“In that case, seeing that you have the advantage of me, and that there’s no one here to introduce us en règle– you might – er – ”
Voices in the hall, and the shutting of doors proclaiming the arrival of somebody, interrupted her.
“Well, how are you again, Mr Rowlands?” cried the rector cheerily. “I’m disgracefully late. This is Mr Turner, one of my colleagues,” he went on, introducing a broad-shouldered young man, shaven of countenance, and in clerical attire, who had come in with him.
The conversation at table was brisk and lively, and what especially struck the guest was the spontaneity and utter absence of constraint with which the girls chatted away – now keeping up a running fire of chaff among themselves or with their father, now poking fun at this or that local character. Then they would parenthesise an explanation for his benefit, endeavouring to sweep him into the fun: and succeeding – as though he were no stranger at all. It was delightful, he decided; and then, oh, horror! – a thought struck him which spoiled all. What if they were to turn the fire of their wit on to his own family, to start poking fun at the members of the same, in total ignorance of his own identity? He must really throw off this infernal pseudonym at the very earliest opportunity.
“How do you like Wandsborough, Mr Rowlands?” asked Margaret Ingelow, when they were seated at table.
“Oh, it seems a nice little place. One can go about as one likes, independently of everybody.”
Sophie spluttered at this.
“Why it’s the most gossipy place on earth, Mr Rowlands,” she said.
“I suppose so. Most small places are. But the coast scenery is very fine.”
“Isn’t it? And the beach, too. Have you been to the beach yet?”
Fortunately Turner was not at that moment talking to Olive, or he would have met with random replies. She was thinking, “Oh, if Margaret should ever come to know of yesterday morning!”
Roland answered in the affirmative and then Turner struck in.
“By the bye, Mr Rowlands, that must have been you I saw down there yesterday. I was envying the owner of that splendid dog.”
Olive was on thorns. Her accomplice, however, was equal to the occasion. Noting her uneasiness, he took up the subject at once, and the narrative of his acquisition of the faithful Roy soon directed the conversation to the wilds of the Far West, where the rector himself had gone through some stirring experiences in his younger days. During the reminiscences involved, Roland caught a rapid grateful glance from the bright eyes of his vis-à-vis. Then he began to study Turner’s face, whose owner was listening attentively to his host’s anecdote, and came to the conclusion that he did not like it. Moreover he was not sure how much concealed intent lurked beneath Turner’s innocent remark. Turner was bumptious – most curates were. No, he did not like Turner. Confound the fellow! what did he mean by looking at and talking to Olive in that familiar and appropriating way – as if she belonged to him, or soon would? But if she should, what the deuce was it to him – Roland Dorrien? Nothing – only these young parsons put on far too much side. Clearly Turner wanted taking down.
“I think you were in church on Sunday, were you not, Mr Rowlands?” said Margaret, dispelling his brown study.
“Er – Yes. Yes – I was. Very fine ceremony and music too. I never came across anything of the kind before.”
The approval implied in this answer atoned for its absent-mindedness and brought a gratified smile to Margaret’s face. The speaker had quite won her heart.
Then the conversation became general, and there was a vast deal of laughter and banter, and Roland found himself frequently appealed to, to act as umpire in some ridiculous point of debate, and in fact treated as an intimate friend rather than as a stranger who had not been two hours in their midst, and as he caught the bright, mischievous retort which Olive threw at him over her shoulder as the girls withdrew, he blessed the luck which had thrown him by the merest chance into such a delightful circle. Nor could he help contrasting the probable scene at Cranston at this moment, and a sort of mental shiver ran through him as he did so.
“Circulate the intoxicants, Turner – or, in plainer and more decorous English, pass the bottle,” cried the rector, as the door closed on his daughters, leaving the men to themselves. “Fill up, Mr Rowlands. And now I want you to tell me about your travels. I was a good deal in the States as a young man. When I was out West, the Plains tribes were not exuberantly friendly. That was even before you were in long clothes, I fancy, ha! ha! but yet we had two or three grand buffalo hunts with them. There’s a head upstairs in my boy’s smoking den – where we’ll go and have a cigar by and by – whose owner I turned over on one of those occasions. Splendid head, and well set up too.”
Then these two – the old traveller and the younger one – plunged into a flood of reminiscence in all the delightful abandon of a common and welcome topic. At last the rector started to his feet.
“Hallo?” he cried. “This won’t do. We mustn’t sit too long, or we shall meet with a warm reception in the other room. As it is we shall, so let’s face our troubles like men.”
His prediction was verified.
“Father, what a long time you’ve been!” cried Sophie, as they entered the drawing-room.
“How men can sit and gossip!” struck in Olive. “Talk about us poor women! When a lot of men get together the sky may fall, but they won’t move. What have you been talking about all this time?”
“Rattlesnakes, buffaloes, scalps – nothing worse,” cried her father, throwing himself into an armchair. “Mr Rowlands and I have been counting up scalps, and we find he has lifted more hair than your venerable parent.”
Roland, manoeuvring towards a vacant seat at Olive’s side, was disgusted to find himself forestalled by Turner.
He felt more nettled than he cared to own to himself. The bumptiousness of these young parsons was overwhelming. So he took up the thread of their former conversation with his host and tried to pretend he rather preferred it to carrying out his original intention. Tried to, but it was of no use. Yet why should he care because another man sat talking about nothing in particular to a certain person with whom he had intended discussing precisely the same interesting topic? Why, because, dear reader, he was an ass.
But his innings were to come. A message came for the rector, and its purport concerned Turner too. Roland, in obedience to a scarcely perceptible glance from Olive’s dark eyes, at once took possession of the vacant seat.
“What have you done with that darling of a Roy?” she asked in a low tone.
“Left him at home. When I go in he’ll nearly eat me. It’s worth while leaving him anywhere, if only to see him go mad with delight when I come back. But then, you see, he’s only a dog, and doesn’t know any better.”
“I’m afraid we must defer our cigar together, Mr Rowlands!” cried the rector, re-entering the room. “I’ve been called out to a sick bed, and hardly know when I shall get home. But don’t hurry away. Turner, you’re in no hurry, I know. Good-night. We must have another sporting conversation before long. I’ve enjoyed a chat over old times immensely.”
Turner, however, did not remain long after his host’s sudden departure, and Roland, deeming it right to follow his example, also withdrew. But he strolled down the dark street in a brown study, when suddenly there rushed at him in the darkness something which nearly upset him outright, and lo! Roy, who had broken bounds on hearing his master’s step, now came springing upon and against him just in time to save that master from over-shooting his own door in a fit of absence, and wandering about half a mile too far. And then there was such a rushing and scampering, such barks of delight, such leaping and bounding, that it took Roy a full ten minutes of exertion to work off the gladness wherewith his affectionate heart was overburdened. But then, you see, he was only a dog and knew no better.
It was long, however, before Roy’s master flung away his last cigar end,