“Good-bye, Mr Von Marlo,” I said; “and thank you, thank you.”
Von Marlo boldly took my hand in the presence of father, and then bolted downstairs, I regret to say, with extreme noise; for, notwithstanding his gentlemanly manners, his boots were thick and rough, and the stairs were destitute of carpets.
“Lay the tea on the table, Rachel,” said my father.
He pushed his hands through his hair, which now seemed to stand up on his head and gave him a wild appearance.
“What does this mean? Tell me at once. Speak, Rachel.”
“I think Mr Von Marlo explained, father. I am awfully sorry. I did ask Agnes and Rita Swan to tea this evening. You said – or at least you never said that I wasn’t to ask them.”
“I never gave you leave to ask any one. How dare you invite people to my house without my permission?”
“I am lonely sometimes, father.”
I said the words in a sad voice; I could not help it; there was a lump in my throat. Father gazed at me, and all of a sudden his manner altered. He seated himself in a chair, and motioned to me to take another. He pulled the little tray with the nice tea towards him, poured out a cup, and drank it. Then he looked at the poached egg, put on his glasses, and gazed at it more fixedly.
“That’s a queer sort of thing,” he said; and then he ate it with considerable relish. “It’s very good,” he said when he had finished it. “Who did it?”
“Mr Von Marlo.”
“Rachel, you must be mad!”
“No, father; he isn’t an English boy, you know. He helped me; he is a very nice boy.”
My father sank back in his chair, and suddenly, to my amazement and relief, he burst into a roar of laughter.
“Well, well!” he said, “I admit that I was in a temper; and I was rude to the lad, too. If you ever have headaches like mine you will get into passions too, Rachel. Pray that you may never have them; my misery is something too awful; and when I saw that lad, with his great dark head, and that hair of his coming straight down to his eyebrows, marching up the stairs with you, I really thought a burglar had got into the house. But, after all, it was only the Dutch lad, and he is clever enough, and doesn’t know our English customs. And to think that he poached an egg!”
“And he made the toast, father.”
My father laughed again.
“Whatever he did, he has cured my headache,” was his next remark; “I feel as right as a trivet. I’ll come downstairs, and I’ll turn those lads out, and those girls.”
“But, father – father darling – they have come by invitation. It isn’t their fault.”
My father took my hand.
“So you are lonely, Dumps?” he said. “And why in the world should you be lonely?”
“I want friends,” I said. “I want some one to love me.”
“All women make that sort of cry,” was his next remark. He pulled me close to him and raised my head and looked into my face.
“You have a nice little face of your own,” he said, “and some day you will find – But, pshaw! why talk nonsense to the child? How old are you, Dumps?”
“I’ll be sixteen in six months,” I said. “It is a long way off to have a birthday, but it will come in six months.”
“And then you’ll be seventeen, and then eighteen, and, hey presto! you’ll be a woman. My goodness, child! put off the evil day as long as you can. Keep a child as long as possible.”
“But, father, most children are happy.”
“And you are not? Good gracious me! what more do you want?”
“I don’t know, father; but it seems to me that I want something.”
“Well, look here, you want girls about you, do you?”
“Yes, some girls.”
“And you think Rita and Agnes Swan, the daughters of our local doctor, quite delightful companions?”
I made no answer.
“Just wait for me a minute, Dumps, and I’ll get dressed and come down and inspect them.”
“Oh, but you won’t frighten them?”
“Frighten them? Well, if they’re that sort they won’t be much good to you. But wait outside the door, and I’ll come down. To think that Von Marlo made the toast! And how do you say he prepared the egg?”
“Poached it, father.”
“Poached an egg for me, and cured my headache, and I scolded him as though he were a rascal! I’ll make amends when I see him next. Wait outside the door, Rachel; I’ll join you in a minute.”
I did wait outside the door, and when my father came out he looked quite spruce. He had absolutely put on a less greasy and shabby coat than usual, and he had brushed his grey hair across his lofty brow; his pale face looked its most dignified and most serene. He took my hand, and we went downstairs.
By this time, as I knew there would be, there were high-jinks going on in the parlour. Von Marlo was not present, but Alex, Charley, Squibs, and the girls were playing at blind-man’s buff. They were endeavouring not to be too noisy; I will say that. It was Rita who was blindfold when my father appeared. The tea-table was pushed into a distant corner of the room; a guard had been put on the fire; and Rita was running as silently as she could, but also as swiftly, round and round, with one of father’s own silk handkerchiefs tied across her eyes. Agnes was in convulsions of laughter, and the boys were also.
“Caught! caught!” she cried, not noticing the entrance of my father, and she clasped him firmly round the waist.
Her horror when the handkerchief was removed, and she found herself holding on to the Professor, may be better imagined than described. Poor Rita! she very nearly turned silly on the spot. I had to convey her to a chair. Father said, “I am your prisoner, Miss Rita Swan. Am I now to be blindfolded?”
“Oh no, father, you couldn’t think of such a thing,” I said.
He smiled and looked at me.
“Well, young people,” he said, “you seem to be having a very merry time. But where’s my Knight of the Poached Egg? Why is he not present?”
However inclined to be impertinent and saucy and rude to me Alex and Charley were when father was not present, they never dared to show this spirit when he was by.
Father related the story of Von Marlo and the poached egg to the other children.
“He is a chivalrous fellow, and I shall talk to him about it when I see him, and thank him. I was very rude to him just now; but as to you, Alex and Charley, if you ever let it leak out at college that he did this thing, or turn him into ridicule on account of it, you won’t hear the last of it from me. It’s a right good flogging either of you’ll get, so just keep your own counsel. And now, boys, if I don’t mistake, it’s time for you to get to your books. – Rachel, my dear, you and your friends can entertain one another; but would it not be nicest and more cheerful if you first of all requested the presence of Hannah to remove the tea-things?”
As father spoke he bowed to the girls, marched the boys in front of him out of the room, and closed the door behind him.
“Well, I never!” exclaimed Agnes. “To be sure, Dumps, you do have exciting times in this house!”
“I am very glad you have enjoyed it,” I said, and I sat down and pushed my hair away from my face.
“How flushed your cheeks are! And where is the Knight of the Poached Egg? What a very