“He has, my dear sister,” she remarked, “the most honourable carriage of the head: it is but to look at that man to see what he is. You, dear, at least, won’t throw any obstacle in the way of Robina’s good luck: all her life long it will be remembered in her favour that she was selected by Malcolm Durrant to be the companion of his little boy during his own absence.”
“I am not likely to put an obstacle in the way,” answered Mrs Starling, “seeing that I have small voice in any matters. Where you don’t rule me,—Felicia,—my husband does; and where my husband doesn’t, the little children do; and where the little children don’t, Robina does; and where Robina doesn’t, the servants do. I am ruled by everyone; I am the most ruled out person on earth; I have not a bit of colour or opinion left. When Bo-peep was here, I felt a little happier than I had done for some time, because the animal seemed to like me without wanting in the very least to get the upper hand of me. But there, it cannot be helped.”
“Don’t talk any more in that silly vein,” was Miss Felicia’s remark. “Each day after day as it goes, you make things quite disagreeable and contrary. I wanted to dress you nicely and bring you downstairs to tea, so that you might have the privilege of conversing yourself with the distinguished traveller; but really, what with hysterics in view, I doubt if it would not be better to leave you upstairs.”
“I am not going to have any hysterics,” said poor Mrs Starling. “I have passed all that. Perhaps Robina rules me rather less than the rest of you; but I should like to see the man who wants to be a sort of father to her. I can’t imagine why she should leave her own father; but you all think otherwise.”
“We all think otherwise,” retorted Miss Felicia with a sort of snort; “when golden chances do come in life, as a rule one isn’t such a fool as to throw them away. But now, my dear Agnes, your purple silk dress with the real lace collar will look exceedingly nice, and it will do you no harm to get into it, even if you don’t come downstairs.”
While Mrs Starling was being dressed, the men were having their smoke in the garden. Durrant made his proposal quite plainly before Mr Starling.
“I shall be absent for a year,” he said. “During that time, I want your daughter to be my little son’s companion; I, of course, paying all expenses. At the end of the year, she can, if you wish it, go back to Mrs Burton, and continue her education in that most excellent school, or she can still remain under my roof, looked after by my friend and relation, Mrs Temple, and given the best possible instruction that Eastbourne and the neighbourhood of London can supply. When she is old enough, I will myself send her to Newnham or Girton; or if she does not care for that sort of education I will give her two or three years’ foreign travel. It will be a great pleasure to me to do all this for the girl who helps my little boy during a rather lonely period of his life. I offer these advantages to your daughter because, in the first place, Ralph likes her better than any other girl he has ever seen, and in the second place, I respect and love her on her own account. During the holidays she will of course spend the time with you, unless you wish it otherwise.”
“There is no use whatever in that,” said Starling, interrupting Mr Durrant’s remarks in a somewhat gruff voice. “Robina is a good girl, and suits me uncommonly well, but she does not get on with the ladies here. Can’t tell why, I am sure—too outspoken—doesn’t suit Felicia Jennings. Felicia, between you and me, is somewhat of a bore—an excellent creature, but too much ‘don’t’ about her. Robina has got a high spirit, and she can’t stand it. That is why she went to school. Believe me, I didn’t want her to go: I miss the girl uncommonly. She takes after me—a little rough, you know.”
“I haven’t found her rough,” said Mr Durrant.
“Well, perhaps you would not call it so; but that is what the women here say. They have dinned it into my ear till at last I have got to believe it. Robina is so rough, they say, and so noisy, and so like a tomboy.”