Roger Ingleton, Minor Part 7

Roger accosted one of the stewards--

"Will you please tell Captain Oliphant that Mr Roger Ingleton is on board, with Mr Armstrong, and would like to see him?"

The man gave a look up and down and went straight to the expansive person before mentioned.

The visitors could see the gentleman start a little as the steward delivered his message, and pitch his cigar away as, with a serious face, he walked in their direction.

"My poor dear boy," said he, taking Roger's hand, "this _is_ good of you--very good. How glad I am to see you! How is your dear mamma?"

"Mother is very well. Have you had a good voyage? Oh, this is Mr Armstrong."

Mr Armstrong all this while had been staring through his eye-gla.s.s at his co-trustee in no very amiable way, and now replied to that gentleman's greeting with a somewhat stiff "How do you do?" "Where on earth did I see you before, my gentleman?" said he to himself, and having put the riddle, he promptly gave it up.

Mr Oliphant displayed very little interest in his fellow-guardian, but said to Roger--

"The children will be so delighted to see you. We have talked so much of you. They will be here directly; they are just putting together their things in the cabin. But now tell me all about yourself, my boy."

Roger did not feel equal to this comprehensive task, and said, "I suppose you'll like to go straight on to Maxfield, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, yes! It may be a day before we get our luggage clear, so we will come to your hotel to-night and go on to-morrow. Why, my boy, what a cough you have! Ah! here comes Rosalind."

The figure which approached the group was that of a young lady about seventeen years of age, tall and slim, clad in a loose cloak which floated about her like a cloud, and considerably enc.u.mbered with sundry shawls and bags on one arm, a restive dog in another, and a hat which refused to remain on her head in the wind.

Mr Armstrong was perhaps no great connoisseur of female charms, but he thought, as he slowly tried to make up his mind whether he should venture to a.s.sist her, that he had rarely seen a more interesting picture.

Her face was flushed with the glow of youth and health. An artist might have found fault with it here and there, but to the tutor it seemed completely beautiful. The fine poise of her head upon the dainty neck, the cla.s.sic cut of mouth and nostril, the large dark liquid eyes, the snowy forehead, the short cl.u.s.tering wind-tossed hair, the frank countenance, the refinement in every gesture--all combined to astonish the good man into admiration. Yet, with all his admiration, he felt a little afraid of this radiant apparition. Consequently, by the time he had half decided to advance to her succour, his ward had stepped forward and forestalled him.

"Let me help you, Cousin Rosalind," said Roger.

She turned on him a look half surprise, half pleasure, and then allowing him to take cloaks, bags, dog, and all, said--

"Really, papa, you must go and help down in the cabin. It's an awful chaos, and Tom and Jill are making it ten times worse. Do go." And she sat down with a gesture of despair on one of the benches, and proceeded to adjust her unruly hat. While doing this she looked up at Roger, who stood meekly before her with her belongings.

"Thanks! Don't mind holding them; put them down anywhere, Roger, and do, there's a dear boy, go and help father and the others in that horrid, horrid cabin."

Roger, more flurried and docile than he had felt himself for a long while, dropped the baggage, and thrusting the dog into Armstrong's hands, flew off to obey the behests of his new cousin.

The young lady now looked up in charming bewilderment at the tutor, who could not fail to read the question in her eyes, and felt called upon to answer it.

"May I introduce myself?" said he. "I am Frank Armstrong, Roger's tutor."

"I'm so glad," said she with a little laugh. "I'd imagined you a horrid elderly person with a white cravat and tortoise-sh.e.l.l spectacles. It _is_ such a relief!"

And she sighed at the mere recollection of her forebodings.

"There's no saying what we may become in time," said Mr Armstrong.

"I suppose," said she, eyeing him curiously once more, "you're the other trustee, or whatever it's called? I hope you and father will get on well. I can't see what use either of you can be. Roger looks as if he could take care of himself. Are you awfully fond of him?"

"I am rather," said the tutor in a voice which quite satisfied his hearer.

"Heigho!" said she presently, picking up the dog and stroking its ears.

"I'm glad this dreadful voyage is over. Mr Armstrong, what do they all think about all of us coming to Maxfield? If I lived there, I should hate it."

"Mrs Ingleton, I know, is very pleased."

"Yes, but you men aren't. There'll be fearful rows, I know. I wish we'd stayed behind in India. It's hateful to be stuck down where you aren't wanted, for every one to vote you a nuisance!"

"I can hardly imagine any one voting _you_ a nuisance," said Mr Armstrong, half-frightened at his own temerity.

She glanced up with a little threatening of a blaze in her eyes.

"Don't!" said she. "That's the sort of thing the silly young gentlemen say on board s.h.i.+p. I don't like it."

The poor tutor winced as much under this rebuff as if he had been just detected in a plot to run away with his fair companion; and having nothing to say in extenuation of his crime, he relapsed into silence.

Miss Oliphant, apparently unaware of the effect of her little protest, stroked her dog again and said--

"Are you an artist?"

"No; are you?"

"I want to be. I'd give anything to get out of going to Maxfield, and have a room here in town near the galleries. It will be awful waste of time in that dull place."

"Perhaps your father--" began the tutor; but she took him up half angrily.

"My father intends us to stay at Maxfield. In fact, you may as well know it at once, and let Roger know it too. We're as poor as church- mice, and can't afford to do anything else. Oh, how I wish we had stopped where we were!" And her voice actually trembled as she said the words.

It was an uncomfortable position for Mr Armstrong. Once again his mother-wit failed him, and he watched the little hand as it moved up and down the dog's back in silence.

"I tell you this," continued the young lady, "because tutors are generally poor, and you'll understand it. I wish papa understood it half as well. I do believe he really enjoys the prospect of going and landing himself and all of us at that place."

"You forget that it is by the desire and invitation of the old Squire,"

said the tutor.

"Father might easily have declined. He ought to have. He wasn't like you, fond of Roger. He doesn't care--at least I fancy he doesn't--much about Roger at all. Oh, I wish I could earn enough to pay for every bite every one of us eats!"

To the tutor's immense relief, at this point Captain Oliphant reappeared, followed by Roger with a boy and little girl.

The boy was some years the junior of the heir of Maxfield, a rotund, matter-of-fact, jovial-looking lad, st.u.r.dy in body, easy in temper, and perhaps by no means brilliant in intellect. The turmoil of debarkation failed to ruffle him, and the information given him in sundry quarters that he was the _fons et origo_ of all the confusion in the cabin failed to impress him. Everything that befell Tom Oliphant came in the day's work, and would probably vanish with the night's sleep. Meanwhile it was the duty of every one, himself included, to be jolly. So he accepted his father's chidings and Roger's greetings in equally good part; agreed with every word the former said, and gave in his allegiance to the latter with one and the same smile, and thought to himself how jolly to be in England at last, and perhaps some day to see the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race.

The little maid who tripped at his side was perhaps ten or eleven--an odd blending of the sister's beauty and alertness with the brother's vigorous contentment. A prophet, versed in such matters, would have predicted that ten years hence Miss "Jill" Oliphant might seriously interfere with the shape of her elder sister's nose. But as no prophets were present, only a fogey like Mr Armstrong and an inexperienced boy like Roger, no one concerned themselves about the future, but voted the little lady of ten a winsome child.

"Well, thanks for all _your_ help," said Tom to his elder sister. "I don't know what we should have done without her. Eh, Roger?"

"Upon my word, with _you_ in charge down there," retorted the young lady, "I wouldn't have been safe in that awful place a minute longer. I wonder you haven't packed up Jill in one of the trunks."

"Oh, Cousin Roger took care of me," said Miss Jill demurely.

"I hope Armstrong did the same to you, Rosalind," said Roger. "Here, Tom; this is my tutor, Frank Armstrong--a brick. Here, Jill; say how do you do to Mr Armstrong."