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She was sufficiently aware of her own importance to feel sure that the fact of her return had been duly chronicled in the local papers. He would come to-day before luncheon, perhaps, and they three, mamma, Rorie, and herself, would sit at the round table in the library the snug warm room where they had so often sat with papa. This thought brought back the bitterness of her loss.
The garden was fenced with the same wood that I had noted in the boat; there were chairs in the kitchen covered with strange brocade; curtains of brocade hung from the window; a clock stood silent on the dresser; a lamp of brass was swinging from the roof; the table was set for dinner with the finest of linen and silver; and all these new riches were displayed in the plain old kitchen that I knew so well, with the high-backed settle, and the stools, and the closet bed for Rorie; with the wide chimney the sun shone into, and the clear-smouldering peats; with the pipes on the mantelshelf and the three- cornered spittoons, filled with sea-shells instead of sand, on the floor; with the bare stone walls and the bare wooden floor, and the three patchwork rugs that were of yore its sole adornment poor man's patchwork, the like of it unknown in cities, woven with homespun, and Sunday black, and sea-cloth polished on the bench of rowing.
Miss McCroke went on talking and arguing with Rorie, with a view to sustaining that fictitious cheerfulness which might beguile Vixen into brief oblivion of her griefs. But Vixen was not so to be beguiled. She was with them, but not of them. Her haggard eyes stared at the fire, and her thoughts were with the dear dead father, over whose newly-filled grave the evening shadows were closing.
Rorie set out for the house in search of warmth and breakfast; but my uncle was bent upon examining the shores of Aros, and I felt it a part of duty to accompany him throughout. He was now docile and quiet, but tremulous and weak in mind and body; and it was with the eagerness of a child that he pursued his exploration.
She relapsed into a placid silence, looking at Rorie thoughtfully with her calm blue eyes. His travels had improved him. That bronze hue suited him wonderfully well. He looked more manly. He was no longer a beardless boy, to be patronised with that gracious elder-sister air of Lady Mabel's. She felt that he was further off from her than he had been last season in London.
What are these?" as the old silver entrée dishes came round. "Stewed eels? You never forget my tastes, Pamela." "Stewed eels, sir; sole maître d'hôtel," said the butler, in the usual suppressed and deferential tone. Rorie helped himself automatically, and went on looking at Vixen.
At that age it would have been a strange thing that put me from either meat or sleep; I slept long and deep; and it was already long past noon before I awoke and came downstairs into the kitchen. Mary, Rorie, and the black castaway were seated about the fire in silence; and I could see that Mary had been weeping. There was cause enough, as I soon learned, for tears.
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.
"Don't you want to see your presents?" asked Rorie, looking at her, in half-stupid wonder at such calm superiority. "They will keep till we have done tea. I can guess pretty well what they are like. How many church-services have people sent me, mamma?" "I think the last made fourteen," murmured the Duchess, trifling with her tea-spoon. "And how many 'Christian Years'?" "Nine."
"Poor Rorie," sighed the girl; "I think we might have been happy together." And then she remembered the days of old, when Mr. Vawdrey was free, and when it had never dawned upon his slow intelligence that his old playfellow, Violet Tempest, was the one woman in all this wide world who had the power to make his life happy.
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