"Older people might. I know Sarah's grandmother does not remember anybody, she's so old, and she stays in bed all the time. But I know I could never forget father."
Ralph said this in a tone so decisive that it was useless to reply. Geraldine and Kathleen smiled at each other, but made no attempt to alter his opinion.
Sarah was Ralph's personal attendant. She was a Hollingsby young woman, who had been his first nurse, and who had stayed on at Monk's How regardless of all save the child, for whom she had cared during his mother's lifetime.
Sarah was plain of face, staid in manner, often sharp of tongue, but wholly devoted to her charge, whom she would have shielded from bodily harm at the risk of her life. With regard to harm of another and more serious kind, Sarah was powerless. To the best of her ability she taught the child the simple lessons she had herself learned at her mother's knee, or in the Sunday school, hoping that some of them would abide, and perchance bring forth fruit after many days. As to the captain, Sarah was abundantly conscious of his shortcomings, and moaned over them in private; but she would hear no word uttered against him. She had idolized Mrs. Torrance, and knew that the wife's love for her husband had remained unchanged till death.
"Whatever the master may have done, he loved the mistress, and he's fond of his boy, though I often wish he'd show it in a wiser way," was Sarah's opinion. "It's my place to uphold him, and not to stand by and hear any tongue wag against the master, whose bread I've eaten for near on eleven years past."
In educational matters, Ralph was "seen to," as Sarah put it, by the Hollingsby curate, to whose rooms the boy went for two hours daily; but his manners were modelled on those of Captain Jack himself.
"Won't Sarah swear, I mean scold, when I get home, Miss Mountford!" said Ralph, as the carriage neared Monk's How. "Of course Sarah doesn't swear. I only say that for fun, and to tease her when she's vexed. I ought to have been in for dinner at one o'clock, and now it's nearly two, I'm sure. When father's at home I generally have proper late dinner with him as well."
"I suppose Sarah will be wondering what has got you," said Kathleen.
"Yes. I told you I had run away to see father off."
"Would you like to lunch with us, Ralph?" asked Kathleen. "We can leave a message at the lodge for Sarah."