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."