Roger Ingleton, Minor Part 24

The captain felt decidedly nervous as she walked silently at his side.

At her own door she paused abruptly and said--

"Won't you come in, father? I want to say something to you."

"A storm brewing," said the captain to himself. "I expected it."

He followed her into her studio and closed the door.

"What is it?"

"I am going to leave Maxfield, father. I cannot stay here any longer, living on other people. I am going to accept an engagement at the vicarage as governess."

"What!" exclaimed her father. "What freak is this, miss? I forbid you to do anything of the kind."

"I am very sorry you don't approve. I thought you would. It will enable me to support myself, and perhaps help to keep Jill. I shall get my board and lodging, and 30 a year, I am going on Monday. I wanted to tell you before any one else knew of it."

"I repeat you must abandon the idea at once. It is most derogatory in one of our family. In addition to which, I particularly desire to have you here during Mr Ratman's visit."

"It is chiefly on that account I have decided to go. It is not right, father, indeed it is not, to go on as we are."

She put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him, and looked into his eyes.

It was an ordeal on which Captain Edward Oliphant had not calculated.

The sight of her there, the touch of her hands, the clear flash of her eyes, recalled to him all sorts of unpleasant memories. They reminded him of a day long ago, when the girl's mother had stood thus and pleaded with him for the sake of their children to be pure and honest and self- respecting. It reminded him of his own miserable schemings and follies, and how he had rejected that dear appeal, and ever since slipped and slipped out of reach of any love but the love of himself. It reminded him of the day when he heard that the one prop of his manhood had gone from him; and of how, even then, his sorrow was tempered by the thought that he was a free man to follow his own paths without question or reproof. Now, suddenly, the same hands seemed for a moment to lie on his shoulders, the same eyes to look into his, the same voice to fall on his ear, and he staggered under the illusion.

For a moment at least hope was within his reach. But the sound of a man's voice in the pa.s.sage without recalled him, with a s.h.i.+ver, to himself.

It was Ratman's voice--the voice of the man to whom he owed money, who held the secret of his crime, who claimed his villainy and--who could say?--might even have to be pacified with a human sacrifice.

He shook her off rudely and said in dry, hard tones--

"Rosalind, I am disappointed in you. I will not discuss the matter with you. You know my wish; I expect you to obey me."

And he left the room.

She remained standing where she was till the bell rang for dinner. Then with a s.h.i.+ver she went down-stairs.

On the stairs she met Mr Armstrong.

"Your father has returned," said he.

"Yes, with a friend. Are you going down, or shall you stay with Roger?"

"May I?" he asked.

"You know how glad he will be."

So the tutor turned back, and thought to himself that Miss Rosalind was evidently anxious that he should not be a witness to her introduction to her father's friend.

Mr Ratman, brilliantly arranged in evening dress, and evidently already very much at home, was comfortably leaning against the mantelpiece in the hall as she descended. He did not wait for an introduction.

"I could tell Miss Oliphant anywhere," said he, advancing, "by her likeness to her father. May I offer you my arm?"

"I am not at all like father," said she quietly, scanning him as she spoke in a way which made even him uncomfortable, and then putting her hand on her father's arm.

Thus repulsed, the visitor cheerfully offered his arm to Mrs Ingleton, congratulating her as he did so on the recovery of her son.

During the meal he was aware that the young lady's eyes were completing their scrutiny, and although, being a bashful man, he did not venture too often to meet them with his own, he was conscious that the result was not altogether satisfactory to himself. His few attempts to talk to her fell flat, and in spite of the captain's almost nervous attempts to improve the festivity of the occasion, the meal was an uncomfortable one.

"Where's old Armstrong?" demanded Tom.

"With Roger," replied Rosalind.

"Have you seen Armstrong?" inquired the boy of the visitor; "he's a stunner, I can tell you. He can bend a poker double across his knee.

You'll like him awfully; and he plays the piano like one o'clock. He's our tutor, you know--no end of a chap."

Mr Ratman was fain to express a longing desire to make the acquaintance of so redoubtable a hero.

"Does he lick you?" he inquired.

"Sometimes, when it's wanted; but, bless you, he could take the lot of us left-handed; couldn't he, Jill?"

"Oh, yes," said Jill enthusiastically; "and he saved Roger's life, and prevented Hodder being turned out, and won such a lot of prizes at Oxford."

"He must be a fine fellow," said Ratman, with a disagreeable laugh.

"You admire him too, of course, Miss Oliphant?"

"Yes, he's honest," said she.

"Teddy, my boy," said the visitor, when he and his friend had been left alone at the table, "that girl of yours is a treasure. She don't fancy me, but she'll get over that. I like her, Teddy; I like her."

That evening, on his way to say good night to his dear ward, Captain Oliphant stopped at his daughter's door.

She was hard at work over a picture.

"Rosalind," said he, "you have disappointed me. But if your mind is made up, I know it is no use my setting up my authority against your self-will. Therefore, to relieve you of the sin of disobedience to your father's wishes, I withdraw my refusal to your proposal. You may do as you like. Good night!"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

AWKWARD QUESTIONS.

The sun, when it peeped through the blinds next morning, found Mr Robert Ratman wide awake. His was one of those active minds which do not waste unnecessary time in sluggish repose, but, on the contrary, do a princ.i.p.al part of their most effective brain-work while other people are asleep.

"Snug enough so far," said he to himself, turning over on his side.

"The place will suit me after all. Capital table, easy-going hostess, charming young Bohemian to amuse me, money going about, and all that.

Teddy wants stirring up. I shall have to flick him a bit. He'll go well enough when he's once started, but he's wasting his time here disgracefully. Eight months since he came, and absolutely nothing done!

The boy's not buried, the mother's not married, and the tutor's not had his month's notice, (Like to see this precious tutor, by the way.) Upon my honour, it's about time I came and opened shop here."