Volume I Part 30 (1/2)
”Oh, he'll settle down presently,” said Vixen coolly. ”I don't want to interfere with him; it makes him ill-tempered. And if he were to take to kicking----”
”If you'll pull him up, I think I'll get out and walk,” said Mr.
Scobel, the back of whose head was on a level with the circle which the pony's hoofs would have been likely to describe in the event of kicking.
”Oh, please don't!” cried Vixen. ”If you do that I shall think you've no confidence in my driving.”
She pulled t.i.tmouse together, and coaxed him into an un.o.bjectionable trot; a trot which travelled over the ground very fast, without giving the occupants of the carriage the uncomfortable sensation of sitting behind a pony intent on getting to the sharp edge of the horizon and throwing himself over.
They were going up a long hill. Halfway up they came to the gate of the kennels. Violet looked at it with a curious half-reluctant glance that expressed the keenest pain.
”Poor papa,” she sighed. ”He never seemed happier than when he used to take me to see the hounds.”
”Mr. Vawdrey is to have them next year,” said Mrs. Scobel. ”That seems right and proper. He will be the biggest man in this part of the country when the Ashbourne and Briarwood estates are united. And the Duke cannot live very long--a man who gives his mind to eating and drinking, and is laid up with the gout twice a year.”
”Do you know when they are to be married?” asked Vixen, with an unconcerned air.
”At the end of this year, I am told. Lady Jane died last November. They would hardly have the wedding before a twelvemonth was over. Have you seen much of Mr. Vawdrey since he came back?”
”I believe I have seen him three times: once at Lady Southminster's ball; once when he came to call upon mamma; once at kettledrum at Ellangowan, where he was in attendance upon Lady Mabel. He looked rather like a little dog at the end of a string; he had just that meekly-obedient look, combined with an expression of not wanting to be there, which you see in a dog. If I were engaged, I would not take my _fiancee_ to kettledrums.”
”Ah, Violet, when are you going to be engaged?” cried Mrs. Scobel, in a burst of playfulness. ”Where is the man worthy of you?”
”Nowhere; unless Heaven would make me such a man as my father.”
”You and Mr. Vawdrey were such friends when you were girl and boy. I used sometimes to fancy that childish friends.h.i.+p of yours would lead to a lasting attachment.”
”Did you? That was a great mistake. I am not half good enough for Mr.
Vawdrey. I was well enough for a playfellow, but he wants something much nearer perfection in a wife.”
”But your tastes are so similar.”
”The very reason we should not care for each other.”
”'In joining contrasts lieth love's delight.' That's what a poet has said, yet I can't quite believe that, Violet.”
”But you see the event proves the poet's axiom true. Here is my old playfellow, who cares for nothing but horses and hounds and a country life, devotedly attached to Lady Mabel Ashbourne, who reads Greek plays with as much enjoyment as other young ladies derive from a stirring novel, and who hasn't an idea or an att.i.tude that is not strictly aesthetic.”
”Do you know, Violet, I am very much afraid that this marriage is rather the result of calculation than of genuine affection?” said Mrs.
Scobel solemnly.
”Oh, no doubt it will be a grand thing to unite Ashbourne and Briarwood, but Roderick Vawdrey is too honourable to marry a girl he could not love. I would never believe him capable of such baseness,”
answered Violet, standing up for her old friend.
Here they turned out of the Forest and drove through a peaceful colony consisting of half-a-dozen cottages, a rustic inn where reigned a supreme silence and sleepiness, and two or three houses in old-world gardens.
Vixen changed the conversation to buns and school-children, which agreeable theme occupied them till t.i.tmouse had walked up a tremendously steep hill, the Vicar trudging through the dust beside him; and then the deep green vale in which Rufus was slain lay smiling in the suns.h.i.+ne below their feet.
Perhaps the panorama to be seen from the top of that hill is absolutely the finest in the Forest--a vast champaign, stretching far away to the white walls, tiled roofs, and ancient abbey-church of Romsey; here a glimpse of winding water, there a humble village--nameless save for its inhabitants--nestling among the trees, or basking in the broad suns.h.i.+ne of a common.