Volume I Part 24 (1/2)

He took Mrs. Scobel in to dinner, and Mrs. Scobel played the accompaniment of his song, being a clever little woman, able to turn her hand to any thing. He would have preferred to be told off to some more important matron, but was not sorry to be taken under Mrs.

Scobel's wing. She could give him the carte du pays, and would be useful to him, no doubt, in the future; a social Iris, to fetch and carry for him between Beechdale and the Abbey House.

”Do you know that I am quite in love with your Forest?” he said to Mrs.

Tempest, standing in front of the ottoman where that lady sat with two of her particular friends; ”so much so, that I am actually in treaty for Captain Hawbuck's cottage, and mean to stay here till the end of the hunting.”

Everybody knew Captain Hawbuck's cottage, a verandahed box of a house, on the slope of the hill above Beechdale.

”I'm afraid you'll find the drawing-room chimney smokes,” said a matter-of-fact lady in sea-green; ”poor Mrs. Hawbuck was a martyr to that chimney.”

”What does a bachelor want with a drawing-room? If there is one sitting-room in which I can burn a good fire, I shall be satisfied. The stable is in very fair order.”

”The Hawbucks kept a pony-carriage,” a.s.sented the sea-green lady.

”If Mrs. Hawbuck accepts my offer, I shall send for my horses next week,” said the Captain.

Mrs. Tempest blushed. Her life had flowed in so gentle and placid a current, that the freshness of her soul had not worn off, and at nine-and-thirty she was able to blush. There was something so significant in Captain Winstanley's desire to establish himself at Beechdale, that she could not help feeling fluttered by the fact. It might be on Violet's account, of course, that he came; yet Violet and he had never got on very well together.

”Poor fellow!” she thought blandly, ”if he for a moment supposes that anything would tempt me to marry again, he is egregiously mistaken.”

And then she looked round the lovely old room, brightened by a crowd of well-dressed people, and thought that next to being Edward Tempest's wife, the best thing in life was to be Edward Tempest's widow.

”Dear Edward!” she mused, ”how strange that we should miss him so little to-night.”

It had been with everyone as if the squire had never lived. Politeness exacted this ignoring of the past, no doubt; but the thing had been so easily done. The n.o.ble presence, the jovial laugh, the friendly smile were gone, and no one seemed conscious of the void--no one but Violet, who looked round the room once when conversation was liveliest, with a pale indignant face, resenting this forgetfulness.

”I wish papa's ghost would come in at that door and scare his hollow-hearted friends,” she said to herself; and she felt as if it would hardly have been a surprise to her to see the door open slowly and that familiar figure appear.

”Well, Violet,” Mrs. Temple said sweetly, when the guests were gone, ”how do you think it all went off?”

”It,” of course, meant the dinner-party.

”I suppose, according to the nature of such things, it was all right and proper,” Vixen answered coldly; ”but I should think it must have been intensely painful to you, mamma.”

Mrs. Tempest sighed. She had always a large selection of sighs in stock, suitable to every occasion.

”I should have felt it much worse if I had sat in my old place at dinner,” she said; ”but sitting at the middle of the table instead of at the end made it less painful. And I really think it's better style.

How did you like the new arrangement of the gla.s.ses?”

”I didn't notice anything new.”

”My dear Violet, you are frightfully un.o.bservant.”

”No, I am not,” answered Vixen quickly. ”My eyes are keen enough, believe me.”

Mrs. Tempest felt uncomfortable. She began to think that, after all, it might be a comfortable thing to have a companion--as a fender between herself and Violet. A perpetually present Miss Jones or Smith would ward off these unpleasantnesses.

There are occasions, however, on which a position must be faced boldly--in proverbial phrase, the bull must be taken by the horns. And here, Mrs. Tempest felt, was a bull which must be so encountered. She knew that her poor little hands were too feeble for the office; but she told herself that she must make the heroic attempt.

”Violet, why have you such a rooted dislike to Captain Winstanley?”