CHAPTER XLVII.
The return of the united family to Rosmore was, it is scarcely necessary to say, scrutinised by many keen and eager eyes, all aware that there had been something wrong, all, or almost all, glad to see that the something had so soon come to nothing. Except that Archie was exceptionally shabby in his old clothes, and that he was deeply conscious of this fact, and accordingly kept as much as possible in the background, there was nothing to show that the party was anything more than the most ordinary party returning from some joint expedition. The people in the steamboat, however, allowed their knowledge to be revealed by effusive and unnecessary expressions of satisfaction in the return of Mr. Rowland and his wife and son, which were quite uncalled for, in view of the fact that neither of the former had been gone for more than a few days. “I can scarcely express to you the satisfaction I feel in seeing you back,” the minister said, with a significant grip of his wealthy parishioner’s hand; and Miss Eliza, who happened to be coming by the same boat, fell upon Evelyn with a shriek of joy. “I’ve not seen so delightful a sight for years as the sight of your bonny face, with all your belongings round you,” Miss Eliza said, holding out her left hand and a beaming smile to Archie. These signs of popular satisfaction were received by Mrs. Rowland not exactly with offence, but a little coldly, in view of the fact that nobody had any right, even by inference, to remark upon what was so entirely a family matter. But her husband, who was in great spirits, and inclined to make friends with all the world, received these effusive salutations with pleasure, and without enquiring how much they knew of the circumstances which made this home-coming remarkable. He was perhaps more used to the warmth of Scotch neighbours, and understood it better. At the pier the two girls were waiting, both of them curious and a little excited. Marion’s eyes were glittering like beads with a desire to know, and Rosamond, though she held up her head with her accustomed calm, and repressed all consciousness of anything unusual, betrayed in a slight dilation of her nostril, and momentary quiver of her lip, her share of the general excitement. She slipped aside from the carriage in order to leave the family undisturbed in their reunion, which was indeed a thing very little desired by any of its members: but was joined by Archie before she had gone far. He was too glad to escape from the sensation of the prodigal’s return, although more and more conscious of what he felt to be the chief feature about him—his exceedingly shabby coat.
“I am glad you have come home,” said Rosamond.
“So am I, more or less,” said Archie.
“I suppose you like the freedom of being away. But the more you are free to go, the more endurable the dullness should be. When one knows one can get quit of it at any moment, one does not mind.”
“I was not thinking of the dullness,” said Archie; “it has been the other way round with me. I suppose it’s contradiction. When you are shut out from your home, you take a longing for it. It’s through your brother somehow, I can’t tell how, that I’ve come back now.”
“Through Eddy!”
“I don’t know how; he has cleared up something. It is queer, isn’t it,” said Archie, with a laugh, “that a little beggar like that—I beg your pardon, Miss Saumarez, I forgot for the moment——”
“It is true enough,” said Rosamond, gravely. “He must look a little beggar to you. I beg to remark, however, Mr. Rowland, that you are not yourself very tall, nor perhaps of a commanding aspect, by nature.”
Archie could not accept this jibe as Eddy would have done. He grew graver still than Rosamond and became crimson. “It’s just a silly phrase,” he said, “that means nothing. Eddy’s far more commanding, as you say, than I am. I know the difference well enough: but it’s a little hard all the same to think that a man’s own father should take the word of a stranger rather than——”