Volume II Part 17 (1/2)

”We were coming through Lyndhurst, and could not resist the temptation of coming in to see you,” said the d.u.c.h.ess graciously. ”How do you do, Miss Tempest? Were you out with the hounds this morning? We met some people riding home.”

”I have never hunted since my father's death,” Violet answered gravely; and the d.u.c.h.ess was charmed with the answer and the seriously tender look that accompanied it.

Lord Mallow was standing before the hearth, looking remarkably handsome in full hunting costume. The well-worn scarlet coat and high black boots became him. He had enjoyed his first day with the Forest hounds, had escaped the bogs, and had avoided making an Absalom of himself among the spreading beechen boughs. Bullfinch had behaved superbly over his old ground.

Mr. and Mrs. Scobel were among those dusky figures grouped around the wide firelit hearth, where the piled-up logs testified to the Tempest common of estovers. Mr. Scobel was talking about the last advance movement of the Ritualists, and expatiating learnedly upon the Ornaments Rubric of 1559, and its bearing upon the Advertis.e.m.e.nts of 1566, with a great deal more about King Edward's first Prayer-book, and the Act of Uniformity, to Colonel Carteret, who, from an antique conservative standpoint, regarded Ritualists, Spirit-rappers, and Shakers in about the same category; while Mrs. Scobel twittered cheerily about the parish and the schools to the Colonel's bulky wife, who was a liberal patroness of all philanthropic inst.i.tutions in her neighbourhood.

Lord Mallow came eagerly forward to recall himself to the memories of Lady Mabel and her mother.

”I hope your grace has not forgotten me,” he said; and the d.u.c.h.ess, who had not the faintest recollection of his face or figure, knew that this must be Lord Mallow. ”I had the honour of being introduced to you at Lady Dumdrum's delightful ball.”

The d.u.c.h.ess said something gracious, and left Lord Mallow free to talk to Lady Mabel. He reminded her of that never to be, by him, forgotten waltz, and talked, in his low-pitched Irish voice, as if he had lived upon nothing but the recollection of it ever since.

It was idiosyncratic of Lord Mallow that he could not talk to any young woman without seeming to adore her. At this very moment he thought Violet Tempest the one lovable and soul-entrancing woman the world held for him; yet at sight of Lady Mabel he behaved as if she and no other was his one particular star.

”It was a nice dance, wasn't it? but there were too many people for the rooms,” said Lady Mabel easily; ”and I don't think the flowers were so prettily arranged as the year before. Do you?”

”I was not there the year before.”

”No? I must confess to having been at three b.a.l.l.s at Lady Dumdrum's.

That makes me seem very old, does it not? Some young ladies in London make believe to be always in their first season. They put on a hoydenish freshness, and pretend to be delighted with everything, as if they were just out of the nursery.”

”That's a very good idea up to thirty,” said Lord Mallow. ”I should think it would hardly answer after.”

”Oh, after thirty they begin to be fond of horses and take to betting.

I believe young ladies after thirty are the most desperate--what is that dreadful slang word?--plungers in society. How do you like our hunting?”

”I like riding about the Forest amazingly; but I should hardly call it hunting, after Leicesters.h.i.+re. Of course that depends in a measure upon what you mean by hunting. If you only mean hounds pottering about after a fox, this might pa.s.s muster; but if your idea of hunting includes hard riding and five-barred gates, I should call the kind of thing you do here by another name.”

”Was my cousin, Mr. Vawdrey, out to-day?”

”The M. F. H.? In the first flight. May I get you some tea?”

”If you please. Mrs. Winstanley's tea is always so good.”

Mrs. Winstanley was supremely happy in officiating at her gipsy table, where the silver tea-kettle of Queen Anne's time was going through its usual sputtering performances. To sit in a fas.h.i.+onable gown--however difficult the gown might be to sit in--and dispense tea to a local d.u.c.h.ess, was Mrs. Winstanley's loftiest idea of earthly happiness. Of course there might be a superior kind of happiness beyond earth; but to appreciate that the weak human soul would have to go through a troublesome ordeal in the way of preparation, as the gray cloth at Hoyle's printing-works is dashed about in gigantic vats, and whirled round upon mighty wheels, before it is ready for the reception of particular patterns and dyes.

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 fis.h.i.+ng.”

”Yes; but gentlemen will go to the most uncomfortable places for fis.h.i.+ng--Norway, for example. You go to Ireland just as you go to Norway.”

”I admit that the fis.h.i.+ng in Connemara is rather remote from civilisation----”