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 principal 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.”
And with a grunt he got out of bed, and began to array himself preparatory to a stroll round the park before breakfast.
It was a delicious September morning. The birds, hardly convinced that the summer was over, were singing merrily in the trees. The hum of the not distant ocean droned solemnly in the air. The sunlight played fitfully with the gold of the harvest fields, and the lowing cattle in the meadows added their music to nature’s peaceful morning anthem.
Mr Ratman was only half alive to the beauties of nature. He was considerably more impressed with the substantial masonry of the manor house, with the size of the timber, the appointments of the stables, and the acreage of the park. They all spelt money to him—suggesting a good deal more behind.
“Teddy’s certainly a man to be looked after,” said he to himself. “He’s wasting his time scandalously. Yet he’s clever in his way, is Edward. He has tucked his family into the big bed snugly, and made the most of his chance that way. Why—”
He had reached this pleasant stage in his reflections when something darted round from a side-walk and collided with him suddenly.
It was Miss Jill, taking an early scamper with her dog, and little dreaming that she was not, as usual, the sole occupant of the grounds.
“Hullo! my little lady,” said Mr Ratman, recognising his enemy of yesterday; “you nearly did for me that time. Come, you’ll have to tell me you are sorry, and beg my pardon very prettily.”
“No, I won’t!” exclaimed Jill, and proceeded to run.
Mr Ratman was not beyond a bit of fun himself; besides, he did not quite like to be thus set down by a child of twelve. Therefore, although his running days had passed their prime, he gave chase, and a very exciting race ensued.
Jill, as fleet as the wind, darted forward with little to fear from her pursuer; while the dog, naturally regarding the whole affair as an entertainment got up for his benefit, barked jubilantly, and did his best to force the pace. After a minute or two Mr Ratman began to wonder if the game was worth the candle, and was turning over in his mind the awkward possibility of owning himself beaten, when he perceived that the little fugitive was, by some error of judgment on her part, leading the way into what looked uncommonly like a cul de sac. Therefore, although painfully aware of the stitch in his side, he bravely held on, and had the gratification in a minute more of running his little victim to earth after all.
“Aha!” said he, laughing and panting; “you can’t get away from me, you see. Now, my little beauty, I’m going to take you back in custody to the place where you started from, and make you beg my pardon very prettily for nearly knocking me over.”
In vain Jill protested and struggled; he held her by the wrist as with a vice, and, rather enjoying her wild efforts to escape, literally proceeded to carry his threat into execution.
He had nearly brought her back to the starting-place, and she, having fought and struggled all the way, was beginning with humiliation to feel her eyes growing dim with tears, when a gentleman dressed in boating flannels, with one arm in a sling and an eye-glass in his eye, stepped abruptly across the path.
A moment later Mr Robert Ratman lay on the grass half a dozen yards away, on the flat of his back, blinking up at the sky.
Several curious reflections passed through his mind as he occupied this not very exhilarating position. Jill had escaped after all. That was annoying. He should have a black eye for a week. That was very annoying. This left-handed individual with the eye-glass must be the tutor. That was most excessively annoying.
And the injured gentleman, neither looking nor feeling at all well, pulled himself together and sprang to his feet.
Jill was there, clinging to her champion. “Run away, Jill!” said Armstrong.
“But you have only one arm,” said she. “Go, Jill!” said he, so decisively that the little maid, darting only one look behind her, fled towards the house.
All she saw was the two men facing one another—one flurried, vicious, and noisy; the other curious, silent, disgusted.
“You dog!” hissed Ratman, with an oath, “what do you mean by that?”
“My meaning should have been clear—it was intended to be.”
Ratman tried hard to copy his adversary’s composure, but failed miserably.
With many imprecations, and, heedless of the tutor’s maimed condition, he threw himself upon him.
But Robert Ratman’s boxing, like his running, was a trifle out of date, and once more he found himself on his back regarding the clouds as they flitted by overhead.
This time the tutor assumed the initiative.
“Get up,” said he, advancing to his prostrate antagonist.
Ratman was surprised at himself when, after a moment’s doubt, he obeyed.
“What’s your name?” demanded Mr Armstrong, surveying him from head to foot.
Again, by some curious mental process, Mr Ratman obeyed.
“What are you doing down here?”
“I am Captain Oliphant’s guest,” growled Ratman.
The tutor looked him up and down in a manner which was clearly not calculated to imply admiration of Captain Oliphant’s choice of friends.
“Allow me to tell you, sir, that in this part of the world we call men like you blackguards.”
And the tutor, whose eye-glass had become uncomfortably deranged during this brief interview, screwed it in with a wrench, and turned on his heel.
“Where’s jolly old Ratman?” inquired Tom, when the family presently assembled for breakfast.
“Tired with his journey, no doubt,” said Mrs Ingleton.
As no one disputed this theory, and Jill’s exchange of glances with her champion passed unheeded, there seemed every prospect of the meal passing off peaceably. But Tom, as usual, contrived to improve the occasion in the wrong direction.
“You’ll like him, Armstrong, when you see him. He’s no end of a chap—all larks. He’ll make you roar with his rummy stories.”
“I have met him already,” said the tutor shortly.
“Then he is up. Jill, my child,” said the captain, “go and knock at Mr Ratman’s door, and tell him breakfast is ready.”
“I won’t go near him,” said Jill, flushing up. “He’s a horrid, hateful man. Isn’t he, Mr Armstrong?”
Mr Armstrong, thus appealed to, looked a little uncomfortable, and nodded.
“Yes,” blurted the girl; “and if it hadn’t been for Mr Armstrong, father, he might have hurt me very much.”
“Explain yourself,” said the fond father, becoming interested.
“I don’t want to talk about him,” said Jill.
“What does all this mean, Armstrong?”
“As far as I am concerned, it means that I took the liberty of knocking Mr Ratman down for insulting your daughter. I am sorry you were not present to do it yourself.”
Captain Oliphant turned white, and red, and black in succession.
“You knocked a visitor of mine—”
“Down twice,” said the tutor, helping himself to sugar.
“Oh, what a lark!” exclaimed Tom. “Oh, I wish I’d been up too. Was it a good mill, I say? How many rounds? Six? Why ever didn’t you come and tell me, Jill?”
“Be quiet, Tom,” said Jill.
“Did you get him clean on the jaw, I say?” persisted Tom, “like the one—”
“Hold your tongue, sir,” said his father peremptorily. “Mr Armstrong, I must ask you to explain this matter later; this is not the place for such talk.”
“Quite so. I regret the matter was referred to. Tom, be good enough to pass Miss Oliphant the toast.”
Tom could scarcely be induced to take the hint, and talked at large on the science of boxing during the remainder of the meal with an access of high spirits which, on any other occasion, would have been amusing.
Mr Ratman, later in the day, appeared with a decidedly marred visage, and announced with the best grace he could that an important business letter that morning necessitated his return to London.
In private he explained himself more fully to his host.
“If this is what you call making me comfortable,” growled he, with an unusual number of oaths interspersed in his sentence, “you’ve a pretty notion of your own interests.”
“My dear fellow, how could I help it?”
“You can help it now, and you’ll have to. I may be only a creditor, but I’ll let you see I am not going to be treated in this house like a dog, for all that.”
“The awkward thing is that if you had behaved—”
“Shut up about how I behaved,” snarled the other. “You’ll have to clear that cad out of the way here. I’ll not come back till you do; and till I do come back you’re sitting on a volcano.”
“My dear fellow, you will spoil everything if you take such an absurd view of the matter—really you will. Of course I’ll put you right. You are my guest. But remember my difficult position here.”
“It will be a precious deal more difficult for you soon. I can promise you,” said Mr Ratman, lifting his hand to his swollen eye with an oath. “Now then, I’ll give you a month. If you’re not rid of this fellow by then, and aren’t a good deal nearer than you are now to squaring up with me, you’ll be sorry you ever heard my name.”
“I’m that already,” said the captain. “I can promise nothing; but I’ll do what I can.”
“You’ll have to do more, if you’re to get rid of me. How about money?”
This abrupt question fairly staggered the captain, who broke out—
“Money! Didn’t you drain me of every penny I had in London?”
The fellow laughed coarsely.
“What did you drain the regimental mess of, I should like to know? You needn’t think you’re out of that wood. Now, I shall want £200 for my month in town. I mean to enjoy myself.”
The captain laughed dismally. “Where are you going to get it from?”
“You. Look sharp!”
“I tell you, Ratman, I haven’t any money. You can’t get blood out of a stone.”
“Then you must give me a bill—at a month.”
“No, no! I won’t begin that,” said the captain, who had fibre enough left in him to know that a bill was the first plunge into an unknown region of financial difficulty. “If you’re bent on ruining me in any case, for heaven’s sake do it at once and have done with it. Remember, you bring down more than me. Whatever I may be, they don’t deserve it.”
“For their sake, then, give me the bill. Bless you, any one can put his hand to paper. Consider yourself lucky I don’t insist on taking it out in hard cash.”
It was no use arguing or protesting with a man like this. The captain flung himself miserably into a chair and scrawled out the ill-omened document.
Ratman snatched it up with a grunt of triumph.
“That’s more like,” said he. “What’s the use of all that fuss? Plenty of things can happen in a month. Order the dogcart in half an hour.”
The abrupt departure of Captain Oliphant’s guest might have excited more remark than it did, had not another departure from Maxfield that same day thrown it somewhat into the shade.
True to her promise, or rather threat, Miss Rosalind had packed up her things and had them transported to the Vicarage.
It was not without a pang that she uprooted herself from her surroundings in Maxfield, or bore the protests of Roger, the tears of Jill, and the chaff of Tom for her desertion.
“It’s not that you’re not all awfully kind,” said she to the first that afternoon, when the party was assembled in his room. “You are too kind—that’s why I’m going.”
“If a little of the opposite treatment would induce you to stay,” said Roger, “I’d gladly try it. Don’t you think it’s a little unkind of her to go when we all want her to stay—eh, Armstrong?”
“That depends,” said Mr Armstrong diplomatically. “I should be inclined to say no, myself.”
“Thank you, Mr Armstrong, I’m glad I’ve got one person to back me up. Every one else is down on me—auntie, father, Roger, Jill, Tom—”
“I’m not down on you,” put in Tom. “I think it’s rather larks your going to the Vicarage. No more of that beastly art class for us. But if you want to know who’s down on you, it’s jolly old Ratman. I’ve just been to see him off in the tantrums to London. I asked him to be sure and be back for Roger’s birthday, and he said he’d try, if his black eye was well enough. That must have been a ripping clean shot of yours, Armstrong. He’ll get over it all right, you bet. He was grinning about it already, and said he’d have a return some day. I asked him if he didn’t think Rosalind was a stunner (one’s got to be civil to fellows, you know), and he said ‘Rather,’ and envied the kids at the Vicarage. I don’t. You always make yourself jolly civil to other people, but I don’t come in for much of it, nor does Jill.”
“I can’t bear your going away,” said Jill, with tears in her eyes; “I’ll be so lonely. But it would be far worse if Mr Armstrong were to go away too. You’ll stay, won’t you, dear Mr Armstrong?”
Dear Mr Armstrong jerked his eye-glass by way of assent, and said he was sure everybody would miss Miss Oliphant and— and he would say good-bye now, as he had some letters to get off by the post.
Miss Rosalind, who had just been thinking a little kindly of the tutor, stiffened somewhat at this abrupt exit, and thought Mr Armstrong might at least have offered to escort her over to her new quarters.
To tell the truth, that poor gentleman would have given a finger off his hand for the chance, and retired to his room very dejected about the whole business—so dejected that he fidgeted about his room a good while before he noticed a note addressed to himself, in Captain Oliphant’s hand, lying on the table. He opened it and read—
“Mr Frank Armstrong is informed that his services as tutor to Roger Ingleton will not be required after this day month, the 25th prox. Mr Armstrong is at liberty to remain at Maxfield until that date, or may leave at once on accepting a month’s wages in lieu of notice.—For the Executors of Roger Ingleton,—
“Edward Oliphant.”
The tutor’s lips curled into a grim smile as he perused this pleasing document, and then tossed it into the waste-paper basket. He relieved his feelings with a few chords on the piano, and then, after a few more uneasy turns in his room, went off to call on his co-trustee.
On his way down-stairs he met Rosalind and her escort about to take their departure.
“Come along with us, do!” said Tom. “We’re just going to trot Rosalind over to her diggings, and then we can have a high old lark in the paddock on our way back.”
“The programme is not attractive, Thomas,” said the tutor. “Good-bye again, Miss Oliphant.”
Captain Oliphant had already bidden his daughter a tender farewell, and was enjoying a cigar in the library.
“Oh,” said he, as the tutor entered, “you got my note, did you, sir?”
“I did, thanks.”
“Well, sir?”
“That was the question I was about to ask you. Excuse my saying it, but it was a very foolish note for a man in your position to write. Did Mrs Ingleton—”
“Mrs Ingleton has decided, on my advice, to send her son to Oxford. I have recently been there, and made inquiries.”
“Indeed! I’ll join you in your smoke, if you don’t mind,” and the tutor drew a chair up to the table and filled his pipe.
Captain Oliphant was considerably disconcerted at this cool reception of his piece of news; but, warned by previous experiences, he forbore to bluster.
“I think the life will suit him. He is wasting his time here.”
“If his health improves sufficiently,” said the tutor, “there is a good deal to be said in favour of the University.”
“You think so, do you?” said his co-guardian drily. “You are an Oxford man yourself, I understand.”
“Yes; I was at — College.”
“So I heard from a friend of mine there, who remembered your name.”
Mr Armstrong twitched his glass a little and puffed away.
“Yes,” said the captain, encouraged by this slight symptom of uneasiness; “I heard a good deal about you up there, as it happened.”
“Kind of you to take so much interest in me. You ascertained, of course, that I left Oxford in debt and without a degree?”
This was check again for the captain, who had counted upon this discovery as an effective bombshell for his side.
“As regards Roger, however,” proceeded the tutor, reaching across for the captain’s ash-tray, “I would advise Balliol in preference to—”
“We shall not need to trouble you for your advice.”
“But I shall most certainly give it.”
By this time Captain Oliphant’s self-control was rapidly evaporating. He was beginning to feel himself a little small, and that always annoyed him.
“Look here, Mr Frank Armstrong,” said he, leaning back in his chair, and trying hard to look superior, “it is just as well for you and me to understand one another. I have heard what sort of figure you cut at Oxford, and the disgrace in which you left the University. Allow me to say, sir, that it reflects little credit on your honour that you should have imposed on your late employer, and taken advantage of his weak health and faculties to foist yourself upon his family under false colours.”
“Will you oblige me with a light?” interposed Mr Armstrong.
“You are under a delusion if you think I am not perfectly well acquainted with your disreputable antecedents. Let me tell you, sir, that a music-hall cad is not a fitting companion for a lad of Roger’s rank and expectations.”
“I perfectly agree with you. But really this has very little to do with our arrangements for Roger’s future.”
“Do you mean to deny, sir, that you were a music-hall singer?”
“By no means. I was. On the whole, I rather enjoyed the vocation at the time. I look upon that and the year (about which you apparently have not been fortunate enough to learn anything) during which I was tutor and private secretary in the family of the Hon. James Welcher—the most notorious blackleg in the kingdom—as two of the most interesting episodes in my career.”
“I can believe it. And, before you devoted your energies to singing disreputable songs to the blackguards of the East End—”
“Pardon me. I was particular. My songs were for the most part of the classical order; but what were you saying?”
“I was saying,” said the captain, now fairly dropping the dignified, and falling back on the abusive, “what were you before that?”
“Really, Captain Oliphant, you have been so acute and successful so far, I would not on any account deprive you of the satisfaction of discovering what little more remains to complete my humble biography by your own exertions. Meanwhile, as to Roger’s college; had you leisure when at Oxford to make any inquiries as to that rather important question?”
“Oblige me by addressing your conversation to some one else, sir. I am not disposed to be asked questions by an adventurer and sharper, who—”
The tutor’s face blackened, the glass fell from his eye, and he rose to his feet so suddenly that the chair on which he had been sitting fell back violently.
Captain Oliphant turned pale and started to his feet too in an attitude of self-defence and retreat. But the tutor only walked over to the fireplace to knock out his ashes into the fender, and then, resuming his glass, said quietly—
“I beg your pardon; I interrupted you.” Captain Oliphant did not pursue the subject, and presently retired, leaving his co-trustee master of the situation.
“Strange,” said the latter to himself when the enemy had gone, “what a look he has of his daughter. The resemblance was distinctly fortunate for him five minutes ago.”