CHAPTER XXIV
NAILING UP THE HOLLY
There is nothing an old-time woman enjoyed so much as having her mind made up for her—by a man—some women do still.
This faculty varies in proportion to the “strength of mind” of the woman. It was the fainting, ballad-singing, salt-snuffing girl who, in the old days, did the desperate things; and the reason why the roads are not strewn nowadays with post-chaises en route to Gretna Green, is partly because Gretna Green and post-chaises have vanished, partly because girls have changed.
They have become stronger-minded; they no longer run away, they advance. But here and there you will find a girl, a modification of the old type—a girl who seems to have strayed out of some old rose garden, a girl who would not look foolish playing a harp, a girl one might serenade without the fear of covering oneself with ridicule, or being covered by the contents of a slop-jar.
Violet Lestrange was a girl of this type; sweet without being foolish, simple-minded, but not an idiot, capable of screaming mechanically at the sight of a mouse, and of facing a lion in cold blood to protect the man she loved.
She was the last person in the world to be suspected of making a run away match with the man of her choice, and the first person in the world to do it.
It is a much easier matter to draw the pen portrait of a Mr Mahony than of a Violet Lestrange. Dark, with violet eyes and a beautiful complexion, she had that lost touch of beauty only to be found, I think, and that very rarely, amongst the women of Ireland; a faint permanent blush over the cheek bones, like the reflection on alabaster of a June rose.
One might have thought that when General Grampound chose a future husband for all this beauty, he might at least have chosen a man with two eyes.
Whilst Mr Fanshawe was shooting by the little lake, the unfortunate Violet was dispensing afternoon tea. She had made up her mind and given her word that morning when seated under the hedge. Ever since, she had been rocking upon a sea whose alternate billows seemed compounded of Bliss and Fright.