Chapter Seventeen.
“When the Cat’s away—”
Maxfield Manor, however cheery a place in summer-time, with its household in full swing, was decidedly desolate in dark November weather, with only a housekeeper in charge—that is to say, to any one but the two young persons on whom the honours of the house devolved, it would have appeared dull.
Mr Armstrong delayed his visit to Oxford for some days after the departure of the Captain and Roger. There was a good deal of business to be done in connection with the estate, and as Mr Pottinger discovered, when the second trustee did take it into his head to look into things, it was no child’s play. He had an uncomfortable manner, this tutor, of demanding explanations and particulars with all the air of the proprietor himself, and was not to be put off by any dilatory tactics on the part of the official with whom the explanation lay. As in the present case the business transacted was chiefly in connection with leases and conveyances, the unfortunate lawyer had a rough week of it, and felt at the end very much like one of his own clients after a year in Chancery. However, the inquisitor appeared to be fairly well satisfied when all was done, so that Mr Pottinger, who all along had on his mind the uncomfortable consciousness of a few well-hidden irregularities, was doubly relieved when the tutor dropped his glass finally from his eye and observed—
“I need not trouble you further at present, sir.”
It was after this final interview that Mr Armstrong looked in on his friend the doctor.
“I’m off to Oxford for a day or two,” said he.
“No attractions here?” asked the doctor.
“Yes—you among others.”
“And who’s to wash and dress the babies at Maxfield? And who is to keep the wolf from the fold at the Vicarage? and who is to keep an eye on the man of the law across the way?”
“The babes are well qualified to nurture one another. The man of the law is under closer observation than he imagines. As to the wolf, I came to speak to you about that. He may make a descent on the fold, in which case Dr Brandram must go out with swords and staves and give him battle.”
The doctor laughed.
“I like your ideas of the medical profession. Its duties are variegated and lively. However, make yourself easy this time. I hear to-day that the young ladies at the Vicarage with their governess are to go on Monday to Devonshire.”
“Good,” said Mr Armstrong, decidedly relieved.
“When does your ward return?” said the doctor. “I dislike this London business altogether. Oliphant is not to be trusted with a boy of his delicate make. You should have stopped it.”
The tutor said nothing, but looked decidedly dejected. He was greatly tempted to confide the difficulties of the situation to his friend. But the dead Squire’s secret was not his to give away.
“Unless they come home soon,” said he, “I have a notion of returning from Oxford by way of London.”
“Do—the sooner the better.”
When, on the next day, Miss Rosalind sailed up to Maxfield to bid her brother and sister farewell, it fell to the tutor’s lot to escort her back to the Vicarage.
“Mr Armstrong,” said she abruptly, as they went, “why have you and Roger quarrelled?”
Mr Armstrong looked round uncomfortably.
“Quarrelled?”
“Yes. Do you suppose he would go away like this for any other reason? Won’t you tell me what it is about?”
“Roger and I have agreed to differ on a certain point. Miss Oliphant. We have not quarrelled?”
“You cannot trust me, I see, or you would tell me what the trouble is.”
“I trust you completely, Miss Oliphant. I will gladly tell you.”
Five minutes ago wild horses would not have extorted the confession from him. But somehow or other, as he looked at her standing there, he could not help himself.
“Roger has got an impression that his elder brother is still living, and is to be found; and, if found, that he ought to be made possessor of Maxfield. I am unable to sympathise in what I look upon as an unprofitable quest. That is the whole story.”
“Why cannot you back him up, Mr Armstrong?”
“I believe his fancy is utterly groundless; besides which, if the person he believes to be the missing brother is really Roger Ingleton, to discover him would mean disgrace to Maxfield, and an injury to the name of Ingleton.”
“What! Mr Armstrong, do you mean to say—”
“I mean to say that Mr Robert Ratman claims to be the lost elder brother, and that Roger credits the story. Miss Oliphant, I am grateful to you for sharing this confidence with me. You can help Roger in this matter better than I can.”
She looked at him with a flush in her face, and then replied rather dismally, “I fear not—for, to be as frank with you as you are with me, I am dreadfully afraid Roger is right. The same fancy passed through my mind when first I saw Mr Ratman. I had recently been studying the lost brother’s portrait, you know, and was struck and horrified by the resemblance. Mr Armstrong,” added she, after a pause, “if I were Roger’s guardian and tutor, I would stand by him all the more that his duty is an unpleasant one. Thank you; here we are at the gate. Good-bye. I hope you will have a pleasant time at Oxford.”
And she passed in, leaving the good man in a sad state of bewilderment and perplexity.
He started a day or two later in a somewhat depressed frame of mind for Oxford, where he astonished and delighted most of his old creditors by calling and paying off a further instalment of his debts to them. But his satisfaction in this act of restitution was sadly tempered by the sense of coercion put upon him by the doctor and Rosalind, and the conviction that, wise or foolish, pleasant or unpleasant, his place was at his young pupil’s side. No excuse, or pleadings of a false pride, could dispel the feeling. No, he must climb down, own himself wrong, and sue for permission to assist in a quest in which he had little faith and still less inclination.
While he is making up his mind, it may be worth the reader’s while to remark what was happening at Maxfield.
Tom and Jill woke one morning to discover themselves lord and lady of the situation. In their lamentations, not unmingled with a sense of injury, at the desertion of which they were the victims, it had not occurred to them to realise that there were alleviating circumstances in their forlorn condition.
The great manor-house was theirs—library, dining-hall, corridors, haunted chamber, roof, cellars—all except the servant’s hall and the room where Mrs Parker, the housekeeper, held austere sway. The park was theirs, the woods, the stream, the paddocks, and the live-stock. Nay, when they came to reckon all up, half the county was theirs, and a mile or so of sea-beach into the bargain.
They were absolutely free to roam where they liked, do what they liked, eat what they liked, and sit up at night to any hour that pleased them. Mrs Parker, good soul, though excellent in academic exhortations and prohibitions, was too infirm to put her laws into active practice; and when, a day or two after the place had been left in her charge, she succumbed to a touch of her enemy, the lumbago, and had to take to her bed, these two young persons, though extremely sorry for her misfortune, felt that the whole world lay like a glorious football at their feet.
“Good old Jilly!” exclaimed Tom in his balmiest mood one morning, when these two young prodigals assembled for breakfast in the big dining-room at the fashionable hour of eleven, with Raffles in full livery to attend upon them. “This is what I call a lark and a half. Raffles, pass Miss Jill the honey; and walk about, and make yourself useful. I tell you what, we’ll go and have a snap at the pheasants, and try a few drop kicks over the Martyr’s oak. What do you say?”
“I can’t shoot awfully well,” said Jill apologetically. “I’d sooner, if you don’t mind, Tom, walk about on the roof, or help you let the water out of the big pond.”
“Raffles, old chappie, more toast—a lot more toast for Miss Jill. I’ll have a wing of something myself. The fact is, Jilly,” said he, when Raffles had departed on his quest, “I wanted to get the beast out of the way while I told you I’d got an idea.”
“Oh, what, Tom?” asked Jill, in tones of surprised pleasure. Tom glanced round cautiously, and then whispered, “You and I’ll give a small kick-up here on our own hooks. What do you say?”
“A party! Oh Tom! how clever of you to think of that!”
“You see,” said Tom, accepting the homage meekly, “the other day in the library, when we were turning out all the drawers, I found a whole lot of ‘At Home’ cards, and the list of fellows that were asked to Roger’s birthday party.”
“How lovely!” exclaimed Jill; “we’ll just—”
But here the return of Raffles, and a significant scowl from Tom, warned her to defer her suggestion.
The meal over, the conspirators met in the library, and put their heads together over Tom’s documents.
“That’s about the ticket, isn’t it?” said he, displaying one of the invitation cards which he had experimentally filled up.
“Dr Brandram—
“Mr and Miss Oliphant at home on Wednesday, December 2, at 7 o’clock. Music, dancing, fireworks, etcetera.
“R.S.V.P.”
“But we haven’t got any fireworks,” suggested Jill; “we’ll have to get some. And what about the band?”
“I shall write to the Colonel of the Grenadiers and order it. Anyhow, you can play the Goblin polka if we get stuck up.”
Jill wondered whether, after an hour or two, her one piece (even though dear Mr Armstrong liked it) might not pall on a large assembly, and she devoutly hoped the Grenadiers would accept.
“There’s a hundred and fifty names down,” said Tom. “May as well have the lot while we’re about it.”
“Isn’t two days rather a short invitation?” asked Jill.
“Bless you, no. You see, we’re not out of mourning. Besides, Mother Parker may be well again if we don’t look sharp, or Armstrong may turn up.”
“How I wish he would!”
“He’d spoil everything. Look here, Jill, look alive and write the cards. I’ll call out.”
The two spent a most industrious morning, so much so that the household marvelled at their goodness, and remarked to one another, “The children are no trouble at all.”
Towards the end of the sitting Tom flung down his paper with a whistle of dismay.
“I say, Jill, they ought to be black-edged!”
Jill turned pale.
“What is to be done?” she gasped.
“We’ll have to doctor them with pen and ink,” said Tom.
So for another hour or so they occupied themselves painfully in putting their invitations into mourning. The result was not wholly satisfactory, for a card dipped edgeways into a shallow plate of ink is apt to take on its black unevenly. So that while some of the guests were invited with signs of the slightest sorrow, the company of others was requested with tokens of the deepest bereavement. However, on the whole the result was passable, and that evening Tom slunk down to Yeld post office with a bundle under his arm. At the last moment a difficulty had arisen with regard to postage, as, between them, the two could not raise the thirteen shillings required to stamp the lot. However, by a lucky accident Tom discovered a bundle of halfpenny wrappers, the property of the estate, which (after scrupulously writing an I.O.U. for the amount) he borrowed.
“Saved a clean six-and-six by that,” he remarked, when the last was licked up; “that’ll go into the fireworks.”
Jill, whose admiration for her brother’s genius knew no bounds, felt almost happy.
It was Monday evening when the Yeld post-master was exercised in his mind by hearing a loud rap down-stairs, which on inquiry he found to have proceeded from the discharge of 150 mysterious-looking halfpenny missives, written in a very round hand, into his box. Being an active and intelligent person, he felt it his duty to examine one, addressed, as it happened, to the Duke of Somewhere. After some consideration, and a study of his rules and regulations, he came to the conclusion that the enclosure was of the nature of a letter, and thereupon proceeded to mark each with a claim for a penny excess postage. Which done, he retired to his parlour, relieved in his mind.
Tom and Jill had more to do than to speculate on the adventures of their carefully-written cards.
“Now about grub!” said Tom that evening.
Once more Jill turned a little pale. She had been dreading this fateful question all along.
“What do you think?” said she diplomatically.
Tom, of course, had thought the problem out.
“We must keep it dark from the slaveys,” said he, “at least till everybody comes, then they’re bound to give us a leg up. I fancy we can scrape a thing or two up from what’s in the house. And I’ve called in at one or two of the shops at Yeld and told them to send up some things addressed to ‘Miss J. Oliphant—private.’ There was rather a nice lot of herrings just in, so I got three dozen of them cheap. Then I told them at the confectioner’s to send up all the strawberry ices they could in the time, and 150 buns. You see everybody is sure not to come, so there’ll be plenty to go round.”
“Didn’t Mr Rusk ask what they were for?” inquired Jill.
“I said Mr Oliphant presented his kind regards, and would be glad to have the things sharp.”
Next morning, greatly to the delight of the hospitable pair, the herrings came up in a basket, addressed privately to Miss Jill. Later in the day tradesmen’s carts rattled up the back drive with similar missives, not a little to the bewilderment of the servants of the house, who shook their heads and wished Mrs Parker would make a speedy recovery.
Tom adroitly captured the booty, and half won over Raffles to aid and abet in the great undertaking.
“Good old Raffy,” said he, as the two staggered across the hall with one of Miss Jill’s private boxes between them; “would you like a threepenny bit?”
Raffles, whose ideas of a tip were elastic, admitted that he was open to receive even the smallest coin.
“All right, mum’s the word. Jill and I have a thing on, and we don’t want it spoiled by the slaveys.”
Raffles said that, as far as he knew, the “slaveys” were thinking about anything else than the proceedings of the two young Oliphants. “Besides,” said he, “being ’olidays, there’s only me and the cook, and a maid—and she’s took up with nursing Mrs Parker.”
“Poor old Parker! How is she? Pretty chippy? Sorry she’s laid up. All serene, Raff. Keep it mum, and you shall have the threepenny. Jolly heavy box that—that’s the cocoa-nuts.”
“Oh, you’re going to have a feast, are you?” said Raffles.
“Getting on that way,” said Tom. “We can’t ask you, you know, because you’ll have to wait. But you shall have some of the leavings if you back us up.”
With locked doors that night Tom and Jill unpacked and took stock of their commissariat.
“Thirty-six herrings cut up in four,” said Tom, with an arithmetical precision which would have gratified Mr Armstrong, “makes 144 goes of herring. If every man-jack turns up, that’ll only be six goes short, and if you and I sit out of it, only four. We might cheek in a head or two by accident to make that up.”
“Who will cook them?” asked Jill.
“Oh, we can do that, I fancy, on a tray or something. Then six cocoa-nuts into 150 will be twenty-five. You’ll have to cut each one into twenty-five bits, Jill. Then one bun apiece, and—oh, the ice! How on earth are we to slice that up? There’s about a soup-plate full. Couldn’t get strawberry, so he’s sent coffee.”
“Ugh!” said Jill; “I’ll give up my share.”
“I did my best,” said Tom. “It’s not my fault strawberries are out of season.”
“Of course not. You’re awfully clever, Tom. What should I have done without you?”
“Good old Jilly! What about plates?”
The consultation lasted far into the night.
Next morning the post brought a dozen or so of polite notes which sent the hearts of the hospitable pair into their mouths. The first they opened was from the Duke of Somewhere, who gravely “accepted with pleasure Mr and Miss Oliphant’s polite invitation.”
Several of the others were acceptances—one or two refusals.
“Five scratched already,” said Tom. “That’ll make it all right for the herrings.”
In the afternoon Dr Brandram called. He carried his invitation card in his hand.
“What game are you at now?” he demanded.
“Oh, I say, Doctor, keep it quiet! You’ll come, won’t you? There’ll be a tidy spread—enough to go all round; and the Duke and his lot are coming, and we expect the Grenadiers.”
“Doctor,” said Jill, “we shall depend on you so much. Do come early!”
Dr Brandram drove back to Yeld in a dazed condition of mind. He was tempted to telegraph to the Duke and the county generally; to set a body of police to prevent any one entering the Maxfield gates; to shut the two miscreants up in the coal-cellar; to run away, and not return till next week.
But after an hysterical consultation with himself, he decided that it was too late to do anything but cast in his lot with the other victims, and go dressed in all his best to Miss Oliphant’s “At Home,” and do what he could to steer her and her graceless brother out of their predicament.
As the fateful hour approached, Tom began to be a little nervous. He had not anticipated the vast number of small details demanding his personal attention.
For instance, there was the cooking of the herrings. Jill had nobly undertaken that task at the drawing-room fire, which was the most capacious. But then, if they ran it too fine, the guests might arrive while the fish were still fizzling on the tray. If, on the other hand, they were cooked too soon, they would be lukewarm by the time the guests came to sit down to them. Again, there were the starlights and Roman candles to get into position outside, and arrangements had to be made for their protection from the damp November mist. Then, too, the faithless Grenadiers had not turned up, which necessitated Jill deserting her herrings and privately practising the Goblin polka, in view of possible emergencies. Further, the table had to be laid, and every guest’s “go” of buns, and cocoa-nut, and coffee-ice, doled out in readiness. And at the last moment there arose a difficulty in raising the requisite number of knives, forks, spoons, and plates. Then he discovered that the covers were still on the drawing-room chairs and the dust-cloth on the floor, and much time and trouble was necessary for their removal. Finally, he and Jill had to dress to receive their guests.
“I think it will be a jolly evening,” said he somewhat doubtfully, as they hurried to their rooms.
“I’m sure it will,” said Jill, whose mind had not once been clouded by a doubt. “The herrings will be cold, that’s the only thing. But they may think that’s the newest fashion.”
“Look sharp and dress, anyhow,” said Tom, “because you’ve got to cut them in fours and stick them round on the plates, and it’s half-past six already.”
Half an hour later a grand carriage and pair drove up to the door, and Raffles solemnly announced—
“His Grace the Duke of Somewhere, and the Ladies Marigold.”
Miss Oliphant’s evening party had begun!