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.