There was a meadow-path which lessened the distance between Les Tourelles and Mount Orgueil. Vixen had just left the road and entered the meadow when Argus set up a joyous bark, and ran back to salute a pa.s.sing vehicle. It was a St. Helier"s fly, driving at a tremendous pace in the direction from which she had come. A young man lay back in the carriage, smoking a cigar, with his hat slouched over his eyes.
Vixen could just see the strong sunburnt hand flung up above his head.
It was a foolish fancy, doubtless, but that broad brown hand reminded her of Rorie"s. Argus leaped the stile, rushed after the vehicle, and saluted it clamorously. The poor brute had been mewed up for a week in a dull courtyard, and was rejoiced at having something to bark at.
Vixen walked on to the seash.o.r.e, and the smiling little harbour, and the brave old castle. There was the usual party of tourists following the guide through narrow pa.s.sages and echoing chambers, and peering into the rooms where Charles Stuart endured his exile, and making those lively remarks and speculations whereby the average tourist is p.r.o.ne to reveal his hazy notions of history. Happily Vixen knew of quiet corners upon the upward walls whither tourists rarely penetrated; nooks in which she had sat through many an hour of sun and shade, reading, musing, or sketching with free untutored pencil, for the mere idle delight of the moment. Here in this loneliness, between land and sea, she had nursed her sorrow and made much of her grief. She liked the place. No obtrusive sympathy had ever made it odious to her. Here she was mistress of herself and her own thoughts. To-day she went to her favourite corner, a seat in an angle of the battlemented wall, and sat there with her arms folded on the stone parapet, looking dreamily seaward, across the blue channel to the still bluer coast of Normandy, where the tower of Coutance showed dimly in the distance.
Resignation. Yes, that was to be her portion henceforward. She must live out her life, in isolation almost as complete as Miss Skipwith"s, without the innocent delusions which gave substance and colour to that lonely lady"s existence.
"If I could only have a craze," she thought hopelessly, "some harmless monomania which would fill my mind! The maniacs in Bedlam, who fancy themselves popes or queens, are happy in their foolish way. If I could only imagine myself something which I am not--anything except poor useless Violet Tempest, who has no place in the world!"
The sun was gaining power, the air was drowsy, the soft ripple of the tide upon the golden sand was like a lullaby. Even that long sleep of the morning had not cured Vixen"s weariness. There were long arrears of slumber yet to be made up. Her eyelids drooped, then closed altogether, the ocean lullaby took a still softer sound, the distant voices of the tourists grew infinitely soothing, and Vixen sank quietly to sleep, her head leaning on her folded arms, the gentle west wind faintly stirring her loose hair.
""Oh, happy kiss that woke thy sleep!"" cried a familiar voice close in the slumberer"s ear, and then a warm breath, which was not the summer wind, fanned the cheek that lay upmost upon her arm, two warm lips were pressed against that glowing cheek in ardent greeting. The girl started to her feet, every vein tingling with the thrilling recognition of her a.s.sailant. There was no one else--none other than he--in this wide world who would do such a thing! She sprang up, and faced him, her eyes flashing, her cheeks crimson.
"How dare you?" she cried. "Then it was you I saw in the fly? Pray, is this the nearest way to Norway?"
Yes, it was Rorie; looking exactly like the familiar Rorie of old; not one whit altered by marriage with a duke"s only daughter; a stalwart young fellow in a rough gray suit, a dark face sunburnt to deepest bronze, eyes with a happy smile in them, firmly-cut lips half hidden by the thick brown beard, a face that would have looked well under a lifted helmet--such a face as the scared Saxons must have seen among the bold followers of William the Norman, when those hardy Norse warriors ran amuck in Dover town.
"Not to my knowledge," answered this audacious villain, in his lightest tone. "I am not very geographical. But I should think it was rather out of the way."
"Then you and Lady Mabel have changed your plans?" said Vixen, trembling very much, but trying desperately to be as calmly commonplace as a young lady talking to an ineligible partner at a ball. "You are not going to the north of Europe?"
"Lady Mabel and I have changed our plans. We are not going to the north of Europe."
"Oh!"
"In point of fact, we are not going anywhere."
"But you have come to Jersey. That is part of your tour, I suppose?"
"Do not be too hasty in your suppositions, Miss Tempest. _I_ have come to Jersey--I am quite willing to admit as much as that."
"And Lady Mabel? She is with you, of course?"
"Not the least bit in the world. To the best of my knowledge, Lady Mabel--I beg her pardon--Lady Mallow is now on her way the fishing-grounds of Connemara with her husband."
"Rorie!"
What a glad happy cry that was! It was like a gush of sudden music from a young blackbird"s throat on a sunny spring morning. The crimson dye had faded from Violet"s cheeks a minute ago and left her deadly pale.
Now the bright colour rushed back again, the happy brown eyes, the sweet blush-rose lips, broke into the gladdest smile that ever Rorie had seen upon her face. He held out his arms, he clasped her to his breast, where she rested unresistingly, infinitely happy. Great Heaven!
how the whole world and herself had become transformed in this moment of unspeakable bliss! Rorie, the lost, the surrendered, was her own true lover after all!
"Yes, dear, I obeyed you. You were hard and cruel to me that night in the fir plantation; but I knew in my heart of hearts that you were wise, and honest, and true; and I made up my mind that I would keep the engagement entered upon beside my mother"s death-bed. Loving or unloving I would marry Mabel Ashbourne, and do my duty to her, and go down to my grave with the character of a good and faithful husband, as many a man has done who never loved his wife. So I held on, Vixen--yes, I will call you by the old pet name now: henceforward you are mine, and I shall call you what I like--I held on, and was altogether an exemplary lover; went wherever I was ordered to go, and always came when they whistled for me; rode at my lady"s jog-trot pace in the Row, stood behind her chair at the opera, endured more cla.s.sical music than ever man heard before and lived, listened to my sweetheart"s ma.n.u.script verses, and, in a word, did my duty in that state of life to which it had pleased G.o.d to call me; and my reward has been to be jilted with every circ.u.mstance of ignominy on my wedding-morning."
"Jilted!" cried Vixen, her big brown eyes shining, in pleasantest mockery. "Why I thought Lady Mabel adored you?"
"So did I," answered Roderick navely, "and I pitied the poor dear thing for her infatuation. Had I not thought that, I should have broken my bonds long ago. It was not the love of the Duke"s acres that held me. I still believe that Mabel was fond of me once, but Lord Mallow bowled me out. His eloquence, his parliamentary success, and, above all, his flattery, proved irresistible. The scoundrel brought a marriage certificate in his pocket when he came to stay at Ashbourne, and had the art to engage rooms at Southampton and sleep there a night _en pa.s.sant_. He left a portmanteau and a hat-box there, and that const.i.tuted legal occupancy; so, when he won Lady Mabel"s consent to an elopement--which I believe he did not succeed in doing till the night before our intended wedding-day--he had only to ride over to Southampton and give notice to the parson and clerk. The whole thing was done splendidly. Lady Mabel went out at eight o"clock, under the pretence of going to early church. Mallow was waiting for her with a fly, half a mile from Ashbourne. They drove to Southampton together, and were married at ten o"clock, in the old church of St. Michael.
While the distracted d.u.c.h.ess and her women were hunting everywhere for the bride, and all the visitors at Ashbourne were arraying themselves in their wedding finery, and the village children were filling their baskets with flowers to strew upon the pathway of the happy pair, emblematical of the flowers which do _not_ blossom in the highway of life, the lady was over the border with Jock o" Hazeldean! Wasn"t it fun, Vixen?"
And the jilted one flung back his handsome head and laughed long and loud. It was too good a joke, the welcome release coming at the last moment.
"At half-past ten there came a telegram from my runaway bride:
""Ask Roderick to forgive me, dear mamma. I found at the last that my heart was not mine to give, and I am married to Lord Mallow. I do not think my cousin will grieve very much."
"That last clause was sensible, anyhow, was it not, Vixen?"
"I think the whole business was very sensible," said Vixen, with a sweet grave smile; "Lord Mallow wanted a clever wife and you did not.
It was very wise of Lady Mabel to find that out before it was too late."
"She will be very happy as Lady Mallow," said Roderick. "Mallow will legislate for Ireland, and she will rule him. He will have quite enough of Home Rule, poor beggar. Hibernia will be Mabelised. She is a dear good little thing. I quite love her, now she has jilted me."
"But how did you come here?" asked Vixen, looking up at her lover in simple wonder. "All this happened only yesterday morning."
"Is there not a steamer that leaves Southampton nightly? Had there not been one I would have chartered a boat for myself. I would have come in a c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l--I would have come with a swimming-belt--I would have done anything wild and adventurous to hasten to my love. I started for Southampton the minute I had seen that too blessed telegram; went to St. Michael"s, saw the register with its entry of Lord Mallow"s marriage, hardly dry; and then went down to the docks and booked my berth. Oh, what a long day yesterday was--the longest day of my life!"
"And of mine," sighed Vixen, between tears and laughter, "in spite of the Shepherd Kings."
"Are those Jersey people you have picked up?" Rorie asked innocently.
This turned the scale, and Vixen burst into a joyous peal of laughter.
"How did you find me here?" she asked.
"Very easily. Your custodian--what a grim-looking personage she is, by-the-way--told me where you were gone, and directed me how to follow you. I told her I had a most important message to deliver to you from your mother. You don"t mind that artless device, I hope?"
"Not much. How is dear mamma? She complains in her letters of not feeling very well."
"I have not seen her lately. When I did, I thought her looking ill and worn. She will get well when you go back to her, Vixen. Your presence will be like sunshine."
"I shall never go back to the Abbey House."
"Yes, you will--for one fortnight at least. After that your home will be at Briarwood. You must be married from your father"s house."
"Who said I was going to be married, sir?" asked Vixen, with delicious coquetry.
"I said it--I say it. Do you think I am too bold, darling? Ought I to go on my knees, love, and make you a formal offer? Why I have loved you all my life; and I think you have loved me as long."
"So I have, Rorie," she answered softly, shyly, sweetly. "I forswore myself that night in the fir-wood. I always loved you; there was no stage of my life when you were not dearer to me than anyone on earth, except my father."
"Dear love, I am ashamed of my happiness," said Roderick tenderly. "I have been so weak and unworthy. I gave away my hopes of bliss in one foolishly soft moment, to gratify my mother"s dying wish--a wish that had been dinned into my ear the last years of her life--and I have done nothing but repent my folly ever since. Can you forgive me, Violet? I shall never forgive myself."
"Let the past be like a dream that we have dreamt. It will make the future seem so much the brighter."
"Yes."