Volume III Part 1 (2/2)
”Then I'll write at once to Miss McCroke. I know she will leave the people she is with to travel with me.”
”Miss McCroke has nothing to do with the question. You roaming about the world with a superannuated governess would be too preposterous. I am going to take you to Jersey by this evening's boat. I have an aunt living there who has a fine old manor house, and who will be happy to take charge of you. She is a maiden lady, a woman of superior cultivation, who devotes herself wholly to intellectual pursuits. Her refining influence will be valuable to you. The island is lovely, the climate delicious. You could not be better off than you will be at Les Tourelles.”
”I am not going to Jersey, and I am not going to your intellectual aunt,” said Vixen resolutely.
”I beg your pardon, you are going, and immediately. Your mother and I have settled the matter between us. You have expressed a wish to leave home, and you will be pleased to go where we think proper. You had better tell Phoebe to pack your trunks. We shall leave here at ten o'clock in the evening. The boat starts from Southampton at midnight.”
Vixen felt herself conquered. She had stated her wish, and it was granted; not in the mode and manner she had desired; but perhaps she ought to be grateful for release from a home that had become loathsome to her, and not take objection to details in the scheme of her exile.
To go away, quite away, and immediately, was the grand point. To fly before she saw Rorie again.
”Heaven knows how weak I might be if he were to talk to me again as he talked last night!” she said to herself. ”I might not be able to bear it a second time. Oh Rorie, if you knew what it cost me to counsel you wisely, to bid you do your duty; when the vision of a happy life with you was smiling at me all the time, when the warm grasp of your dear hand made my heart thrill with joy, what a heroine you would think me!
And yet n.o.body will ever give me credit for heroism; and I shall be remembered only as a self-willed young woman, who was troublesome to her relations, and had to be sent away from home.”
She was thinking this while she sat in her father's chair, deliberating upon the Captain's last speech. She decided presently to yield, and obey her mother and stepfather. After all, what did it matter where she went? That scheme of being happy in Sweden with Miss McCroke was but an idle fancy. In the depths of her inner consciousness Violet Tempest knew that she could be happy nowhere away from Rorie and the Forest.
What did it matter, then, whether she went to Jersey or Kamtchatka, the sandy desert of Gobi or the Mountains of the Moon? In either case exile meant moral death, the complete renunciation of all that had been sweet and precious in her uneventful young life--the shadowy beech-groves; the wandering streams; the heathery upland plains; the deep ferny hollows, where the footsteps of humanity were almost unknown; the cl.u.s.ter of tall trees on the hill tops, where the herons came sailing home from their flight across Southampton Water; her childhood's companion; her horse; her old servants. Banishment meant a long farewell to all these.
”I suppose I may take my dog with me?” she asked, after a long pause, during which she had wavered between submission and revolt, ”and my maid?”
”I see no objection to your taking your dog; though I doubt whether my aunt will care to have a dog of that size prowling about her house. He can have a kennel somewhere, I daresay. You must learn to do without a maid. Feminine helplessness is going out of fas.h.i.+on; and one would expect an Amazon like you to be independent of lady's-maids and milliners.”
”Why don't you state the case in plain English?” cried Vixen scornfully. ”If I took Phoebe with me she would cost money. There would be her wages and maintenance to be provided. If I leave her behind, you can dismiss her. You have a fancy for dismissing old servants.”
”Had you not better see to the packing of your trunks?” asked Captain Winstanley, ignoring this shaft.
”What is to become of my horse?”
”I think you must resign yourself to leave him to fate and me,” replied the Captain coolly; ”my aunt may submit to the infliction of your dog, but that she should tolerate a young lady's roaming about the island on a thoroughbred horse would be rather too much to expect from her old-fas.h.i.+oned notions of propriety.”
”Besides, even Arion would cost something to keep,” retorted Vixen, ”and strict economy is the rule of your life. If you sell him--and, of course, you will do so--please let Lord Mallow have the refusal of him.
I think he would buy, him and treat him kindly, for my sake.”
”Wouldn't you rather Mr. Vawdrey had him?”
”Yes, if I were free to give him away; but I suppose you would deny my right of property even in the horse my father gave me.”
”Well, as the horse was not specified in your father's will, and as all his horses and carriages were left to your mother, I think there cannot be any doubt that Arion is my wife's property.”
”Why not say your property? Why give unnatural prominence to a cipher?
Do you think I hold my poor mother to blame for any wrong that is done to me, or to others, in this house? No, Captain Winstanley, I have no resentment against my mother. She is a blameless nullity, dressed in the latest fas.h.i.+on.”
”Go and pack your boxes!” cried the Captain angrily. ”Do you want to raise the devil that was raised last night? Do you want another conflagration? It might be a worse one this time. I have had a night of fever and unrest.”
”Am I to blame for that?'
”Yes--you beautiful fury. It was your image kept me awake. I shall sleep sounder when you are out of this house.”
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