‘I thought I should find thee here, my lad! We’ll have the old room done up again before winter; it smells musty enough, and yet I see it’s the place for thee! I want thee to go with me round the five-acre. I’m thinking of laying it down in grass. It’s time for you to be getting into the fresh air, you look quite woe-begone over books, books, books; there never was a thing like ’em for stealing a man’s health out of him!’
So Roger went out with his father, without saying many words till they were at some distance from the house. Then he brought out a sentence with such abruptness that he repaid his father for the start the latter had given him a quarter of an hour before.
‘Father, you remember I’m going out again to the Cape next month! You spoke of doing up the library. If it is for me, I shall be away all the winter.’
‘Can’t you get off it?’ pleaded his father. ‘I thought maybe you’d forgotten all about it.’
‘Not likely!’ said Roger, half smiling.
‘Well, but they might have found another man to finish up your work.’
‘No one can finish it but myself. Besides, an engagement is an engagement. When I wrote to Lord Hollingford to tell him I must come home, I promised to go out again for another six months.’
‘Aye. I know. And perhaps it will put it out of my mind. It will always be hard on me to part from thee. But I dare say it’s best for you.’
Roger’s colour deepened. ‘You are alluding to—to Miss Kirkpatrick. Mrs. Henderson I mean. Father, let me tell you once for all I think that was rather a hasty affair. I’m pretty sure now that we were not suited to each other. I was wretched when I got her letter—at the Cape I mean—but I believe it was for the best.’
‘That’s right. That’s my own boy,’ said the squire, turning round, and shaking hands with his son with vehemence. ‘And now I’ll tell you what I heard the other day, when I was at the magistrates’ meeting. They were all saying she had jilted Preston.’
‘I don’t want to hear anything against her; she may have her faults, but I can never forget how I once loved her.’
‘Well, well! Perhaps it’s right. I was not so bad about it, was I, Roger? Poor Osborne needn’t have been so secret with me. I asked your Miss Cynthia out here—and her mother and all—my bark is worse than my bite. For, if I had a wish on earth it was to see Osborne married as befitted one of an old stock, and he went and chose out this French girl, of no family at all, only a—’
‘Never mind what she was; look at what she is! I wonder you are not more taken with her humility and sweetness, father!’
‘I don’t even call her pretty,’ said the squire, uneasily, for he dreaded a repetition of the arguments which Roger had often used to make him give Aimée her proper due of affection and position. ‘Now your Miss Cynthia was pretty, I will say that for her, the baggage! and to think that when you two lads flew right in your father’s face, and picked out girls below you in rank and family, you should neither of you have set your fancies on my little Molly there. I dare say I should ha’ been angry enough at the time; but the lassie would ha’ found her way to my heart, as never this French lady, nor t’other one could ha’ done.’
Roger did not answer.
‘I don’t see why you mightn’t put up for her still. I’m humble enough now, and you’re not heir as Osborne was who married a servant-maid. Don’t you think you could turn your thoughts upon Molly Gibson, Roger?’
‘No!’ said Roger, shortly. ‘It’s too late—too late. Don’t let us talk any more of my marrying. Isn’t this the five-acre field?’ And soon he was discussing the relative values of meadow, arable and pasture land with his father, as heartily as if he had never known Molly, or loved Cynthia. But the squire was not in such good spirits, and went but heavily into the discussion. At the end of it he said d propos de bottes,ej—
‘But don’t you think you could like her if you tried, Roger?’
Roger knew perfectly well to what his father was alluding, but for an instant he was on the point of pretending to misunderstand. At length, however, he said, in a low voice,—
‘I shall never try, father. Don’t let us talk any more about it. As I said before, it’s too late.’
The squire was like a child to whom some toy has been refused; from time to time the thought of his disappointment in this matter recurred to his mind; and then he took to blaming Cynthia as the primary cause of Roger’s present indifference to womankind.
It so happened that on Molly’s last morning at the Hall, she received her first letter from Cynthia—Mrs. Henderson. It was just before breakfast-time; Roger was out of doors, Aimee had not as yet come down; Molly was alone in the dining-room, where the table was already laid. She had just finished reading her letter when the squire came in, and she immediately and joyfully told him what the morning had brought to her. But when she saw the squire’s face, she could have bitten her tongue out for having named Cynthia’s name to him. He looked vexed and depressed.
‘I wish I might never hear of her again. I do. She’s been the bane of my Roger, that’s what she has. I haven’t slept half the night, and it’s all her fault. Why, there’s my boy saying now that he has no heart for ever marrying, poor lad! I wish it had been you, Molly, my lads had taken a fancy for. I told Roger so t’other day, and I said that for all you were beneath what I ever thought to see them marry,—well—it’s of no use—it’s too late, now, as he said. Only never let me hear that baggage’s name again, that’s all, and no offence to you either, lassie. I know you love the wench; but if you’ll take an old man’s word, you’re worth a score of her. I wish young men would think so too,’ he muttered as he went to the side-table to carve the ham, while Molly poured out the tea—her heart very hot all the time, and effectually silenced for a space. It was with the greatest difficulty that she could keep tears of mortification from falling. She felt altogether in a wrong position in that house, which had been like a home to her until this last visit. What with Mrs. Goodenough’s remarks, and now this speech of the squire’s, implying—at least to her susceptible imagination—that his father had proposed her as a wife to Roger, and that she had been rejected—she was more glad than she could express, or even think, that she was going home this very morning. Roger came in from his walk while she was in this state of feeling. He saw in an instant that something had distressed Molly; and he longed to have the old friendly right of asking her what it was. But she had effectually kept him at too great a distance during the last few days for him to feel at liberty to speak to her in the old straightforward brotherly way; especially now, when he perceived her efforts to conceal her feelings, and the way in which she drank her tea in feverish haste, and accepted bread only to crumble it about her plate, untouched. It was all that he could do to make talk under these circumstances; but he backed up her efforts as well as he could until Aimée came down, grave and anxious: her boy had not had a good night, and did not seem well; he had fallen into a feverish sleep now, or she could not have left him. Immediately the whole table was in a ferment. The squire pushed away his plate, and could eat no more; Roger was trying to extract a detail or a fact out of Aimée, who began to give way to tears. Molly quickly proposed that the carriage, which had been ordered to take her home at eleven, should come round immediately—she had everything ready packed up, she said,—and bring back her father at once. By leaving directly, she said it was probable they might catch him after he had returned from his morning visits in the town, and before he had set off on his more distant round. Her proposal was agreed to, and she went upstairs to put on her things. She came down all ready into the drawing-room, expecting to find Aimée and the squire there; but during her absence word had been brought to the anxious mother and grandfather that the child had wakened up in a panic, and both had rushed up to their darling. But Roger was in the drawing-room awaiting Molly, with a large bunch of the choicest flowers.