“I have seen that the notice is withdrawn. I, for one, should certainly never sanction it.”
“Oh, how delightful you are,” said the young lady. “How happy you will have made the poor old man. Father, do get that horrid Pottinger sent away. He’s a monster. I told him so yesterday, but he wouldn’t believe me.”
“Rosalind,” said her father, whose lunch was not agreeing with him at all, “it vexes me to see you interfere in matters in which you have no concern. It seems to me, my dear Eva,” he added, addressing Mrs Ingleton, whom he had already taken to calling by her Christian name, “that these business questions had much better be left for discussion among ourselves, and not at the family meal.”
“Perhaps so,” said Mrs Ingleton; “only we are all so interested in poor old Hodder, we hardly regard this as a business question. However, I am delighted to hear it is all right now. I only wish Mr Pottinger had consulted you, Edward, before he took such a step.”
“Oh, he did,” blurted out Rosalind. “But, as I told him, of course papa not knowing what a villain he was, would believe all he said. It was all the more shame of him to go and impose on papa, who hasn’t had time to get to know all the people about the place, instead of going to Auntie or Mr Armstrong, who know all of them. I don’t think he’ll do it again,” said the young lady, firing up like a charming Amazon, at the remembrance of her interview.
Captain Oliphant pushed his chair brusquely back from the table and got up, looking, so Armstrong thought, not as proud of his loyal daughter as he should have been.
“Eva,” said he drily, “I shall be in the library if you want me. Will you tell Raffles to bring me in the Times when it arrives?”
“I’m afraid papa will be very angry with me,” said Rosalind dolefully, as she and Roger walked back across the hall. “But if he won’t stand up for himself some one must. I’m quite sure he would give the impression, to any one who did not know him, that he had purposely been harsh to poor Hodder.”
As it happened, Captain Oliphant displayed no anger. The question of Hodder was allowed to drop, and no further reference was made to his threatened eviction. Mr Pottinger during the week meekly submitted an agreement to permit him to remain where he was, which the trustees sanctioned unanimously; and when the old man’s champions at Maxfield rejoiced in the discomfiture of the man of the law.
Captain Edward Oliphant said nothing in his defence.