"That must end at once."
A quarter of an hour later, when all the confusion was over, Violet was
kneeling by her mother's chair, trying to restore tranquillity to Mrs.
Winstanley's fluttered spirits. Mother and daughter were alone together
in the elder lady's dressing-room, the disconsolate Pamela sitting,
like Niobe, amidst her scattered fineries, her pomade-pots and
powder-boxes, fan-cases and jewel-caskets, and all the arsenal of
waning beauty.
"Dear mother," pleaded Violet, with unusual gentleness, "pray don't
give way to this unnecessary grief. You cannot surely believe that I
tried to set this dear old home on fire--that I could be so
foolish--granting even that I were wicked enough to do it--as to
destroy a place I love--the house in which my father was born! You
can't believe such a thing, mother."
"I know that you are making my life miserable," sobbed Mrs. Winstanley,
feebly dabbing her forehead with a flimsy Valenciennes bordered
handkerchief, steeped in eau-de-cologne, "and I am sure Conrad would
not tell a falsehood."
"Perhaps not," said Vixen with a gloomy look. "We will take it for
granted that he is perfection and could not do wrong. But in this case
he is mistaken. I felt quite capable of killing him, but not of setting
fire to this house."
"Oh," wailed Pamela distractedly, "this is too dreadful! To think that
I should have a daughter who confesses herself at heart a murderess."
"Unhappily it is true, mother," said Vixen, moodily contrite. "For just
that one moment of my life I felt a murderous impulse--and from the
impulse to the execution is a very short step. I don't feel myself very
superior to the people who are hanged at Newgate, I assure you."
"What is to become of me?" inquired Mrs. Winstanley in abject
lamentation. "It is too hard that my own daughter should be a source of
misery in my married life, that she should harden her heart against the
best of stepfathers, and try, yes, actually try, to bring discord
between me and the husband I love. I don't know what I have done that I
should be so miserable."
"Dear mother, only be calm and listen to me," urged Violet, who was
very calm herself, with a coldly resolute air which presently obtained
ascendency over her agitated parent. "If I have been the source of
misery, that misery cannot too soon come to an end. I have long felt
that I have no place in this house--that I am one too many in our small
family. I feel now--yes, mamma, I feel and know that the same roof
cannot cover me and Captain Winstanley. He and I can no longer sit at
the same board, or live in the same house. That must end at once."
"What complaint can you have to make against him, Violet?" cried her
mother hysterically, and with a good deal more dabbing of the perfumed
handkerchief upon her fevered brow. "I am sure no father could be
kinder than Conrad would be to you if you would only let him. But you
have set yourself against him from the very first. It seems as if you
grudged me my happiness."
"It shall seem so no longer, mamma. I will cease to be a thorn in your
garland of roses," replied Vixen, with exceeding bitterness. "I will
leave the Abbey House directly any other home can be found for me. If
dear old McCroke would take care of me I should like to go abroad,
somewhere very far, to some strange place, where all things would be
different and new to me," continued Vixen, unconsciously betraying that
aching desire for forgetfulness natural to a wounded heart. "Sweden, or
Norway, for instance. I think I should like to spend a year in one of
those cold strange lands, with good old McCroke for my companion. There
would be nothing to remind me of the Forest," she concluded with a
stifled sob.
"My dear Violet, you have such wild ideas," exclaimed her mother with
an injured air. "It is just as Conrad says. You have no notion of the
proprieties. Sweden or Norway, indeed! Was there ever anything so
outlandish? What would people say, I wonder?"
"Ah, what indeed, mamma. Perhaps, they might for once say what is true:
that I could not get on with Captain Winstanley, and so was forced to
find another home."
"And what a reproach that would be to me," cried her mother. "You are
so selfish, Violet; you think of no one but yourself."
"Perhaps that is because nobody else thinks of me, mother."
"How can you say such abominable things, Violet? Am I not thinking of
you this moment? I am sure I have thought of you this evening until my
head aches. You force one to think about you, when you behave in such a
disgraceful manner."
"What have I done that is disgraceful, mamma? I have ridden out at an
unusual hour to get a place for an old servant--a man who has served in
this house faithfully for forty years. That is what I have done, and I
should not be ashamed if it were known to everybody in Hampshire. Yes,
even to Lady Mabel Ashbourne, that pattern of chilly propriety. The
disgrace is Captain Winstanley's. It is he who ought to be ashamed of
turning off my father and grandfather's old servant. What you have to
be sorry for, mamma, is that you have married a man capable of such an
action."
"How dare you speak against him!" cried the offended wife. "He has done
everything for the best. It was your own foolish conduct that obliged
him to dismiss Bates. To think that a daughter of mine should have so
little self-respect as to go roaming about the Forest with an engaged
man! It is too dreadful."
"You need not make yourself unhappy about the engaged man, mamma," said
Vixen scornfully. "He is out of danger. Rorie and I need never see each
other again. I should be more than content that it should be so. Only
arrange with Captain Winstanley for some allowance to be made me--just
money enough to enable me to live abroad with dear old McCroke. I want
no gaieties, I want no fine dresses, The simplest mode of life, in a
strange country, will suit me best."
"I can't bear the idea of your going away," whimpered Mrs. Winstanley.
"People will talk so. A stepfather's is such a delicate position.
People are sure to say cruel things about Conrad. And it is all your
fault, Violet. We might have lived so happily together if you had
liked."
"We might, perhaps, mamma; but I don't think any of us knew the way.
Captain Winstanley could hardly expect that to sell my father's
favourite horse was the shortest way to my liking; and that's how he
began his reign in this house. Don't let us talk any more, my dear
mother. Words are useless to heal such wounds as ours. Good-night.
Sleep well, and forget all about me. To-morrow you and the Captain can
give me my liberty."
"I thought you were so fond of the Abbey House," moaned her mother.
"So I was when it was home. It has ceased to be my home, and I shall be
glad to leave it."
"Oh, Violet, you have a hard heart."
"Good-night, mamma."
She was gone, leaving Mrs. Winstanley feebly moaning, and vaguely
dabbing her forehead, feeling that the Fates had not been kind to her.
Life seemed to have gone all askew. It was as if Theodore had taken to
sending home misfits. Nothing was smooth or pleasant in an existence
whose halcyon calm had once been undisturbed by so much as a crumpled
rose-leaf.
Vixen went straight to her room, accompanied by Argus, who had followed
her from the hall to the door of her mother's dressing-room, and had
waited patiently for her in the corridor, with his head leaning against
the closed door, as if he scented trouble within.
When girl and dog were alone together, Violet flung herself on the
ground, threw her arms round the mastiff's thick neck, and let her
tears flow freely against that faithful head.
"Oh, Argus," she cried piteously, "you are the only friend left me in
this wide world!"
END OF VOL. II.
Transcriber's note: Typographical errors silently corrected:
volume 2 chapter 11: =sighed Mabel= replaced by
=sighed Lady Mabel=
chapter 12: =We many learn= replaced by =We may learn=
chapter 12: =drift us farther.= replaced by =drift us farther."=
chapter 15: =outside, "How= replaced by =outside, "how=
chapter 15: =in your grandfather's time= replaced by
=in your grandfeyther's time=
chapter 15: =as your stepfather= replaced by
=as your stepfeather=