Volume II Part 9 (1/2)
”I shall be very glad if she will let me like her,” Violet said meekly.
They had strolled away from the kennels into the surrounding forest, where the free horses of the soil were roaming from pasture to pasture, and a few vagabond pigs were stealing a march on their brethren, for whom the joys of pannage-time had not yet begun. They walked along idly, following a cart-track that led into the woody deeps where the earliest autumn leaves were dropping gently in the soft west wind.
By-and-by they came to a fallen oak, lying by the side of the track, ready for barking, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to sit down side by side on this rustic seat, and talk of days gone by, lazily watching the flickering shadows and darting sunrays in the opposite thicket, or along the slanting stretch of open turf--that smooth emerald gra.s.s, so inviting to the eye, so perilous to the foot of man or beast.
”And now, Violet, tell me all about yourself, and about this second marriage of your mother's,” Roderick began earnestly; ”I hope you have quite reconciled yourself to the idea of it by this time.”
”I have not reconciled myself; I never shall,” answered Violet, with restrained anger. ”I know that mamma has heaped up sorrow for herself in the days to come, and I pity her too much to be angry with her. Yes; I, who ought to look up to and respect my mother, can only look down upon her and pity her. That is a hard thing, is it not, Rorie? She has married a bad man--mean, and false--and tyrannical. Shall I tell you what he has done within these last few days?”
”Do. I hope it is not anything very bad.”
Violet told how Bullfinch had been sold.
”It looks mean, certainly,” said Mr. Vawdrey; ”but I daresay to Captain Winstanley, as a man of the world, it might seem a foolish thing to keep a horse n.o.body rode; especially such a valuable horse as Bullfinch. Your father gave two hundred and fifty for him at Andover, I remember. And you really have too many horses at the Abbey House.”
”Arion will be the next to be sold, I daresay.”
”Oh, no, no. He could not be such an insolent scoundrel as to sell your horse. That would be too much. Besides, you will be of age in a year or two, and your own mistress.”
”I shall not be of age for the next seven years. I am not to come of age till I am five-and-twenty.”
”Phew!” whistled Rorie, ”That's a long shot off. How is that?”
”Papa left it so in his will. It was his care of me, no doubt. He never would have believed that mamma would marry again.”
”And for the next seven years you are to be in a state of tutelage, dependent on your mother for everything?”
”For everything. And that will really mean dependent upon Captain Winstanley; because I am very sure that as long as he lets mamma wear pretty dresses and drink orange pekoe out of old china, she will be quite contented to let him be master of everything else.”
”But if you were to marry----”
”I suppose that would entangle or disentangle matters somehow. But I am not likely to marry.”
”I don't see that,” said Rorie. ”I should think nothing was more likely.”
”Allow me to be the best judge of my own business,” exclaimed Vixen, looking desperately angry. ”I will go so far as to say that I never shall marry.”
”Oh, very well, if you insist upon it, let it be understood so. And now, Vix----Violet, don't you think if you could bring yourself to conciliate Captain Winstanley--to resign yourself, in fact, to the inevitable, and take things pleasantly, it would make your life happier for the next seven years? I really would try to do it, if I were you.”
”I had made up my mind to an existence of hypocrisy before he sold Bullfinch,” replied Vixen, ”but now I shall hate him frankly.”
”But, Violet, don't you see that unless you can bring yourself to live pleasantly with that man your life will be made miserable? Fate condemns you to live under the same roof with him.”
”I am not sure about that. I could go out as a governess. I am not at all clever, but I think I could teach as much as would be good value for twenty pounds a year; or at the worst I might give my services in exchange for a comfortable home, as the advertis.e.m.e.nts say. How I wish I could read Greek and play Chopin, like Lady Mabel Ashbourne. I'll write to dear old McCroke, and ask her to get me a place.”
”My dear Violet, how can you talk so absurdly. You, the future mistress of the Abbey House--you, with your youth and beauty and high spirit--to go meandering about the world teaching b.u.t.termen's or tea-dealers'
children to spell B a, ba, and A b, ab?”
”It might be better than sitting at meat with a man I detest,” said Vixen. ”Am I to value the flesh-pots of Egypt more than, my liberty and independence of mind?”
”You have your mother to think of,” urged Roderick. ”You owe duty and obedience to her, even if she has offended you by this foolish marriage. If you have so bad an opinion of Captain Winstanley, you are all the more bound to stand by your mother.”