Volume II Part 25 (1/2)
”Dear mother, how do I interfere with your happiness? You live your life, and I mine. You and Captain Winstanley take your own way, I mine.
Is it a crime to be out riding a little longer than usual, that you should look so pale and the Captain so black when I come home?”
”It is worse than a crime, Violet; it is an impropriety.”
Vixen blushed crimson, and turned upon her mother with an expression that was half startled, half indignant.
”What do you mean, mamma?”
”Had you been riding about the Forest all those hours alone, it would have been eccentric--unladylike--masculine even. You know that your habit of pa.s.sing half your existence on horseback has always been a grief to me. But you were not alone.”
”No, mamma, I was not alone. I had my oldest friend with me; one of the few people in this big world who care for me.”
”You were riding about with Roderick Vawdrey, Lady Mabel Ashbourne's future husband.”
”Why do you remind me of his engagement, mamma? Do you think that Roderick and I have even forgotten it? Can he not be my friend as well as Lady Mabel's husband? Am I to forget that he and I played together as children, that we have always thought of each other and cared for each other as brother and sister, only because he is engaged to Lady Mabel Ashbourne?”
”Violet, you must know that all talk about brother and sister is sheer nonsense. Suppose I had set up brother and sister with Captain Winstanley! What would you--what would the world have thought?”
”That would have been different,” said Vixen. ”You did not know each other as babies. In fact you couldn't have done so, for you had left off being a baby before he was born,” added Vixen navely.
”You will have to put a stop to these rides with Roderick. Everybody in the neighbourhood is talking about you.”
”Which everybody?”
”Colonel Carteret to begin with.”
”Colonel Carteret slanders everybody. It is his only intellectual resource. Dearest mother, be your own sweet easy-tempered self, not a speaking-tube for Captain Winstanley. Pray leave me my liberty. I am not particularly happy. You might at least let me be free.”
Violet left her mother with these words. They had reached the lawn before the drawing-room windows. Mrs. Winstanley sank into a low basket-chair, like a hall-porter's, which a friend had sent her from the sands of Trouville; and Vixen ran off to the stables to see if Arion was in any way the worse for his long round.
The horses had been littered down for the night, and the stable-yard was empty. The faithful Bates, who was usually to be found at this hour smoking his evening pipe on a stone bench beside the stable pump, was nowhere in sight. Vixen went into Arion's loose-box, where that animal was nibbling clover lazily, standing knee-deep in freshly-spread straw, his fine legs carefully bandaged. He gave his mistress the usual grunt of friendly greeting, allowed her to feed him with the choicest bits of clover, and licked her hands in token of grat.i.tude.
”I don't think you're any the worse for our canter over the gra.s.s, old pet,” she cried cheerily, as she caressed his sleek head, ”and Captain Winstanley's black looks can't hurt you.”
As she left the stable she saw Bates, who was walking slowly across the court-yard, wiping his honest old eyes with the cuff of her drab coat, and hanging his grizzled head dejectedly.
Vixen ran to him with her cheeks aflame, divining mischief. The Captain had been wreaking his spite upon this lowly head.
”What's the matter, Bates?”
”I've lived in this house, Miss Voylet, man and boy, forty year come Michaelmas, and I've never wronged my master by so much as the worth of a handful o' wuts or a carriage candle. I was stable-boy in your grandfeyther's time, miss, as is well-beknown to you; and I remember your feyther when he was the finest and handsomest young squire within fifty mile. I've loved you and yours better than I ever loved my own flesh and blood: and to go and pluck me up by the roots and chuck me out amongst strangers in my old age, is crueller than it would be to tear up the old cedar on the lawn, which I've heard Joe the gardener say be as old as the days when such-like trees was fust beknown in England. It's crueller, Miss Voylet, for the cedar ain't got no feelings--but I feel it down to the deepest fibres in me. The lawn 'ud look ugly and empty without the cedar, and mayhap n.o.body'll miss me--but I've got the heart of a man, miss, and it bleeds.”
Poor Bates relieved his wounded feelings with this burst of eloquence.
He was a man who, although silent in his normal condition, had a great deal to say when he felt aggrieved. In his present state of mind his only solace was in many words.
”I don't know what you mean, Bates,” cried Vixen, very pale now, divining the truth in part, if not wholly. ”Don't cry, dear old fellow, it's too dreadful to see you. You don't mean--you can't mean--that--my mother has sent you away?”
”Not your ma, miss, bless her heart. She wouldn't sack the servant that saddled her husband's horse, fair weather and foul, for twenty years.
No, Miss Voylet, it's Captain Winstanley that's given me the sack. He's master here, now, you know, miss.”