"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.