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Updated: June 2, 2025
By the end of May, Lady Mabel's poems were all in type, and there was much discussion about commas and notes of admiration, syllables too much or too little, in the flowery morning-room at Kensington, what time Roderick Vawdrey sorely at a loss for occupation wasted the summer hours at races or regattas within easy reach of London, or went to out-of-the-way places, to look at hunters of wonderful repute, which, on inspection, were generally disappointing.
"It may have cleared up. Well, we'd better order the cart," she added meekly, as she rang the bell. "I'm not of age yet, you see, Rorie. Please, Peters, tell West to get papa's dog-cart ready for Mr. Vawdrey, and to drive Starlight Bess." Rorie looked at the bright face admiringly.
He was a Cambridge graduate, but had never been able to make much use of his education and abilities; having reached middle age, and finding himself without resources, he was glad to accept this post at the Institute. About him stood three Polterham worthies: Mr. Chown, draper, a member of the Corporation; Mr. Vawdrey, coal-merchant; and Mr. Murgatroyd, dentist.
She'll end by establishing a female college, like Tennyson's princess." "Oh, but she is engaged to be married to Mr. Vawdrey." "Her cousin? Very foolish! 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.
She could only think of the Squire of Briarwood as the lad from Eton clumsy, shy, given to breaking teacups, and leaving the track of his footsteps in clay or mud upon the Aubusson carpets. "He has not come home yet. The Duke and Duchess went to Florence just before Lady Jane's death, and I believe Mr. Vawdrey is with them in Rome. Briarwood has been shut up since September."
A minute or two before her death she gasped out some words of revelation to the nurse, enough to set Vawdrey on the track, when he was told. Still the listener said nothing. 'Well, I had a talk with Vawdrey. He's a blackguard, but not a bad fellow. Wished he could help me, but didn't quite see how, unless I would go into business. However, he had a suggestion to make.
"And Roderick?" inquired Vixen, "He went with them of course." "Naturally," replied Mr. Scobel. "Mr. Vawdrey was with his mother till the last." "Very nice of him," murmured Mrs. Tempest approvingly; "for, in a general way, I don't think they got on too well together. Lady Jane was rather dictatorial. And now, I suppose, Roderick will marry his cousin as soon as he is out of mourning."
"Come away with me, my dear Miss Tempest," said Wimble, trying to raise Violet from her knees beside the Squire. She was gazing into that awful face distractedly half divining its solemn meaning yet watching for the kind eyes to open and look at her again. "Come away with me, and we'll get a doctor. Mr. Vawdrey will take care of your father." "You go for the doctor," she answered firmly.
The moon had newly risen, a late October moon, a pale almost imperceptible crescent, above the dark pine spires in the thicket through which Roderick Vawdrey came, gun in hand, after a long day's rabbit-shooting.
Alas, poor child! faintly, feebly steadfast in the barren path of honour: where could she not have been happy with the companion of her childhood, the one only love of her youth? Was there ever a spot of land or sea, from Hudson's Bay to the unmapped archipelago or hypothetical continent of the Southern Pole, where she could not have been happy with Roderick Vawdrey?
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