Vixen Volume I Part 27

"You must look at the silver candelabra presented by Sir Ponto's workpeople, so much more sensible than a bracelet. I don't think Garrard--yes, it is Garrard--ever did anything better; so sweetly mythological--a goat and a dear little chubby boy, and ever so many savage-looking persons with cymbals."

"The education of Jupiter, perhaps," suggested Captain Winstanley.

"Of course. The savage persons must be teaching him music. Have you seen this liqueur cabinet, dear Mrs. Tempest? The most exquisite thing, from the servants at Southminster. Could anything be nicer?"

"Looks rather like a suggestion that Lady Almira may be given to curacoa on the quiet," said the Captain.

"And this lovely, lovely screen in crewels, by the Ladies Ringwood, after a picture by Alma Tadema," continued Mrs. Scobel. "Was there ever anything so perfect? And to think that our poor mothers worked staring roses and gigantic lilies in Berlin wool and gla.s.s beads, and imagined themselves artistic!"

The ladies went the round of the tables, in a crush of other ladies, all rapturous. The Louis Quatorze fans, the carved ivory, the Brussels point, the oxydised silver glove-boxes, and malachite blotting-books, the pearls, opals, ormolu; the antique tankards and candlesticks, Queen-Anne teapots; diamond stars, combs, tiaras; prayer-books, and "Christian Years." The special presents which stood out from this chaos of common place were--a _riviere_ of diamonds from the Earl of Southminster, a cashmere shawl from Her Majesty, a basket of orchids, valued at five hundred guineas, from Lady Ellangowan, a pair of priceless crackle jars, a Sevres dinner-service of the old _bleu-du-roi_, a set of knives of which the handles had all been taken from stags slaughtered by the Southminster hounds.

"This is all very well for the wallflowers," said Captain Winstanley to Violet, "but you and I are losing our dances."

"I don't much care about dancing," answered Vixen wearily.

She had been looking at this gorgeous display of bracelets and teacups, silver-gilt dressing-cases, and ivory hairbrushes, without seeing anything. She was thinking of Roderick Vawdrey, and how odd a thing it was that he should seem so utter a stranger to her.

"He has gone up into the ducal circle," she said to herself. "He is translated. It is almost as if he had wings. He is certainly as far away from me as if he were a bishop."

They struggled back to the picture-gallery, and here Lady Ellangowan took possession of Violet, and got her distinguished partners for all the dances till supper-time. She found herself receiving a gracious little nod from Lady Mabel Ashbourne in the ladies' chain. Neither the lapse of two years nor the experience of foreign travel had made any change in the hope of the Dovedales. She was still the same sylph-like being, dressed in palest green, the colour of a duck's egg, with diamonds in strictest moderation, and pearls that would have done honour to a princess.

"Do you think Lady Mabel Ashbourne very beautiful?" Vixen asked Lady Ellangowan, curious to hear the opinion of experience and authority.

"No; she's too shadowy for my taste," replied her ladys.h.i.+p, who was the reverse of sylph-like. "Wasn't there someone in Greek mythology who fell in love with a cloud? Lady Mabel would just suit that sort of person. And then she is over-educated and conceited; sets up for a modern Lady Jane Grey, quotes Greek plays, I believe, and looks astounded if people don't understand her. She'll end by establis.h.i.+ng a female college, like Tennyson's princess."

"Oh, but she is engaged to be married to Mr. Vawdrey."

"Her cousin? Very foolis.h.!.+ That may go off by-and-by. First engagements seldom come to anything."

Violet thought herself a hateful creature for being inwardly grateful to Lady Ellangowan for this speech.

She had seen Roderick spinning round with his cousin. He was a good waltzer, but not a graceful one. He steered his way well, and went with a strong swing that covered a great deal of ground; but there was a want of finish. Lady Mabel looked as if she were being carried away by a maelstrom. And now people began to move towards the supper-rooms, of which there were two, luxuriously arranged with numerous round tables in the way that was still a novelty when "Lothair" was written. This gave more room for the dancers. The people for whom a ball meant a surfeit of perigord pie, truffled turkey, salmon _mayonnaise_, and early strawberries, went for their first innings, meaning to return to that happy hunting-ground as often as proved practicable. Violet was carried off by a partner who was so anxious to take her to supper that she felt sure he was dying to get some for himself.

Her cavalier found her a corner at a snug little table with three gorgeous matrons. She ate a cutlet and a teaspoonful of peas, took three sips from a gla.s.s of champagne, and wound up with some strawberries, which tasted as if they had been taken by mistake out of the pickle-jar.

"I'm afraid you haven't had a very good supper." said her partner, who had been comfortably wedged between two of the matrons, consuming mayonnaise and pate to his heart's content.

"Excellent, thanks. I shall be glad to make room for someone else."

Whereat the unfortunate young man was obliged to stand up, leaving the choicest morsel of truffled goose-liver on his plate.

The crowd in the picture-gallery was thinner when Violet went back. In the doorway she met Roderick Vawdrey.

"Haven't you kept a single dance for me, Violet?" he asked.

"You didn't ask me to keep one."

"Didn't I? Perhaps I was afraid of Captain Winstanley's displeasure. He would have objected, no doubt."

"Why should he object, unless I broke an engagement to him?"

"Would he not? Are you actually free to be asked by anyone? If I had known that two hours ago! And now, I suppose your programme is full.

Yes, to the very last galop; for which, of course, you won't stop. But there's to be an extra waltz presently. You must give me that."

She said neither yes nor no, and he put her hand through his arm and led her up the room.

"Have you seen mamma?"

"Yes. She thinks I am grown. She forgets that I was one-and-twenty when we last met. That does not leave much margin for growing, unless a man went on getting taller indefinitely, like Lord Southminster's palms. He had to take the roof off his palm-house last year, you know. What a dreadful thing if I were to become a Norfolk giant--giants are indigenous to Norfolk, aren't they?--and were obliged to take the roof off Briarwood. Have you seen the d.u.c.h.ess?"

"Only in the distance. I hardly know her at all, you know."

"That's absurd. You ought to know her very well. You must be quite intimate with her by-and-by, when we are all settled down as steady-going married people."

The little gloved hand on his arm quivered ever so slightly. This was a distinct allusion to his approaching marriage.

"Lovely room, isn't it? Just the right thing for a ball. How do you like the Rubens? Very grand--a magnificent display of carmines--beautiful, if you are an admirer of Rubens. What a draughtsman! The Italian school rarely achieved that freedom of pencil.

Isn't that Greuze enchanting? There is an innocence, a freshness, about his girlish faces that n.o.body has ever equalled. His women are not Madonnas, or Junos, or Helens--they are the incarnation of girlhood; girlhood without care or thought; girlhood in love with a kitten, or weeping over a wounded robin-redbreast."

How abominably he rattled on. Was it the overflow of joyous spirits? No doubt. He was so pleased with life and fate, that he was obliged to give vent to his exuberance in this gush of commonplace.

"You remind me of Miss Bates, in Jane Austen's 'Emma,'" said Vixen, laughing.

The band struck up "_Trauriges Herz_," a waltz like a wail, but with a fine swing in it.

"Now for the old three-time," said Roderick; and the next minute they were sailing smoothly over the polished floor, with all the fair pictured faces, the crimson draperies, the pensive Madonnas, Dutch boors, Italian temples, and hills, and skies, circling round them like the figures in a kaleidoscope.

"Do you remember our boy-and-girl waltzes in the hall at the Abbey House?" asked Rorie.

Happily for Vixen her face was so turned that he could not see the quiver on her lips, the sudden look of absolute pain that paled her cheeks.

"I am not likely to forget any part of my childhood," she answered gravely. "It was the one happy period of my life."

"You don't expect me to believe that the last two years have been altogether unhappy."

"You may believe what you like. You who knew my father, ought to know----"

"The dear Squire! do you think I am likely to undervalue him, or to forget your loss? No, Violet, no. But there are compensations. I heard of you at Brighton. You were very happy there, were you not?"

"I liked Brighton pretty well. And I had Arion there all the while.

There are some capital rides on the Downs."

"Yes, and you had agreeable friends there."

"Yes, we knew a good many pleasant people, and went to a great many concerts. I heard all the good singers, and Madame G.o.ddard ever so many times."

They went on till the end of the waltz, and then walked slowly round the room, glancing at the pictures as they went by. The d.u.c.h.ess was not in sight.

"Shall we go and look at the palms?" asked Roderick, when they came to the archway at the end of the gallery.