Rorie objects to Duets.
Mrs. Winstanley's little dinner went off smoothly and pleasantly, as
all such entertainments had done under the new _régime_. The Captain
knew how to select his guests, as well as he knew how to compose a
_menu_. People felt pleased with themselves and with their neighbours
at his table. There was nothing heavy in the dinner or in the
conversation; there were no long sittings over old port or particular
claret. The wines were of the first quality; but there was no fuss made
about them. Colonel Carteret remembered how he and the Squire had sat
prosing over their port or Château Lafitte, and felt as if he were
living in a new world--a world in which full-blooded friendship and
boisterous hospitality were out of fashion. People whose talk had
hitherto been intensely local--confined, for the most part to petty
sessions, commoners' rights, hunting, and the parish church and
schools--found themselves discussing the widest range of topics, from
the prospect of a European war--that European war which has been
impending more or less distinctly for the last twenty years--to the
latest social scandal in the upper currents of London society. Captain
and Mrs. Winstanley's country friends, inspired by one or two clever
young men just imported from the London clubs, were surprised to
discover how well they were able to criticise the latest productions in
literature, art, and the drama; the newest results of scientific
investigation; or the last record of African or Central Asian
exploration. It was quite delightful to quiet country people, who went
to London on an average once in three years, to find themselves talking
so easily about the last famous picture, the latest action for libel in
artistic circles, or the promised adaptation of Sardou's last comedy at
a West End theatre, just as glibly as if they knew all about art, and
had read every play of Sardou's.
Roderick Vawdrey enjoyed himself wonderfully at this particular
dinner-party, so long as the dinner lasted; for Captain Winstanley, by
an oversight which made him inwardly savage all dinner-time, had placed
Mr. Vawdrey and Miss Tempest side by side. There had been some
confusion in his mind as he finished his plan of the table; his
attention having been called away at the last moment, or this thing
could not have happened--for nothing was farther from Captain
Winstanley's intention than that Violet and her old playfellow should
be happy in each other's society. And there they sat, smiling and
sparkling at each other in the exuberance of youth and high spirits,
interchanging little confidential remarks that were doubtless to the
disparagement of some person or persons in the assembly. If dark
electric glances shot from the covert of bent brows could have slain
those two happy triflers, assuredly neither of them would have lived to
the end of that dinner.
"How do you like him?" asked Rorie, stooping to sniff at the big
Maréchal Niel bud, in the specimen glass by his plate.
"Whom?"
"The man who has Bullfinch."
Lord Mallow was in the place of honour next his hostess. Involuntarily
Violet glanced in that direction, and was startled to find the
Irishman's good-humoured gaze meeting hers, just as if he had been
watching her for the last half-hour.
"How do I like him? Well, he seems very good-natured."
"Seems good-natured. You ought to be able to give me a more definite
answer by this time. You have lived in the same house with him--let me
see, is it three or four days since he came?"
"He has been here nearly a week."
"A week! Why then you must know him as well as if he were your brother.
There is no man living who could keep himself dark for a week. No; I
don't believe the most inscrutable of men, born and bred in diplomatic
circles, could keep the secret of a solitary failing from the eyes of
those who live under the same roof with him for seven days. It would
leak out somehow--if not at breakfast, at dinner. Man is a
communicative animal, and so loves talking of himself that if he has
committed murder he must tell somebody about it sooner or later. And as
to that man," continued Rorie, with a contemptuous glance at the
single-minded Lord Mallow, "he is a creature whom the merest beginner
in the study of humanity would know by heart in half-an-hour."
"What do you know about him?" asked Vixen laughing. "You have had more
than half-an-hour for the study of his character."
"I know ever so much more than I want to know."
"Answered like a Greek oracle."
"What, have you taken to reading Greek?"
"No; but I know the oracles were a provoking set of creatures who
answered every inquiry with an enigma. But I won't have you abuse Lord
Mallow. He has been very kind to Bullfinch, and has promised me that he
will never part with him. The dear old horse is to have a comfortable
stable and kindly treatment to his dying day--not to be sent out to
grass in his old age, to shiver in a dreary solitude, or to be scorched
by the sun and tormented by the flies."
"He has promised all that, has he? He would promise a good deal more, I
daresay," muttered Rorie, stooping over his rosebud. "Do you think him
handsome? Do women admire a fresh complexion and black whiskers, and
that unmistakable air of a hairdresser's wax model endowed with
animation?"
"I see you consider him an idiot," said Vixen laughing. "But I assure
you he is rather clever. He talks wonderfully about Ireland, and the
reforms he is going to bring about for her."
"Of course. Burke, and Curran, and Castlereagh, and O'Connell, and
fifty more have failed to steer that lumbering old vessel off the
mudbank on which she stranded at some time in the dark ages; in fact,
nobody except Oliver Cromwell ever did understand how to make Ireland
prosperous and respectable, and he began by depopulating her. And here
is a fresh-coloured young man, with whiskers _à la côtelette de
mouton_, who thinks he was born to be her pilot, and to navigate her
into a peaceful haven. He is the sort of man who will begin by being
the idol of a happy tenantry, and end by being shot from behind one of
his own hedges."
"I hope not," said Vixen, "for I am sure he means well. And I should
like him to outlive Bullfinch."
Roderick had been very happy all dinner-time. From the soups to the
ice-puddings the moments had flown for him. It seemed the briefest
dinner he had ever been at; and yet when the ladies rose to depart the
silvery chime of the clock struck the half-hour after nine. But Lord
Mallow's hour came later, in the drawing-room, where he contrived to
hover over Violet, and fence her round from all other admirers for the
rest of the evening. They sang their favourite duets together, to the
delight of everyone except Rorie, who felt curiously savage at "I would
that my love," and icily disapproving at "Greeting;" but vindictive to
the verge of homicidal mania at "Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast!"
"His 'plaidie,' indeed," he ejaculated inwardly. "The creature never
possessed anything so comfortable or civilised. How preposterous it is
to hear an Irishman sing Scotch songs. If an Irishman had a plaidie, he
would pawn it for a dhrop o' the cratur."
Later Violet and Lord Mallow sang a little duet by Masini, "_O, que la
mer est belle!_" the daintiest, most bewitching music--such a melody as
the Loreley might have sung when the Rhine flowed peacefully onward
below mountain-peaks shining in the evening light, luring foolish
fishermen to their doom. Everybody was delighted. It was just the kind
of music to please the unlearned in the art. Mrs. Carteret came to the
piano to compliment Violet.
"I had no idea you could sing so sweetly," she said. "Why have you
never sung to us before?"
"Nobody ever asked me," Vixen answered frankly. "But indeed I am no
singer."
"You have one of the freshest, brightest voices I ever had the
happiness of hearing," Lord Mallow exclaimed enthusiastically.
He would have liked to go on singing duets for an indefinite period. He
felt lifted into some strange and delightful region--a sphere of love
and harmony--while he was mingling his voice with Violet's. It made the
popular idea of heaven, as a place where there is nothing but
singing--an eternal, untiring choir--clearer and more possible to him
than it had ever seemed before. Paradise would be quite endurable if he
and Violet might stand side by side in the serried ranks of choristers.
There was quite a little crowd round the piano, shutting in Violet and
Lord Hallow, and Roderick Vawdrey was not in it. He felt himself
excluded, and held himself gloomingly apart, talking hunting talk with
a man for whom he did not care twopence. Directly his carriage was
announced--_sotto voce_ by the considerate Forbes, so as not to wound
anybody's feelings by the suggestion that the festivity was on its last
legs--Mr. Vawdrey went up to Mrs. Winstanley and took leave. He would
not wait to say good-night to Violet. He only cast one glance in the
direction of the piano, where the noble breadth of Mrs. Carteret's
brocaded amber back obscured every remoter object, and then went away
moodily, denouncing duet-singing as an abomination.
When Lady Mabel asked him next day what kind of an evening he had had
at the Abbey House, in a tone which implied that any entertainment
there must be on a distinctly lower level as compared with the
hospitalities of Ashbourne, he told her that it had been uncommonly
slow.
"How was that? You had some stupid person to take into dinner, perhaps?"
"No; I went in with Violet."
"And you and she are such old friends. You ought to get on very well
together."
Rorie reddened furiously. Happily he was standing with his back to the
light in one of the orchid-houses, enjoying the drowsy warmth of the
atmosphere, and Mabel was engrossed with the contemplation of a fine
zygopetalum, which was just making up its mind to bloom.
"Oh, yes, that was well enough; but the evening was disgustingly slow.
There was too much music."
"Classical?"
"Lord knows. It was mostly French and German. I consider it an insult
to people to ask them to your house, and then stick them down in their
chairs, and say h--sh--h! every time they open their months. If people
want to give amateur concerts, let them say so when they send out their
invitations, and then one would know what one has to expect."
"I am afraid the music must have been very bad to make you so cross,"
said Lady Mabel, rather pleased that the evening at the Abbey House
should have been a failure. "Who were the performers?"
"Violet, and an Irish friend of Captain Winstanley's--a man with a rosy
complexion and black whiskers--Lord Mallow."
"Lord Mallow! I think I danced with him once or twice last season. He
is rather distinguished as a politician, I believe, among the young
Ireland party. Dreadfully radical."
"He looks it," answered Rorie. "He has a loud voice and a loud laugh,
and they seem to be making a great deal of him at the Abbey House."
"'Tommy loves a lord,'" says Lady Mabel brightly. Rorie hadn't the
faintest idea whence the quotation came. "I daresay the Winstanleys are
rather glad to have Lord Mallow staying with them."
"The Squire would have kicked him out of doors," muttered Rorie
savagely.
"But why? Is he so very objectionable? He waltzes beautifully, if I
remember right; and I thought him rather a well-meaning young man."
"Oh, there's nothing serious against him that I know of; only I don't
think Squire Tempest would have liked a singing man any more than he
would have liked a singing mouse."
"I didn't know Miss Tempest sang," said Lady Mabel. "I thought she
could do nothing but ride."
"Oh, she has a very pretty voice, but one may have too much of a good
thing, you know. One doesn't go out to dinner to hear people sing
duets."
"I'm afraid they must have given you a very bad dinner, or you would
hardly be so cross. I know that is the way with papa. If the dinner is
bad he abuses everything, and declares the ladies were all ugly."
"Oh, the dinner was excellent, I believe. I'm not a connoisseur, like
my uncle. People might give me the most wonderful dinner in the world,
and I would hardly be the wiser; or they might give me a wretched one,
and I should not feel particularly angry with them."
The next day was Tuesday, and, as the Duchess and her daughter happened
to be driving within a mile or so of the Abbey House, Lady Mabel
suggested that they should call upon Mrs. Winstanley.
"I am rather anxious to see the wild Irishman they have captured
lately--Lord Mallow. We met him at Lady Dumdrum's, if you remember,
mamma. I danced with him twice."
"My dear Mabel, do you think I can remember all your partners?"
"But Lord Mallow is rather celebrated. He makes very good speeches.
Papa read one of them to us the other day when there was a great debate
going on upon the Irish land question."
The Duchess remembered being read to one evening after dinner, but the
debates, as delivered by the Duke, had generally a somnolent effect
upon his wife. She had a faint idea of the beginning, and struggled
heroically to discover what the speakers were talking about; then came
a soft confusion of sound, like the falling of waters; and the middle
and end of the debate was dreamland. Lady Mabel was of a more energetic
temper, and was interested in everything that could enlarge her sphere
of knowledge, from a parliamentary debate to a Greek play.
The Duchess had never in her life refused compliance with any wish of
her daughter's, so the horses' heads were turned towards the Abbey
House, along a smooth hard road through a pine wood, then through a
lodge-gate into a forest of rhododendrons.
"This is really a nicer place than Ashbourne, mamma," remarked Lady
Mabel disapprovingly.
It appeared to her quite a mistake in the arrangement of the universe
that Violet Tempest should be heiress to a more picturesque estate than
that which she, the Duke of Dovedale's only daughter, was to inherit.
"My dear, Ashbourne is perfect. Everyone says so. The stables, the
offices, the way the house is lighted and heated, the ventilation."
"Yes, mamma; but those are details which nobody thinks about except an
architect or a house-agent. Ashbourne is so revoltingly modern. It
smells of stucco. It will take a century to tone it down. Now this fine
old place is like a dream of the past; it is a poem in wood and stone.
Ashbourne would be very well for a hunting-box for anyone who had three
or four other places, as my father has; but when my time comes, and I
have only Ashbourne, I'm afraid I shall hate it."
"But you will have a choice of places by-and-by," said the Duchess
consolingly "You will have Briarwood."
"Briarwood is a degree uglier than Ashbourne," sighed Lady Mabel,
leaning back in the carriage, wrapped to the chin in Russian sable, the
image of discontent.
There are moments in every life, as in Solomon's, when all seems
vanity. Lady Mabel Ashbourne's life had been cloudless--a continual
summer, an unchangeable Italian sky; and yet there were times when she
was weary of it, when some voice within her murmured, "This is not
enough." She was pretty, she was graceful, accomplished, gifted with a
self-confidence that generally passed for wit; all the blood in her
veins was the bluest of the blue, everybody bowed down to her, more or
less, and paid her homage; the man she liked best in the world, and had
so preferred from her childhood, was to be her husband; nobody had ever
contradicted her, or hinted that she was less than perfect; and yet
that mysterious and rebellious voice sometimes repeated, "It is not
enough." She was like the woman in the German fairy tale, who,
beginning as the wife of a half-starved fisherman, came, by fairy
power, to be king, and then emperor, and then pope: and still was not
contented, but languished for something more, aye, even to have the
ordering of the sun and moon.
The rebellious voice expostulated loudly this winter afternoon, as Lady
Mabel's languid eyes scanned the dark shining rhododendron bushes,
rising bank above bank, a veritable jungle, backed by tall beeches and
towerlike Douglas firs. A blackbird was whistling joyously amongst the
greenery, and a robin was singing on the other side of the drive. The
sunlit sky was soft and pearly. It was one of those mild winters in
which Christmas steals unawares upon the footprints of a lovely autumn.
The legendary oak was doubtless in full bud at Cadenham, like its
miraculous brother, the Glastonbury thorn.
"I don't think any of my father's places can compare with this," Lady
Mabel said irritably.
She would not have minded the beauty of the grounds so much had they
been the heritage of any other heiress than Violet Tempest.
The old hall was full of people and voices when the Duchess and her
daughter were announced. There was a momentary hush at their entrance,
as at the advent of someone of importance, and Mrs. Winstanley came
smiling out of the firelight to welcome them, in Theodore's last
invention, which was a kind of skirt that necessitated a peculiar
gliding motion in the wearer, and was built upon the lines of a
mermaid's tail.
"How good of you!" exclaimed Mrs. Winstanley.
"We were coming through Lyndhurst, and could not resist the temptation
of coming in to see you," said the Duchess graciously. "How do you do,
Miss Tempest? Were you out with the hounds this morning? We met some
people riding home."
"I have never hunted since my father's death," Violet answered gravely;
and the Duchess was charmed with the answer and the seriously tender
look that accompanied it.
Lord Mallow was standing before the hearth, looking remarkably handsome
in full hunting costume. The well-worn scarlet coat and high black
boots became him. He had enjoyed his first day with the Forest hounds,
had escaped the bogs, and had avoided making an Absalom of himself
among the spreading beechen boughs. Bullfinch had behaved superbly over
his old ground.
Mr. and Mrs. Scobel were among those dusky figures grouped around the
wide firelit hearth, where the piled-up logs testified to the Tempest
common of estovers. Mr. Scobel was talking about the last advance
movement of the Ritualists, and expatiating learnedly upon the
Ornaments Rubric of 1559, and its bearing upon the Advertisements of
1566, with a great deal more about King Edward's first Prayer-book, and
the Act of Uniformity, to Colonel Carteret, who, from an antique
conservative standpoint, regarded Ritualists, Spirit-rappers, and
Shakers in about the same category; while Mrs. Scobel twittered
cheerily about the parish and the schools to the Colonel's bulky wife,
who was a liberal patroness of all philanthropic institutions in her
neighbourhood.
Lord Mallow came eagerly forward to recall himself to the memories of
Lady Mabel and her mother.
"I hope your grace has not forgotten me," he said; and the Duchess, who
had not the faintest recollection of his face or figure, knew that this
must be Lord Mallow. "I had the honour of being introduced to you at
Lady Dumdrum's delightful ball."
The Duchess said something gracious, and left Lord Mallow free to talk
to Lady Mabel. He reminded her of that never to be, by him, forgotten
waltz, and talked, in his low-pitched Irish voice, as if he had lived
upon nothing but the recollection of it ever since.
It was idiosyncratic of Lord Mallow that he could not talk to any young
woman without seeming to adore her. At this very moment he thought
Violet Tempest the one lovable and soul-entrancing woman the world held
for him; yet at sight of Lady Mabel he behaved as if she and no other
was his one particular star.
"It was a nice dance, wasn't it? but there were too many people for the
rooms," said Lady Mabel easily; "and I don't think the flowers were so
prettily arranged as the year before. Do you?"
"I was not there the year before."
"No? I must confess to having been at three balls at Lady Dumdrum's.
That makes me seem very old, does it not? Some young ladies in London
make believe to be always in their first season. They put on a
hoydenish freshness, and pretend to be delighted with everything, as if
they were just out of the nursery."
"That's a very good idea up to thirty," said Lord Mallow. "I should
think it would hardly answer after."
"Oh, after thirty they begin to be fond of horses and take to betting.
I believe young ladies after thirty are the most desperate--what is
that dreadful slang word?--plungers in society. How do you like our
hunting?"
"I like riding about the Forest amazingly; but I should hardly call it
hunting, after Leicestershire. Of course that depends in a measure upon
what you mean by hunting. If you only mean hounds pottering about after
a fox, this might pass muster; but if your idea of hunting includes
hard riding and five-barred gates, I should call the kind of thing you
do here by another name."
"Was my cousin, Mr. Vawdrey, out to-day?"
"The M. F. H.? In the first flight. May I get you some tea?"
"If you please. Mrs. Winstanley's tea is always so good."
Mrs. Winstanley was supremely happy in officiating at her gipsy table,
where the silver tea-kettle of Queen Anne's time was going through its
usual sputtering performances. To sit in a fashionable gown--however
difficult the gown might be to sit in--and dispense tea to a local
duchess, was Mrs. Winstanley's loftiest idea of earthly happiness. Of
course there might be a superior kind of happiness beyond earth; but to
appreciate that the weak human soul would have to go through a
troublesome ordeal in the way of preparation, as the gray cloth at
Hoyle's printing-works is dashed about in gigantic vats, and whirled
round upon mighty wheels, before it is ready for the reception of
particular patterns and dyes.
Lady Mabel and Lord Mallow had a longish chat in the deep-set window
where Vixen watched for Rorie on his twenty-first birthday. The
conversation came round to Irish politics somehow, and Lord Mallow was
enraptured at discovering that Lady Mabel had read his speeches, or had
heard them read. He had met many young ladies who professed to be
interested in his Irish politics; but never before had he encountered
one who seemed to know what she was talking about. Lord Mallow was
enchanted. He had found his host's lively step-daughter stonily
indifferent to the Hibernian cause. She had said "Poor things" once or
twice, when he dilated on the wrongs of an oppressed people; but her
ideas upon all Hibernian subjects were narrow. She seemed to imagine
Ireland a vast expanse of bog chiefly inhabited by pigs.
"There are mountains, are there not?" she remarked once; "and tourists
go there? But people don't live there, do they?'
"My dear Miss Tempest, there are charming country seats; if you were to
see the outskirts of Waterford, or the hills above Cork, you would find
almost as many fine mansions as in England."
"Really?" exclaimed Vixen, with most bewitching incredulity; "but
people don't live in them? Now I'm sure you cannot tell me honestly
that anyone lives in Ireland. You, for instance, you talk most
enthusiastically about your beautiful country, but you don't live in
it."
"I go there every year for the fishing."
"Yes; but gentlemen will go to the most uncomfortable places for
fishing--Norway, for example. You go to Ireland just as you go to
Norway."
"I admit that the fishing in Connemara is rather remote from
civilisation----"
"Of course. It is at the other end of everything. And then you go into
the House of Commons, and rave about Ireland, just as if you loved her
as I love the Forest, where I hope to live and die. I think all this
wild enthusiasm about Ireland is the silliest thing in the world when
it comes from the lips of landowners who won't pay their beloved
country the compliment of six months' residence out of the twelve."
After this Lord Mallow gave up all hope of sympathy from Miss Tempest.
What could be expected from a young lady who could not understand
patriotism in the abstract, but wanted to pin a man down for life to
the spot of ground for which his soul burned with the ardour of an
orator and a poet? Imagine Tom Moore compelled to live in a humble cot
in the Vale of Avoca! He infinitely preferred his humdrum cottage in
Wiltshire. Indeed, I believe it has been proved against him that he had
never seen the Meeting of the Waters, and wrote about that famous scene
from hearsay. Ireland has never had a poet as Irish as Burns and Scott
were Scottish. Her whole-hearted, single-minded national bard has yet
to be born.
It was a relief, therefore, to Lord Mallow's active mind to find
himself in conversation with a young lady who really cared for his
subject and understood him. He could have talked to Lady Mabel for
ever. The limits of five-o'clock tea were far too narrow. He was
delighted when the Duchess paused as she was going away, and said:
"I hope you will come and see us at Ashbourne, Lord Mallow; the Duke
will be very pleased to know you."
Lord Mallow murmured something expressive of a mild ecstasy, and the
Duchess swept onward, like an Australian clipper with all sails set,
Lady Mabel gliding like a neat little pinnace in her wake.
Lord Mallow was glad when the next day's post brought him a card of
invitation to the ducal dinner on December the 31st. He fancied that he
was indebted to Lady Mabel for this civility.
"You are going, of course," he said to Violet, twisting the card
between his fingers meditatively.
"I believe I am asked."
"She is," answered Mrs. Winstanley, from her seat behind the urn; "and
I consider, under the circumstances, it is extremely kind of the
Duchess to invite her."
"Why?" asked Lord Mallow, intensely mystified.
"Why, the truth is, my dear Lord Mallow, that Violet is in an anomalous
position. She has been to Lady Southminster's ball, and a great many
parties about here. She is out and yet not out, if you understand."
Lord Mallow looked as if he was very far from understanding.
"She has never been presented," explained Mrs. Winstanley. "It is too
dreadful to think of. People would call me the most neglectful of
mothers. But the season before last seemed too soon alter dear Edward's
death, and last season, well"--blushing and hesitating a little--"my
mind was so much occupied, and Violet herself was so indifferent about
it, that somehow or other the time slipped by and the thing was not
done. I feel myself awfully to blame--almost as much so as if I had
neglected her confirmation. But early next season--at the very first
drawing-room, if possible--she must be presented, and then I shall feel
a great deal more comfortable in my mind."
"I don't think it matters one little bit," said Lord Mallow, with
appalling recklessness.
"It would matter immensely if we were travelling. Violet could not be
presented at any foreign court, or invited to any court ball. She would
be an outcast. I shall have to be presented myself, on my marriage with
Captain Winstanley. We shall go to London early in the spring. Conrad
will take a small house in Mayfair."
"If I can get one," said the captain doubtfully. "Small houses in
Mayfair are as hard to get nowadays as black pearls--and as dear."
"I am charmed to think you will be in town," exclaimed Lord Mallow;
"and, perhaps, some night when there is an Irish question on, you and
Miss Tempest might be induced to come to the Ladies' Gallery. Some
ladies rather enjoy a spirited debate."
"I should like it amazingly," cried Violet. "You are awfully rude to
one another, are you not? And you imitate cocks and hens; and do all
manner of dreadful things. It must be capital fun."
This was not at all the kind of appreciation Lord Mallow desired.
"Oh, yes; we are excruciatingly funny sometimes, I daresay, without
knowing it," he said, with a mortified air.
He was getting on the friendliest terms with Violet. He was almost as
much at home with her as Rorie was, except that she never called him by
his christian-name, nor flashed at him those lovely mirth-provoking
glances which he surprised sometimes on their way to Mr. Vawdrey. Those
two had a hundred small jokes and secrets that dated back to Vixen's
childhood. How could a new-comer hope to be on such delightful terms
with her? Lord Mallow felt this, and hated Roderick Vawdrey as
intensely as it was possible for a nature radically good and generous
to hate even a favoured rival. That Roderick was his rival, and was
favoured, were two ideas of which Lord Mallow could not dispossess
himself, notwithstanding the established fact of Mr. Vawdrey's
engagement to his cousin.
"A good many men begin life by being engaged to their cousins,"
reflected Lord Mallow. "A man's relations take it into their heads to
keep an estate in the family, and he is forthwith set at his cousin
like an unwilling terrier at a rat. I don't at all feel as if this
young man were permanently disposed of, in spite of all their talk; and
I'm very sure Miss Tempest likes him better than I should approve of
were I the cousin."
While he loitered over his second cup of coffee, with the ducal card of
invitation in his hand, it seemed to him a good opportunity for talking
about Lady Mabel.
"A very elegant girl, Lady Mabel," he said; "and remarkably clever. I
never talked to a young woman, or an old one either, who knew so much
about Ireland. She's engaged to that gawky cousin, isn't she?"
Vixen shot an indignant look at him, and pouted her rosy underlip.
"You mean young Vawdrey. Yes; it is quite an old engagement. They were
affianced to each other in their cradles, I believe," answered Captain
Winstanley.
"Just what I should have imagined," said Lord Mallow.
"Why?"
"Because they seem to care so little for each other now."
"Oh but, dear Lord Mallow, remember Lady Mabel Ashbourne is too
well-bred to go about the world advertising her affection for her
future husband," remonstrated Mrs. Winstanley. "I'm sure, if you had
seen us before our marriage, you would never have guessed from our
manner to each other that Conrad and I were engaged. You would not have
a lady behave like a housemaid with her 'young man.' I believe in that
class of life they always sit with their arms round each other's waists
at evening parties."
"I would have a lady show that she has a heart, and is not ashamed to
acknowledge its master," said Lord Mallow, with his eyes on Vixen, who
sat stolidly silent, pale with anger. "However, we will put down Lady
Mabel's seeming coldness to good-breeding. But as to Mr. Vawdrey, all I
can say about him is, that he may be in love with his cousin's estate,
but he is certainly not in love with his cousin."
This was more than Vixen could brook.
"Mr. Vawdrey is a gentleman, with a fine estate of his own!" she cried.
"How dare you impute such meanness to him?"
"It may be mean, but it is the commonest thing in life."
"Yes, among adventurers who have no other road to fortune than by
marrying for money; but do you suppose it can matter to Roderick
whether he has a thousand acres less or more, or two houses instead of
one? He is going to marry Lady Mabel because it was the dearest wish of
his mother's heart, and because she is perfect, and proper, and
accomplished, and wonderfully clever--you said as much yourself--and
exactly the kind of wife that a young man would be proud of. There are
reasons enough, I should hope," concluded Vixen indignantly.
She had spoken breathlessly, in gasps of a few words at a time, and her
eyes flashed their angriest light upon the astounded Irishman.
"Not half a reason if he does not love her," he answered boldly. "But I
believe young Englishmen of the present day marry for reason and not
for love. Cupid has been cashiered in favour of Minerva. Foolish
marriages are out of fashion. Nobody ever thinks of love in a cottage.
First, there are no more cottages; and secondly, there is no more love."
Christmas was close at hand: a trying time for Vixen, who remembered
the jolly old Christmas of days gone by, when the poor from all the
surrounding villages came to receive the Squire's lavish bounty, and
not even the tramp or the cadger was sent empty-handed away. Under the
new master all was done by line and rule. The distribution of coals and
blankets took place down in Beechdale under Mr. and Mrs. Scobel's
management. Vixen went about from cottage to cottage, in the wintry
dusk, giving her small offerings out of her scanty allowance of
pocket-money, which Captain Winstanley had put at the lowest figure he
decently could.
"What can Violet want with pocket-money?" he asked, when he discussed
the subject with his wife. "Your dressmaker supplies all her gowns, and
bonnets, and hats. You give her gloves--everything. Nobody calls upon
her for anything."
"Her papa always gave her a good deal of money," pleaded Mrs.
Winstanley. "I think she gave it almost all away to the poor."
"Naturally. She went about pauperising honest people because she had
more money than she knew what to do with. Let her have ten pounds a
quarter to buy gloves and eau-de-cologne, writing-paper, and
postage-stamps, and trifles of that kind. She can't do much harm with
that, and it is quite as much as you can afford, since we have both
made up our minds to live within our incomes."
Mrs. Winstanley sighed and assented, as she was wont to do. It seemed
hard that there should be this need of economy, but it was in a manner
Violet's fault that they were all thus restricted, since she was to
take so much, and to reduce her mother almost to penury by-and-by.
"I don't know what would become of me without Conrad's care," thought
the dutiful wife.
Going among her poor this Christmas, with almost empty hands, Violet
Tempest discovered what it was to be really loved. Honest eyes
brightened none the less at her coming, the little children flocked as
fondly to her knee. The changes at the Abbey House were very well
understood. They were all put down to Captain Winstanley's account; and
many a simple heart burned with indignation at the idea that the
Squire's golden-haired daughter was being "put upon."
One bright afternoon in the Christmas holidays Vixen consented, half
reluctantly, to let Lord Mallow accompany her in her visits among the
familiar faces. That was a rare day for the Squire's old pensioners.
The Irishman's pockets were full of half-crowns and florins and
sixpences for the rosy-faced, bare-footed, dirty, happy children.
"It puts me in mind of the old country," he said, when he had made
acquaintance with the interior of half-a-dozen cottages. "The people
seem just as kind and friendly, and improvident, and idle, and
happy-go-lucky as my friends at home. That old Sassenach Forester, now,
that we saw sitting in the winter sun, drinking his noon-day pint, on a
bench outside a rustic beer-shop, looking the very image of rustic
enjoyment--what Irishman could take life more lightly or seem better
pleased with himself? a freeborn child of the sun and wind, ready to
earn his living anyhow, except by the work of his hands. Yes, Miss
Tempest, I feel a national affinity to your children of the Forest. I
wish I were Mr. Vawdrey, and bound to spend my life here."
"Why, what would life be to you if you had not Ould Ireland to fight
for?" cried Vixen, smiling at him.
"Life would be simply perfect for me if I had----"
"What?" asked Vixen, as he came to a sudden stop.
"The dearest wish of my heart. But I dare not tell you what that is yet
awhile."
Vixen felt very sorry she had asked the question. She looked wildly
round for another cottage. They had just done the last habitation in a
straggling village in the heart of the woods. There was nothing human
in sight by which the conversation might be diverted from the
uncomfortable turn it had just taken. Yes; yonder under the beechen
boughs Vixen descried a small child with red legs, like a Jersey
partridge, dragging a smaller child by the arm, ankle-deep in the
sodden leaves. To see them, and to dart across the wet grass towards
them were almost simultaneous.
"Tommy," cried Vixen, seizing the red-legged child, "why do you never
come to the Abbey House?"
"Because Mrs. Trimmer says there's nothing for me," lisped the infant.
"The new master sells the milk up in Lunnun."
"Laudable economy," exclaimed Vixen to Lord Mallow, who had followed
her into the damp woodland and heard the boy's answer. "The poor old
Abbey House can hardly know itself under such admirable management."
"There is as big a house where you might do what you liked; yes, and
give away the cows as well as the milk, if you pleased, and none should
say you nay," said Lord Mallow in a low voice, full of unaffected
tenderness.
"Oh, please don't!" cried Vixen; "don't speak too kindly. I feel
sometimes as if one little kind word too much would make me cry like a
child. It's the last straw, you know, that crushes the camel; and I
hate myself for being so weak and foolish."
After this Vixen walked home as if she had been winning a match, and
Lord Mallow, for his life, dared not say another tender word.
This was their last _tête-à-tête_ for some time. Christmas came with
its festivities, all of a placid and eminently well-bred character, and
then came the last day of the year and the dinner at Ashbourne.