Vixen

She worked on till tea-time, and was too engrossed to hear the bell, which clanged l.u.s.tily for every meal in the orderly household: a bell whose clamour was somewhat too much for the repast it heralded.

This evening Vixen did not hear the bell, inviting her to weak tea and bread-and-b.u.t.ter. The ringing of those other bells obscured the sound.

She was sitting with her book before her, but her eyes fixed on vacancy, when Miss Skipwith, newly interested in her charge, came to inquire the cause of her delay. The girl looked at her languidly, and seemed slow to understand what she said.

"I don't care for any tea," she replied at last. "I would rather go on with the history. It is tremendously interesting, especially the hieroglyphics. I have been trying to make them out. It is so nice to know that a figure like a chopper means a G.o.d, and that a goose with a black ball above his hack means Pharaoh, son of the sun. And then the table of dynasties: can anything be more interesting than those? It makes one's head go round just a little at first, when one has to grope backwards through so many centuries, but that's nothing."

"My dear, you are working too hard. It is foolish to begin with such impetuosity. A fire that burns so fiercely will soon exhaust itself.

_Festina lente_. We must hasten slowly, if we want to make solid progress. Why, my poor child, your fore-head is burning. You will read yourself into a fever."

"I think I am in a fever already," said Vixen.

Miss Skipwith was unusually kind. She insisted upon helping her charge to undress, and would not leave her till she was lying quietly in bed.

She was going to draw down the blinds, but against this Vixen protested vehemently.

"Pray leave me the sky," she cried; "it is something to look at through the long blank night. The stars come and go, and the clouds are always changing. I believe I should go mad if it were not for the sky."

Poor Miss Skipwith felt seriously uneasy. The first draught from the fountain of knowledge had evidently exercised an intoxicating effect upon Violet Tempest. It was as if she had been taking opium or has.h.i.+sh.

The girl's brain was affected.

"You have studied too long," she said. "This must not occur again. I feel myself responsible to your parents for your health."

"To my parents," echoed Vixen, with a sudden sigh; "I have only one, and she is happier in my absence than when I was with her. You need not be uneasy about me if I fall ill. No one will care. If I were to die, no one would be sorry. I have no place in the world. No one would miss me."

"My dear, it is absolutely wicked to talk in this strain; just as you are developing new powers, an intellect which may make you a pillar and a landmark in your age."

"I don't want to be a pillar or a landmark," said Vixen impatiently. "I don't want to have my name a.s.sociated with 'movements,' or to write letters to The Times. I should like to have been happy my own way."

She turned her back upon Miss Skipwith, and lay so still that the excellent lady supposed she was dropping off to sleep.

"A good night's rest will restore her, and she will awake with renewed appet.i.te for knowledge," she murmured benevolently as she went back to her Swedenborgian studies.

CHAPTER IX.

The nearest Way to Norway.

No such blessing as a good night's rest was in store for Violet Tempest on that night of the first of August. She lay in a state of half-consciousness that was near akin to delirium. When she closed her eyes for a little while the demon of evil dreams took hold of her. She was in the old familiar home-scenes with her dear dead father. She acted over again that awful tragedy of sudden death. She was upbraiding her mother about Captain Winstanley. Bitter words were on her lips; words more bitter than even she had ever spoken in all her intensity of adverse feeling. She was in the woody hollow by Rufus's

So the slow night wore on to morning. Sometimes she lay staring idly at the stars, s.h.i.+ning so serenely in that calm summer sky. She wondered what life was like, yonder, in those remote worlds. Was humanity's portion as sad, fate as adverse, there as here? Then she thought of Egypt, and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra--that story of a wild, undisciplined love, grand in its lawless pa.s.sion--its awful doom. To have loved thus, and died thus, seemed a higher destiny than to do right, and patiently conquer sorrow, and live on somehow to the dismal end of the dull blameless chapter.

At last, with what laggard steps, with what oppressive tardiness, came the dawn, in long streaks of lurid light above the edge of the distant waters.

"'Red sky at morning is the shepherd's warning!'" cried Vixen, with dry lips. "Thank G.o.d there will be rain to-day! Welcome change after the hot arid skies, and the cruel brazen sun, mocking all the miseries of this troubled earth."

She felt almost as wildly glad as the Ancient Mariner, at the idea of that blessed relief; and then, by-and-by, with the changeful light s.h.i.+ning on her face, she fell into a deep sleep.

Perhaps that morning sleep saved Vixen from an impending fever. It was the first refres.h.i.+ng slumber she had had for a week--a sweet dreamless sleep. The breakfast-bell rang unheeded. The rain, forecast by that red sky, fell in soft showers upon the verdant isle, and the grateful earth gave back its sweetest perfumes to the cool, moist air.

Miss Skipwith came softly in to look at her charge, saw her sleeping peacefully, and as softly retired.

"Poor child! the initiation has been too much for her unformed mind,"

she murmured complacently, pleased with herself for having secured a disciple. "The path is narrow and rugged at the beginning, but it will broaden out before her as she goes on."

Violet awoke, and found that it was mid-day. Oh, what a blessed relief that long morning sleep had been. She woke like a creature cured of mortal pain. She fell on her knees beside the bed, and prayed as she had not often prayed in her brief careless life.

"What am I that I should question Thy justice!" she cried. "Lord, teach me to submit, teach me to bear my burden patiently, and to do some good in the world."

Her mood and temper were wondrously softened after a long interval of thought and prayer. She was ashamed of her waywardness of yesterday--her foolish unreasonable pa.s.sion.

"Poor Rorie, I told him to keep his promise, and he has obeyed me," she said to herself. "Can I be angry with him for that? I ought to feel proud and glad that we were both strong enough to do our duty."

She dressed slowly, languid after the excitement of yesterday, and then went slowly down the broad bare staircase to Miss Skipwith's parlour.

The lady of the manor received her with affectionate greeting, and had a special pot of tea brewed for her, and insisted upon her eating some dry toast, a form of nourishment which this temperate lady deemed a panacea in illness.

"I was positively alarmed about you last night, my dear," she said; "you were so feverish and excited. You read too much, for the first day."

"I'm afraid I did," a.s.sented Vixen, with a faint smile; "and the worst of it is, I believe I have forgotten every word I read."

"Surely not!" cried Miss Skipwith, horrified at this admission. "You seemed so impressed--so interested. You were so full of your subject."

"I have a faint recollection of the little men in the hieroglyphics,"

said Vixen; "but all the rest is gone. The images of Antony and Cleopatra, in Shakespeare's play, bring Egypt more vividly before me than all the history I read yesterday."

Miss Skipwith looked shocked, just as if some improper character in real life had been brought before her.

"Cleopatra was very disreputable, and she was not Egyptian," she remarked severely. "I am sorry you should waste your thoughts upon such a person."

"I think she is the most interesting woman in ancient history," said Vixen wilfully, "as Mary Queen of Scots is in modern history. It is not the good people whose images take hold of one's fancy, What a faint idea one has of Lady Jane Grey, And, in Schiller's 'Don Carlos,' I confess the Marquis of Posa never interested me half so keenly as Philip of Spain."

"My dear, you are made up of fancies and caprices. Your mind wants balance," said Miss Skipwith, affronted at this frivolity. "Had you not better go for a walk with your dog? Doddery tells me that poor Argus has not had a good run since last week."

"How wicked of me!" cried Vixen. "Poor old fellow! I had almost forgotten his existence. Yes, I should like a long walk, if you will not think me idle."

"You studied too many hours yesterday, my dear. It will do you good to relax the bow to-day. _Non semper arc.u.m tendit Apollo!_"

"I'll go for my favourite walk to Mount Orgueil. I don't think there'll be any more rain. Please excuse me if I am not home in time for dinner.

I can have a little cold meat, or an egg, for my tea."

"You had better take a sandwich with you," said Miss Skipwith, with unusual thoughtfulness. "You have been eating hardly anything lately."

Vixen did not care about the sandwich, but submitted, to please her hostess, and a neat little paper parcel, containing about three ounces of nutriment, was made up for her by Mrs. Doddery. Never had the island looked fairer in its summer beauty than it did to-day, after the morning's rain. These showers had been to Jersey what sleep had been to Vixen. The air was soft and cool; sparkling rain-drops fell like diamonds from the leaves of ash and elm. The hedge-row ferns had taken a new green, as if the spirit of spring had revisited the island. The blue bright sea was dimpled with wavelets.

What a bright glad world it was, and how great must be the sin of a rebellious spirit, cavilling at the dealings of its Creator! The happy dog bounced and bounded round his mistress, the birds twittered in the hedges, the pa.s.sing farm-labourer with his cartload of seaweed smacked his whip cheerily as he urged his patient horse along the narrow lane.

A huge van-load of c.o.c.kney tourists, singing a boisterous chorus of the last music-hall song, pa.s.sed Vixen at a turn of the road, and made a blot on the serene beauty of the scene. They were going to eat lobsters and drink bottled beer and play skittles at Le Tac. Vixen rejoiced when their raucous voices died away on the summer breeze.

"Why is Jersey the peculiar haunt of the vulgar?" she wondered. "It is such a lovely place that it deserves to be visited by something better than the refuse of Margate and Ramsgate."