Vixen Volume I Part 22

"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 ma.s.s of black; and would spend a whole morning in discussing the propriety of a knot of scarlet ribbon, or a border of gold pa.s.s.e.m.e.nterie.

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 pa.s.sed 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 shuttlec.o.c.k, 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 p.r.o.nounced. There is something too a.s.sertive 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 bra.s.s andirons. Not a repulsive picture, a.s.suredly; 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 a.s.sure 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.