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,” remo
nstrated 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.
CHAPTER XII.
“Fading in Music.”
“Mrs. Winstanley, on her marriage, by the Duchess of Dovedale.”
That was the sentence that went on repeating itself like a cabalistic formula in Pamela Winstanley’s mind, as her carriage drove through the dark silent woods to Ashbourne on the last night of the year.
A small idea had taken possession of her small mind. The Duchess was the fittest person to present her to her gracious mistress, or her gracious mistress’s representative, at the first drawing-room of the coming season. Mrs. Winstanley had old friends, friends who had known her in her girlhood, who would have been happy to undertake the office. Captain Winstanley had an ancient female relative, living in a fossil state at Hampton Court, and vaguely spoken of as “a connection,” who would willingly emerge from her aristoc
ratic hermitage to present her kinsman’s bride to her sovereign, and whom the Captain deemed the proper sponsor for his wife on that solemn occasion. But what social value had a fossilised Lady Susan Winstanley, of whom an outside world knew nothing, when weighed in the balance with the Duchess of Dovedale? No; Mrs. Winstanley felt that to be presented by the Duchess was the one thing needful to her happiness.
It was a dinner of thirty people; quite a state dinner. The finest and newest orchids had been brought out of their houses, and the dinner-table looked like a tropical forest in little. Vixen went in to dinner with Lord Ellangowan, which was an unappreciated honour, as that nobleman had very little to say for himself, except under extreme pressure, and in his normal state could only smile and look good-natured. Roderick Vawdrey was ever so far away, between his betrothed and an enormous dowager in sky-blue velvet and diamonds.
After dinner there was music. Lady Mabel played a dreary minor melody, chiefly remarkable for its delicate modulation from sharps to flats and back again. A large gentleman sang an Italian buffo song, at which the company smiled tepidly; a small young lady sighed and languished through “Non e ver;” and then Miss Tempest and Lord Mallow sang a duet.
This was the success of the evening. They were asked to sing again and again. They were allowed to monopolise the piano; and before the evening was over everyone had decided that Lord Mallow and Miss Tempest were engaged. Only the voices of plighted lovers could be expected to harmonise as well as that.
“They must have sung very often together,” said the Duchess to Mrs. Winstanley.
“Only within the last fortnight. Lord Mallow never stayed with us before, you know. He is my husband’s friend. They were brother-officers, and have known each other a long time. Lord Mallow insists upon Violet singing every evening. He is passionately fond of music.”
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 660
