Somewhat to his surprise, and much to his delight, Roderick Vawdrey escaped that maternal lecture which he was wont undutifully to describe as a "wigging." When he entered the drawing-room in full dress just about ten minutes before the first of the guests was announced, Lady Jane received him with a calm affectionateness, and asked him no questions about his disposal of the afternoon. Perhaps this unusual clemency was in honour of his twenty-first birthday, Rorie thought. A man could not come of age more than once in his life. He was entitled to some favour.
The dinner-party was as other dinners at Briarwood; all the arrangements perfect; themenucommendable, if not new; the general result a little dull.
The Ashbourne party were among the first to arrive; the Duke portly and affable; the Duchess delighted to welcome her favourite nephew; Lady Mabel looking very fragile, flower-like, and graceful, in her pale blue gauze dinner-dress. Lady Mabel affected the palest tints, half-colours, which were more like the shadows in a sunset sky than any earthly hues.
She took possession of Rorie at once, treating him with a calm superiority, as if he had been a younger brother.
"Tell me all about Switzerland," she said, as they sat side by side on one of the amber ottomans. "What was it that you liked best?"
"The climbing, of course," he answered.
"But which of all the landscapes? What struck you most? What impressed you most vividly? Your first view of Mont Blanc, or that marvellous gorge below the Tête Noire,—or——?"
"It was all uncommonly jolly. But there's a family resemblance in Swiss mountains, don't you know? They're all white—and they're all peaky. There's a likeness in Swiss lakes, too, if you come to think of it. They're all blue, and they're all wet. And Swiss villages, now—don't you think they are rather disappointing?—such a cruel plagiarism of those plaster châlets the image-men carry about the London streets, and no candle-ends burning inside to make 'em look pretty. But I liked Lucerne uncommonly, there was such a capital billiard-table at the hotel."
"Roderick!" cried Lady Mabel, with a disgusted look. "I don't think you have a vestige of poetry in your nature."
"I hope I haven't," replied Rorie devoutly.
"You could see those sublime scenes, and never once feel your heart thrilled or your mind exalted—you can come home from your first Swiss tour and talk about billiard-tables!"
"The scenery was very nice," said Rorie thoughtfully. "Yes; there were times, perhaps, when I was a trifle stunned by all that grand calm beauty, the silence, the solitude, the awfulness of it all; but I had hardly time to feel the thrill when I came bump up against a party of tourists, English or American, all talking the same twaddle, and all patronising the scenery. That took the charm out of the landscape somehow, and I coiled up, as the Yankees say. And now you want me to go into second-hand raptures, and repeat my emotions, as if I were writing a tourist's article for a magazine. I can't do it, Mabel."
"Well, I won't bore you any more about it," said Lady Mabel, "but I confess my disappointment. I thought we should have such nice long talks about Switzerland."
"What's the use of talking of a place? If it's so lovely that one can't live without it, one had better go back there."
This was a practical way of putting things which was too much for Lady Mabel. She fanned herself gently with a great fan of cloudy looking feathers, such as Titania might have used that midsummer night near Athens. She relapsed into a placid silence, looking at Rorie thoughtfully with her calm blue eyes.
His travels had improved him. That bronze hue suited him wonderfully well. He looked more manly. He was no longer a beardless boy, to be patronised with that gracious elder-sister air of Lady Mabel's. She felt that he was further off from her than he had been last season in London.
"How late you arrived this evening," she said, after a pause. "I came to five-o'clock with my aunt, and found her quite anxious about you. If it hadn't been for your telegram from Southampton, she would have fancied there was something wrong."
"She needn't have fidgeted herself after three o'clock," answered Rorie coolly; "my luggage must have come home by that time."
"I see. You sent the luggage on before, and came by a later train?"
"No, I didn't. I stopped halfway between here and Lyndhurst to see some old friends."
"Flattering for my aunt," said Mabel. "I should have thought she was your oldest friend."
"Of course she has the prior claim. But as I was going to hand myself over to her bodily at seven o'clock, to be speechified about and rendered generally ridiculous, after the manner of young men who come of age, I felt I was entitled to do what I liked in the interval."
"And therefore you went to the Tempests'," said Mabel, with her blue eyes sparkling. "I see. That is what you do when you do what you like."
"Precisely. I am very fond of Squire Tempest. When I first rode to hounds it was under his wing. There's my mother beckoning me; I am to go and do the civil to people."
And Roderick walked away from the ottoman to the spot where his mother stood, with the Duke of Dovedale at her side, receiving her guests.
"It was a very grand party, in the way of blue blood, landed estate, diamonds, lace, satin and velvet, and self-importance. All the magnates of the soil, within accessible distance of Briarwood, had assembled to do honour to Rorie's coming of age. The dining-tables had been arranged in a horse-shoe, so as to accommodate fifty people in a room which, in its every-day condition, would not have been too large for thirty. The orchids and ferns upon this horse-shoe table made the finest floricultural show that had been seen for a long time. There were rare specimens from New Granada and the Philippine Islands; wondrous flowers lately discovered in the Sierra Madre; blossoms of every shape and colour from the Cordilleras; richest varieties of hue—golden yellow, glowing crimson, creamy white; rare eccentricities of form and colour beside which any other flower would have looked vulgar; butterfly flowers and pitcher-shaped flowers, that had cost as much money as prize pigeons, and seemed as worthless, save to the connoisseur in the article. The Vawdrey racing-plate, won by Roderick's grandfather, was nowhere by comparison with those marvellous tropical blossoms, that fairy forest of fern. Everybody talked about the orchids, confessed his or her comparative ignorance of the subject, and complimented Lady Jane.
"The orchids made the hit of the evening," Rorie said afterwards. "It was their coming of age, not mine."
There was a moderate and endurable amount of speechifying by-and-by, when the monster double-crowned pines had been cut, and the purple grapes, almost as big as pigeons' eggs, had gone round.
The Duke of Dovedale assured his friends that this was one of the proudest moments of his life, and that if Providence had permitted a son of his own to attain his majority, he, the Duke, could have hardly felt a deeper interest in the occasion than he felt to-day. He had—arra—arra—known this young man from childhood, and had—er—um—never found him guilty of a mean action—or—arra—discovered in him a thought unworthy of an English gentleman.
This last was felt to be a strong point, as it implied that an English gentleman must needs be much better than any other gentleman.
A continental gentleman might, of course, be guilty of an unworthy thought and yet pass current, according to the loose morality of his nation. But the English article must be flawless.
And thus the Duke meandered on for five minutes or so, and there was a subdued gush of approval, and then an uncomfortable little pause, and then Rorie rose in his place, next to the Duchess, and returned thanks.
He told them all how fond he was of them and the soil that bred them. How he meant to be a Hampshire squire, pure and simple, if he could. How he had no higher ambition than to be useful and to do good in this little spot of England which Providence had given him for his inheritance. How, if he should go into Parliament by-and-by, as he had some thoughts of attempting to do, it would be in their interests that he would join that noble body of legislators; that it would be they and their benefit he would have always nearest his heart.
"There is not a tree in the Forest that I do not love," cried Rorie, fired with his theme, and forgetting to stammer; "and I believe there is not a tree, from the Twelve Apostles to the Knightwood Oak, or a patch of gorse from Picket Post to Stony Cross, that I do not know as well as I know the friends round me to-night. I was born in the Forest, and may I live and die and be buried here. I have just come back from seeing some of the finest scenery in Europe; yet, without blushing for my want of poetry, I will confess that the awful grandeur of those snow-clad mountains did not touch my heart so deeply as our beechen glades and primrose-carpeted bottoms close at home." There was a burst of applause after Rorie's speech that made all the orchids shiver, and nearly annihilated a thirty-guineaOdontoglossum Vexillarium. His talk about the Forest, irrelevant as it might be, went home to the hearts of the neighbouring landowners. But, by-and-by, in the drawing-room, when he rejoined his cousin, he found that fastidious young lady by no means complimentary.
"Your speech would have been capital half a century ago, Rorie," she said, "and you don't arra—arra—as poor papa does, which is something to be thankful for; but all that talk about the Forest seemed to be an anachronism. People are not rooted in their native soil nowadays, as they used to be in the old stage-coach times, when it was a long day's journey to London. One might as well be a vegetable at once if one is to be pinned down to one particular spot of earth. Why, the Twelve Apostles," exclaimed Mabel, innocent of irreverence, for she meant certain ancient and fast-decaying oaks so named, "see as much of life as your fine old English gentleman. Men have wider ideas nowadays. The world is hardly big enough for their ambition."
"I would rather live in a field, and strike my roots deep down like one of those trees, than be a homeless nomad with a world-wide ambition," answered Rorie. "I have a passion for home."
"Then I wonder you spend so little time in it."
"Oh, I don't mean a home inside four walls. The Forest is my home, and Briarwood is no dearer to me than any other spot in it."
"Not so dear as the Abbey House, perhaps?"
"Well, no. I confess that fine old Tudor mansion pleases me better than this abode of straight lines and French windows, plate glass and gilt mouldings."
They sat side by side upon the amber ottoman, Rorie with Mabel's blue feather fan in his hand, twirling and twisting it as he talked, and doing more damage to that elegant article in a quarter of an hour than a twelvemonth's legitimate usage would have done. People, looking at the pretty pair, smiled significantly, and concluded that it would be a match, and went home and told less privileged people about the evident attachment between the Duke's daughter and the young commoner. But Rorie was not strongly drawn towards his cousin this evening. It seemed to him that she was growing more and more of a paragon; and he hated paragons.
She played presently, and afterwards sang some Frenchchansons. Both playing and singing were perfect of their kind. Rorie did not understand Chopin, and thought there was a good deal of unnecessary hopping about the piano in that sort of thing—nothing concrete, or that came to a focus; a succession of airy meanderings, a fairy dance in the treble, a goblin hunt in the bass. But the Frenchchansons, the dainty little melodies with words of infantile innocence, all about leaves and buds, and birds'-nests and butterflies, pleased him infinitely. He hung over the piano with an enraptured air; and again his friends made note of his subjugation, and registered the fact for future discussion.
It was past midnight when the Tempest carriage drove through the dark rhododendron shrubberies up to the old Tudor porch. There was a great pile of logs burning in the hall, giving the home-comers cheery welcome. There was an antique silver spirit stand with its accompaniments on one little table for the Squire, and there was another little table on the opposite side of the hearth for Mrs. Tempest, with a dainty tea-service sparkling and shining in the red glow.
A glance at these arrangements would have told you that there were old servants at the Abbey House, servants who knew their master's and mistress's ways, and for whom service was more or less a labour of love.
"How nice," said the lady, with a contented sigh. "Pauline has thought of my cup of tea."
"And Forbes has not forgotten my soda-water," remarked the Squire.
He said nothing about the brandy, which he was pouring into the tall glass with a liberal hand.
Pauline came to take off her mistress's cloak, and was praised for her thoughtfulness about the tea, and then dismissed for the night.
The Squire liked to stretch his legs before his own fireside after dining out; and with the Squire, as with Mr. Squeers, the leg-stretching process involved the leisurely consumption of a good deal of brandy and water.
Mr. and Mrs. Tempest talked over the Briarwood dinner-party, and arrived—with perfect good nature—at the conclusion that it had been a failure.
"The dinner was excellent," said the Squire, "but the wine went round too slow; my glasses were empty half the time. That's always the way when you've a woman at the helm. She never fills her cellars properly, or trusts her butler thoroughly."
"The dresses were lovely," said Mrs. Tempest, "but everyone looked bored. How did you like my dress, Edward? I think it's rather good style. Theodore will charge me horribly for it, I daresay."
"I don't know much about your dress, Pam, but you were the prettiest woman in the room."
"Oh Edward, at my age!" exclaimed Mrs. Tempest, with a pleased look, "when there was that lovely Lady Mabel Ashbourne."
"Do you call her lovely?—I don't. Lips too thin; waist too slim; too much blood, and too little flesh."
"Oh, but surely, Edward, she is grace itself; quite an ethereal creature. If Violet had more of that refined air——"
"Heaven forbid. Vixen is worth twenty such fine-drawn misses. Lady Mabel has been spoiled by over-training."
"Roderick is evidently in love with her," suggested Mrs. Tempest, pouring out another cup of tea.
The clocks had just struck two, the household was at rest, the logs blazed and cracked merrily, the red light shining on those mail-clad effigies in the corners, lighting up helm and hauberk, glancing on greaves and gauntlets. It was an hour of repose and gossip which the Squire dearly loved.
Hush! what is this creeping softly down the old oak staircase? A slender white figure with cloudy hair; a small pale face, and two dark eyes shining with excitement; little feet in black velvet slippers tripping lightly upon the polished oak.
Is it a ghost? No; ghosts are noiseless, and those little slippers descend from stair to stair with a gentle pit-a-pit.
"Bless my soul and body!" cried the Squire; "what's this?"
A gush of girlish laughter was his only answer.
"Vixen!"
"Did you take me for a ghost, papa?" cried Violet, descending the last five stairs with a flying leap, and then, bounding across the hall to perch, light as a bird, upon her father's knee. "Did I really frighten you? Did you think the good old Abbey House was going to set up a family ghost; a white lady, with a dismal history of a broken heart? You darling papa! I hope you took me for a ghost!"
"Well, upon my word, you know, Vixen, I was just the least bit staggered. Your little white figure looked like something uncanny against the black oak balustrades, half in light, half in shadow."
"How nice!" exclaimed Violet.
"But, my dear Violet, what can have induced you to come downstairs at such an hour?" ejaculated Mrs. Tempest in an aggrieved voice.
"I want to hear all about the party, mamma," answered Vixen coaxingly. "Do you think I could sleep a wink on the night of Rorie's coming of age? I heard the joy-bells ringing in my ears all night."
"That was very ridiculous." said Mrs. Tempest, "for there were no joy-bells after eleven o'clock yesterday."
"But they rang all the same, mamma. It was no use burying my head in the pillows; those bells only rang the louder. Ding-dong, ding-dong, dell, Rorie's come of age; ding-dong, dell, Rorie's twenty-one. Then I thought of the speeches that would be made, and I fancied I could hear Rorie speaking. Did he make a good speech, papa?"
"Capital, Vix; the only one that was worth hearing!"
"I am so glad! And did he look handsome while he was speaking? I think the Swiss sunshine has rather over-cooked him, you know; but he is not unbecomingly brown."
"He looked as handsome a young fellow as you need wish to set eyes on."
"My dear Edward," remonstrated Mrs. Tempest, languidly, too thoroughly contented with herself to be seriously vexed about anything, "do you think it is quite wise of you to encourage Violet in that kind of talk?"
"Why should she not talk of him? She never had a brother, and he stands in the place of one to her. Isn't Rorie the same to you as an elder brother, Vix?"
The girl's head was on her father's shoulder, one slim arm round his neck, her face hidden against the Squire's coat-collar. He could not see the deep warm blush that dyed his daughter's cheek at this home question.
"I don't quite know what an elder brother would be like, papa. But I'm very fond of Rorie—when he's nice, and comes to see us before anyone else, as he did to-day."
"And when he stays away?"
"Oh, then I hate him awfully," exclaimed Vixen, with such energy that the slender figure trembled faintly as she spoke. "But tell me all about the party, mamma. Your dress was quite the prettiest, I am sure?"
"I'm not certain of that, Violet," answered Mrs. Tempest with grave deliberation, as if the question were far too serious to be answered lightly. "There was a cream-coloured silk, with silver bullion fringe, that was very striking. As a rule, I detest gold or silver trimmings; but this was really elegant. It had an effect like moonlight."
"Was that Lady Mabel Ashbourne's dress?" asked Vixen eagerly.
"No; Lady Mabel wore blue gauze—the very palest blue, all puffings and ruchings—like a cloud."
"Oh mamma! the clouds have no puffings and ruchings."
"My dear, I mean the general effect—a sort of shadowiness which suits Lady Mabel's ethereal style."
"Ethereal!" repeated Violet thoughtfully; "you seem to admire her very much, mamma."
"Everybody admires her, my dear."
"Because she is a duke's only daughter."
"No; because she is very lovely, and extremely elegant, and most accomplished. She played and sang beautifully to-night."
"What did she play, mamma?"
"Chopin!"
"Did she!" cried Vixen. "Then I pity her. Yes, even if she were my worst enemy I should still pity her."
"People who are fond of music don't mind difficulties," said Mrs. Tempest.
"Don't they? Then I suppose I'm not fond of it, because I shirk my practice. But I should be very fond of music if I could grind it on a barrel organ."
"Oh, Violet, when will you be like Lady Mabel Ashbourne?"
"Never, I devoutly hope," said the Squire.
Here the Squire gave his daughter a hug which might mean anything.
"Never, mamma," answered Violet with conviction. "First and foremost, I never can be lovely, because I have red hair and a wide mouth. Secondly, I can never be elegant—much less ethereal—because it isn't in me. Thirdly, I shall never be accomplished, for poor Miss McCroke is always giving me up as the baddest lot in the shape of pupils that ever came in her way."
"If you persist in talking in that horrible way, Violet——"
"Let her talk as she likes, Pam," said the fond father. "I won't have her bitted too heavily."
Mrs. Tempest breathed a gentle sigh of resignation. The Squire was all that is dear and good as husband and father, but refinement was out of his line.
"Do go on about the party, mamma. Did Rorie seem to enjoy himself very much——"
"I think so. He was very devoted to his cousin all the evening. I believe they are engaged to be married."
"Mamma!" exclaimed Vixen, starting up from her reclining attitude upon her father's shoulder, and looking intently at the speaker; "Rorie engaged to Lady Mabel Ashbourne!"
"So I am told," replied Mrs. Tempest. "It will be a splendid match for him."
The pretty chestnut head dropped back into its old place upon the Squire's shoulder, and Violet answered never a word.
"Past two o'clock," cried her mother. "This is really too dreadful. Come, Violet, you and I must go upstairs at any rate."
"We'll all go," said the Squire, finishing his second brandy and soda.
So they all three went upstairs together. Vixen had grown suddenly silent and sleepy. She yawned dolefully, and kissed her mother and father at the end of the gallery, without a word; and then scudded off, swift as a scared rabbit, to her own room.
"God bless her!" exclaimed the Squire; "she grows prettier and more winning every day."
"If her mouth were only a little smaller," sighed Mrs. Tempest.
"It's the prettiest mouth I ever saw upon woman—bar one," said the Squire.
What was Vixen doing while the fond father was praising her?
She had locked her door, and thrown herself face downwards on the carpet, and was sobbing as if her heart would break.
Rorie was going to be married. Her little kingdom had been overturned by a revolution: her little world had crumbled all to pieces. Till to-night she had been a queen in her own mind; and her kingdom had been Rorie, her subjects had begun and ended in Rorie. All was over. He belonged to some one else. She could never tyrannise over him again—never scold him and abuse him and patronise him and ridicule him any more. He was her Rorie no longer.
Had she ever thought that a time might come when he would be something more to her than playfellow and friend? No, never. The young bright mind was too childishly simple for any such foresight or calculation. She had only thought that he was in somewise her property, and would be so till the end of both their lives. He was hers, and he was very fond of her, and she thought him a rather absurd young fellow, and looked down upon him with airs of ineffable superiority from the altitude of her childish womanliness.
And now he was gone. The earth had opened all at once and swallowed him, like that prophetic gentleman in the Greek play, whose name Vixen could never remember—chariot and horses and all. He belonged henceforth to Lady Mabel Ashbourne. She could never be rude to him any more. She could not take such a liberty with another young lady's lover.
"And to think that he should never have told me he was going to be engaged to her," she said. "He must have been fond of her from the very beginning; and he never said a word; and he let me think he rather liked me—or at least tolerated me. And how could he like two people who are the very antipodes of each other? If he is fond of her, he must detest me. If he respects her, he must despise me."
The thought of such treachery rankled deep in the young warm heart. Vixen started up to her feet, and stood in the midst of the firelit room, with clinched fists, like a young fury. The light chestnut tresses should have been Medusa's snakes to have harmonised with that set white face. God had given Violet Tempest a heart to feel deeply, too deeply for perfect peace, or that angelic softness which seems to us most worthy in woman—the power to suffer and be patient.
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."
The morning of the Briarwood Meet dawned fairly. Roderick watched the first lifting of the darkness from his bed-room window, and rejoiced in the promise of a fine weather. The heavens, which had been so unpropitious upon his birthday, seemed to promise better things to-day. He did not desire the traditional hunting morning—a southerly wind and a cloudy sky. He cared very little about the scent lying well, or the actual result of the day's sport. He wanted rather to see the kind familiar faces round him, the autumn sunshine lighting up all the glow and colour of the picture, the scarlet coats, the rich bay and brown of the horses, the verdant background of lawn and shrubberies. Two huge marquees had been erected for the commonalty—one for the school-children, the other for the villagers. There were long tables in the billiard-room for the farming class; and for the quality there was the horse-shoe table in the dining-room, as at Roderick's birthday dinner. But on this occasion the table was decorated only with hardy ferns and flowers. The orchids were not allowed to appear.
Roderick noticed the omission.
"Why, where are the thing-um-tites, mother?" he asked, with some surprise; "the pitcher-plants and tropical what's-its-names?"
"I did not think there was any occasion to have them brought out of the houses, Roderick," Lady Jane answered quietly; "there is always a risk of their being killed, or some of your sporting friends might be picking my prize blossoms to put in their button-holes. Men who give their minds to horses would hardly appreciate orchids."
"All right, mother. As long as there is plenty to eat, I don't suppose it much matters," answered Rorie.
He had certainly no cause for complaint upon this score. Briarwood had been amply provisioned for an unlimited hospitality. The red coats and green coats, and blue coats and brown coats, came in and out, slashed away at boar's head and truffled turkey, sent champagne corks flying, and added more dead men to the formidable corps of tall hock bottles, dressed in uniform brown, which the astonished butler ranged rank and file in a lobby outside the dining-room. He had never seen this kind of thing at Briarwood since he had kept the keys of the cellars; and he looked upon this promiscuous hospitality with a disapproving eye.
The Duke supported his nephew admirably, and was hail-fellow-well-met with everybody. He had always been popular at Ashbourne. It was his own place, his particular selection, bought with his own money, improved under his own eye, and he liked it better than any of his hereditary seats.
"If I had only had a son like you, Rorie," he said, as he stood beside the young man, on the gravel sweep before the hall-door, welcoming the new-comers, "I should have been a happy man. Well, I suppose I must be satisfied with a grandson; but it's a hard thing that the title and estates are to go to that scamp of a cousin of mine."
Roderick, on this particular morning, was a nephew whom any uncle might be proud to own. His red coat and buckskins became him; so did his position as host and master at Briarwood. His tall erect figure showed to advantage amidst the crowd. His smile lit up the dark sunburnt face like sunshine. He had a kind word, a friendly hand-clasp for everybody—even for gaffers and goodies who had hobbled from their village shanties to see the sport, and to get their share of cold sirloin and old October. He took the feeble old creatures into the tent, and saw that they found a place at the board.
Squire Tempest and his daughter were among the later arrivals. The meet was to be at one, and they only rode into the grounds at half-past twelve, when everyone else had breakfasted. Mrs. Tempest had not come. The entertainment was much too early for a lady who never left her rooms till after noon.
Vixen looked lovely in her smart little habit. It was not the Lincoln green with the brass buttons, which Lady Mabel had laughed at a year ago. To-day Miss Tempest wore a dark brown habit, moulded to the full erect figure, with a narrow rim of white at the throat, a little felt hat of the same dark brown with a brown feather, long white gauntlets, and a whip with a massive ivory handle.
The golden bay's shining coat matched Violet's shining hair. It was the prettiest picture in the world, the little rider in dark brown on the bright bay horse, the daintily quilted saddle, the gauntleted hands playing so lightly with the horse's velvet mouth—horse and rider devotedly attached to each other.
"How do you like him?" asked Vixen, directly she and Rorie had shaken hands. "Isn't he absolutely lovely?'
"Absolutely lovely," said Rorie, patting the horse's shoulder and looking at the rider.
"Papa gave him to me on my last birthday. I was to have ridden Titmouse another year; but I got the brush one day after a hard run when almost everybody else was left behind, and papa said I should have a horse. Poor Titmouse is put into a basket-chaise. Isn't it sad for him?'
"Awfully humiliating."
Lady Mabel was close by on her chestnut thoroughbred, severely costumed in darkest blue and chimney-pot hat.
"I don't think you've ever met my cousin?" said Rorie. "Mabel, this is Miss Tempest, whom you've heard me talk about. Miss Tempest, Lady Mabel Ashbourne."
Violet Tempest gave a startled look, and blushed crimson. Then the two girls bowed and smiled: a constrained smile on Vixen's part, a prim and chilly smile from Lady Mabel.
"I want you two to be awful good friends," said Rorie; "and when you come out, Vixen, Lady Mabel will take you under her wing. She knows everybody, and the right thing to be done on every occasion."
Vixen turned from red to pale, and said nothing. Lady Mabel looked at the distant blue line of the Wight, and murmured that she would be happy to be of use to Miss Tempest if ever they met in London. Rorie felt, somehow, that it was not encouraging. Vixen stole a glance at her rival. Yes, she was very pretty—a delicate patrician beauty which Vixen had never seen before. No wonder Rorie was in love with her. Where else could he have seen anything so exquisite? It was the most natural thing in the world that these cousins should be fond of each other, and engaged to be married. Vixen wondered that the thing had never occurred to her as inevitable—that it should have come upon her as a blow at the last.
"I think Rorie ought to have told me," she said to herself. "He is like my brother; and a brother would not hide his love affairs from his sister. It was rather mean of Rorie."
The business of the day began presently. Neither Vixen nor the Squire dismounted. They had breakfasted at home; and Vixen, who did not care much for Lady Jane Vawdrey, was glad to escape with no further communication than a smile and a bow. At a quarter-past one they were all riding away towards the Forest, and presently the serious business began.
Vixen and her father were riding side by side.
"You are so pale, papa. Is your head bad again to-day?"
"Yes, my dear. I'm afraid I've started a chronic headache. But the fresh air will blow it away presently, I daresay. You're not looking over-well yourself, Vixen. What have you done with your roses?"
"I—I—don't care much about hunting to-day, papa," said Violet, sudden tears rushing into her eyes. "Shall we go home together? You're not well, and I'm not enjoying myself. Nobody wants us, either; so why should we stay?"
Rorie was a little way behind them, taking care of Lady Mabel, whose slim-legged chestnut went through as many manoeuvres as if he had been doing the manège business in a circus, and got over the ground very slowly.
"Nonsense, child! Go back! I should think not! Jack Purdy may do all the work, but people like to see me to the fore. We shall find down in Dingley Bottom, I daresay, and get a capital run across the hills to Beaulieu."
They found just as the Squire had anticipated, and after that there was a hard run for the next hour and a quarter. Roderick was at the heel of the hunt all the time, opening gates, and keeping his cousin out of bogs and dangers of all kinds. They killed at last on a wild bit of common near Beaulieu, and there were only a few in at the death, amongst them Vixen on her fast young bay, flushed with excitement and triumph by this time, and forgetting all her troubles in the delight of winning one of the pads. Mrs Millington, the famous huntress from the shires, was there to claim the brush.