodgings are so close, I'll walk home." + +He went back for his overcoat, and then walked slowly away, without +another glance at the crowded ball-room, or the corridors where the +ladies who were waiting for their carriages were contriving to improve +the time by a good deal of quiet, or even noisy, flirtation. His +lodgings were on the Old Steine, close by. But he did not go home +immediately. There are times in a man's life when four walls are to +small too hold the bigness of his thoughts. Captain Winstanley paced +the Marine Parade for half-an-hour or so before he went home. + +"_Va pour la mere_," he said to himself, at the close of that half +hour's meditations; "she is really very nice, and the position +altogether advantageous, perhaps as much as one has the right to expect +in the general decadence of things. But, good heavens, how lovely that +girl is! She is the first woman who ever looked me in the face and told +me she disliked me; the first woman who ever gave me contemptuous looks +and scornful words. And yet--for that very reason, perhaps--I----" + +The dark brows contracted over the keen eyes, which seemed closer than +usual to the hawk nose. + +"Look to yourself, my queen, in the time to come," he said, as he +turned his back on the silvery sea and moonlight sky. "You have been +hard to me and I will be hard to you. It shall be measure for measure." + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +"I have no Wrong, where I can claim no Right." + +Going home again. That was hard to bear. It reopened all the old +wounds. Violet Tempest felt as if her heart must really break, as if +this new grief were sharper than the old one, when the carriage drove +in through the familiar gates, in the December dusk, and along the +winding shrubberied road, and up to the Tudor porch, where the lion of +the Tempests stood, _passant regardant_, with lifted paw and backwards +gaze, above the stone shield. The ruddy firelight was shining across +the wide doorway. The old hearth looked as cheerful as of old. And +there stood the empty chair beside it. That had been Vixen's particular +wish. + +"Let nothing be disturbed, dear mamma," she had said ever so many +times, when her mother was writing her orders to the housekeeper. "Beg +them to keep everything just as it was in papa's time." + +"My dear, it will only make you grieve more." + +"Yes; but I had rather grieve for him than forget him. I am more afraid +of forgetting him than of grieving too much for him," said Vixen. + +And now, as she stood on the hearth after her journey, wrapped in black +furs, a little black fur _toque_ crowning her ruddy gold hair, fancy +filled the empty chair as she gazed at it. Yes, she could see her +father sitting there in his hunting-clothes, his whip across his knee. + +The old pointer, the Squire's favourite, came whining to her feet. How +old he looked! Old, and broken, and infirm, as if from much sorrow. + +"Poor Nip! poor Nip!" she said, patting him. "The joy of your life went +with papa, didn't it?" + +"It's all very sad," murmured Mrs. Tempest, loosening her wraps. "A +sad, sad home-coming. And it seems only yesterday that I came here as a +bride. Did I ever tell you about my travelling-dress, Violet? It was a +shot-silk--they were fashionable then, you know--bronze and blue--the +loveliest combination of colour!" + +"I can't imagine a shot-silk being anything but detestable," said Vixen +curtly. "Poor Nip! How faithful dogs are! The dear thing is actually +crying!" + +Tears were indeed running from the poor old eyes, as the pointer's head +lay in Vixen's lap; as if memory, kindled by her image, brought back +the past too keenly for that honest canine heart. + +"It is very mournful," said Mrs. Tempest. "Pauline, let us have a cup +of tea." + +She sank into an arm-chair opposite the fire. Not the squire's old +carved oak-chair, with its tawny leather cushions. That must needs be +sacred evermore--a memento of the dead, standing beside the hearth, +revered as the image of an honoured ancestor in a Roman citizen's home. + +"I wonder if anyone is alive that we knew here?" said Vixen, lying back +in her low chair, and idly caressing the dogs. + +"My dear Violet, why should people be dead? We have only been away two +years." + +"No; but it seems so long. I hardly expect to see any of the old faces. +He is not here," with a sudden choking sob. "Why should all be +left--except him?" + +"The workings of Providence are full of mystery," sighed the widow. +"Dear Edward! How handsome he looked that day he brought me home. And +he was a noble-looking man to the last. Not more than two spoonfuls of +pekoe, Pauline. You ought to know how I like it by this time." + +This to the handmaiden, who was making tea at the gipsy table in front +of the fire--the table at which Vixen and Rorie had drunk tea so +merrily on that young man's birthday. + +After tea mother and daughter went the round of the house. How +familiar, how dear, how strange, how sad all things looked! The +faithful servants had done their duty. Everything was in its place. The +last room they entered was the Squire's study. Here were all his +favourite books. The "Sporting Magazine" from its commencement, in +crimson morocco. "Nimrod" and "The Druid," "Assheton Smith's Memoirs," +and many others of the same class. Books on farming and farriery, on +dogs and guns. Here were the Squire's guns and whips, a motley +collection, all neatly arranged by his own hands. The servants had done +nothing but keep them free from dust. There, by the low and cosy +fireplace, with its tiled hearth, stood the capacious crimson morocco +chair, in which the master of the Abbey House had been wont to sit when +he held audience with his kennel-huntsman, or gamekeeper, his +farm-bailiff, or stud-groom. + +"Mamma, I should like you to lock the door of this room and keep the +key, so that no one may ever come here," said Vixen. + +"My dear, that is just the way to prolong your grief; but I will do it +if you like." + +"Do, dear mamma. Or, if you will let me keep the key, I will come in +and dust the room every day. It would be a pleasure for me, a mournful +one, perhaps, but still a pleasure." + +Mrs. Tempest made no objection, and, when they left the room, Vixen +locked the door and put the key in her pocket. + +Christmas was close at hand. The saddest time for such a home-coming, +Vixen thought. The gardeners brought in their barrows of holly, and +fir, and laurel; but Vixen would take no part in the decoration of hall +and corridors, staircase and gallery--she who in former years had been +so active in the labour. The humble inhabitants of the village rejoiced +in the return of the family at the great house, and Vixen was pleased +to see the kind faces again, the old men and women, the rosy-cheeked +children, and careworn mothers, withered and wrinkled before their time +with manifold anxieties. She had a friendly word for everyone, and +gifts for all. Home was sweet to her after her two years' absence, +despite the cloud of sadness that overhung all things. She went out to +the stables and made friends with the old horses, which had been out at +grass all through the summer, and had enjoyed a paradise of rest for +the last two years. Slug and Crawler, Mrs. Tempest's carriage horses, +sleek even-minded bays, had been at Brighton, and so had Vixen's +beautiful thorough-bred, and a handsome brown for the groom; but all +the rest had stayed in Hampshire. Not one had been sold, though the +stud was a wasteful and useless one for a widow and her daughter. There +was Bullfinch, the hunter Squire Tempest had ridden in his last hour of +life. Violet went into his box, and caressed him, and fed him, and +cried over him with bitterest tears. This home-coming brought back the +old sorrow with overwhelming force. She ran out of the stables to hide +her tears, and ran up to her own room, and abandoned herself to her +grief, almost as utterly as she had done on those dark days when her +father's corpse was lying in the house. + +There was no friendly Miss McCroke now to be fussy and anxious, and to +interpose herself between Violet Tempest and her grief. Violet was +supposed to be "finished," or, in other words, to know everything under +the sun which a young lady of good birth and ample fortune can be +required to know. Everything, in this case, consisted of a smattering +of French, Italian, and German, a dubious recollection of the main +facts in modern history, hazy images of Sennacherib, Helen of Troy, +Semiramis, Cyrus, the Battle of Marathon, Romulus and Remus, the murder +of Julius Caesar, and the loves of Antony and Cleopatra flitting dimly +athwart the cloudy background of an unmapped ancient world, a few vague +notions about astronomy, some foggy ideas upon the constitution of +plants and flowers, sea-weeds and shells, rocks and hills--and a +general indifference for all literature except poetry and novels. + +Miss McCroke, having done her duty conscientiously after her lights, +had now gone to finish three other young ladies, the motherless +daughters of an Anglo-Indian colonel, over whom she was to exercise +maternal authority and guidance, in a tall narrow house in Maida Vale. +She had left Mrs. Tempest with all honours, and Violet had lavished +gifts upon her at parting, feeling fonder of her governess in the last +week of their association than at any other period of her tutelage. +To-day, in her sorrow, it was a relief to Violet to find herself free +from the futile consolations of friendship. She flung herself into the +arm-chair by the fire and sobbed out her grief. + +"Oh, kindest, dearest, best of fathers," she cried, "what is home +without you!" + +And then she remembered that awful day of the funeral when Roderick +Vawdrey had sat with her beside this hearth, and had tried to comfort +her, and remembered how she had heard his voice as a sound far away, a +sound that had no meaning. That was the last time she had seen him. + +"I don't suppose I thanked him for his pity or his kindness," she +thought. "He must have gone away thinking me cold and ungrateful; but I +was like a creature at the bottom of some dark dismal pit. How could I +feel thankful to someone looking down at me and talking to me from the +free happy world at the top?" + +Her sobs ceased gradually, she dried her tears, and that unconscious +pleasure in life which is a part of innocent youth came slowly back. +She looked round the room in which so much of her childhood had been +spent, a room full of her own fancies and caprices, a room whose +prettiness had been bought with her own money, and was for the most +part the work of her own hands. + +In spite of home's sorrowful association she was glad to find herself +at home. Mountains, and lakes, and sunny bays, and dark pathless +forests, may be ever so good to see, but there is something sweet in +our return to the familiar rooms of home; some pleasure in being shut +snugly within four walls, surrounded by one's own belongings. + +The wood-fire burnt merrily, and sparkled on the many-coloured pots and +pans upon the panelled wall; here an Etruscan vase of India red, there +a Moorish water-jar of vivid amber. Outside the deep mullioned windows +the winter blast was blowing, with occasional spurts of flying snow. +Argus crept in presently, and stretched himself at full length upon the +fleecy rug. Vixen lay back in her low chair, musing idly in the glow of +the fire, and by-and-by the lips which had been convulsed with grief +parted in a smile, the lovely brown eyes shone with happy memories. + +She was thinking of her old playfellow and friend, Rorie. + +"I wonder if he will come to-day?" she mused. "I think he will. He is +sure to be at home for the hunting. Yes, he will come to-day. What will +he be like, I wonder? Handsomer than he was two years ago? No, that +could hardly be. He is quite a man now. Three-and-twenty! I must not +laugh at him any more." + +The thought of his coming thrilled her with a new joy. She seemed to +have been living an artificial life in the two years of her absence, to +have been changed in her very self by change of surroundings. It was +almost as if the old Vixen had been sent into an enchanted sleep, while +some other young lady, a model of propriety and good manners, went +about the world in Vixen's shape. Her life had been made up, more or +less, of trifles and foolishness, with a background of grand scenery. +Tepid little friendships with agreeable fellow-travellers at Nice; +tepid little friendships of the same order in Switzerland; well-dressed +young people smiling at each other, and delighting in each other's +company; and parting, probably for ever, without a pang. + +But now she had come back to the friends, the horses, the dogs, the +rooms, the gardens, the fields, the forests of youth, and was going to +be the real Vixen again; the wild, thoughtless, high-spirited girl whom +Squire Tempest and all the peasantry round about had loved. + +"I have been ridiculously well-behaved," she said to herself, "quite a +second edition of mamma. But now I am back in the Forest my good +manners may go hang. 'My foot's on my native heath, and my name is +McGregor.'" + +Somehow in all her thoughts of home--after that burst of grief for her +dead father--Roderick Vawdrey was the central figure. He filled the gap +cruel death had made. + +Would Rorie come soon to see her? Would he be very glad to have her at +home again? What would he think of her? Would he fancy her changed? For +the worse? For the better? + +"I wonder whether he would like my good manners or the original Vixen +best?" she speculated. + +The morning wore on, and still Violet Tempest sat idly by the fire. She +had made up her mind that Roderick would come to see her at once. She +was sufficiently aware of her own importance to feel sure that the fact +of her return had been duly chronicled in the local papers. He would +come to-day--before luncheon, perhaps, and they three, mamma, Rorie, +and herself, would sit at the round table in the library--the snug warm +room where they had so often sat with papa. This thought brought back +the bitterness of her loss. + +"I can bear it better if Rorie is with us," she thought, "and he is +almost sure to come. He would not be so unkind as to delay bidding +welcome to such poor lonely creatures as mamma and I." + +She looked at her little watch--a miniature hunter in a case of black +enamel, with a monogram in diamonds, one of her father's last gifts. It +was one o'clock already, and luncheon would be at half-past. + +"Only half-an-hour for Rorie," she thought. + +The minute-hand crept slowly to the half-hour, the luncheon-gong +sounded below, and there had been no announcement of Mr. Vawdrey. + +"He may be downstairs with mamma all this time," thought Vixen. "Forbes +would not tell me, unless he were sent." + +She went downstairs and met Forbes in the hall. + +"Oh, if you please, ma'am, Mrs. Tempest does not feel equal to coming +down to luncheon. She will take a wing of chicken in her own room." + +"And I don't feel equal to sitting in the library alone, Forbes," said +Violet; "so you may tell Phoebe to bring me a cup of tea and a biscuit. +Has nobody called this morning?" + +"No, ma'am." + +Vixen went back to her room, out of spirits and out of temper. It was +unkind of Rorie, cold, neglectful, heartless. + +"If he had come home after an absence of two years--absence under such +sad circumstances--how anxious I should be to see him," she thought. +"But I don't suppose there is frost enough to stop the hunting, and I +daresay he is tearing across the heather on some big raw-boned horse, +and not giving me a thought. Or perhaps he is dancing attendance upon +Lady Mabel. But no, I don't think he cares much for that kind of thing." + +She moved about the room a little, rearranging things that were already +arranged exactly as she had left them two years ago. She opened a book +and flung it aside; tried the piano, which sounded muffled and woolly. + +"My poor little Broadwood is no better for being out at grass," she +said. + +She went to one of the windows, and stood there looking out, expecting +every instant to see a dog-cart with a rakish horse, a wasp-like body, +and high red wheels, spin round the curve of the shrubbery. She stood +thus for a long time, as she had done on that wet October afternoon of +Rorie's home-coming; but no rakish horse came swinging round the curve +of the carriage-drive. The flying snow drifted past the window; the +winter sky looked blue and clear between the brief showers, the tall +feathery fir-trees and straight slim cypresses stood up against the +afternoon light, and Vixen gazed at them with angry eyes, full of +resentment against Roderick Vawdrey. + +"The ground is too hard for the scent to lie well, that's one comfort," +she reflected savagely. + +And then she thought of the dear old kennels given over to a new +master; the hounds whose names and idiosyncrasies she had known as well +as if they had been human acquaintances. She had lost all interest in +them now. Pouto and Gellert, Lightfoot, Juno, Ringlet, Lord +Dundreary--they had forgotten her, no doubt. + +Here was someone at last, but not the one for whom she was watching. A +figure clothed in a long loose black cloak and slouched felt hat, and +carrying a weedy umbrella, trudged sturdily around the curve, and came +briskly towards the porch. It was Mr. Scobel, the incumbent of the +pretty little Gothic church in the village--a church like a toy. + +He was a good man and a benevolent, this Mr. Scobel; a hard-worker, and +a blessing in the neighbourhood. But just at this moment Violet Tempest +did not feel grateful to him for coming. + +"What does he want?" she thought. "Blankets and coals and things, I +suppose." + +She turned sullenly from the window, and went back to her seat by the +fire, and threw on a log, and gave herself up to disappointment. The +blue winter sky had changed to gray; the light was fading behind the +feathery fir-tops. + +"Perhaps he will come to afternoon tea," she thought; and then, with a +discontented shrug of her shoulders: "No, he is not coming at all. If +he cared about us, he would have been the first to bid us welcome; +knowing, as he must, how miserable it was for me to come home at +all--without papa!" + +She sat looking at the fire. + +"How idle I am!" she mused; "and poor Crokey did so implore me to go on +with my education, and read good useful books and enlarge my mind. I +don't think my poor little mind would bear any more stretching, or that +I should be much happier if I knew all about Central Africa, and the +nearest way from Hindostan to China, or old red sandstone, and +tertiary, and the rest of them. What does it matter to me what the +earth is made of, if I can but be happy upon it? No, I shall never try +to be a highly cultivated young woman. I shall read Byron, and +Tennyson, and Wordsworth, and Keats, and Bulwer, and Dickens, and +Thackeray, and remain an ignoramus all the days of my life. I think +that would be quite enough for Rorie, if he and I were to be much +together; for I don't believe he ever opens a book at all. And what +would be the use of my talking to him about old red sandstone or the +centre of Africa?" + +Phoebe, Miss Tempest's fresh-faced Hampshire maid, appeared at this +moment. + +"Oh, if you please, miss, your ma says would you go to the +drawing-room? Mr. Scobel is with her, and would like to see you." + +Violet rose with a sigh. + +"Is my hair awfully untidy, Phoebe?" + +"I think I had better arrange the plaits, miss." + +"That means that I'm an object. It's four o'clock; I may as well change +my dress for dinner. I suppose I must go down to dinner?" + +"Lor' yes, miss; it will never do to shut yourself up in your own room +and fret. You're as pale as them there Christmas roses already." + +Ten minutes later Vixen went down to the drawing-room, looking very +stately in her black Irish poplin, whose heavy folds became the tall +full figure, and whose dense blackness set off the ivory skin and warm +auburn hair. She had given just one passing glance at herself in the +cheval-glass, and Vanity had whispered: + +"Perhaps Rorie would have thought me improved; but he has not taken the +trouble to come and see. I might be honeycombed by the small-pox, or +bald from the effects of typhus, for aught he cares." + +The drawing-room was all aglow with blazing logs, and the sky outside +the windows looking pale and gray, when Violet went in. Mrs. Tempest +was in her favourite arm-chair by the fire, Tennyson's latest poem on +the velvet-coloured gipsy table at her side, in company with a large +black fan and a smelling-bottle. Mr. Scobel was sitting in a low chair +on the other side of the hearth, with his knees almost up to his chin +and his trousers wrinkled up ever so far above his stout Oxford shoes, +leaving a considerable interval of gray stocking. He was a man of about +thirty, pale, and unpretending of aspect, who fortified his native +modesty with a pair of large binoculars, which interposed a kind of +barrier between himself and the outer world. + +He rose as Violet came towards him, and turned the binoculars upon her, +glittering in the glow of the fire. + +"How tall you have grown," he cried, when they had shaken hands. "And +how----" here he stopped, with a little nervous laugh; "I really don't +think I should have known you if we had met elsewhere." + +"Perhaps Rorie would hardly know me," thought Vixen. + +"How are all the poor people?" she asked, when Mr. Scobel had resumed +his seat, and was placidly caressing his knees, and blinking, or +seeming to blink, at the fire with his binoculars. + +"Oh, poor souls!" he sighed. "There has been a great deal of sickness +and distress, and want of work. Yes, a very great deal. The winter +began early, and we have had some severe weather. James Parsons is in +prison again for rabbit-snaring. I'm really afraid James is +incorrigible. Mrs. Roper's eldest son, Tom--I daresay you remember Tom, +an idle little ruffian, who was always birdnesting--has managed to get +himself run over by a pair of Lord Ellangowan's waggon-horses, and now +Lady Ellangowan is keeping the whole family. An aunt came from +Salisbury to sit up with the boy, and was quite angry because Lady +Ellangowan did not pay her for nursing him." + +"That's the worst of the poor," said Mrs. Tempest languidly, the +firelight playing upon her diamond rings, as she took her fan from the +velvet table and slowly unfolded it, to protect her cheek from the +glare, "they are never satisfied." + +"Isn't it odd they are not," cried Vixen, coming suddenly out of a deep +reverie, "when they have everything that can make life delightful?" + +"I don't know about everything, Violet; but really, when they have such +nice cottages as your dear papa built for them, so well-drained and +ventilated, they ought to be more contented." + +"What a comfort good drainage and ventilation must be, when there is no +bread in the larder!" said Violet. + +"My dear, it is ridiculous to talk in that way; just in the style of +horrid Radical newspapers. I am sure the poor have an immense deal done +for them. Look at Mr. Scobel, is he not always trying to help them?" + +"I do what I can," said the clergyman modestly; "but I only wish it +were more. An income of sixteen shillings a week for a family of seven +requires a good deal of ekeing out. If it were not for the assistance I +get here, and in one or two other directions, things would be very bad +in Beechdale." + +Beechdale was the name of the village nearest the Abbey House, the +village to which belonged Mr. Scobel's toy-church. + +"Of course, we must have the usual distribution of blanket and wearing +apparel on Christmas Eve," said Mrs. Tempest. "It will seem very sad +without my dear husband. But we came home before Christmas on purpose." + +"How good of you! It was very sad last year when the poor people came +up to the Hall to receive your gifts, and there were no familiar faces, +except the servants. There were a good many tears shed over last year's +blankets, I assure you." + +"Poor dear things!" sighed Mrs. Tempest, not making it too clear +whether she meant the blankets, or the recipients thereof. + +Violet said nothing after her little ironical protest about the poor. +She sat opposite the fire, between her mother and Mr. Scobel, but at +some distance from both. The ruddy light glowed on her ruddy hair, and +lit up her pale cheeks, and shone in her brilliant eyes. The incumbent +of Beechdale thought he had never seen anything so lovely. She was like +a painted window; a Madonna, with the glowing colour of Rubens, the +divine grace of Raffaelle. And those little speeches about the poor had +warmed his heart. He was Violet's friend and champion from that moment. + +Mrs. Tempest fanned herself listlessly. + +"I wish Forbes would bring the tea," she said. + +"Shall I ring, mamma?" + +"No, dear. They have not finished tea in the housekeeper's room, +perhaps. Forbes doesn't like to be disturbed. Is there any news, Mr. +Scobel? We only came home yesterday evening, and have seen no one." + +"News! Well, no, I think not much. Lady Ellangowan has got a new +orchid." + +"And there has been a new baby, too, hasn't there?" + +"Oh yes. But nobody talks about the baby, and everybody is in raptures +with the orchid." + +"What is it like?" + +"Rather a fine boy. I christened him last week." + +"I mean the orchid." + +"Oh, something really magnificent; a brilliant blue, a butterfly-shaped +blossom that positively looks as if it were alive. They say Lord +Ellangowan gave five hundred guineas for it. People come from the other +side of the county to see it." + +"I think you are all orchid mad," exclaimed Mrs. Tempest. "Oh, here +comes the tea!" as Forbes entered with the old silver tray and Swansea +cups and saucers. "You'll take some, of course, Mr. Scobel. I cannot +understand this rage for orchids--old china, or silver, or lace, I can +understand, but orchids--things that require no end of trouble to keep +them alive, and which I daresay are as common as buttercups and daisies +in the savage places where they grow. There is Lady Jane Vawdrey now, a +perfect slave to the orchid-houses." + +Violet's face flamed crimson at this mention of Lady Jane. Not for +worlds would she have asked a question about her old playfellow, though +she was dying to hear about him. Happily no one saw that sudden blush, +or it passed for a reflection of the fire-glow. + +"Poor Lady Jane!" sighed the incumbent of Beechdale, looking very +solemn, "she has gone to a land in which there are fairer flowers than +ever grew on the banks of the Amazon." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Surely you have heard----" + +"Nothing," exclaimed Mrs. Tempest. "I have corresponded with nobody but +my housekeeper while I have been away. I am a wretched correspondent at +the best of times, and, after dear Edward's death, I was too weary, too +depressed, to write letters. What is the matter with Lady Jane Vawdrey?" + +"She died at Florence last November of bronchitis. She was very ill +last winter, and had to be taken to Cannes for the early part of the +year; but she came back in April quite well and strong, as everyone +supposed, and spent the summer at Briarwood. Her doctors told her, +however, that she was not to risk another winter in England, so in +September she went to Italy, taking Lady Mabel with her." + +"And Roderick?" inquired Vixen, "He went with them of course." + +"Naturally," replied Mr. Scobel. "Mr. Vawdrey was with his mother till +the last." + +"Very nice of him," murmured Mrs. Tempest approvingly; "for, in a +general way, I don't think they got on too well together. Lady Jane was +rather dictatorial. And now, I suppose, Roderick will marry his cousin +as soon as he is out of mourning." + +"Why should you suppose so, mamma?" exclaimed Violet. "It is quite a +mistake of yours about their being engaged. Roderick told me so +himself. He was not engaged to Lady Mabel. He had not the least idea of +marrying her." + +"He has altered his mind since then, I conclude," said Mr. Scobel +cheerily--those binoculars of his could never have seen through a +stone-wall, and were not much good at seeing things under his +nose--"for it is quite a settled thing that Mr. Vawdrey and Lady Mabel +are to be married. It will be a splendid match for him, and will make +him the largest landowner in the Forest, for Ashbourne is settled on +Lady Mabel. The Duke bought it himself, you know, and it is not in the +entail," added the incumbent, explaining a fact that was as familiar as +the church catechism to Violet, who sat looking straight at the fire, +holding her head as high as Queen Guinevere after she had thrown the +diamonds out of window. + +"I always knew that it would be so," said Mrs. Tempest, with the air of +a sage. "Lady Jane had set her heart upon it. Worldly greatness was her +idol, poor thing! It is sad to think of her being snatched away from +everything. What has become of the orchids?" + +"Lady Jane left them to her niece. They are building houses to receive +them at Ashbourne." + +"Rather a waste of money, isn't it?" suggested Violet, in a cold hard +voice. "Why not let them stay at Briarwood till Lady Mabel is mistress +there?" + +Mr. Scobel did not enter into this discussion. He sat serenely gazing +at the fire, and sipping his tea, enjoying this hour of rest and warmth +after a long day's fatigue and hard weather. He had an Advent service +at seven o'clock that evening, and would but just have time to tramp +home through the winter dark, and take a hurried meal, before he ran +across to his neat little vestry and shuffled on his surplice, while +Mrs. Scobel played her plaintive voluntary on the twenty-guinea +harmonium. + +"And where is young Vawdrey now?" inquired Mrs. Tempest blandly. + +She could only think of the Squire of Briarwood as the lad from +Eton--clumsy, shy, given to breaking teacups, and leaving the track of +his footsteps in clay or mud upon the Aubusson carpets. + +"He has not come home yet. The Duke and Duchess went to Florence just +before Lady Jane's death, and I believe Mr. Vawdrey is with them in +Rome. Briarwood has been shut up since September." + +"Didn't I tell you, mamma, that somebody would be dead," cried Violet. +"I felt when we came into this house yesterday evening, that everything +in our lives was changed." + +"I should hardly think mourning can be very becoming to Lady Mabel," +ruminated Mrs. Tempest. "Those small sylph-like figures rarely look +well in black." + +Mr. Scobel rose with an effort to make his adieux. The delicious warmth +of the wood-fire, the perfume of arbutus logs, had made him sleepy. + +"You'll come and see our new school, I hope," he said to Violet, as +they shook hands. "You and your dear mamma have contributed so largely +to its erection that you have a right to be critical; but I really +think you will be pleased." + +"We'll come to-morrow afternoon, if it's fine," said Mrs. Tempest +graciously. "You must bring Mrs. Scobel to dinner at seven, and then we +can talk over all we have seen." + +"You are very kind. I've my young women's scripture-class at a +quarter-past eight; but if you will let me run away for an hour----" + +"Certainly." + +"I can come back for Mrs. Scobel. Thanks. We shall be delighted." + +When he was gone, Violet walked towards the door without a word to her +mother. + +"Violet, are you going away again? Pray stop, child, and let us have a +chat." + +"I have nothing to talk about, mamma." + +"Nonsense. You have quite deserted me since we came home. And do you +suppose I don't feel dull and depressed as well as you? It is not +dutiful conduct, Violet. I shall really have to engage a companion if +you go on so. Miss McCroke was dreary, but she was not altogether +uncompanionable. One could talk to her." + +"You had better have a companion, mamma. Someone who will be lively, +and talk pleasantly about nothing particular all day long. No doubt a +well-trained companion can do that. She has an inexhaustible +well-spring of twaddle in her own mind. I feel as if I could never be +cheerful again." + +"We had better have stopped at Brighton----" + +"I hate Brighton!" + +"Where we knew so many nice people----" + +"I detest nice people!" + +"Violet, do you know that you have an abominable temper?" + +"I know that I am made up of wickedness!" answered Vixen vehemently. + +She left the room without another word, and went straight to her den +upstairs, not to throw herself on the ground, and abandon herself to a +childish unreasoning grief, as she had done on the night of Roderick's +coming of age, but to face the situation boldly. She walked up and down +the dim fire-lit room, thinking of what she had just heard. + +"What does it matter to me? Why should I be so angry?" she asked +herself. "We were never more than friends and playfellows. And I think +that, on the whole, I rather disliked him. I know I was seldom civil to +him. He was papa's favourite. I should hardly have tolerated him but +for that." + +She felt relieved at having settled this point in her mind. Yet there +was a dull blank sense of loss, a vague aching in her troubled heart, +which she could not get rid of easily. She walked to and fro, to and +fro, while the fire faded out and the pale windows darkened. + +"I hate myself for being so vexed about this," she said, clasping her +hands above her head with a vehemence that showed the intensity of her +vexation. "Could I--I--Violet Tempest--ever be so despicable a creature +as to care for a man who does not care for me; to be angry, sorry, +broken-hearted, because a man does not want me for his wife? Such a +thing is not possible; if it were, I think I would kill myself. I +should be ashamed to live. I could not look human beings in the face. I +should take poison, or turn Roman Catholic and go into a convent, where +I should never see the face of a man again. No; I am not such an odious +creature. I have no regard for Rorie except as my old playfellow, and +when he comes home I will walk straight up to him and give him my hand, +and congratulate him heartily on his approaching marriage. Perhaps Lady +Mabel will ask me to be one of her bridesmaids. She will have a round +dozen, I daresay. Six in pink, and six in blue, no doubt, like wax +dolls at a charity-fair. Why can't people be married without making +idiots of themselves?" + +The half-hour gong sounded at this moment, and Vixen ran down to the +drawing-room, where the candles and lamps were lighted, and where there +was plenty of light literature lying about to distract the troubled +mind. Violet went to her mother's chair and knelt beside it. + +"Dear mamma, forgive me for being cross just now," she said gently; "I +was out of spirits. I will try to be better company in future--so that +you may not be obliged to engage a companion." + +"My dear, I don't wonder at your feeling low-spirited," replied Mrs. +Tempest graciously. "This place is horribly dull. How we ever endured +it, even in your dear papa's time, is more than I can understand. It is +like living on the ground-floor of one of the Egyptian pyramids. We +must really get some nice people about us, or we shall both go +melancholy mad." + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +"He belongs to the Tame-Cat Species." + +Life went on smoothly enough at the Abbey House after that evening. +Violet tried to make herself happy among the surroundings of her +childhood, petted the horses, drove her basket-carriage with the +favourite old pony, went among the villagers, rode her thoroughbred bay +for long wild explorations of the Forest and neighbouring country, +looked with longing eyes, sometimes, at the merry groups riding to the +meet, and went her lonely way with a heavy heart. No more hunting for +her. She could not hunt alone, and she had declined all friendly offers +of escort. It would have seemed a treason against her beloved dead to +ride across country by anyone else's side. + +Everyone had called at the Abbey House and welcomed Mrs. Tempest and +her daughter back to Hampshire. They had been asked to five-o'clock at +Ellangowan Park, to see the marvellous orchid. They had been invited to +half-a-dozen dinner-parties. + +Violet tried her utmost to persuade her mother that it was much too +soon after her father's death to think of visiting. + +"My dear Violet," cried the widow, "after going to that ball at +Brighton, we could not possibly decline invitations here. It would be +an insult to our friends. If we had not gone to the ball----" + +"We ought not to have gone," exclaimed Vixen. + +"My love, you should have said so at the time." + +"Mamma, you know I was strongly against it." + +Mrs. Tempest shrugged her shoulders as who should say, "This is too +much!" + +"I know your dress cost a small fortune, and that you danced every +waltz, Violet," she answered, "that is about all I do know." + +"Very well, mamma, let us accept all the invitations. Let us be as +merry as grigs. Perhaps it will make papa more comfortable in Paradise +to know how happy we are without him. He won't be troubled by any +uneasy thoughts about our grief, at all events," added Vixen, with a +stifled sob. + +"How irreverently you talk. Mr. Scobel would be dreadfully shocked to +hear you." said Mrs. Tempest. + +The invitations were all accepted, and Mrs. Tempest for the rest of the +winter was in a flutter about her dresses. She was very particular as +to the exact shade of silver-gray or lavender which might be allowed to +relieve the sombre mass of black; and would spend a whole morning in +discussing the propriety of a knot of scarlet ribbon, or a border of +gold passementerie. + +They went to Ellangowan Park and did homage to the wonderful orchid, +and discussed Roderick's engagement to the Duke's only daughter. +Everybody said that it was Lady Jane's doing, and there were some who +almost implied that she had died on purpose to bring about the happy +conjuncture. Violet was able to talk quite pleasantly about the +marriage, and to agree with everybody's praises of Lady Mabel's beauty, +elegance, good style, and general perfection. + +Christmas and the New Year went by, not altogether sadly. It is not +easy for youth to be full of sorrow. The clouds come and go, there are +always glimpses of sunshine. Violet was grateful for the kindness that +greeted her everywhere among her old friends, and perhaps a little glad +of the evident admiration accorded to her beauty in all circles. Life +was just tolerable, after all. She thought of Roderick Vawdrey as of +something belonging to the past; something which had no part, never +would have any part, in her future life. He too was dead and passed +away, like her father. Lady Mabel's husband, the master of Briarwood +_in esse_, and of Ashbourne _in posse_, was quite a different being +from the rough lad with whom she had played at battledore and +shuttlecock, billiards, croquet, and rounders. + +Early in February Mrs. Tempest informed her daughter that she was going +to give a dinner. + +"It will seem very dreadful without dearest Edward," she said; "but of +course having accepted hospitalities, we are bound to return them." + +"Do you really think we ought to burst out into dinner-parties so soon, +mamma?" + +"Yes, dear, as we accepted the dinners. If we had not gone it would +have been different." + +"Ah," sighed Vixen, "I suppose it all began with that ball at Brighton, +like 'Man's first disobedience, and the fruit----'" + +"I shall miss poor McCroke to fill in the invitation cards." + +"Let me do it, mamma. I can write a decent hand. That is one of the few +ladylike accomplishments I have been able to master; and even that is +open to objection as being too masculine." + +"If you would slope more, Violet, and make your up-strokes finer, and +not cross your T's so undeviatingly," Mrs. Tempest murmured amiably. "A +lady's T ought to be less pronounced. There is something too assertive +in your consonants." + +Violet wrote the cards. The dinner was to be quite a grand affair, +three weeks' notice, and a French cook from The Dolphin at Southampton +to take the conduct of affairs in the kitchen; whereby the Abbey House +cook declared afterwards that there was nothing that Frenchman did +which she could not have done as well, and that his wastefulness was +enough to make a Christian woman's hair stand on end. + +Three days before the dinner, Vixen, riding Arion home through the +shrubbery, after a long morning in the Forest, was startled by the +vision of a dog-cart a few yards in front of her, a cart, which, at the +first glance, she concluded must belong to Roderick Vawdrey. The wheels +were red, the horse had a rakish air, the light vehicle swung from side +to side as it spun around the curve. + +No, that slim figure, that neat waist, that military air did not belong +to Roderick Vawdrey. + +"He here!" ejaculated Vixen inwardly, with infinite disgust. "I thought +we had seen the last of him." + +She had been out for two hours and a half, and felt that Arion had done +quite enough, or she would have turned her horse's head and gone back +to the Forest, in order to avoid this unwelcome visitor. + +"I only hope mamma won't encourage him to come here," she thought; "but +I'm afraid that smooth tongue of his has too much influence over her. +And I haven't even poor Crokey to stand by me. I shall feel like a bird +transfixed by the wicked green eyes of a velvet-pawed murdering cat." + +"And I have not a friend in the world," she thought. "Plenty of +pleasant acquaintance, ready to simper at me and pay me compliments, +because I am Miss Tempest of the Abbey House, but not one honest friend +to stand by me, and turn that man out of doors. How dare he come here? +I thought I spoke plainly enough that night at Brighton." + +She rode slowly up to the house, slipped lightly out of her saddle, and +led her horse round to the stables, just as she had led the pony in her +happy childish days. The bright thoroughbred bay was as fond of her as +if he had been a dog, and as tame. She stood by his manger caressing +him while he ate his corn, and feeling very safe from Captain +Winstanley's society in the warm clover-scented stable. + +She dawdled away half-a-hour in this manner, before she went back to +the house, and ran up to her dressing-room. + +"If mamma sends for me now, I shan't be able to go down," she thought. +"He can hardly stay more than an hour. Oh, horror! he is a tea-drinker; +mamma will persuade him to stop till five o'clock." + +Violet dawdled over her change of dress as she had dawdled in the +stable. She had never been more particular about her hair. + +"I'll have it all taken down, Phoebe," she told her Abigail; "I'm in no +hurry." + +"But really, miss, it's beautiful----" + +"Nonsense after a windy ride; don't be lazy, Phoebe. You may give my +hair a good brushing while I read." + +A tap at the door came at this moment, and Phoebe ran to open it. + +"Mrs. Tempest wishes Miss Tempest to come down to the drawing-room +directly," said a voice in the corridor. + +"There now, miss," cried Phoebe, "how lucky I didn't take your hair +down. It never was nicer." + +Violet put on her black dress, costly and simple as the attire Polonius +recommended to his son. Mrs. Tempest might relieve her costume with +what bright or delicate hues she liked. Violet had worn nothing but +black since her father's death. Her sole ornaments were a pair of black +earrings, and a large black enamel locket, with one big diamond shining +in the middle of it, like an eye. This locket held the Squire's +portrait, and his daughter wore it constantly. + +The Louis Quatorze clock on the staircase struck five as Violet went +down. + +"Of course he is staying for tea," she thought, with an impatient shrug +of her shoulders. "He belongs to the tame-cat species, and has an +inexhaustible flow of gossip, spiced with mild malevolence. The kind of +frivolous ill-nature which says: 'I would not do anyone harm for the +world, but one may as well think the worst of everybody.'" + +Yes, kettledrum was in full swing. Mrs. Scobel had come over from her +tiny Vicarage for half-an-hour's chat, and was sitting opposite her +hostess's fire, while Captain Winstanley lounged with his back to the +canopied chimneypiece, and looked benignantly down upon the two ladies. +The Queen Anne kettle was hissing merrily over its spirit-lamp, the +perfume of the pekoe was delicious, the logs blazed cheerily in the low +fireplace, with its shining brass andirons. Not a repulsive picture, +assuredly; yet Vixen came slowly towards this charming circle, looking +black as thunder. + +Captain Winstanley hurried forward to receive her. + +"How do you do?" she said, as stiffly as a child brought down to the +drawing-room, bristling in newly-brushed hair and a best frock, and +then turning to her mother, she asked curtly: "What did you want with +me, mamma?" + +"It was Captain Winstanley who asked to see you, my dear. Won't you +have some tea?" + +"Thanks, no," said Vixen, seating herself in a corner between Mrs. +Scobel and the mantelpiece, and beginning to talk about the schools. + +Conrad Winstanley gave her a curious look from under his dark brows, +and then went on talking to her mother. He seemed hardly disconcerted +by her rudeness. + +"Yes, I assure you, if it hadn't been for the harriers, Brighton would +have been unbearable after you left," he said. "I ran across to Paris +directly the frost set in. But I don't wonder you were anxious to come +back to such a lovely old place as this." + +"I felt it a duty to come back," said Mrs. Tempest, with a pious air. +"But it was very sad at first. I never felt so unhappy in my life. I am +getting more reconciled now. Time softens all griefs." + +"Yes," said the Captain, in a louder tone than before, "Time is a +clever horse. There is nothing he won't beat if you know how to ride +him." + +"You'll take some tea?" insinuated Mrs. Tempest, her attention absorbed +by the silver kettle, which was just now conducting itself as +spitfireishly as any blackened block-tin on a kitchen hob. + +"I can never resist it. And perhaps after tea you will be so good as to +give me the treat you talked about just now." + +"To show you the house?" said Mrs. Tempest. "Do you think we shall have +light enough?" + +"Abundance. An old house like this is seen at its best in the twilight. +Don't you think so, Mrs. Scobel?" + +"Oh, yes," exclaimed Mrs. Scobel, with a lively recollection of her +album. "'They who would see Melrose aright, should see it'--I think, +by-the-bye, Sir Walter Scott says, 'by moonlight.'" + +"Yes, for an ancient Gothic abbey; but twilight is better for a Tudor +manor-house. Are you sure it will not fatigue you?" inquired the +Captain, with an air of solicitude, as Mrs. Tempest rose languidly. + +"No; I shall be very pleased to show you the dear old place. It is full +of sad associations, of course, but I do not allow my mind to dwell +upon them more than I can help." + +"No," cried Vixen bitterly. "We go to dinner-parties and kettledrums, +and go into raptures about orchids and old china, and try to cure our +broken hearts that way." + +"Are you coming, Violet?" asked her mother sweetly. + +"No, thanks, mamma. I am tired after my ride. Mrs. Scobel will help you +to play cicerone." + +Captain Winstanley left the room without so much as a look at Violet +Tempest. Yet her rude reception had galled him more than any cross that +fate had lately inflicted upon him. He had fancied that time would have +softened her feeling towards him, that rural seclusion and the society +of rustic nobodies would have made him appear at an advantage, that she +would have welcomed the brightness and culture of metropolitan life in +his person. He had hoped a great deal from the lapse of time since +their last meeting. But this sullen reception, this silent expression +of dislike, told him that Violet Tempest's aversion was a plant of deep +root. + +"The first woman who ever disliked me," he thought. "No wonder that she +interests me more than other women. She is like that chestnut mare that +threw me six times before I got the better of her. Yet she proved the +best horse I ever had, and I rode her till she hadn't a leg to stand +upon, and then sold her for twice the money she cost me. There are two +conquests a man can make over a woman, one to make her love him, the +other----" + +"That suit of chain-armour was worn by Sir Gilbert Tempest at Acre," +said the widow. "The plate-armour belonged to Sir Percy, who was killed +at Barnet. Each of them was knighted before he was five-and-twenty +years old, for prowess in the field. The portrait over the chimneypiece +is the celebrated Judge Tempest, who was famous for----Well, he did +something wonderful, I know. Perhaps Mrs. Scobel remembers," concluded +Mrs. Tempest, feebly. + +"It was at the trial of the seven bishops," suggested the Vicar's wife. + +"In the time of Queen Elizabeth," assented Mrs. Tempest. "That one with +the lace cravat and steel breastplate was an admiral in Charles the +Second's reign, and was made a baronet for his valiant behaviour when +the Dutch fleet were at Chatham. The baronetcy died with his son, who +left only daughters. The eldest married a Mr. Percival, who took the +name of Tempest, and sat for the borough of----Perhaps Mrs. Scobel +knows. I have such a bad memory for these things; though I have heard +my dear husband talk about them often." + +Captain Winstanley looked round the great oak-panelled hall dreamily, +and heard very little of Mrs. Tempest's vague prattling about her +husband's ancestors. + +What a lovely old place, he was thinking. A house that would give a man +importance in the land, supported, as it was, by an estate bringing in +something between five and six thousand a year. How much military +distinction, how many battles must a soldier win before he could make +himself master of such a fortune? + +"And it needed but for that girl to like me, and a little gold ring +would have given me the freehold of it all," thought Conrad Winstanley +bitterly. + +How many penniless girls, or girls with fortunes so far beneath the +measure of a fine gentleman's needs as to be useless, had been over +head and ears in love with the elegant Captain; how many pretty girls +had tempted him by their beauty and winsomeness to be false to his +grand principle that marriage meant promotion. And here was an +obstinate minx who would have realised all his aims, and whom he felt +himself able to love to distraction into the bargain; and, behold, some +adverse devil had entered into her mind, and made Conrad Winstanley +hateful to her. + +"It's like witchcraft," he said to himself. "Why should this one woman +be different from all other women? Perhaps it's the colour. That ruddy +auburn hair, the loveliest I ever saw, means temper. But I conquered +the chestnut, and I'll conquer Miss Tempest--or make her smart for it." + +"A handsome music-gallery, is it not?" said the widow. "The carved +balustrade is generally admired." + +Then they went into the dining-room, and looked cursorily at about a +dozen large dingy pictures of the Italian school, which a man who knew +anything about art would have condemned at a glance. Fine examples of +brown varnish, all of them. Thence to the library, lined with its +carved-oak dwarf bookcases, containing books which nobody had opened +for a generation--Livy, Gibbon, Hume, Burke, Smollett, Plutarch, +Thomson. These sages, clad in shiny brown leather and gilding, made as +good a lining for the walls as anything else, and gave an air of +snugness to the room in which the family dined when there was no +company. + +They came presently to the Squire's den, at the end of a corridor. + +"That was my dear husband's study," sighed Mrs. Tempest. "It looks +south, into the rose garden, and is one of the prettiest rooms in the +house. But we keep it locked, and I think Violet has the key." + +"Pray don't let Miss Tempest be disturbed," said Captain Winstanley. "I +have seen quite enough to know what a delightful house you have--all +the interest of days that are gone, all the luxuries of to-day. I think +that blending of past and present is most fascinating. I should never +be a severe restorer of antiquity, or refuse to sit in a chair that +wasn't undeniably Gothic." + +"Ah," sighed the Vicar's wife, who was an advanced disciple in the +school of Eastlake, "but don't you think everything should be in +harmony? If I were as rich as Mrs. Tempest, I wouldn't have so much as +a teapot that was not strictly Tudor." + +"Then I'm afraid you'd have to go without a teapot, and drink your tea +out of a tankard," retorted Captain Winstanley. + +"At any rate, I would be as Tudor as I could be." + +"And not have a brass bedstead, a spring mattress, a moderator lamp, or +a coal-scuttle in your house," said the captain. "My dear madam, it is +all very well to be mediaeval in matters ecclesiastic, but home +comforts must not be sacrificed in the pursuit of the aesthetic, or a +modern luxury discarded because it looks like an anachronism." + +Mrs. Scobel was delighted with Captain Winstanley. He was just the kind +of man to succeed in a rustic community. His quiet self-assurance set +other people at their ease. He carried with him an air of life and +movement, as if he were the patentee of a new pleasure. + +"My husband would be so pleased to see you at the Vicarage, if you are +staying any time in the neighbourhood," she said. + +But after this little gush of friendliness, she reflected that there +could not be much sympathy between the man of society and her Anglican +parson; and that it was she, and not Ignatius Scobel, who would be glad +to see Captain Winstanley at the Vicarage. + +"I shall be charmed," he replied. "I never was so delighted with any +place as your Forest. It is a new world to me. I hate myself for having +lived in England so long without knowing this beautiful corner of the +land. I am staying with my old chief, Colonel Pryke, at Warham Court, +and I'm only here for a few days." + +"But you are coming to my dinner-party?" said Mrs. Tempest. + +"That is a pleasure I cannot deny myself." + +"And you will come and see our church and schools?" said Mrs. Scobel. + +"I shall be more than pleased. I passed your pretty little church, I +think, on my way here. There was a tin tea-ket--a bell ringing----" + +"For vespers," exclaimed Mrs. Scobel. + +The exploration of the house took a long time, conducted in this +somewhat desultory and dawdling manner; but the closing in of night and +the sound of the dinner-gong gave the signal for Captain Winstanley's +departure. + +Mrs. Tempest would have liked to ask him to dinner; but she had an idea +that Violet might make herself objectionable, and refrained from this +exercise of hospitality. He was coming to the great dinner. He would +see her dress with the feather trimming, which was really prettier than +Worth's masterpiece, or, at any rate, newer; though it only came from +Madame Theodore, of Bruton Street. Sustained by this comforting +reflection, she parted with him quite cheerfully. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +"He was worthy to be loved a Lifetime." + +Conrad Winstanley had come to the New Forest with his mind resolved +upon one of two things. He meant to marry Violet Tempest or her mother. +If the case was quite hopeless with the daughter, he would content +himself with winning the lesser prize; and though Vanity whispered that +there was no woman living he might not win for himself if he chose to +be sufficiently patient and persevering, instinct told him that Violet +frankly detested him. + +"After all," argued Worldly Wisdom, "the alternative is not to be +despised. The widow is somewhat rococo; an old-fashioned jewel kept in +cotton-wool, and brought out on occasions to shine with a factitious +brilliancy, like old Dutch garnets backed with tinfoil; but she is +still pretty. She is ductile, amiable, and weak to a degree that +promises a husband the sovereign dominion. Why break your heart for +this fair devil of a daughter, who looks capable, if offended, of +anything in the way of revenge, from a horsewhip to slow poison? Are a +pair of brown eyes and a coronal of red gold hair worth all this wasted +passion?" + +"But the daughter is the greater catch," urged Ambition. "The dowager's +jointure is well enough, and she has the Abbey House and gardens for +her life, but Violet will be sole mistress of the estate when she comes +of age. As Violet's husband, your position would be infinitely better +than it could be as her stepfather. Unhappily, the cantankerous minx +has taken it into her head to dislike you." + +"Stay," interjected the bland voice of Vanity; "may not this dislike be +only an assumption, a mask for some deeper feeling? There are girls who +show their love in that way. Do not be in a hurry to commit yourself to +the mother until you have made yourself quite sure about the daughter." + +Mrs. Tempest's dinner-party was a success. It introduced Captain +Winstanley to all that was best in the surrounding society; for +although in Switzerland he had seemed very familiar with the best +people in the Forest, in Hampshire he appeared almost a stranger to +them. It was generally admitted, however, that the Captain was an +acquisition, and a person to be cultivated. He sang a French comic song +almost as well as Monsieur de Roseau, recited a short Yankee poem, +which none of his audience had ever heard before, with telling force. +He was at home upon every subject, from orchids to steam-ploughs, from +ordnance to light literature. A man who sang so well, talked so well, +looked so well, and behaved so well, could not be otherwise than +welcome in county society. Before the evening was over, Captain +Winstanley had been offered three hunters for the next day's run, and +had been asked to write in four birthday-books. + +Violet did not honour him with so much as a look, after her one cold +recognition of his first appearance in the drawing-room. It was a party +of more than twenty people, and she was able to keep out of his way +without obvious avoidance of him. He was stung, but had no right to be +offended. + +He took Mrs. Scobel in to dinner, and Mrs. Scobel played the +accompaniment of his song, being a clever little woman, able to turn +her hand to any thing. He would have preferred to be told off to some +more important matron, but was not sorry to be taken under Mrs. +Scobel's wing. She could give him the carte du pays, and would be +useful to him, no doubt, in the future; a social Iris, to fetch and +carry for him between Beechdale and the Abbey House. + +"Do you know that I am quite in love with your Forest?" he said to Mrs. +Tempest, standing in front of the ottoman where that lady sat with two +of her particular friends; "so much so, that I am actually in treaty +for Captain Hawbuck's cottage, and mean to stay here till the end of +the hunting." + +Everybody knew Captain Hawbuck's cottage, a verandahed box of a house, +on the slope of the hill above Beechdale. + +"I'm afraid you'll find the drawing-room chimney smokes," said a +matter-of-fact lady in sea-green; "poor Mrs. Hawbuck was a martyr to +that chimney." + +"What does a bachelor want with a drawing-room? If there is one +sitting-room in which I can burn a good fire, I shall be satisfied. The +stable is in very fair order." + +"The Hawbucks kept a pony-carriage," assented the sea-green lady. + +"If Mrs. Hawbuck accepts my offer, I shall send for my horses next +week," said the Captain. + +Mrs. Tempest blushed. Her life had flowed in so gentle and placid a +current, that the freshness of her soul had not worn off, and at +nine-and-thirty she was able to blush. There was something so +significant in Captain Winstanley's desire to establish himself at +Beechdale, that she could not help feeling fluttered by the fact. It +might be on Violet's account, of course, that he came; yet Violet and +he had never got on very well together. + +"Poor fellow!" she thought blandly, "if he for a moment supposes that +anything would tempt me to marry again, he is egregiously mistaken." + +And then she looked round the lovely old room, brightened by a crowd of +well-dressed people, and thought that next to being Edward Tempest's +wife, the best thing in life was to be Edward Tempest's widow. + +"Dear Edward!" she mused, "how strange that we should miss him so +little to-night." + +It had been with everyone as if the squire had never lived. Politeness +exacted this ignoring of the past, no doubt; but the thing had been so +easily done. The noble presence, the jovial laugh, the friendly smile +were gone, and no one seemed conscious of the void--no one but Violet, +who looked round the room once when conversation was liveliest, with a +pale indignant face, resenting this forgetfulness. + +"I wish papa's ghost would come in at that door and scare his +hollow-hearted friends," she said to herself; and she felt as if it +would hardly have been a surprise to her to see the door open slowly +and that familiar figure appear. + +"Well, Violet," Mrs. Temple said sweetly, when the guests were gone, +"how do you think it all went off?" + +"It," of course, meant the dinner-party. + +"I suppose, according to the nature of such things, it was all right +and proper," Vixen answered coldly; "but I should think it must have +been intensely painful to you, mamma." + +Mrs. Tempest sighed. She had always a large selection of sighs in +stock, suitable to every occasion. + +"I should have felt it much worse if I had sat in my old place at +dinner," she said; "but sitting at the middle of the table instead of +at the end made it less painful. And I really think it's better style. +How did you like the new arrangement of the glasses?" + +"I didn't notice anything new." + +"My dear Violet, you are frightfully unobservant." + +"No, I am not," answered Vixen quickly. "My eyes are keen enough, +believe me." + +Mrs. Tempest felt uncomfortable. She began to think that, after all, it +might be a comfortable thing to have a companion--as a fender between +herself and Violet. A perpetually present Miss Jones or Smith would +ward off these unpleasantnesses. + +There are occasions, however, on which a position must be faced +boldly--in proverbial phrase, the bull must be taken by the horns. And +here, Mrs. Tempest felt, was a bull which must be so encountered. She +knew that her poor little hands were too feeble for the office; but she +told herself that she must make the heroic attempt. + +"Violet, why have you such a rooted dislike to Captain Winstanley?" + +"Why is my hair the colour it is, mamma, or why are my eyes brown +instead of blue? If you could answer my question, I might be able to +answer yours. Nature made me what I am, and nature has implanted a +hatred of Captain Winstanley in my mind." + +"Do you not think it wrong to hate anyone--the very word hate was +considered unladylike when I was a girl--without cause?" + +"I have cause to hate him, good cause, sufficient cause. I hate all +self-seekers and adventurers." + +"You have no right to call him one or the other." + +"Have I not? What brings him here, but the pursuit of his own interest? +Why does he plant himself at our door as if he were come to besiege a +town? Do you mean to say, mamma, that you can be so blind as not to see +what he wants?" + +"He has come for the hunting." + +"Yes, but not to hunt our foxes or our stags. He wants a rich wife, +mamma. And he thinks that you or I will be foolish enough to marry him." + +"There would be nothing unnatural in his entertaining some idea of that +kind about you," replied Mrs. Tempest, with a sudden assertion of +matronly dignity. "But for him to think of me in that light would be +too absurd. I must be some years, perhaps four or five years, his +senior, to begin with." + +"Oh, he would forgive you that; he would not mind that." + +"And he ought to know that I should never dream of marrying again." + +"He ought, if he had any idea of what is right and noble in a woman," +answered Vixen. "But he has not. He has no ideas that do not begin and +end in himself and his own advantage. He sees you here with a handsome +house, a good income, and he thinks that he can persuade you to marry +him." + +"Violet, you must know that I shall never marry." + +"I hope I do know it. But the world ought to know it too. People ought +not to be allowed to whisper, and smile, and look significant; as I saw +some of them do to-night when Captain Winstanley was hanging over your +chair. You ought not to encourage him, mamma. It is a treason against +my father to have that man here." + +Here was a bull that required prompt and severe handling, but Mrs. +Tempest felt her powers inadequate to the effort. + +"I am surprised at you, Violet!" she exclaimed; "as if I did not know, +as well as you, what is due to my poor Edward; as if I should do +anything to compromise my own dignity. Is it to encourage a man to ask +him to a dinner-party, when he happens to be visiting in the +neighbourhood? Can I forbid Captain Winstanley to take the Hawbucks' +cottage?" + +"No, you have gone too far already. You gave him too much encouragement +in Switzerland, and at Brighton. He has attached himself to us, like a +limpet to a rock. You will not easily get rid of him; unless you let +him see that you understand and despise him." + +"I see nothing despicable in him, and I am not going to insult him at +your bidding," answered the widow, tremulous with anger. "I do not +believe him to be a schemer or an adventurer. He is a gentleman by +birth, education, profession. It is a supreme insolence on your part to +speak of him as you do. What can you know of the world? How can you +judge and measure a man like Captain Winstanley? A girl like you, +hardly out of the nursery! It is too absurd. And understand at once and +for ever, Violet, that I will not be hectored or lectured in this +manner, that I will not be dictated to, or taught what is good taste, +in my own house. This is to be my own house, you know, as long as I +live." + +"Yes; unless you give it a new master," said Violet gravely. "Forgive +me if I have been too vehement, mamma. It is my love that is bold. Whom +have I in this world to love now, except you? And when I see you in +danger--when I see the softness of your nature---- Dear mother, there +are some instincts that are stronger than reason. There are some +antipathies which are implanted in us for warnings. Remember what a +happy life you led with my dear father--his goodness, his overflowing +generosity, his noble heart. There is no man worthy to succeed him, to +live in his house. Dear mother, for pity's sake----" + +She was kneeling at her mother's feet, clinging to her hands, her voice +half-choked with sobs. Mrs. Tempest began to cry too. + +"My dearest Violet, how can you be so foolish? My love, don't cry. I +tell you that I shall never marry again--never. Not if I were asked to +become a countess. My heart is true to your dear father; it always will +be. I am almost sorry that I consented to these scarlet bows on my +dress, but the feather trimming looked so heavy without them, and +Theodore's eye for colour is perfect. My dear child, be assured I shall +carry his image with me to my grave." + +"Dear mother, that is all I ask. Be as happy as you can; but be true to +him. He was worthy to be loved for a lifetime; not to be put off with +half a life, half a heart." + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +Lady Southminster's Ball. + +Captain Winstanley closed with Mrs. Hawbuck for the pretty little +verandah-surrounded cottage on the slope of the hill above Beechdale. +Captain Hawbuck, a retired naval man, to whom the place had been very +dear, was in his grave, and his wife was anxious to try if she and her +hungry children could not live on less money in Belgium than they could +in England. The good old post-captain had improved and beautified the +place from a farm-labourer's cottage into a habitation which was the +quintessence of picturesque inconvenience. Ceilings which you could +touch with your hand; funny little fireplaces in angles of the rooms; a +corkscrew staircase, which a stranger ascended or descended at peril of +life or limb; no kitchen worth mentioning, and stuffy little bedrooms +under the thatch. Seen from the outside the cottage was charming; and +if the captain and his family could only have lived over the way, and +looked at it, they would have had full value for the money invested in +its improvement. Small as the rooms were, however, and despite that +dark slander which hung over the chimneys, Captain Winstanley declared +that the cottage would suit him admirably. + +"I like the situation," he said, discussing his bargain in the +coffee-room at The Crown, Lyndhurst. + +"I should rather think you did!" cried Mr. Bell, the local surgeon. +"Suits you down to the ground, doesn't it?" + +Whereby it will be seen that there was already a certain opinion in the +neighbourhood as to the Captain's motive for planting himself at +Beechdale--so acute is a quiet little community of this kind in +divining the intentions of a stranger. + +Captain Winstanley took up his quarters at Beechdale Cottage in less +than a week after Mrs. Tempest's dinner-party. He sent for his horses, +and began the business of hunting in real earnest. His two hunters were +unanimously pronounced screws; but it is astonishing how well a good +rider can get across country on a horse which other people call a screw. +Nobody could deny Captain Winstanley's merits as a horseman. His costume +and appointments had all the finish of Melton Mowbray, and he was always +in the first flight. + +Before he had occupied Captain Hawbuck's cottage a month the new-comer +had made friends for himself in all directions. He was as much at home +in the Forest as if he had been native and to the manner born. His +straight riding, his good looks, and agreeable manners won him +everybody's approval. There was nothing dissipated or Bohemian about +him. His clothes never smelt of stale tobacco. He was as punctual at +church every Sunday morning as if he had been a family man, bound to +set a good example. He subscribed liberally to the hounds, and was +always ready with those stray florins and half-crowns by which a man +purchases a cheap popularity among the horse-holding and +ragged-follower class. + +Having distinctly asserted her intention of remaining a widow to +Violet, Mrs. Tempest allowed herself the privilege of being civil to +Captain Winstanley. He dropped in at afternoon tea at least twice a +week; he dined at the Abbey House whenever the Scobels or any other +intimate friends were there "in a quiet way." He generally escorted +Mrs. Tempest and her daughter from church on Sunday morning, Violet +persistently loitering twenty yards or so behind them on the narrow +woodland path that led from Beechdale to the Abbey House. + +After walking home from church with Mrs. Tempest, it was only natural +that the Captain should stop to luncheon, and after luncheon--the +Sabbath afternoon being, in a manner, a legitimate occasion for +dawdling--it was equally natural for him to linger, looking at the +gardens and greenhouses, or talking beside the drawing-room fire, till +the appearance of the spitfire Queen Anne tea-kettle and Mrs. Tempest's +infusion of orange pekoe. + +Sometimes the Scobels were present at these Sunday luncheons, sometimes +not. Violet was with her mother, of course, on these occasions; but, +while bodily present, she contrived to maintain an attitude of +aloofness which would have driven a less resolute man than Conrad +Winstanley to absent himself. A man more sensitive to the opinions of +others could hardly have existed in such an atmosphere of dislike; but +Captain Winstanley meant to live down Miss Tempest's aversion, or to +give her double cause for hating him. + +"Why have you given up hunting, Miss Tempest?" he asked one Sunday +afternoon, when they had gone the round of the stables, and Arion had +been fondled and admired--a horse as gentle as an Italian greyhound in +his stable, as fiery as a wild-cat out of it. + +"Because I have no one I care to hunt with, now papa is gone." + +"But here in the Forest, where everybody knows you, where you might +have as many fathers as the Daughter of the Regiment----" + +"Yes, I have many kind friends. But there is not one who could fill my +father's place--for an hour." + +"It is a pity," said the Captain sympathetically. "You were so fond of +hunting, were you not?" + +"Passionately." + +"Then it is a shame you should forego the pleasure. And you must find +it very dull, I should think, riding alone in the forest." + +"Alone! I have my horse." + +"Surely he does not count as a companion." + +"Indeed he does. I wish for no better company than Arion, now papa is +gone." + +"Violet is so eccentric!" Mrs. Tempest murmured gently. + +Captain Winstanley had taken Mrs. Hawbuck's cottage till the first of +May. The end of April would see the last of the hunting, so this +arrangement seemed natural enough. He hunted in good earnest. There was +no pretence about him. It was only the extra knowing ones, the little +knot of choice spirits at The Crown, who saw some deeper motive than a +mere love of sport for his residence at Beechdale. These advanced minds +had contrived to find out all about Captain Winstanley by this +time--the date of his selling out, his ostensible and hidden reasons +for leaving the army, the amount of his income, and the general +complexion of his character. There was not much to be advanced against +him. No dark stories; only a leading notion that he was a man who +wanted to improve his fortunes, and would not be over-scrupulous as to +the means. But as your over-scrupulous man is one in a thousand, this +was ranking Captain Winstanley with the majority. + +The winter was over; there were primroses peeping out of the moss and +brambles, and a shy little dog-violet shining like a blue eye here and +there. The flaunting daffodils were yellow in every glade, and the +gummy chestnut buds were beginning to swell. It was mid-March, and as +yet there had been no announcement of home-coming from Roderick Vawdrey +or the Dovedales. The Duke was said to have taken a fancy to the Roman +style of fox-hunting; Lady Mabel was studying art; the Duchess was +suspected of a leaning to Romanism; and Roderick was dancing attendance +upon the family generally. + +"Why should he not stay there with them?" said Mr. Scobel, sipping his +pekoe in a comfortable little circle of gossipers round Mrs. Tempest's +gipsy table. "He has very little else to do with his life. He is a +young man utterly without views or purpose. He is one of our many +Gallios. You could not rouse him to an interest in those stirring +questions that are agitating the Catholic Church to her very +foundation. He has no mission. I have sounded him, and found him full +of a shallow good-nature. He would build a church if people asked him, +and hardly know, when it was finished, whether he meant it for Jews or +Gentiles." + +Vixen sat in her corner and said nothing. It amused her--rather with a +half-bitter sense of amusement--to hear them talk about Roderick. He +had quite gone out of her life. It interested her to know what people +thought of him in his new world. + +"If the Duke doesn't bring them all home very soon the Duchess will go +over to Rome," said Mrs. Scobel, with conviction. "She has been +drifting that way for ever so long. Ignatius isn't high enough for her." + +The Reverend Ignatius sighed. He hardly saw his way to ascending any +higher. He had already, acting always in perfect good faith and +conscientious desire for the right, made his pretty little church +obnoxious to many of the simple old Foresters, to whom a pair of brazen +candlesticks on an altar were among the abominations of Baal, and a +crucifix as hateful as the image of Ashtaroth; obstinate old people of +limited vision, who wanted Mr. Scobel to stick to what they called the +old ways, and read the Liturgy as they had heard it when they were +children. In the minds of these people, Mr. Scobel's self-devotion and +hard service were as nothing, while he cut off the ten commandments +from the Sunday morning service, and lighted his altar candles at the +early celebration. + +It was in this month of March that an event impended which caused a +considerable flutter among the dancing population of the Forest. Lord +Southminster's eldest daughter, Lady Almira Ringwood, was to marry Sir +Ponto Jones, the rich ironmaster--an alliance of ancient aristocracy +and modern wealth which was considered one of the grandest achievements +of the age, like the discovery of steam or the electric telegraph; and +after the marriage, which was to be quietly performed in the presence +of about a hundred and fifty blood relations, there was to be a ball, +to which all the county families were bidden, with very little more +distinction or favouritism than in the good old fairy-tale times, when +the king's herald went through the streets of the city to invite +everybody, and only some stray Cinderella, cleaning boots and knives in +a back kitchen, found herself unintentionally excluded. Lady +Southminster drew the line at county families, naturally, but her +kindly feelings allowed a wide margin for parsons, doctors, and +military men--and among these last Captain Winstanley received a card. + +Mrs. Scobel declared that this ball would be a grand thing for Violet. +"You have never properly come out, you know, dear," she said; "but at +Southminster you will be seen by everybody; and, as I daresay Lady +Ellangowan will take you under her wing, you'll be seen to the best +advantage." + +"Do you think Lady Ellangowan's wing will make any difference--in me?" +inquired Vixen. + +"It will make a great deal of difference in the Southminster set," +replied Mrs. Scobel, who considered herself an authority upon all +social matters. + +She was a busy good-natured little woman, the chosen confidante of all +her female friends. People were always appealing to her on small social +questions, what they ought to do or to wear on such and such an +occasion. She knew the wardrobes of her friends as well as she knew her +own. "I suppose you'll wear that lovely pink," she would say when +discussing an impending dinner-party. She gave judicious assistance in +the composition of a _menu_. "My love, everyone has pheasants at this +time of year. Ask your poulterer to send you guinea-fowls, they are +more _distingue_," she would suggest. Or: "If you have dessert ices, +let me recommend you coffee-cream. We had it last week at Ellangowan +Park." + +Vixen made no objection to the Southminster ball. She was young, and +fond of waltzing. Whirling easily round to the swing of some German +melody, in a great room garlanded with flowers, was a temporary +cessation of all earthly care, the idea of which was in no wise +unpleasant to her. She had enjoyed her waltzes even at that +charity-ball at the Pavilion, to which she had gone so unwillingly. + +The March night was fine, but blustery, when Mrs. Tempest and her +daughter started for the Southminster ball. The stars were shining in a +windy sky, the tall forest trees were tossing their heads, the brambles +were shivering, and a shrill shriek came up out of the woodland every +now and then like a human cry for help. + +Mrs Tempest had offered to take Mrs. Scobel and Captain Winstanley in +her roomy carriage. Mr. Scobel was not going to the ball. All such +entertainments were an abhorrence to him; but this particular ball, +being given in Lent, was more especially abhorrent. + +"I shouldn't think of going for my own amusement," Mrs. Scobel told her +husband, "but I want to see Violet Tempest at her first local ball +dance. I want to see the impression she makes. I believe she will be +the belle of the ball." + +"That would mean the belle of South Hants," said the parson. "She has a +beautiful face for a painted window--there is such a glow of colour." + +"She is absolutely lovely, when she likes," replied his wife; "but she +has a curious temper; and there is something very repellent about her +when she does not like people. Strange, is it not, that she should not +like Captain Winstanley?" + +"She would be a very noble girl under more spiritual influences," +sighed the Reverend Ignatius. "Her present surroundings are appallingly +earthly. Horses, dogs, a table loaded with meat in Lent and Advent, a +total ignoring of daily matins and even-song. It is sad to see those we +like treading the broad path so blindly. I feel sorry, my dear, that +you should go to this ball." + +"It is only on Violet's account," repeated Mrs. Scobel. "Mrs. Tempest +will be thinking of nothing but her dress; there will be nobody +interested in that poor girl." + +Urged thus, on purely benevolent grounds, Mr. Scobel could not withhold +his consent; more especially as he had acquired the habit of letting +his wife do what she liked on most occasions--a marital custom not +easily broken through. So Mrs. Scobel, who was an economical little +woman, "did up" her silver-gray silk dinner-dress with ten shillings' +worth of black tulle and pink rosebuds, and felt she had made a success +that Madame Elise might have approved. Her faith in the silver-gray and +the rosebuds was just a little shaken by her first view of Mrs. Tempest +and Violet; the widow in black velvet, rose-point, and scarlet--Spanish +as a portrait by Velasquez; Violet in black and gold, with white +stephanotis in her hair. + +The drive was a long one, well over ten miles, along one of those +splendid straight roads which distinguish the New Forest. Mrs. Tempest +and Mrs. Scobel were in high spirits, and prattled agreeably all the +way, only giving Captain Winstanley time to get a word in edgeways now +and then. Violet looked out of the window and held her peace. There was +always a charm for her in that dark silent forest, those waving +branches and flitting clouds, stars gleaming like lights on a stormy +sea. She was not much elated at the idea of the ball, and "that small, +small, imperceptibly small talk" of her mother's and Mrs. Scobel's was +beyond measure wearisome to her. + +"I hope we shall get there after the Ellangowans," said Mrs. Scobel, +when they had driven through the little town of Ringwood, and were +entering a land of level pastures and fertilising streams, which seemed +wonderfully tame after the undulating forest; "it would be so much +nicer for Violet to be in the Ellangowan set from the first." + +"I beg to state that Miss Tempest has promised me the first waltz," +said Captain Winstanley. "I am not going to be ousted by any offshoot +of nobility in Lady Ellangowan's set." + +"Oh, of course, if Violet has promised---- What a lot of carriages! I +am afraid there'll be a block presently." + +There was every prospect of such a calamity. A confluence of vehicles +had poured into a narrow lane bounded on one side by a treacherous +water-meadow, on the other by a garden-wall. They all came to a +standstill, as Mrs. Scobel had prophesied. For a quarter of an hour +there was no progress whatever, and a good deal of recrimination among +coachmen, and then the rest of the journey had to be done at a walking +pace. + +The reward was worth the labour when, at the end of a long winding +drive, the carriage drew up before the Italian front of Southminster +House; a white marble portico, long rows of tall windows brilliantly +lighted, a vista of flowers, and statues, and lamps, and pictures, and +velvet hangings, seen through the open doorway. + +"Oh, it is too lovely!" cried Violet, fresh as a schoolgirl in this new +delight; "first the dark forest and then a house like this--it is like +Fairyland." + +"And you are to be the queen of it--my queen," said Conrad Winstanley +in a low voice. "I am to have the first waltz, remember that. If the +Prince of Wales were my rival I would not give way." + +He detained her hand in his as she alighted from the carriage. She +snatched it from him angrily. + +"I have a good mind not to dance at all," she said. + +"Why not?" + +"It is paying too dearly for the pleasure to be obliged to dance with +you." + +"In what school did you learn politeness, Miss Tempest?" + +"If politeness means civility to people I despise, I have never learned +it," answered Vixen. + +There was no time for further skirmishing. He had taken her cloak from +her, and handed it to the attendant nymph, and received a ticket; and +now they were drifting into the tea-room, where a row of ministering +footmen were looking at the guests across a barricade of urns and +teapots, with countenances that seemed to say, "If you want anything, +you must ask for it. We are here under protest, and we very much wonder +how our people could ever have invited such rabble!" + +"I always feel small in a tea-room when there are only men in +attendance," whispered Mr. Scobel, "they are so haughty. I would sooner +ask Gladstone or Disraeli to pour me out a cup of tea than one of those +supercilious creatures." + +Lady Southminster was stationed in the Teniers room--a small apartment +at the beginning of the suite which ended in the picture-gallery or +ball-room. She was what Joe Gargery called a "fine figure of a woman," +in ruby velvet and diamonds, and received her guests with an +indiscriminating cordiality which went far to heal the gaping wounds +of county politics. + +The Ellangowans had arrived, and Lady Ellangowan, who was full of +good-nature, was quite ready to take Violet under her wing when Mrs. +Scobel suggested that operation. + +"I can find her any number of partners," she said. "Oh, there she +goes--off--already with Captain Winstanley." + +The Captain had lost no time in exacting his waltz. It was the third on +the programme, and the band were beginning to warm to their work. They +were playing a waltz by Offenbach--"_Les Traineaux_"--with an +accompaniment of jingling sleigh-bells--music that had an almost +maddening effect on spirits already exhilarated. + +The long lofty picture-gallery made a magnificent ball-room--a polished +floor of dark wood--a narrow line of light under the projecting +cornice, the famous Paul Veronese, the world-renowned Rubens, the +adorable Titian--ideal beauty looking down with art's eternal +tranquillity upon the whisk and whirl of actual life--here a calm +Madonna, contemplating, with deep unfathomable eyes, these brief +ephemera of a night--there Judith with a white muscular arm holding the +tyrant's head aloft above the dancers--yonder Philip of Spain frowning +on this Lenten festival. + +Violet and Captain Winstanley waltzed in a stern silence. She was vexed +with herself for her loss of temper just now. In his breast there was a +deeper anger. "When would my day come?" he asked himself. "When shall I +be able to bow this proud head, to bend this stubborn will?" It must be +soon--he was tired of playing his submissive part--tired of holding his +cards hidden. + +They held on to the end of the waltz--the last clash of the +sleigh-bells. + +"Who's that girl in black and gold?" asked a Guardsman of Lady +Ellangowan; "those two are the best dancers in the room--it's a +thousand to nothing on them." + +That final clash of the bells brought the Captain and his partner to +anchor at the end of the gallery, which opened through an archway into +a spacious palm-house with a lofty dome. In the middle of this archway, +looking at the dancers, stood a figure at sight of which Violet +Tempest's heart gave a great leap, and then stood still. + +It was Roderick Vawdrey. He was standing alone, listlessly +contemplating the ball-room, with much less life and expression in his +face than there was in the pictured faces on the walls. + +"That was a very nice waltz thanks," said Vixen, giving the captain a +little curtsey. + +"Shall I take you back to Mrs. Tempest?" + +Roderick had seen her by this time, and was coming towards her with a +singularly grave and distant countenance, she thought; not at all like +the Rorie of old times. But of course that was over and done with. She +must never call him Rorie any more, not even in her own thoughts. A +sharp sudden memory thrilled her, as they stood face to face in that +brilliant gallery--the memory of their last meeting in the darkened +room on the day of her father's funeral. + +"How do you do?" said Roderick, with a gush of originality. "Your mamma +is here, I suppose." + +"Haven't you seen her?" + +"No; we've only just come." + +"We," no doubt, meant the Dovedale party, of which Mr. Vawdrey was +henceforth a part. + +"I did not know you were to be here," said Vixen, "or then that you +were in England." + +"We only came home yesterday, or I should have called at the Abbey +House. We have been coming home, or talking about it, for the last +three weeks. A few days ago the Duchess took it into her head that she +ought to be at Lady Almira's wedding--there's some kind of +relationship, you know, between the Ashbournes and the +Southminsters--so we put on a spurt, and here we are." + +"I am very glad," said Vixen, not knowing very well what to say; and +then seeing Captain Winstanley standing stiffly at her side, with an +aggrieved expression of countenance, she faltered: "I beg your pardon; +I don't think you have ever met Mr. Vawdrey. Captain Winstanley--Mr. +Vawdrey." + +Both gentlemen acknowledged the introduction with the stiffest and +chilliest of bows; and then the Captain offered Violet his arm, and +she, having no excuse for refusing it, submitted quietly to be taken +away from her old friend. Roderick made no attempt to detain her. + +The change in him could hardly have been more marked, Vixen thought. +Yes, the old Rorie--playfellow, scapegoat, friend of the dear old +childish days--was verily dead and gone. + +"Shall we go and look at the presents?" asked Captain Winstanley. + +"What presents?" + +"Lady Almira's wedding presents. They are all laid out in the library. +I hear they are very splendid. Everybody is crowding to see them." + +"I daresay mamma would like to go, and Mrs. Scobel," suggested Vixen. + +"Then we will all go together." + +They found the two matrons side by side on a settee, under a lovely +girlish head by Greuze. They were both delighted at the idea of seeing +the presents. It was something to do. Mrs. Tempest had made up her mind +to abjure even square dances this evening. There was something +incongruous in widowhood and the Lancers; especially in one's own +neighbourhood. + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +Rorie asks a Question. + +The library was one of the finest rooms at Southminster. It was not +like the library at Althorpe--a collection for a nation to be proud of. +There was no priceless Decameron, no Caxton Bible, no inestimable "Book +of Hours," or early Venetian Virgil; but as a library of reference, a +library for all purposes of culture or enjoyment, it left nothing to be +desired. It was a spacious and lofty room, lined from floor to ceiling +with exquisitely bound books; for, if not a collector of rare editions, +Lord Southminster was at least a connoisseur of bindings. Creamy +vellum, flowered with gold, antique brown calf, and russia in every +shade of crimson and brown, gave brightness to the shelves, while the +sombre darkness of carved oak made a background for this variety of +colour. + +Not a mortal in the crowded library this evening thought of looking at +the books. The room had been transformed into a bazaar. Two long tables +were loaded with the wedding gifts which rejoicing friends and aspiring +acquaintances had lavished upon Lady Almira. Each gift was labelled +with the name of the giver; the exhibition was full of an intensely +personal interest. Everybody wanted to see what everybody had given. +Most of the people looking at the show had made their offerings, and +were anxious to see if their own particular contribution appeared to +advantage. + +Here Mrs. Scobel was in her element. She explained everything, +expatiated upon the beauty and usefulness of everything. If she had +assisted at the purchase of all these gifts, or had actually chosen +them, she could not have been more familiar with their uses and merits. + +"You must look at the silver candelabra presented by Sir Ponto's +workpeople, so much more sensible than a bracelet. I don't think +Garrard--yes, it is Garrard--ever did anything better; so sweetly +mythological--a goat and a dear little chubby boy, and ever so many +savage-looking persons with cymbals." + +"The education of Jupiter, perhaps," suggested Captain Winstanley. + +"Of course. The savage persons must be teaching him music. Have you +seen this liqueur cabinet, dear Mrs. Tempest? The most exquisite thing, +from the servants at Southminster. Could anything be nicer?" + +"Looks rather like a suggestion that Lady Almira may be given to +curacoa on the quiet," said the Captain. + +"And this lovely, lovely screen in crewels, by the Ladies Ringwood, +after a picture by Alma Tadema," continued Mrs. Scobel. "Was there ever +anything so perfect? And to think that our poor mothers worked staring +roses and gigantic lilies in Berlin wool and glass beads, and imagined +themselves artistic!" + +The ladies went the round of the tables, in a crush of other ladies, +all rapturous. The Louis Quatorze fans, the carved ivory, the Brussels +point, the oxydised silver glove-boxes, and malachite blotting-books, +the pearls, opals, ormolu; the antique tankards and candlesticks, +Queen-Anne teapots; diamond stars, combs, tiaras; prayer-books, and +"Christian Years." The special presents which stood out from this chaos +of common place were--a _riviere_ of diamonds from the Earl of +Southminster, a cashmere shawl from Her Majesty, a basket of orchids, +valued at five hundred guineas, from Lady Ellangowan, a pair of +priceless crackle jars, a Sevres dinner-service of the old +_bleu-du-roi_, a set of knives of which the handles had all been taken +from stags slaughtered by the Southminster hounds. + +"This is all very well for the wallflowers," said Captain Winstanley to +Violet, "but you and I are losing our dances." + +"I don't much care about dancing," answered Vixen wearily. + +She had been looking at this gorgeous display of bracelets and teacups, +silver-gilt dressing-cases, and ivory hairbrushes, without seeing +anything. She was thinking of Roderick Vawdrey, and how odd a thing it +was that he should seem so utter a stranger to her. + +"He has gone up into the ducal circle," she said to herself. "He is +translated. It is almost as if he had wings. He is certainly as far +away from me as if he were a bishop." + +They struggled back to the picture-gallery, and here Lady Ellangowan +took possession of Violet, and got her distinguished partners for all +the dances till supper-time. She found herself receiving a gracious +little nod from Lady Mabel Ashbourne in the ladies' chain. Neither the +lapse of two years nor the experience of foreign travel had made any +change in the hope of the Dovedales. She was still the same sylph-like +being, dressed in palest green, the colour of a duck's egg, with +diamonds in strictest moderation, and pearls that would have done +honour to a princess. + +"Do you think Lady Mabel Ashbourne very beautiful?" Vixen asked Lady +Ellangowan, curious to hear the opinion of experience and authority. + +"No; she's too shadowy for my taste," replied her ladyship, who was the +reverse of sylph-like. "Wasn't there someone in Greek mythology who +fell in love with a cloud? Lady Mabel would just suit that sort of +person. And then she is over-educated and conceited; sets up for a +modern Lady Jane Grey, quotes Greek plays, I believe, and looks +astounded if people don't understand her. She'll end by establishing a +female college, like Tennyson's princess." + +"Oh, but she is engaged to be married to Mr. Vawdrey." + +"Her cousin? Very foolish! That may go off by-and-by. First engagements +seldom come to anything." + +Violet thought herself a hateful creature for being inwardly grateful +to Lady Ellangowan for this speech. + +She had seen Roderick spinning round with his cousin. He was a good +waltzer, but not a graceful one. He steered his way well, and went with +a strong swing that covered a great deal of ground; but there was a +want of finish. Lady Mabel looked as if she were being carried away by +a maelstrom. And now people began to move towards the supper-rooms, of +which there were two, luxuriously arranged with numerous round tables +in the way that was still a novelty when "Lothair" was written. This +gave more room for the dancers. The people for whom a ball meant a +surfeit of perigord pie, truffled turkey, salmon _mayonnaise_, and +early strawberries, went for their first innings, meaning to return to +that happy hunting-ground as often as proved practicable. Violet was +carried off by a partner who was so anxious to take her to supper that +she felt sure he was dying to get some for himself. + +Her cavalier found her a corner at a snug little table with three +gorgeous matrons. She ate a cutlet and a teaspoonful of peas, took +three sips from a glass of champagne, and wound up with some +strawberries, which tasted as if they had been taken by mistake out of +the pickle-jar. + +"I'm afraid you haven't had a very good supper." said her partner, who +had been comfortably wedged between two of the matrons, consuming +mayonnaise and pate to his heart's content. + +"Excellent, thanks. I shall be glad to make room for someone else." +Whereat the unfortunate young man was obliged to stand up, leaving the +choicest morsel of truffled goose-liver on his plate. + +The crowd in the picture-gallery was thinner when Violet went back. In +the doorway she met Roderick Vawdrey. + +"Haven't you kept a single dance for me, Violet?" he asked. + +"You didn't ask me to keep one." + +"Didn't I? Perhaps I was afraid of Captain Winstanley's displeasure. He +would have objected, no doubt." + +"Why should he object, unless I broke an engagement to him?" + +"Would he not? Are you actually free to be asked by anyone? If I had +known that two hours ago! And now, I suppose your programme is full. +Yes, to the very last galop; for which, of course, you won't stop. But +there's to be an extra waltz presently. You must give me that." + +She said neither yes nor no, and he put her hand through his arm and +led her up the room. + +"Have you seen mamma?" + +"Yes. She thinks I am grown. She forgets that I was one-and-twenty when +we last met. That does not leave much margin for growing, unless a man +went on getting taller indefinitely, like Lord Southminster's palms. He +had to take the roof off his palm-house last year, you know. What a +dreadful thing if I were to become a Norfolk giant--giants are +indigenous to Norfolk, aren't they?--and were obliged to take the roof +off Briarwood. Have you seen the Duchess?" + +"Only in the distance. I hardly know her at all, you know." + +"That's absurd. You ought to know her very well. You must be quite +intimate with her by-and-by, when we are all settled down as +steady-going married people." + +The little gloved hand on his arm quivered ever so slightly. This was a +distinct allusion to his approaching marriage. + +"Lovely room, isn't it? Just the right thing for a ball. How do you +like the Rubens? Very grand--a magnificent display of +carmines--beautiful, if you are an admirer of Rubens. What a +draughtsman! The Italian school rarely achieved that freedom of pencil. +Isn't that Greuze enchanting? There is an innocence, a freshness, about +his girlish faces that nobody has ever equalled. His women are not +Madonnas, or Junos, or Helens--they are the incarnation of girlhood; +girlhood without care or thought; girlhood in love with a kitten, or +weeping over a wounded robin-redbreast." + +How abominably he rattled on. Was it the overflow of joyous spirits? No +doubt. He was so pleased with life and fate, that he was obliged to +give vent to his exuberance in this gush of commonplace. + +"You remind me of Miss Bates, in Jane Austen's 'Emma,'" said Vixen, +laughing. + +The band struck up "_Trauriges Herz_," a waltz like a wail, but with a +fine swing in it. + +"Now for the old three-time," said Roderick; and the next minute they +were sailing smoothly over the polished floor, with all the fair +pictured faces, the crimson draperies, the pensive Madonnas, Dutch +boors, Italian temples, and hills, and skies, circling round them like +the figures in a kaleidoscope. + +"Do you remember our boy-and-girl waltzes in the hall at the Abbey +House?" asked Rorie. + +Happily for Vixen her face was so turned that he could not see the +quiver on her lips, the sudden look of absolute pain that paled her +cheeks. + +"I am not likely to forget any part of my childhood," she answered +gravely. "It was the one happy period of my life." + +"You don't expect me to believe that the last two years have been +altogether unhappy." + +"You may believe what you like. You who knew my father, ought to +know----" + +"The dear Squire! do you think I am likely to undervalue him, or to +forget your loss? No, Violet, no. But there are compensations. I heard +of you at Brighton. You were very happy there, were you not?" + +"I liked Brighton pretty well. And I had Arion there all the while. +There are some capital rides on the Downs." + +"Yes, and you had agreeable friends there." + +"Yes, we knew a good many pleasant people, and went to a great many +concerts. I heard all the good singers, and Madame Goddard ever so many +times." + +They went on till the end of the waltz, and then walked slowly round +the room, glancing at the pictures as they went by. The Duchess was not +in sight. + +"Shall we go and look at the palms?" asked Roderick, when they came to +the archway at the end of the gallery. + +"If you like." + +"This was the roof that had to be taken off, you know. It is a +magnificent dome, but I daresay the palms will outgrow it within Lord +Southminster's time." + +It was like entering a jungle in the tropics; if one could fancy a +jungle paved with encaustic tiles, and furnished with velvet-covered +ottomans for the repose of weary sportsmen. + +There was only a subdued light, from lamps thinly sprinkled among the +ferns and flowers. There were four large groups of statuary, placed +judiciously, and under the central dome there was a fountain, where, +half hidden by a veil of glittering spray, Neptune was wooing Tyro, +under the aspect of a river-god, amongst bulrushes, lilies, and +water-plants. + +Violet and her companion looked at the tropical plants, and admired, +with a delightful ignorance of the merits of these specimens. The tall +shafts and the thick tufts of huge leaves were not Vixen's idea of +beauty. + +"I like our beeches and oaks in the Forest ever so much better," she +exclaimed. + +"Everything in the Forest is dear," said Rorie. + +Vixen felt, with a curious choking sensation, that this was a good +opening for her to say something polite. She had always intended to +congratulate him, in a straightforward sisterly way, upon his +engagement to Lady Mabel. + +"I am so glad to hear you say that," she began. "And how happy you must +be to think that your fate is fixed here irrevocably; doubly fixed now; +for you can have no interest to draw you away from us, as you might if +you were to marry a stranger. Briarwood and Ashbourne united will make +you the greatest among us." + +"I don't highly value that kind of greatness, Violet--a mere question +of acreage; but I am glad to think myself anchored for life on my +native soil." + +"And you will go into Parliament and legislate for us, and take care +that we are not disforested. They have taken away too much already, +with their horrid enclosures." + +"The enclosures will make splendid pine-woods by-and-by." + +"Yes, when we are all dead and gone." + +"I don't know about Parliament. So long as my poor mother was living I +had an incentive to turn senator, she was so eager for it. But now that +she is gone, I don't feel strongly drawn that way. I suppose I shall +settle down into the approved pattern of country squire: breed fat +cattle--the aristocratic form of cruelty to animals--spend the best +part of my income upon agricultural machinery, talk about guano, like +the Duke, and lecture delinquents at quarter-sessions." + +"But Lady Mabel will not allow that. She will be ambitious for you." + +"I hope not. I can fancy no affliction greater than an ambitious wife. +No. My poor mother left Mabel her orchids. Mabel will confine her +ambition to orchids and literature. I believe she writes poetry, and +some day she will be tempted to publish a small volume, I daresay. +'AEolian Echoes,' or 'Harp Strings,' or 'Broken Chords,' 'Consecutive +Fifths,' or something of that kind." + +"You believe!" exclaimed Vixen. "Surely you have read some of Lady +Mabel's poetry, or heard it read. She must have read some of her verses +to you." + +"Never. She is too reserved, and I am too candid. It would be a +dangerous experiment. I should inevitably say something rude. Mabel +adores Shelley and Browning; she reads Greek, too. Her poetry is sure +to be unintelligible, and I should expose my obtuseness of intellect. I +couldn't even look as if I understood it." + +"If I were Lady Mabel, I think under such circumstances I should leave +off writing poetry." + +"That would be quite absurd. Mabel has a hundred tastes which I do not +share with her. She is devoted to her garden and hot-houses. I hardly +know one flower from another, except the forest wildlings. She detests +horses and dogs. I am never happier than when among them. She reads +AEschylus as glibly as I can read a French newspaper. But she will make +an admirable mistress for Briarwood. She has just that tranquil +superiority which becomes the ruler of a large estate. You will see +what cottages and schools we shall build. There will not be a weed in +our allotment gardens, and our farm-labourers will get all the prizes +at cottage flower-shows." + +"You will hunt, of course?" + +"Naturally; don't you know that I am to have the hounds next year? It +was all arranged a few days ago. Poor Mabel was strongly opposed to the +plan. She thought it was the first stage on the road to ruin; but I +think I convinced her that it was the natural thing for the owner of +Briarwood; and the Duke was warmly in favour of it." + +"The dear old kennels!" said Vixen, "I have never seen them +since--since I came home. I ride by the gate very often, but I have +never had the courage to go inside. The hounds wouldn't know me now." + +"You must renew your friendship with them. You will hunt, of course, +next year?" + +"No, I shall never hunt again!" + +"Oh, nonsense; I hear that Captain Winstanley is a mighty Nimrod--quite +a Leicestershire man. He will wish you to hunt." + +"What can Captain Winstanley have to do with it?" asked Vixen, turning +sharply upon him. + +"A great deal, I should imagine, by next season." + +"I haven't the least idea what you mean." + +It was Roderick Vawdrey's turn to look astonished. He looked both +surprised and angry. + +"How fond young ladies are of making mysteries about these things," he +exclaimed impatiently; "I suppose they think it enhances their +importance. Have I made a mistake? Have my informants misled me? Is +your engagement to Captain Winstanley not to be talked about yet--only +an understood thing among your own particular friends? Let me at least +be allowed the privilege of intimate friendship. Let me be among the +first to congratulate you." + +"What folly have you been listening to?" cried Vixen; "you, Roderick +Vawdrey, my old play-fellow--almost an adopted brother--to know me so +little." + +"What could I know of you to prevent my believing what I was told? Was +there anything strange in the idea that you should be engaged to +Captain Winstanley? I heard that he was a universal favourite." + +"And did you think that I should like a universal favourite?" + +"Why should you not? It seemed credible enough, and my informant was +positive; he saw you together at a picnic in Switzerland. It was looked +upon as a settled thing by all your friends." + +"By Captain Winstanley's friends, you mean. They may have looked upon +it as a settled thing that he should marry someone with plenty of +money, and they may have thought that my money would be as useful as +anyone else's." + +"Violet, are you mystifying me? are you trying to drive me crazy? or is +this the simple truth?" + +"It is the simple truth." + +"You are not engaged to this man?--you never have been?--you don't care +for him, never have cared for him?" + +"Never, never, never, never!" said Violet, with unmistakable emphasis. + +"Then I have been the most consummate----" + +He did not finish his sentence, and Violet did not ask him to finish +it. The ejaculation seemed involuntary. He sat staring at the palms, +and said nothing for the next minute and a half, while Vixen unfurled +her great black and gold fan, and looked at it admiringly, as if she +had never seen it before. + +"Do you really think those palms will break through the roof again in +the present Lord Southminster's time?" Roderick inquired presently, +with intense interest. + +Vixen did not feel herself called upon to reply to a question so purely +speculative. + +"I think I had better go and look for mamma and Mrs. Scobel," she said; +"they must have come back from the supper-room by this time." + +Roderick rose and offered her his arm. She was surprised to see how +pale he looked when they came out of the dusk into the brilliant light +of the gallery. But in a heated room, and between two and three o'clock +in the morning, a man may naturally be a little paler than usual. + +Roderick took Violet straight to the end of the room, where his quick +eye had espied Mrs. Tempest in her striking black and scarlet costume. +He said nothing more about the Duchess or Lady Mabel; and, indeed, took +Violet past the elder lady, who was sitting in one of the deep-set +windows with Lady Southminster, without attempting to bring about any +interchange of civilities. + +"Captain Winstanley has been kind enough to go and look for the +carriage, Violet," said Mrs. Tempest. "I told him we would join him in +the vestibule directly I could find you. Where have you been all this +time? You were not in the Lancers. Such a pretty set. Oh, here is Mrs. +Scobel!" as the Vicar's wife approached them on her partner's arm, in a +piteous state of dilapidation--not a bit of tulle puffing left, and all +her rosebuds crushed as flat as dandelions. + +"Such a delightful set!" she exclaimed gaspingly. + +"I'm afraid your dress has suffered," said her partner. + +"Not in the least." protested Mrs. Scobel, with the fortitude of that +ladylike martyr to a clumsy carver, celebrated by Sydney Smith, who, +splashed from head to foot, and with rills of brown gravy trickling +down her countenance, vowed that not a drop had reached her. + +"This," says the reverend wit, "I esteem the highest triumph of +civilisation." + +"Your carriage will be the third," the captain told Mrs. Tempest, while +Roderick was putting Violet's cloak round her in the vestibule; "there +are a good many people leaving already." + +Roderick went with them to the carriage door, and stayed in the porch +till they were gone. The last object Vixen saw under the Southminster +lamps was the pale grave face of her old playfellow. + +He went straight from the porch to the supper-room, not to find himself +a place at one of the snug little tables, but to go to the buffet and +pour out a glass of brandy, which he drank at a draught. Yet, in a +general way, there was no man more abstemious than Roderick Vawdrey. + +A quarter of an hour afterwards he was waltzing with Lady +Mabel--positively the last dance before their departure. + +"Roderick," she said in an awe-stricken undertone, "I am going to say +something very dreadful. Please forgive me in advance." + +"Certainly," he said, with a somewhat apprehensive look. + +"Just now, when you were talking to me, I fancied you had been drinking +brandy." + +"I had." + +"Absolute undiluted brandy!" + +"Neat brandy, sometimes denominated 'short.'" + +"Good heavens! were you ill?" + +"I had had what people call 'a turn.'" + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +Where the Red King was slain. + +May had come. The red glow of the beech-branches had changed to a +tender green; the oaks were amber; the winding forest-paths, the deep +inaccessible glades where the cattle led such a happy life, were blue +with dog-violets and golden with primroses. Whitsuntide was close at +hand, and good Mr. Scobel had given up his mind to church decoration, +and the entertainment of his school-children with tea and buns in that +delightful valley, where an iron monument, a little less artistic than +a pillar post-office marks the spot where the Red King fell. + +Vixen, though not particularly fond of school-feasts, had promised to +assist at this one. It was not to be a stiff or ceremonious affair. +There was to be no bevy of young ladies, oppressively attentive to +their small charges, causing the children to drink scalding tea in a +paroxysm of shyness. The whole thing was to be done in an easy and +friendly manner; with no aid but that of the school-mistress and +master. The magnates of the land were to have no part in the festival. + +"The children enjoy themselves so much more when there are no +finely-dressed people making believe to wait upon them," said Mrs. +Scobel; "but I know they'll be delighted to have you, Violet. They +positively adore you!" + +"I'm sure I can't imagine why they should," answered Violet truthfully. + +"Oh, but they do. They like to look at you. When you come into the +school-room they're all in a flutter; and they point at you awfully, +don't they, Miss Pierson?" said Mrs. Scobel, appealing to the +school-mistress. + +"Yes, ma'am. I can't cure them of pointing, do what I will." + +"Oh, they are dear little children," exclaimed Violet, "and I don't +care how much they point at me if they really like me. They make me +such nice little bob-curtsies when I meet them in the Forest, and they +all seem fond of Argus. I'm sure you have made them extremely polite, +Miss Pierson. I shall be very pleased to come to your school-feast, +Mrs. Scobel; and I'll tell our good old Trimmer to make no end of +cakes." + +"My dear Violet, pray don't think of putting Mrs. Trimmer to any +trouble. Your dear mamma might be angry." + +"Angry at my asking for some cakes for the school-children, after being +papa's wife for seventeen years! That couldn't be." + +The school-feast was fixed, three weeks in advance, for the Wednesday +in Whitsun week, and during the interval there were many small +meteorologists in Beechdale school intent upon the changes of the moon, +and all those varied phenomena from which the rustic mind draws its +auguries of coming weather. The very crowing of early village cocks was +regarded suspiciously by the school children at this period; and even +the harmless domestic pussy, sitting with his back to the fire, was +deemed a cat of evil omen. + +It happened that the appointed Wednesday was a day on which Mrs. +Tempest had chosen to invite a few friends in a quiet way to her seven +o'clock dinner; among the few Captain Winstanley, who had taken Mrs. +Hawbuck's cottage for an extended period of three months. Mrs. Tempest +had known all about the school-feast a fortnight before she gave her +invitations, but had forgotten the date at the moment when she arranged +her little dinner. Yet she felt offended that Violet should insist upon +keeping her engagement to the Scobels. + +"But, dear mamma, I am of no use to you at our parties," pleaded Vixen; +"if I were at all necessary to your comfort I would give up the +school-feast." + +"My dear Violet, it is not my comfort I am considering; but I cannot +help feeling annoyed that you should prefer to spend your evening with +a herd of vulgar children--playing Oranges and Lemons, or Kiss in the +Ring, or some other ridiculous game, and getting yourself into a most +unbecoming perspiration--to a quiet home evening with a few friends." + +"You see, mamma, I know our quiet home evenings with a few friends so +well. I could tell you beforehand exactly what will happen, almost the +very words people will say--how your _jardinieres_ will be admired, and +how the conversation will glance off from your ferns and pelargoniums +to Lady Ellangowan's orchids, and then drift back to your old china; +after which the ladies will begin to talk about dress, and the +wickedness of giving seven guineas for a summer bonnet, as Mrs Jones, +or Green, or Robinson has just done; from which their talk will glide +insensibly to the iniquities of modern servants; and when those have +been discussed exhaustively, one of the younger ladies will tell you +the plot of the last novel she has had from Mudie's, with an infinite +number of you knows and you sees, and then perhaps Captain +Winstanley--he is coming, I suppose--will sing a French song, of which +the company will understand about four words in every verse, and then +you will show Mrs. Carteret your last piece of art needlework--" + +"What nonsense you talk, Violet. However, if you prefer the children at +Stony Cross to the society of your mother and your mother's friends, +you must take your own way." + +"And you will forgive me in advance, dear mamma?" + +"My love, I have nothing to forgive. I only deplore a bent of mind +which I can but think unladylike." + +Vixen was glad to be let off with so brief a lecture. In her heart of +hearts she was not at all sorry that her mother's friendly dinner +should fall on a day which she had promised to spend elsewhere. It was +a treat to escape the sameness of that polite entertainment. Yes, +Captain Winstanley was to be there of course, and prolonged +acquaintance had not lessened her dislike to that gentleman. She had +seen him frequently during his residence at the Hawbuck cottage, not at +her mother's house only, but at all the best houses in the +neighbourhood. He had done nothing to offend her. He had been +studiously polite; and that was all. Not by one word had he reminded +Violet of that moonlight walk in the Pavilion garden; not by so much as +a glance or a sigh had he hinted at a hidden passion. So far she could +make no complaint against him. But the attrition of frequent +intercourse did not wear off the sharp edge of her dislike. + +Wednesday afternoon came, and any evil auguries that had been drawn +from the noontide crowing of restless village cocks was set at naught, +for the weather was peerless: a midsummer sky and golden sunlight shone +upon all things; upon white-walled cottages and orchards, and gardens +where the pure lilies were beginning to blow, upon the yellow-green oak +leaves and deepening bloom of the beech, and the long straight roads +cleaving the heart of the Forest. + +Violet had arranged to drive Mr. and Mrs. Scobel in her pony-carriage. +She was at the door of their snug little Vicarage at three o'clock; the +vivacious Titmouse tossing his head and jingling his bit in a burst of +pettishness at the aggravating behaviour of the flies. + +Mrs. Scobel came fluttering out, with the Vicar behind her. Both +carried baskets, and behind them came an old servant, who had been Mrs. +Scobel's nurse, a woman with a figure like a hogshead of wine, and a +funny little head at the top, carrying a third basket. + +"The buns and bread have gone straight from the village," said the +Vicar's wife. "How well you are looking, Violet. I hope dear Mrs. +Tempest was not very angry at your coming with us." + +"Dear Mrs. Tempest didn't care a straw," Vixen answered, laughing. "But +she thinks me wanting in dignity for liking to have a romp with the +school-children." + +All the baskets were in by this time, and Titmouse was in a paroxysm of +impatience; so Mr. and Mrs. Scobel seated themselves quickly, and Vixen +gave her reins a little shake that meant Go, and off went the pony at a +pace which was rather like running away. + +The Vicar looked slightly uneasy. + +"Does he always go as fast as this?" he inquired. + +"Sometimes a good deal faster. He's an old fencer, you know, and hasn't +forgotten his jumping days. But of course I don't let him jump with the +carriage." + +"I should think not," ejaculated the Vicar; "unless you wanted to +commit murder and suicide. Don't you think you could make him go a +little steadier? He's going rather like a dog with a tin kettle at his +tail, and if the kettle were to tip over----" + +"Oh, he'll settle down presently," said Vixen coolly. "I don't want to +interfere with him; it makes him ill-tempered. And if he were to take +to kicking----" + +"If you'll pull him up, I think I'll get out and walk," said Mr. +Scobel, the back of whose head was on a level with the circle which the +pony's hoofs would have been likely to describe in the event of kicking. + +"Oh, please don't!" cried Vixen. "If you do that I shall think you've +no confidence in my driving." + +She pulled Titmouse together, and coaxed him into an unobjectionable +trot; a trot which travelled over the ground very fast, without giving +the occupants of the carriage the uncomfortable sensation of sitting +behind a pony intent on getting to the sharp edge of the horizon and +throwing himself over. + +They were going up a long hill. Halfway up they came to the gate of the +kennels. Violet looked at it with a curious half-reluctant glance that +expressed the keenest pain. + +"Poor papa," she sighed. "He never seemed happier than when he used to +take me to see the hounds." + +"Mr. Vawdrey is to have them next year," said Mrs. Scobel. "That seems +right and proper. He will be the biggest man in this part of the +country when the Ashbourne and Briarwood estates are united. And the +Duke cannot live very long--a man who gives his mind to eating and +drinking, and is laid up with the gout twice a year." + +"Do you know when they are to be married?" asked Vixen, with an +unconcerned air. + +"At the end of this year, I am told. Lady Jane died last November. They +would hardly have the wedding before a twelvemonth was over. Have you +seen much of Mr. Vawdrey since he came back?" + +"I believe I have seen him three times: once at Lady Southminster's +ball; once when he came to call upon mamma; once at kettledrum at +Ellangowan, where he was in attendance upon Lady Mabel. He looked +rather like a little dog at the end of a string; he had just that +meekly-obedient look, combined with an expression of not wanting to be +there, which you see in a dog. If I were engaged, I would not take my +_fiancee_ to kettledrums." + +"Ah, Violet, when are you going to be engaged?" cried Mrs. Scobel, in a +burst of playfulness. "Where is the man worthy of you?" + +"Nowhere; unless Heaven would make me such a man as my father." + +"You and Mr. Vawdrey were such friends when you were girl and boy. I +used sometimes to fancy that childish friendship of yours would lead to +a lasting attachment." + +"Did you? That was a great mistake. I am not half good enough for Mr. +Vawdrey. I was well enough for a playfellow, but he wants something +much nearer perfection in a wife." + +"But your tastes are so similar." + +"The very reason we should not care for each other." + +"'In joining contrasts lieth love's delight.' That's what a poet has +said, yet I can't quite believe that, Violet." + +"But you see the event proves the poet's axiom true. Here is my old +playfellow, who cares for nothing but horses and hounds and a country +life, devotedly attached to Lady Mabel Ashbourne, who reads Greek plays +with as much enjoyment as other young ladies derive from a stirring +novel, and who hasn't an idea or an attitude that is not strictly +aesthetic." + +"Do you know, Violet, I am very much afraid that this marriage is +rather the result of calculation than of genuine affection?" said Mrs. +Scobel solemnly. + +"Oh, no doubt it will be a grand thing to unite Ashbourne and +Briarwood, but Roderick Vawdrey is too honourable to marry a girl he +could not love. I would never believe him capable of such baseness," +answered Violet, standing up for her old friend. + +Here they turned out of the Forest and drove through a peaceful colony +consisting of half-a-dozen cottages, a rustic inn where reigned a +supreme silence and sleepiness, and two or three houses in old-world +gardens. + +Vixen changed the conversation to buns and school-children, which +agreeable theme occupied them till Titmouse had walked up a +tremendously steep hill, the Vicar trudging through the dust beside +him; and then the deep green vale in which Rufus was slain lay smiling +in the sunshine below their feet. + +Perhaps the panorama to be seen from the top of that hill is absolutely +the finest in the Forest--a vast champaign, stretching far away to the +white walls, tiled roofs, and ancient abbey-church of Romsey; here a +glimpse of winding water, there a humble village--nameless save for its +inhabitants--nestling among the trees, or basking in the broad sunshine +of a common. + +At the top of the hill, Bates, the gray-headed groom, who had attended +Violet ever since her first pony-ride, took possession of Titmouse and +the chaise, while the baskets were handed over to a lad, who had been +on the watch for their arrival. Then they all went down the steep path +into the valley, at the bottom of which the children were swarming in a +cluster, as thick as bees, while a pale flame and a cloud of white +smoke went up from the midst of them like the fire beneath a sacrifice. +This indicated the boiling of the kettle, in true gipsy fashion. + +For the next hour and a half tea-drinking was the all-absorbing +business with everybody. The boiling of the kettle was a grand feature +in the entertainment. Cups and saucers were provided by a little colony +of civilised gipsies, who seem indigenous to the spot, and whose summer +life is devoted to assisting at picnics and tea-drinkings, telling +fortunes, and selling photographs. White cloths were spread upon the +short sweet turf, and piles of bread-and-butter, cake and buns, invited +the attention of the flies. + +Presently arose the thrilling melody of a choral grace, with the sweet +embellishment of a strong Hampshire accent. And then, with a swoop as +of eagles on their quarry, the school-children came down upon the +mountains of bread-and-butter, and ate their way manfully to the buns +and cake. + +Violet had never been happier since her return to Hampshire than she +felt that sunny afternoon, as she moved quickly about, ministering to +these juvenile devourers. The sight of their somewhat bovine +contentment took her thoughts away from her own cares and losses; and +presently, when the banquet was concluded--a conclusion only arrived at +by the total consumption of everything provided, whereby the +hungry-eyed gipsy attendants sunk into despondency--Vixen constituted +herself Lord of Misrule, and led off a noisy procession in the +time-honoured game of Oranges and Lemons, which entertainment continued +till the school-children were in a high fever. After this they had Kiss +in the Ring; Vixen only stipulating, before she began, that nobody +should presume to drop the handkerchief before her. Then came +Touchwood--a game charmingly adapted to that wooded valley, where the +trees looked as if they had been planted at convenient distances on +purpose for this juvenile sport. + +"Oh, I am so tired," cried Violet at last, when church clocks--all out +of earshot in this deep valley--were striking eight, and the low sun +was golden on the silvery beech-boles, and the quiet half-hidden +water-pools under the trees yonder; "I really don't think I can have +anything to do with the next game." + +"Oh, if you please, miss," cried twenty shrill young voices, "oh, if +you please, miss, we couldn't play without you--you're the best on us!" + +This soothing flattery had its effect. + +"Oh, but I really don't think I can do more than start you," sighed +Vixen, flushed and breathless, "what is it to be?" + +"Blindman's Buff," roared the boys. + +"Hunt the Slipper," screamed the girls. + +"Oh, Blindman's Buff is best," said Vixen. "This little wood is a +splendid place for Blindman's Buff. But mind, I shall only start you. +Now then, who's to be Blindman?" + +Mr. Scobel volunteered. He had been a tranquil spectator of the sports +hitherto; but this was the last game, and he felt that he ought to do +something more than look on. Vixen blindfolded him, asked him the usual +question about his father's stable, and then sent him spinning amongst +the moss-grown beeches, groping his way fearfully, with outstretched +arms, amidst shrillest laughter and noisiest delight. + +He was not long blindfold, and had not had many bumps against the trees +before he impounded the person of a fat and scant-of-breath scholar, a +girl whose hard breathing would have betrayed her neighbourhood to the +dullest ear. + +"That's Polly Sims, I know," said the Vicar. + +It was Polly Sims, who was incontinently made as blind as Fortune or +Justice, or any other of the deities who dispense benefits to man. +Polly floundered about among the trees for a long time, making frantic +efforts to catch the empty air, panting like a human steam-engine, and +nearly knocking out what small amount of brains she might possess +against the gray branches, outstretched like the lean arms of Macbeth's +weird women across her path. Finally Polly Sims succeeded in catching +Bobby Jones, whom she clutched with the tenacity of an octopus; and +then came the reign of Bobby Jones, who was an expert at the game, and +who kept the whole party on the _qui vive_ by his serpentine windings +and twistings among the stout old trunks. + +Presently there was a shrill yell of triumph. Bobby had caught Miss +Tempest. + +"I know'd her by her musling gownd, and the sweet-smelling stuff upon +her pocket-handkercher," he roared. + +Violet submitted with a good grace. + +"I'm dreadfully tired," she said, "and I'm sure I shan't catch anyone." + +The sun had been getting lower and lower. There were splashes of ruddy +light on the smooth gray beech-boles, and that was all. Soon these +would fade, and all would be gloom. The grove had an awful look +already. One would expect to meet some ghostly Druid, or some witch of +eld, among the shadowy tracks left by the forest wildings. Vixen went +about her work languidly. She was really tired, and was glad to think +her day's labours were over. She went slowly in and out among the +trees, feeling her way with outstretched arms, her feet sinking +sometimes into deep drifts of last year's leaves, or gliding +noiselessly over the moss. The air was soft and cool and dewy, with a +perfume of nameless wild flowers--a faint aromatic odour of herbs, +which the wise women had gathered for medicinal uses in days of old, +when your village sorceress was your safest doctor. Everywhere there +was the hush and coolness of fast-coming night. The children's voices +were stilled. This last stage of the game was a thing of breathless +interest. + +Vixen's footsteps drifted lower down into the wooded hollow; insensibly +she was coming towards the edge of the treacherously green bog which +has brought many a bold rider to grief in these districts, and still +she had caught no one. She began to think that she had roamed ever so +far away, and was in danger of losing herself altogether, or at least +losing everybody else, and being left by herself in the forest +darkness. The grassy hollow in which she was wandering had an +atmosphere of solitude. + +She was on the point of taking off the handkerchief that Mr. Scobel had +bound so effectually across her eyes, when her outstretched hands +clasped something--a substantial figure, distinctly human, clad in +rough cloth. + +Before she had time to think who it was she had captured, a pair of +strong arms clasped her; she was drawn to a broad chest; she felt a +heart beating strong and fast against her shoulder, while lips that +seemed too familiar to offend kissed hers with all the passion of a +lover's kiss. + +"Don't be angry," said a well-known voice; "I believe it's the rule of +the game. If it isn't I'm sure it ought to be." + +A hand, at once strong and gentle, took off the handkerchief, and in +the soft woodland twilight she looked up at Roderick Vawdrey's face, +looking down upon her with an expression which she presumed must mean a +brotherly friendliness--the delight of an old friend at seeing her +after a long interval. + +She was not the less angry at that outrageous unwarrantable kiss. + +"It is not the rule of the game amongst civilised people; though it +possibly may be among plough-boys and servant-maids!" she exclaimed +indignantly. "You are really a most ungentlemanlike person! I wonder +Lady Mabel Ashbourne has not taught you better manners." + +"Is that to be my only reward for saving you from plunging--at least +ankle-deep--in the marshy ground yonder? But for me you would have been +performing a boggy version of Ophelia by this time." + +"How did you come here?" + +"I have been to Langley Brook for a day's fly-fishing, and was tramping +home across country in a savage humour at my poor sport, when I heard +the chatter of small voices, and presently came upon the Scobels and +the school-children. The juveniles were in a state of alarm at having +lost you. They had been playing the game in severe silence, and at a +turn in the grove missed you altogether. Oh, here comes Scobel, with +his trencher on the back of his head." + +The Vicar came forward, rejoicing at sight of Violet's white gown. + +"My dear, what a turn you have given us!" he cried; "those silly +children, to let you out of their sight! I don't think a wood is a good +place for Blindman's Buff." + +"No more do I," answered Vixen, very pale. + +"You look as if you had been frightened, too," said the Vicar. + +"It did feel awfully lonely; not a sound, except the frogs croaking +their vespers, and one dismal owl screaming in the distance. And how +cold it has turned now the sun has gone down; and how ghostly the +beeches look in their green mantles; there is something awful in a wood +at sunset." + +She ran on in an excited tone, masking her agitation under an unnatural +vivacity. Roderick watched her keenly. Mr. and Mrs. Scobel went back to +their business of getting the children together, and the pots, pans, and +baskets packed for the return-journey. The children were inclined to be +noisy and insubordinate. They would have liked to make a night of it in +this woody hollow, or in the gorse-clothed heights up yonder by Stony +Cross. To go home after such a festival, and be herded in small stuffy +cottages, was doubtless trying to free-born humanity, always more or +less envious of the gipsies. + +"Shall we walk up the hill together?" Roderick asked Violet humbly, +"while the Scobels follow with their flock?" + +"I am going to drive Mr. and Mrs. Scobel," replied Vixen curtly. + +"But where is your carriage?" + +"I don t know. I rather think it was to meet us at the top of the hill." + +"Then let us go up together and find it--unless you hate me too much to +endure my company for a quarter of an hour--or are too angry with me +for my impertinence just now." + +"It is not worth being serious about," answered Vixen quietly, after a +little pause. "I was very angry at the moment, but after all--between +you and me--who were like brother and sister a few years ago, it can't +matter very much. I daresay you may have kissed me in those days, +though I have forgotten all about it." + +"I think I did--once or twice," admitted Rorie with laudable gravity. + +"Then let your impertinence just now go down to the old account, which +we will close, if you please, to-night. But," seeing him drawing nearer +her with a sudden eagerness, "mind, it is never to be repeated. I could +not forgive that." + +"I would do much to escape your anger," said Rorie softly. + +"The whole situation just now was too ridiculous," pursued Vixen, with +a spurious hilarity. "A young woman wandering blindfold in a wood all +alone--it must have seemed very absurd." + +"It seemed very far from absurd--to me," said Rorie. + +They were going slowly up the grassy hill, the short scanty herbage +looking gray in the dimness. Glow-worms were beginning to shine here +and there at the foot of the furze-bushes. A pale moon was rising above +the broad expanse of wood and valley, which sank with gentle +undulations to the distant plains, where the young corn was growing and +the cattle were grazing in a sober agricultural district. Here all was +wild and beautiful--rich, yet barren. + +"I'm afraid when we met last--at Lady Southminster's ball--that I +forgot to congratulate you upon your engagement to your cousin," said +Violet by-and-by, when they had walked a little way in perfect silence. + +She was trying to carry out an old determination. She had always meant +to go up to him frankly, with outstretched hand, and wish him joy. And +she fancied that at the ball she had said too little. She had not let +him understand that she was really glad. "Believe me, I am very glad +that you should marry someone close at home--that you should widen your +influence among us." + +"You are very kind," answered Rorie, with exceeding coldness. "I +suppose all such engagements are subjects for congratulation, from a +conventional point of view. My future wife is both amiable and +accomplished, as you know. I have reason to be very proud that she has +done me so great an honour as to prefer me to many worthier suitors; +but I am bound to tell you--as we once before spoke of this subject, at +the time of your dear father's death, and I then expressed myself +somewhat strongly--I am bound to tell you that my engagement to Mabel +was made to please my poor mother. It was when we were all in Italy +together. My mother was dying. Mabel's goodness and devotion to her had +been beyond all praise; and my heart was drawn to her by affection, by +gratitude; and I knew that it would make poor mother happy to see us +irrevocably bound to each other--and so--the thing came about somehow, +almost unawares, and I have every reason to be proud and happy that +fate should have favoured me so far above my deserts." + +"I am very glad that you are happy," said Violet gently. + +After this there was a silence which lasted longer than the previous +interval in their talk. They were at the top of the ill before either +of them spoke. + +Then Vixen laid her hand lightly upon her old playfellow's arm, and +said, with extreme earnestness: + +"You will go into Parliament by-and-by, no doubt, and have great +influence. Do not let them spoil the Forest. Do not let horrid +grinding-down economists, for the sake of saving a few pounds or +gaining a few pounds, alter and destroy scenes that are so beautiful +and a delight to so many. England is a rich country, is she not? Surely +she can afford to keep something for her painters and her poets, and +even for the humble holiday-folks who come to drink tea at Rufus's +stone. Don't let our Forest be altered, Rorie. Let all things be as +they were when we were children." + +"All that my voice and influence can do to keep them so shall be done, +Violet," he answered in tones as earnest. "I am glad that you have +asked me something to-night. I am glad, with all my heart, that you +have given me something to do for you. It shall be like a badge in my +helmet, by-and-by, when I enter the lists. I think I shall say: 'For +God and for Violet,' when I run a tilt against the economic devastators +who want to clear our woods and cut off our commoners." + +He bent down and kissed her hand, as in token of knightly allegiance. +He had just time to do it comfortably before Mr. and Mrs. Scobel, with +the children and their master and mistress, came marching up the hill, +singing, with shrill glad voices, one of the harvest-home processional +hymns. + + + "All good gifts around us + Are sent from heaven above, + Then thank the Lord, oh thank the Lord, + For all His love." + + +"What a delicious night!" cried Mr. Scobel. "I think we ought all to +walk home. It would be much nicer than being driven." + +This he said with a lively recollection of Titmouse's performances on +the journey out, and a lurking dread that he might behave a little +worse on the journey home. A lively animal of that kind, going home to +his stable, through the uncertain lights and shadows of woodland roads, +and driven by such a charioteer as Violet Tempest, was not to be +thought of without a shudder. + +"I think I had better walk, in any case," said Mr. Scobel thoughtfully. +"I shall be wanted to keep the children together." + +"Let us all walk home," suggested Roderick. "We can go through the +plantations. It will be very jolly in the moonlight. Bates can drive +your pony back, Violet." + +Vixen hesitated. + +"It's not more than four miles through the plantations," said Roderick. + +"Do you think I am afraid of a long walk?" + +"Of course not. You were a modern Atalanta three years ago. I don't +suppose a winter in Paris and a season at Brighton have quite spoiled +you." + +"It shall be as you like, Mrs. Scobel," said Vixen, appealing to the +Vicar's wife. + +"Oh, let us walk by all means," replied Mrs. Scobel, divining her +husband's feelings with respect to Titmouse. + +"Then, you may drive the pony home, Bates," said Violet; "and be sure +you give him a good supper." + +Titmouse went rattling down the hill at a pace that almost justified +the Vicar's objection to him. He gave a desperate shy in the hollow at +sight of a shaggy donkey, with a swollen appearance about the head, +suggestive, to the equine mind, of hobgoblins. Convulsed at this +appalling spectre, Titmouse stood on end for a second or two, and then +tore violently off, swinging his carriage behind him, so that the +groom's figure swayed to and fro in the moonlight. + +"Thank God we're not sitting behind that brute!" ejaculated the Vicar +devoutly. + +The pedestrians went off in the other direction, along the brow of the +hill, by a long white road that crossed a wide sweep of heathy country, +brown ridges and dark hollows, distant groups of firs standing black +against the moonlit sky, here and there a solitary yew that looked as +if it were haunted--just such a landscape as that Scottish heath upon +which Macbeth met the three weird women at set of sun, when the battle +was lost and won. Vixen and Rorie led the way; the procession of +school-children followed, singing hymns as they went with a vocal power +that gave no token of diminution. + +"Their singing is very melodious when the sharp edge is taken off by +distance," said Rorie; and he and Violet walked at a pace which soon +left the children a good way behind them. + +Mellowed by a quarter of a mile or so of interesting space, the music +lent a charm to the tranquil, perfumed night. + +By-and-by they came to the gate of an enclosure which covered a large +extent of ground, and through which there was a near way to Beechdale +and the Abbey House. They walked along a grassy track through a +plantation of young pines--a track which led them down into a green and +mossy bottom, where the trees were old and beautiful, and the shadows +fell darker. The tall beech-trunks shone like silver, or like wonderful +frozen trees in some region of eternal ice and snow. It was a +wilderness in which a stranger would incontinently lose himself; but +every foot of the way was familiar to Vixen and Rorie. They had +followed the hounds by these green ways, and ridden and rambled here in +all seasons. + +For some time they walked almost in silence, enjoying the beauty of the +night, the stillness only broken by the distant chorus of children +singing their pious strains--old hymn-tunes that Violet had known and +loved all her life. + +"Doesn't it almost seem as if our old childish days had come back?" +said Roderick by-and-by. "Don't you feel as if you were a little girl +again, Vixen, going for a ramble with me--fern-hunting or +primrose-gathering?" + +"No," answered Vixen firmly. "Nothing can ever bring the past back for +me. I shall never forget that I had a father--the best and dearest--and +that I have lost him." + +"Dear Violet," Roderick began, very gently, "life cannot be made up of +mourning for the dead. We may keep their images enshrined in our hearts +for ever, but we must not shut our youth from the sunshine. Think how +few years of youth God gives us; and if we waste those upon vain +sorrow----" + +"No one can say that I have wasted my youth, or shut myself from the +sunshine. I go to kettle-drums and dancing-parties. My mother and I +have taken pains to let the world see how happy we can be without papa." + +"The dear old Squire!" said Rorie tenderly; "I think he loved me." + +"I am sure he did," answered Vixen. + +"Well, you and I seem to have entered upon a new life since last we +rode through these woods together. I daresay you are right, and that it +is not possible to fancy oneself back in the past, even for a moment. +Consciousness of the present hangs so heavily upon us." + +"Yes," assented Vixen. + +They had come to the end of the enclosure, and stood leaning against a +gate, waiting for the arrival of the children. + +"And after all, perhaps, it is better to live in the present, and look +back at the past, as at an old picture which we shall sooner or later +turn with its face to the wall." + +"I like best to think of my old self as if it were someone else," said +Violet. "I know there was a little girl whom her father called Vixen, +who used to ride after the hounds, and roam about the Forest on her +pony; and who was herself almost as wild as the Forest ponies. But I +can't associate her with this present me," concluded Violet, pointing +to herself with a half-scornful gesture. + +"And which is the better, do you think," asked Rorie, "the wild Violet +of the past, or the elegant exotic of the present?" + +"I know which was the happier." + +"Ah," sighed Rorie, "happiness is a habit we outgrow when we get out of +our teens. But you, at nineteen, ought to have a year or so to the +good." + +The children came in sight, tramping along the rutty green walk, +singing lustily, Mr. Scobel walking at their head, and swinging his +stick in time with the tuneful choir. + + + "He only is the Maker + Of all things near and far; + He paints the wayside flower, + He lights the evening star." + + +END OF VOL. I. + + +PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. + + + + +Transcriber's note: Typographical errors silently corrected: + +volume 1 =XI. "It shall be Measure for Measure= replaced by + =XI. "It shall be Measure for Measure"= + +volume 1 chapter 1: =trainante= replaced by =trainante= + +volume 1 chapter 4: =I I shan't be for two years= replaced by + =I shan't be for two years= + +volume 1 chapter 12: =with the orchid?= replaced by + =with the orchid.= + +volume 1 chapter 12: =hade made him sleepy= replaced by + =had made him sleepy= + +volume 1 chapter 13: =cat species.= replaced by cat =species."= + +volume 1 chapter 15: =Les Traineaux= replaced by =Les Traineaux= + +volume 1 chapter 17: =children together.= replaced by + =children together."= + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vixen, Volume I., by M. E. Braddon + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIXEN, VOLUME I. *** + +***** This file should be named 26236.txt or 26236.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/2/3/26236/ + +Produced by Daniel Fromont. 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