Vixen. Volume I

"How dare you do such a thing?" exclaimed Vixen, shaking herself free from the traveller's encircling arm.

"I didn't think you minded," said Rorie innocently; "and when a fellow comes home from a long journey he expects a warm welcome!"

"And I am glad to see you," cried Vixen, giving him both her hands with a glorious frankness; "but you don't know how I have been hating you lately."

"Why, Vixen?"

"For being always away. I thought you had forgotten us all – that you did not care a jot for any of us."

"I had not forgotten any of you, and I did care – very much – for some of you."

This, though vague, was consoling.

The brown became Roderick. Dark of visage always, he was now tanned to a bronze as of one born under southern skies. Those deep gray eyes of his looked black under their black lashes. His black hair was cut close to his well-shaped head. An incipient moustache shaded his upper lip, and gave manhood to the strong, firm mouth. A manly face altogether, Roderick's, and handsome withal. Vixen's short life had shown her none handsomer.

He was tall and strongly built, with a frame that had been developed by many an athletic exercise – from throwing the hammer to pugilism. Vixen thought him the image of Richard Coeur de Lion. She had been reading "The Talisman" lately, and the Plantagenet was her ideal of manly excellence.

"Many happy returns of the day, Rorie," she said softly. "To think that you are of age to-day. Your own master."

"Yes, my infancy ceased and determined at the last stroke of midnight yesterday. I wonder whether my anxious mother will recognise that fact?"

"Of course you know what is going to happen at Briarwood. There is to be a grand dinner-party."

"And you are coming? How jolly!"

"Oh, no, Rorie. I am not out yet, you know. I shan't be for two years. Papa means to give me a season in town. He calls it having me broken to harness. He'll take a furnished house, and we shall have the horses up, and I shall ride in the Row, You'll be with us part of the time, won't you, Rorie?"

"Ça se peut. If papa will invite me."

"Oh, he will, if I wish it. It's to be my first season, you know, and I'm to have everything my own way."

"Will that be a novelty?" demanded Roderick, with intention.

"I don't know. I haven't had my own way in anything lately."

"How is that?"

"You have been away."

At this naïve flattery, Roderick almost blushed.

"How you've grown. Vixen," he remarked presently.

"Have I really? Yes, I suppose I do grow. My frocks are always getting too short."

"Like the sleeves of my dress-coats a year or two ago."

"But now you are of age, and can't grow any more. What are you going to be, Rorie? What are you going to do with your liberty? Are you going into Parliament?"

Mr. Vawdrey indulged in a suppressed yawn.

"My mother would like it," he said, "but upon my word I don't care about it. I don't take enough interest in my fellow-creatures."

"If they were foxes, you'd be anxious to legislate for them," suggested Vixen.

"I would certainly try to protect them from indiscriminate slaughter. And in fact, when one considers the looseness of existing game-laws, I think every country gentleman ought to be in Parliament."

"And there is the Forest for you to take care of."

"Yes, forestry is a subject on which I should like to have my say. I suppose I shall be obliged to turn senator. But I mean to take life easily – you may be sure of that, Vixen; and I intend to have the best stud of hunters in Hampshire. And now I think I must be off."

"No, you mustn't," cried Violet. "The dinner is not till eight. If you leave here at six you will have no end of time for getting home to dress. How did you come?"

"On these two legs."

"You shall have four to take you to Briarwood. West shall drive you home in papa's dog-cart, with the new mare. You don't know her, do you? Papa only bought her last spring. She is such a beauty, and goes – goes – oh, like a skyrocket. She bolts occasionally; but you don't mind that, do you?"

"Not in the least. It would be rather romantic to be smashed on one's twenty-first birthday. Will you tell them to order West to get ready at once."

"Oh, but you are to stop to tea with Miss McCroke and me – that's part of our bargain. No kettledrum, no Starlight Bess! And you'd scarcely care about walking to Briarwood under such rain as that!"

"So be it, then; kettledrum and Starlight Bess, at any hazard of maternal wrath. But really now I'm doing a most ungentlemanly thing, Vixen, to oblige you!"

"Always be ungentlemanly then for my sake – if it's ungentlemanly to come and see me," said Vixen coaxingly.

They were standing side by side in the big window looking out at the straight thin rain. The two pairs of lips were not very far away from each other, and Rorie might have been tempted to commit a third offence against the proprieties, if Miss McCroke had not fortunately entered at this very moment. She was wonderfully surprised at seeing Mr. Vawdrey, congratulated him ceremoniously upon his majority, and infused an element of stiffness into the small assembly.

"Rorie is going to stay to tea," said Vixen. "We'll have it here by the fire, please, Crokey dear. One can't have too much of a good fire this weather. Or shall we go to my den? Which would you like best, Rorie?"

"I think we had better have tea here, Violet," interjected Miss McCroke, ringing the bell.

Her pupil's sanctum sanctorum– that pretty up-stairs room, half schoolroom, half boudoir, and wholly untidy – was not, in Miss McCroke's opinion, an apartment to be violated by the presence of a young man.

"And as Rory hasn't had any luncheon, and has come ever so far out of his way to see me, please order something substantial for him," said Vixen.

Her governess obeyed. The gipsy table was wheeled up to the broad hearth, and presently the old silver tea-pot and kettle, and the yellow cups and saucers, were shining in the cheery firelight. The old butler put a sirloin and a game-pie on the sideboard, and then left the little party to shift for themselves, in pleasant picnic fashion.

Vixen sat down before the hissing tea-kettle with a pretty important air, like a child making tea out of toy tea-things. Rorie brought a low square stool to a corner close to her, and seated himself with his chin a little above the tea-table.

"You can't eat roast beef in that position," said Vixen.

"Oh yes I can – I can do anything that's mad or merry this evening. But I'm not at all sure that I want beef, though it is nearly three months since I've seen an honest bit of ox beef. I think thin bread and butter – or roses and dew even – quite substantial enough for me this evening."

"You're afraid of spoiling your appetite for the grand dinner," said Vixen.

"No, I'm not. I hate grand dinners. Fancy making a fine art of eating, and studying one's menu beforehand to see what combination of dishes will harmonise best with one's internal economy. And then the names of the things are always better than the things themselves. It's like a show at a fair, all the best outside. Give me a slice of English beef or mutton, and a bird that my gun has shot, and let all the fine-art dinners go hang."

"Cut him a slice of beef, dear Miss McCroke," said Vixen.