Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

“That’s the worst of the poor,” said Mrs. Tempest languidly, the firelight playing upon her diamond rings, as she took her fan from the velvet table and slowly unfolded it, to protect her cheek from the glare, “they are never satisfied.”

  “Isn’t it odd they are not,” cried Vixen, coming suddenly out of a deep reverie, “when they have everything that can make life delightful?”

  “I don’t know about everything, Violet; but really, when they have such nice cottages as your dear papa built for them, so well-drained and ventilated, they ought to be more contented.”

  “What a comfort good drainage and ventilation must be, when there is no bread in the larder!” said Violet.

  “My dear, it is ridiculous to talk in that way; just in the style of horrid Radical newspapers. I am sure the poor have an immense deal done for them. Look at Mr. Scobel, is he not always trying to help them?”

  “I do what I can,” said the clergyman modestly; “but I only wish it were more. An income of sixteen shillings a week for a family of seven requires a good deal of ekeing out. If it were not for the assistance I get here, and in one or two other directions, things would be very bad in Beechdale.”

  Beechdale was the name of the village nearest the Abbey House, the village to which belonged Mr. Scobel’s toy-church.

  “Of course, we must have the usual distribution of blanket and wearing apparel on Christmas Eve,” said Mrs. Tempest. “It will seem very sad without my dear husband. But we came home before Christmas on purpose.”

  “How good of you! It was very sad last year when the poor people came up to the Hall to receive your gifts, and there were no familiar faces, except the servants. There were a good many tears shed over last year’s blankets, I assure you.”

  “Poor dear things!” sighed Mrs. Tempest, not making it too clear whether she meant the blankets, or the recipients thereof.

  Violet said nothing after her little ironical protest about the poor. She sat opposite the fire, between her mother and Mr. Scobel, but at some distance from both. The ruddy light glowed on her ruddy hair, and lit up her pale cheeks, and shone in her brilliant eyes. The incumbent of Beechdale thought he had never seen anything so lovely. She was like a painted window; a Madonna, with the glowing colour of Rubens, the divine grace of Raffaelle. And those little speeches about the poor had warmed his heart. He was Violet’s friend and champion from that moment.

  Mrs. Tempest fanned herself listlessly.

  “I wish Forbes would bring the tea,” she said.

  “Shall I ring, mamma?”

  “No, dear. They have not finished tea in the housekeeper’s room, perhaps. Forbes doesn’t like to be disturbed. Is there any news, Mr. Scobel? We only came home yesterday evening, and have seen no one.”

  “News! Well, no, I think not much. Lady Ellangowan has got a new orchid.”

  “And there has been a new baby, too, hasn’t there?”

  “Oh yes. But nobody talks about the baby, and everybody is in raptures with the orchid.”

  “What is it like?”

  “Rather a fine boy. I christened him last week.”

  “I mean the orchid.”

  “Oh, something really magnificent; a brilliant blue, a butterfly-shaped blossom that positively looks as if it were alive. They say Lord Ellangowan gave five hundred guineas for it. People come from the other side of the county to see it.”

  “I think you are all orchid mad,” exclaimed Mrs. Tempest. “Oh, here comes the tea!” as Forbes entered with the old silver tray and Swansea cups and saucers. “You’ll take some, of course, Mr. Scobel. I cannot understand this rage for orchids — old china, or silver, or lace, I can understand, but orchids — things that require no end of trouble to keep them alive, and which I daresay are as common as buttercups and daisies in the savage places where they grow. There is Lady Jane Vawdrey now, a perfect slave to the orchid-houses.”

  Violet’s face flamed crimson at this mention of Lady Jane. Not for worlds would she have asked a question about her old playfellow, though she was dying to hear about him. Happily no one saw that sudden blush, or it passed for a reflection of the fire-glow.

  “Poor Lady Jane!” sighed the incumbent of Beechdale, looking very solemn, “she has gone to a land in which there are fairer flowers than ever grew on the banks of the Amazon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Surely you have heard — —”

  “Nothing,” exclaimed Mrs. Tempest. “I have corresponded with nobody but my housekeeper while I have been away. I am a wretched correspondent at the best of times, and, after dear Edward’s death, I was too weary, too depressed, to write letters. What is the matter with Lady Jane Vawdrey?”

  “She died at Florence last November of bronchitis. She was very ill last winter, and had to be taken to Cannes for the early part of the year; but she came back in April quite well and strong, as everyone supposed, and spent the summer at Briarwood. Her doctors told her, however, that she was not to risk another winter in England, so in September she went to Italy, taking Lady Mabel with her.”

  “And Roderick?” inquired Vixen, “He went with them of course.”

  “Naturally,” replied Mr. Scobel. “Mr. Vawdrey was with his mother till the last.”

  “Very nice of him,” murmured Mrs. Tempest approvingly; “for, in a general way, I don’t think they got on too well together. Lady Jane was rather dictatorial. And now, I suppose, Roderick will marry his cousin as soon as he is out of mourning.”

  “Why should you suppose so, mamma?” exclaimed Violet. “It is quite a mistake of yours about their being engaged. Roderick told me so himself. He was not engaged to Lady Mabel. He had not the least idea of marrying her.”

  “He has altered his mind since then, I conclude,” said Mr. Scobel cheerily — those binoculars of his could never have seen through a stone-wall, and were not much good at seeing things under his nose—”for it is quite a settled thing that Mr. Vawdrey and Lady Mabel are to be married. It will be a splendid match for him, and will make him the largest landowner in the Forest, for Ashbourne is settled on Lady Mabel. The Duke bought it himself, you know, and it is not in the entail,” added the incumbent, explaining a fact that was as familiar as the church catechism to Violet, who sat looking straight at the fire, holding her head as high as Queen Guinevere after she had thrown the diamonds out of window.

  “I always knew that it would be so,” said Mrs. Tempest, with the air of a sage. “Lady Jane had set her heart upon it. Worldly greatness was her idol, poor thing! It is sad to think of her being snatched away from everything. What has become of the orchids?”

  “Lady Jane left them to her niece. They are building houses to receive them at Ashbourne.”

  “Rather a waste of money, isn’t it?” suggested Violet, in a cold hard voice. “Why not let them stay at Briarwood till Lady Mabel is mistress there?”

  Mr. Scobel did not enter into this discussion. He sat serenely gazing at the fire, and sipping his tea, enjoying this hour of rest and warmth after a long day’s fatigue and hard weather. He had an Advent service at seven o’clock that evening, and would but just have time to tramp home through the winter dark, and take a hurried meal, before he ran across to his neat little vestry and shuffled on his surplice, while Mrs. Scobel played her plaintive voluntary on the twenty-guinea harmonium.

  “And where is young Vawdrey now?” inquired Mrs. Tempest blandly.

  She could only think of the Squire of Briarwood as the lad from Eton — clumsy, shy, given to breaking teacups, and leaving the track of his footsteps in clay or mud upon the Aubusson carpets.

  “He has not come home yet. The Duke and Duchess went to Florence just before Lady Jane’s death, and I believe Mr. Vawdrey is with them in Rome. Briarwood has been shut up since September.”

  “Didn’t I tell you, mamma, that somebody would be dead,” cried Violet. “I felt when we came into this house yesterday evening, that everything in our lives was changed.”

  “I should hardly think
mourning can be very becoming to Lady Mabel,” ruminated Mrs. Tempest. “Those small sylph-like figures rarely look well in black.”

  Mr. Scobel rose with an effort to make his adieux. The delicious warmth of the wood-fire, the perfume of arbutus logs, had made him sleepy.

  “You’ll come and see our new school, I hope,” he said to Violet, as they shook hands. “You and your dear mamma have contributed so largely to its erection that you have a right to be critical; but I really think you will be pleased.”

  “We’ll come to-morrow afternoon, if it’s fine,” said Mrs. Tempest graciously. “You must bring Mrs. Scobel to dinner at seven, and then we can talk over all we have seen.”

  “You are very kind. I’ve my young women’s scripture-class at a quarter-past eight; but if you will let me run away for an hour — —”

  “Certainly.”

  “I can come back for Mrs. Scobel. Thanks. We shall be delighted.”

  When he was gone, Violet walked towards the door without a word to her mother.

  “Violet, are you going away again? Pray stop, child, and let us have a chat.”

  “I have nothing to talk about, mamma.”

  “Nonsense. You have quite deserted me since we came home. And do you suppose I don’t feel dull and depressed as well as you? It is not dutiful conduct, Violet. I shall really have to engage a companion if you go on so. Miss McCroke was dreary, but she was not altogether uncompanionable. One could talk to her.”

  “You had better have a companion, mamma. Someone who will be lively, and talk pleasantly about nothing particular all day long. No doubt a well-trained companion can do that. She has an inexhaustible well-spring of twaddle in her own mind. I feel as if I could never be cheerful again.”

  “We had better have stopped at Brighton — —”

  “I hate Brighton!”

  “Where we knew so many nice people — —”

  “I detest nice people!”

  “Violet, do you know that you have an abominable temper?”

  “I know that I am made up of wickedness!” answered Vixen vehemently.

  She left the room without another word, and went straight to her den upstairs, not to throw herself on the ground, and abandon herself to a childish unreasoning grief, as she had done on the night of Roderick’s coming of age, but to face the situation boldly. She walked up and down the dim fire-lit room, thinking of what she had just heard.

  “What does it matter to me? Why should I be so angry?” she asked herself. “We were never more than friends and playfellows. And I think that, on the whole, I rather disliked him. I know I was seldom civil to him. He was papa’s favourite. I should hardly have tolerated him but for that.”

  She felt relieved at having settled this point in her mind. Yet there was a dull blank sense of loss, a vague aching in her troubled heart, which she could not get rid of easily. She walked to and fro, to and fro, while the fire faded out and the pale windows darkened.

  “I hate myself for being so vexed about this,” she said, clasping her hands above her head with a vehemence that showed the intensity of her vexation. “Could I — I — Violet Tempest — ever be so despicable a creature as to care for a man who does not care for me; to be angry, sorry, broken-hearted, because a man does not want me for his wife? Such a thing is not possible; if it were, I think I would kill myself. I should be ashamed to live. I could not look human beings in the face. I should take poison, or turn Roman Catholic and go into a convent, where I should never see the face of a man again. No; I am not such an odious creature. I have no regard for Rorie except as my old playfellow, and when he comes home I will walk straight up to him and give him my hand, and congratulate him heartily on his approaching marriage. Perhaps Lady Mabel will ask me to be one of her bridesmaids. She will have a round dozen, I daresay. Six in pink, and six in blue, no doubt, like wax dolls at a charity-fair. Why can’t people be married without making idiots of themselves?”

  The half-hour gong sounded at this moment, and Vixen ran down to the drawing-room, where the candles and lamps were lighted, and where there was plenty of light literature lying about to distract the troubled mind. Violet went to her mother’s chair and knelt beside it.

  “Dear mamma, forgive me for being cross just now,” she said gently; “I was out of spirits. I will try to be better company in future — so that you may not be obliged to engage a companion.”

  “My dear, I don’t wonder at your feeling low-spirited,” replied Mrs. Tempest graciously. “This place is horribly dull. How we ever endured it, even in your dear papa’s time, is more than I can understand. It is like living on the ground-floor of one of the Egyptian pyramids. We must really get some nice people about us, or we shall both go melancholy mad.”

  CHAPTER XIII.

  “He belongs to the Tame-Cat Species.”

  Life went on smoothly enough at the Abbey House after that evening. Violet tried to make herself happy among the surroundings of her childhood, petted the horses, drove her basket-carriage with the favourite old pony, went among the villagers, rode her thoroughbred bay for long wild explorations of the Forest and neighbouring country, looked with longing eyes, sometimes, at the merry groups riding to the meet, and went her lonely way with a heavy heart. No more hunting for her. She could not hunt alone, and she had declined all friendly offers of escort. It would have seemed a treason against her beloved dead to ride across country by anyone else’s side.

  Everyone had called at the Abbey House and welcomed Mrs. Tempest and her daughter back to Hampshire. They had been asked to five-o’clock at Ellangowan Park, to see the marvellous orchid. They had been invited to half-a-dozen dinner-parties.

  Violet tried her utmost to persuade her mother that it was much too soon after her father’s death to think of visiting.

  “My dear Violet,” cried the widow, “after going to that ball at Brighton, we could not possibly decline invitations here. It would be an insult to our friends. If we had not gone to the ball — —”

  “We ought not to have gone,” exclaimed Vixen.

  “My love, you should have said so at the time.”

  “Mamma, you know I was strongly against it.”

  Mrs. Tempest shrugged her shoulders as who should say, “This is too much!”

  “I know your dress cost a small fortune, and that you danced every waltz, Violet,” she answered, “that is about all I do know.”

  “Very well, mamma, let us accept all the invitations. Let us be as merry as grigs. Perhaps it will make papa more comfortable in Paradise to know how happy we are without him. He won’t be troubled by any uneasy thoughts about our grief, at all events,” added Vixen, with a stifled sob.

  “How irreverently you talk. Mr. Scobel would be dreadfully shocked to hear you.” said Mrs. Tempest.

  The invitations were all accepted, and Mrs. Tempest for the rest of the winter was in a flutter about her dresses. She was very particular as to the exact shade of silver-gray or lavender which might be allowed to relieve the sombre mass of black; and would spend a whole morning in discussing the propriety of a knot of scarlet ribbon, or a border of gold passementerie.

  They went to Ellangowan Park and did homage to the wonderful orchid, and discussed Roderick’s engagement to the Duke’s only daughter. Everybody said that it was Lady Jane’s doing, and there were some who almost implied that she had died on purpose to bring about the happy conjuncture. Violet was able to talk quite pleasantly about the marriage, and to agree with everybody’s praises of Lady Mabel’s beauty, elegance, good style, and general perfection.

  Christmas and the New Year went by, not altogether sadly. It is not easy for youth to be full of sorrow. The clouds come and go, there are always glimpses of sunshine. Violet was grateful for the kindness that greeted her everywhere among her old friends, and perhaps a little glad of the evident admiration accorded to her beauty in all circles. Life was just tolerable, after all. She thought of Roderick Vawdrey as of something belonging to the past; something w
hich had no part, never would have any part, in her future life. He too was dead and passed away, like her father. Lady Mabel’s husband, the master of Briarwood in esse, and of Ashbourne in posse, was quite a different being from the rough lad with whom she had played at battledore and shuttlecock, billiards, croquet, and rounders.

  Early in February Mrs. Tempest informed her daughter that she was going to give a dinner.

  “It will seem very dreadful without dearest Edward,” she said; “but of course having accepted hospitalities, we are bound to return them.”

  “Do you really think we ought to burst out into dinner-parties so soon, mamma?”

  “Yes, dear, as we accepted the dinners. If we had not gone it would have been different.”

  “Ah,” sighed Vixen, “I suppose it all began with that ball at Brighton, like ‘Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit — —’”

  “I shall miss poor McCroke to fill in the invitation cards.”

  “Let me do it, mamma. I can write a decent hand. That is one of the few ladylike accomplishments I have been able to master; and even that is open to objection as being too masculine.”

  “If you would slope more, Violet, and make your up-strokes finer, and not cross your T’s so undeviatingly,” Mrs. Tempest murmured amiably. “A lady’s T ought to be less pronounced. There is something too assertive in your consonants.”

  Violet wrote the cards. The dinner was to be quite a grand affair, three weeks’ notice, and a French cook from The Dolphin at Southampton to take the conduct of affairs in the kitchen; whereby the Abbey House cook declared afterwards that there was nothing that Frenchman did which she could not have done as well, and that his wastefulness was enough to make a Christian woman’s hair stand on end.

  Three days before the dinner, Vixen, riding Arion home through the shrubbery, after a long morning in the Forest, was startled by the vision of a dog-cart a few yards in front of her, a cart, which, at the first glance, she concluded must belong to Roderick Vawdrey. The wheels were red, the horse had a rakish air, the light vehicle swung from side to side as it spun around the curve.