Volume I Part 13 (1/2)
”How tired you look, papa,” said Vixen, as they rode quietly homewards.
”A little done up, my dear, but a good dinner will set me all right again. It was a capital run, and your horse behaved beautifully. I don't think I made a bad choice for you. Rorie and his cousin were miles behind, I daresay. Pretty girl, and sits her horse like a picture--but she can't ride. We shall meet them going home, perhaps.”
A mile or two farther on they met Roderick alone. His cousin had gone home with her father.
”It was rather a bore losing the run,” he said, as he turned his horse's head and rode by Vixen, ”but I was obliged to take care of my cousin.”
One of the Squire's tenants, a seventeen-stone farmer, on a stout gray cob, overtook them presently, and Mr. Tempest rode on by his side, talking agricultural talk about over-fed beasts and cattle shows, the last popular form of cruelty to animals.
Roderick and Violet were alone, riding slowly side by side in the darkening gray, between woods where solitary robins carolled sweetly, or the rare gurgle of the thrush sounded now and then from thickets of beech and holly.
A faint colour came back to Vixen's cheek. She was very angry with her playfellow for his want of confidence, for his unfriendly reserve. Yet this was the one happy hour of her day. There had been a flavour of desolateness and abandonment in all the rest.
”I hope you enjoyed the run,” said Rorie.
”I don't think you can care much whether we did or didn't,” retorted Vixen, shrouding her personality in a vague plural. ”If you had cared you would have been with us. Sultan,” meaning the chestnut ”must have felt cruelly humiliated by being kept so far behind.”
”If a man could be in two places at once, half of me, the better half of me, would have been with you, Vixen; but I was bound to take care of my cousin. I had insisted upon her coming.”
”Of course,” answered Vixen, with a little toss of her head; ”it would have been quite wrong if she had been absent.”
They rode on in silence for a little while after this. Vixen was longing to say: ”Rorie, you have treated me very badly. You ought to have told me you were going to be married.” But something restrained her. She patted her horse's neck, listened to the lonely robins, and said not a word. The Squire and his tenant were a hundred yards ahead, talking loudly.
Presently they came to a point at which their roads parted, but Rorie still rode on by Vixen.
”Isn't that your nearest way?” asked Vixen, pointing down the cross-road with the ivory handle of her whip.
”I am not going the nearest way. I am going to the Abbey House with you.”
”I wouldn't be so rude as to say Don't, but I think poor Sultan must be tired.”
”Sultan shall have a by-day to-morrow.”
They went into an oak plantation, where a broad open alley led from one side of the enclosure to the other. The wood had a mysterious look in the late afternoon, when the shadows were thickening under the tall thin trees. There was an all-pervading ghostly grayness as in a shadowy under-world. They rode silently over the thick wet carpet of fallen leaves, the horses starting a little now and then at the aspect of a newly-barked trunk lying white across the track. They were silent, having, in sooth, very little to say to each other just at this time.
Vixen was nursing her wrathful feelings; Rorie felt that his future was confused and obscure. He ought to do something with his life, perhaps, as his mother had so warmly urged. But his soul was stirred by no ambitious promptings.
They were within two hundred yards of the gate at the end of the enclosure, when Vixen gave a sudden cry:
”Did papa's horse stumble?” she asked; ”look how he sways in his saddle.”
Another instant, and the Squire reeled forward, and fell headforemost across his horse's shoulder. The fall was so sudden and so heavy, that the horse fell with him, and then scrambled up on to his feet again affrighted, swung himself round, and rushed past Roderick and Vixen along the plashy track.
Vixen was off her horse in a moment, and had flown to her father's side. He lay like a log, face downwards upon the sodden leaves just inside the gate. The farmer had dismounted and was stooping over him, bridle in hand, with a frightened face.
”Oh, what is it?” cried Violet frantically. ”Did the horse throw him?--Bullfinch, his favourite horse. Is he much hurt? Oh, help me to lift him up--help me--help me!”
Rorie was by her side by this time, kneeling down with her beside the prostrate Squire, trying to raise the heavy figure which lay like lead across his arm.
”It wasn't the horse, miss,” said the farmer. ”I'm afraid it's a seizure.”
”A fit!” cried Vixen. ”Oh, papa, papa----darling--darling----”
She was sobbing, clinging to him, trembling like a leaf, and turning a white, stricken face up towards Roderick.