At Maxfield, meanwhile, he remained in the minds of one or two of the inmates.
The two young ladies, assisted by their cousin, and genially obstructed by their easy-going brother, proceeded seriously in the task of adorning the studio; now and then speculating about the absent tutor, and now and then feeling very dejected and lonely. Roger did his best to enliven the evening and make his visitors feel at home. But although Tom and Jill readily consented to be comforted, Miss Rosalind as stubbornly refused, and protested a score of times that the cabin of the "Oriana" itself was preferable to the misery of being condemned, as she termed it, to eat her head off in this dismal place. She was sorry for Mr Armstrong, but she was vexed too that he should go off the very first day after her arrival, and leave her to fight her battles alone. After that talk on the steamer, she had, in her own mind, reckoned on him as an ally, and it disappointed her not to find him at her bidding after all.
But she was not the only person whose mind was exercised by the tutor's abrupt exodus.
Captain Oliphant felt decidedly hurt by the manner of his going. It argued a lack of appreciation of the newly arrived trustee's position in the household on which he had hardly calculated; and it bespoke a spirit of independence in the tutor himself, which his colleague could not but regard as unpromising. Indeed, when, after the day's labours, Captain Oliphant sought the seclusion of his own apartment, this amiable, pleasant-spoken gentleman grew quite warm with himself.
"Who is this grandee?" he asked himself. "A man hired at a few pounds a year and fed at the Maxfield table, in order to help the heir to a little quite unnecessary knowledge of the ancient classics and modern sciences. What was the old dotard,"--the old dotard, by the way, was Captain Oliphant's private manner of referring to the lamented "dear one," whose name so often trembled on his lips in public,--"what was the old dotard thinking about? At any rate, I should like to know a little more about the fellow myself."
With this laudable intention he questioned Mrs Ingleton next morning.
"He is a good friend to dear Roger," said the mother. "Roger is devoted to him. I am sure you will get to like him, Edward. He is perhaps a little odd in his manner, but he has a good heart."