Roger Ingleton, Minor Part 10

"As I regard relations, yes. Now I must go and make my apologies to your mother. I'll come and see you before I go."

He found the lady sitting in the library in consultation with Captain Oliphant. The table was spread with the late Squire's papers and doc.u.ments, concerning which the Captain was evincing considerable interest.

The tutor glared a little through his gla.s.s at the spectacle of this industry, and disposing of his co-trustee's greeting with a half nod, accosted Mrs Ingleton.

"I must ask you to excuse me for a few days, Mrs Ingleton. I have just received news which render a journey necessary."

"Indeed!" said Captain Oliphant, looking up from his papers. "I am afraid, Mr Armstrong, we must ask you to postpone it, as there are a good many business matters of importance to be gone into, which will require the attention of all the trustees. It is an inconvenient time to seek for leave of absence."

The tutor's mouth stiffened ominously.

"You take unnecessary interest in my affairs, sir. I shall be at your service on my return. Mrs Ingleton, I am sorry for this interruption in Roger's studies. It shall be as brief as I can make it."

"Oh, of course, Mr Armstrong," said the lady, "I hope it is nothing serious. We shall be glad to have you back to consult about things; that is all Captain Oliphant means, I'm sure."

The tutor bowed.

"I really hope," said Captain Oliphant blandly, "Mr Armstrong will appreciate my desire to cooperate harmoniously in the sacred trust laid upon us all by the dying wish of our dear friend."

"I have no wish to do anything else, sir," said the tutor shortly, "if you will allow me. Good-bye, Mrs Ingleton."

Roger was a good deal concerned to notice the grim cloud on his friend's face, when he returned for a moment to his room for his bag. He knew him too well to ask questions, but made up for his silence by the warmth of his farewell.

"Come back soon, Armstrong; it will be awfully slow while you're away.

Let's carry your bag down-stairs."

As they pa.s.sed the end of the lobby, a certain door chanced to open, and Armstrong caught a vision of an easel and a fair head beyond, and beyond that a mantelpiece decorated with all sorts of Oriental and feminine knick-knacks. He might have observed more had his gla.s.s been up, and had he not been eagerly accosted by Miss Jill, who just then was running out of the room.

"Mr Armstrong! Mr Armstrong!" shouted she in glee. "Rosalind, he's come back; here he is!"

And without more ado she caught the embarra.s.sed tutor by the arm and demanded a kiss. He compromised feebly by patting her head, whereat Miss Jill pouted.

"You're more unkind than yesterday," she said; "you kissed me then."

"You shouldn't ask Mr Armstrong to do horrid things," said Miss Rosalind, coming to the door.

The tutor, very hot and flurried, replied to this cruel challenge by saluting the little tyrant and bowing to her sister.

"Won't you come in and see the studio?" said the latter. "It's a little less dreadful than yesterday, thanks to Roger. What are you carrying that bag for, Roger?"

"Armstrong's going up to town for a few days."

"How horrid!" said Miss Rosalind, with vexation in her voice; "just while Jill and I are feeling so lonely, cooped up here like nuns, with not a soul to talk to, and knowing we're in everybody's way."

"Armstrong has a sad enough reason for going," said Roger; "but I say, it's not very complimentary to me to say you've not a soul to talk to."

The half-jesting petulance in Rosalind's face had given place to a look almost of pain as she held out her hand.

"Good-bye, Mr Armstrong," said she. "I didn't know you were in trouble."

"It _will_ be jolly when you come home," chimed in Jill.

Somehow in Mr Armstrong's ears, as he whirled along to town that afternoon, those two pretty farewells rang continuous changes. When, at evening, he took his seat in the Dover express, they still followed him, now in solos, now in duet, now in restless fugue. On the steamer they rose and fell with the uneasy waves and played in the whistling wind.

As he sped towards Paris, past the acacia hedges and poplar avenues, among foreign scenes, amidst the chatter of foreign tongues, surrounded by foreign faces, he still caught the sound of those two distant voices--one quiet and low, the other gay and piping; and even when, at last, he dropped asleep and forgot everything else, they joined in with the rattle of the rail to give him his lullaby. Such are the freaks of which a sensitive musical ear is often the victim.

At Maxfield, meanwhile, he remained in the minds of one or two of the inmates.

The two young ladies, a.s.sisted by their cousin, and genially obstructed by their easy-going brother, proceeded seriously in the task of adorning the studio; now and then speculating about the absent tutor, and now and then feeling very dejected and lonely. Roger did his best to enliven the evening and make his visitors feel at home. But although Tom and Jill readily consented to be comforted, Miss Rosalind as stubbornly refused, and protested a score of times that the cabin of the "Oriana"

itself was preferable to the misery of being condemned, as she termed it, to eat her head off in this dismal place. She was sorry for Mr Armstrong, but she was vexed too that he should go off the very first day after her arrival, and leave her to fight her battles alone. After that talk on the steamer, she had, in her own mind, reckoned on him as an ally, and it disappointed her not to find him at her bidding after all.

But she was not the only person whose mind was exercised by the tutor's abrupt exodus.

Captain Oliphant felt decidedly hurt by the manner of his going. It argued a lack of appreciation of the newly arrived trustee's position in the household on which he had hardly calculated; and it bespoke a spirit of independence in the tutor himself, which his colleague could not but regard as unpromising. Indeed, when, after the day's labours, Captain Oliphant sought the seclusion of his own apartment, this amiable, pleasant-spoken gentleman grew quite warm with himself.

"Who is this grandee?" he asked himself. "A man hired at a few pounds a year and fed at the Maxfield table, in order to help the heir to a little quite unnecessary knowledge of the ancient cla.s.sics and modern sciences. What was the old dotard,"--the old dotard, by the way, was Captain Oliphant's private manner of referring to the lamented "dear one," whose name so often trembled on his lips in public,--"what was the old dotard thinking about? At any rate, I should like to know a little more about the fellow myself."

With this laudable intention he questioned Mrs Ingleton next morning.

"He is a good friend to dear Roger," said the mother. "Roger is devoted to him. I am sure you will get to like him, Edward. He is perhaps a little odd in his manner, but he has a good heart."

This was about all Mrs Ingleton knew, except that he was a University man and an accomplished musician.

Captain Oliphant was not much enlightened by this description. He sat down, and for the third time carefully read over the "dear one's" will.

"I think," said he at lunch-time, "I will stroll over to Yeld this afternoon and see Mr Pottinger. Roger, will you walk with me? A walk would do you good. You are looking pale, my boy."

"Oh, I'm all right," said Roger, whose cough, however, was still obstinate. "I'll come with pleasure."

A walk of five miles on a damp afternoon through drenched country lanes may be a good specific for a cough in India, but in England it occasionally fails in this respect. Roger was wet through when he reached Yeld.

"I shall not be long," said the Captain as they reached the attorney's door. "Don't catch cold, there's a good fellow. Remember your health is very precious."

Roger undertook to act on this considerate advice, and occupied his time of waiting by strolling up and down the High Street in the rain, paying a call here and there at one or two shops, and finally dropping in to see his friend Dr Brandram.

The Captain meanwhile was having an interesting chat with the attorney.

After introducing himself and receiving the suitable congratulations, he said--

"Mr Ingleton's will, Mr Pottinger, so far as I can understand it, seems fairly simple, and I am ready and anxious to perform my part of its provisions."

"Yes. You see, after all, it is only a matter of two years' trouble.

As soon as Master Roger comes of age you will be released."

"Unless," says the Captain, laughing, "he marries, becomes mad, or goes to prison, isn't that it? What a curious proviso!"

"It is. The old Squire had his peculiarities, like most of us. He set his heart on this boy turning out well."

"Ah! I presume this tutor, Mr Armstrong, has very high qualifications, since so much depends on him."