Chapter Four.
Acquaintances New and Old.
Roger’s projected jaunt in London did not turn out as satisfactorily as he had anticipated, as he caught a heavy cold on the first day, which kept him a prisoner in his hotel. Mr Armstrong needed all his authority to restrain the invalid within bounds; and it was only by threatening to convey him bodily home that the boy consented to nurse himself. Even so, it was as much as he could do to shake off his cold sufficiently on the morning of the arrival of the “Oriana” to accompany his tutor to the Dock to greet his unknown kinsfolk.
As he shouldered his way on board over the crowded gangway, he found himself speculating somewhat nervously as to which of the numerous passengers standing about the deck was his new guardian. Was it the ferocious man with the great black beard who was swearing at his Indian servant in a voice loud enough to be heard all over the ship? Or was it the dissipated-looking fellow who walked unsteadily across the motionless ship, and finally clung for support to the deck railings? Or was it the discontented-looking little person who scowled at the company at large from the bridge? Or was it the complacent man with the expansive presence and leonine head, who smoked a big cigar and was exchanging a few effusive farewells with a small group of fellow-voyagers?
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-glass 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 encumbered 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 assist 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 classic cut of mouth and nostril, the large dark liquid eyes, the snowy forehead, the short clustering 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-shell 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 ship. 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, sturdy 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.”
Jill horrified Mr Armstrong by putting up her face to be kissed. Indeed the poor gentleman as he shook the glass out of his eye and gazed down at this forward young person in consternation, presented so pitiable a spectacle, that Rosalind, Roger, and Tom all began to laugh.
“She won’t bite,” said Tom reassuringly.
Mr Armstrong, thus encouraged, took off his hat, and stooping down, kissed the child on the brow, much to that little lady’s satisfaction. This important operation performed, Captain Oliphant expressed concern for Roger’s cough, and proposed that his ward should take the girls and himself to the hotel, while no doubt Mr Armstrong would not mind remaining to help Tom with the luggage. By which excellent arrangement the party succeeded at last in getting clear of the “Oriana.”
The tutor had his hands full most of that morning Tom Oliphant’s idea of looking after the luggage was to put his hands in his pockets and whistle pleasantly up and down the upper deck; nor was it till Mr Armstrong took him bodily below, and made him point out one by one the family properties (among which, by the way, he included several articles belonging to other owners), that he could be reduced to business at all.
Then for half an hour he worked hard; at the end of which time he turned to his companion with a friendly grin.
“Thanks awfully, Mr Armstrong. I say, I wonder if you’ll be my tutor as well as Frank’s? I heard father say something about it! Wouldn’t it be stunning?”
Mr Armstrong gave a qualified assent.
“I’m not a bit clever, you know, like Rosalind, but I’d like to have a tutor awfully. I say, haven’t we done enough with these blessed boxes? They’ll be all right now. Should we have time to see Christy’s Minstrels on our way to the hotel, do you think? I’d like it frightfully.”
“My dear boy,” said Mr Armstrong, “if we are to get all the things properly cleared and labelled and sent off to Maxfield, we shall have no time for anything else. If the way you stick to your lessons is anything like the way you stick to this task, I don’t envy your tutor.”
This covert threat at once reduced Tom to a sense of discipline, and he made a gallant effort to secure Mr Armstrong’s good opinion.
The tutor was right. It was well on in the afternoon when they had the baggage finally disposed of, and were free to follow to the hotel.
Here they found, instead of the party they expected, a hurriedly scrawled line from Roger.
“Dear Armstrong,—
“Oliphant has taken it into his head to go down to Maxfield at once by the two train. So we are starting. I’m sorry he can’t wait, so as all to go together. If you are back in time to come by the evening train, do come. If not, first train in the morning.
“Yours ever,
“R.I.”
It was too late to get a train that day; so Mr Armstrong, much disgusted, had to make up his mind to remain. Tom, on the contrary, was delighted, and proposed twenty different plans for spending the evening, which finally resolved themselves into the coveted visit to Christy’s Minstrels.
The tutor, in no very festive humour, allowed himself to be overborne by the eagerness of his young companion, and found himself in due time jammed into a seat in a very hot hall, listening to the very miscellaneous performance of the coloured gentlemen who “never perform out of London.”
The tutor, who had some ideas of his own on the subject of music, listened very patiently, sometimes pleased, sometimes distressed, and always conscious of the enthusiastic delight of his companion, whose unaffected comments formed to him the most amusing part of the entertainment.
“Isn’t that, stunning?”
“Thanks awfully, Mr Armstrong, for bringing me.”
“Hooray! Bones again!”
“I say, I’m looking forward to the break-down; ain’t you?” and so on.
Whatever Mr Armstrong’s anticipations may have been as to the rapture of the coming “break-down,” he contained himself admirably, and with his glass inquiringly stuck in his eye, listened attentively to all that went on, and occasionally speculated as to how Miss Rosalind Oliphant was enjoying her visit to Maxfield.
The programme was half over, and Tom was repairing the ravages of nature with a bun, when Mr Armstrong became suddenly aware of a person in the row but one in front looking round fixedly in his direction.
To judge by the close-cropped, erect hair and stubbly chin of this somewhat disreputable-looking individual, he was a foreigner; and when presently, catching the tutor’s eye, he began to indulge in pantomimic gestures of recognition, it was safe to guess he was a Frenchman.
“Who’s that chap nodding to you?” said Tom with his mouth full. “Is he tipsy?”
“He lays himself open to the suspicion,” said Mr Armstrong slowly. “At any rate, as I vote we go put and get some fresh air, he will have to find some one else to make faces at. Come along.”
Tom did not at all like risking his seat, and particularly charged the lady next to him to preserve it from invasion at the risk of her life.
Then wondering a little at Mr Armstrong’s impatience to reach the fresh air, he followed him out.
The Frenchman witnessed the proceeding with some little disappointment, and sat craning his neck in the direction in which they had gone for some minutes. Then, as if moved by a similar yearning for fresh air, he too left his seat and went out.
The band was beginning to play as he did so, and most of the loiterers were crowding back for the second part.
“You go in; I’ll come directly,” said Mr Armstrong to the boy.
Tom needed no second invitation, and a moment later had forgotten everything in the delightful prelude to the “break-down.” He did not even observe that Mr Armstrong had not returned to his seat.
“Well, Gustav,” said that gentleman in French as the foreigner approached him, where he waited in the outer lobby.
“Eh bien, man cher,” replied the other, “’ow ’appy I am to see you. I can speak ze Englise foine, n’est ce pas?”
“What are you doing in London?”
“I am vaiter, garçon at ze private hotel. ’Zey give me foods and drinks and one black coat, but not no vage. Oh, mon ami, it is ver’ ver’ ’ard.”
“And the old man?”
“Ah, hélas! he is ver’ ver’ ill. He vill die next week. Moi, I can not to him go; and Marie, she write me she must leave Paris this day to her duties. It is sad for the poor old père to die with not von friend to ’old ’is ’and. Ah! if ze petite Françoise yet lived, ma pauvre enfant, she would stay and—”
“Stop!” said the tutor imperatively. “Is he still in the old place?”
“Hélas, non! you make ze joke, you. Ve are ver’ ver’ poor, and ’ave no homes. Mon père, he is to the hôpital. Thank ’eaven, they ’ave zere give ’im ze bed to die.”
“Which hospital is he at?” said the tutor.
“De Saint Luc.”
“I will see him.”
The Frenchman gave a little hysterical laugh; then, with tears in his eyes, he seized the hand of the Englishman and wrung it rapturously.
“Oh, mon ami, mon cher ami!” cried he, “’eaven will bless you. I am ’appy that you say that. You vill see ’im? Yes? You vill ’old ’is ’and ven he do die? He sall have one friend to kiss his poor front? Oh, I am content; I am gay.”
How long he would have gone on thus it is hard to say. Mr Armstrong cut short the scene rather abruptly.
“There, there!” said he. “Good-bye, Gustav. I shall go very soon, and will come and see you when I return.” And he went back to the performance.
“You’ve missed it!” said Tom, as he dropped into his seat. “It was the finest ‘break-down’ you ever saw! That one next but one to Bones kept it up best. We couldn’t get an encore out of them. Never mind; perhaps they’ll have another to finish up. There’s lot’s more in the programme.”
Mr Armstrong watched it all with the same critical interest as before, but his mind was far away. It wandered to the foreign city, to the gaunt pauper hospital there, to a little low bed where lay an old dying friendless man, tossing and moaning for the laggard death to give him rest. He saw nothing of what went on before him; he felt none of the merry boy’s nudges at his side; he even forgot Roger and Maxfield.
The performance was over at last.
“Well, that was a jolly spree! I wish it was coming all over again,” chirped the boy. “Oh, thank you awfully, Mr Armstrong, for bringing me. Did you like it too? That last break-down wasn’t up to the other, but I’m glad you’ve seen one of them, at any rate.”
As they crowded out, Mr Armstrong was surprised and a little vexed to see Gustav still hanging about the lobby waiting for him. He dropped behind the boy for a moment and beckoned him.
“Well, Gustav?” said he impatiently.
“Ah, mon ami,” said the Frenchman, putting a little bunch of early violets into the tutor’s hands, “vill you give ’im zese from me? ’Tis all I can send. But he will love zem for the sake of me and ze little Françoise. Adieu, adieu, mon cher ami.”
It took not a minute; but in that time Tom had wandered serenely on, never dreaming that his protector was not close at his heels. Nor did he discover his mistake till he found himself half-way up Piccadilly, enlarging to a stranger at his side on the excellence of the evening’s performance. Then he looked round and missed his companion. The pavement was crowded with wayfarers of all sorts, some pressing one way, some another. Among them all the boy could not discover the stalwart form of Mr Armstrong. He pushed back to the hall, but he was not there. He followed one or two figures that looked like his; but they were strangers all. Then he returned up the street at a run, hoping to overtake him; but in vain.
He knew nothing of London; he did not even know the name of the hotel; he had no money in his pocket.
He was, in short, lost.
As for Mr Armstrong, not seeing his charge at the door, he had started to run in the direction of the hotel, which was the opposite direction to that taken by Tom. Seeing no sign of the prodigal, he too returned to the hall, just after Tom had started a second time on the contrary tack; and so for an hour these two played hide and seek; sometimes almost within reach of one another; at others, with the whole length of the street between them.
At last the crowd on the pavement thinned, and the tutor, sorely chagrined, started off to the hotel, on the chance of the boy having turned up there. No Tom was there. Tom, in fact, was at that moment debating somewhere about a mile and a half away whether he should not try to make his way to the “Oriana” at the Docks, and remain quietly there till claimed. What a joke it would all be when he was found! What an adventure for his first night in London!
It was not very easy even for Tom Oliphant to derive much amusement from these philosophical reflections, and he looked about him rather dismally for some one of whom to inquire his way.
A seedy-looking person was standing under a lamppost hard by, trying to light a cigarette in the wind. Tom decided to tackle him.
“Please can you tell me the way to the Docks where the P and O steamers come in?” said he.
The man let drop his match and stared at the boy.
“Vy,” said he with an odd shrug, “that is some long walks from here. Mais, comment. Vas you not at ze Christy Minstrel to-night viz a nice gentleman?”
“Rather!” said the boy. “Were you there? I say, wasn’t it a clipping turn out? I did like it, especially the break-down. I say, I’m lost. The fellow who was looking after me has lost me.”
“Oh, you ’ave lost ’im. I am ’appy you to find. You sall not valk to ze Dock, no. I sall give you sleeps at ze hotel, and to-morrow you sall find zat dear gentleman. Come wiz me.”
“Oh, but you know, he’ll be looking for me; besides, I’ve got no tin. Father forgot to leave me any. I’d better go to the Docks, I say.”
“You sall not. Zey will be all shut fast zere. No, my dear friend, you sall come sleep at my hotel, and you sall have nothings to pay. It will be all right. I would die for to help ze friend of my friend.”
“Is Mr Armstrong a friend of yours?” asked the boy. “I thought you were only cheeking him that time in the Hall. Oh, all right, if you know him. Thanks awfully.”
Gustav, as delighted as a cat who has found her kitten, led the boy off jubilantly to his third-rate hotel off the Strand, taking the precaution, as he passed, to leave word at the Hall that if a gentleman called who had lost a boy, he should be told where he would find him.
He smuggled Tom up to his own garret, and made him royally welcome with three-quarters of his scanty supper and the whole of his narrow bed, sleeping himself on the floor cheerfully for the sake of the cher ami who had that night promised to go to Paris to hold the hand of his dying father.
About three in the morning there was a loud ringing of the bell and a sound of steps and voices on the stairs, and presently Mr Armstrong entered the room.
Gustav sprang up with his finger on his lips, pointing to the sleeping boy.
“Oh, mon ami,” whispered he, “’ow ’appy I am you ’ave found ’im. But I keep him ver’ safe. I love to do it, for you are ver’ good to me and the pauvre père. He sall rest here till to-day, vile you (hélas! that I have no two beds to offer you), you sall take one in ze hotel, and at morning we sall all be ’appy together.”
Mr Armstrong grimly accepted this proposal, and took a room for the night at Gustav’s hotel.
The next morning, scarcely waiting to take breakfast or bid another adieu to his grateful friend, he hurried the genial Tom, who had enjoyed himself extremely, to the station, and carried him down by express train to Maxfield.