"MR ROWLANDS."
Roland Dorrien paced slowly up and down the little garden in front of
his lodgings, smoking his after-breakfast cigar, and making up his mind
to the discharge of an unpleasant duty.
He had been nearly a week at Wandsborough, and was surprised to find how
quickly the days had slipped by. The country was new to him, the
weather delightful, and he thoroughly enjoyed his long rambles, with the
faithful Roy for his sole companion. Venn's letter of introduction had
been duly handed in at the Rectory, but hitherto no notice had been
taken of it, a circumstance which did not trouble him, for he was by no
means tired of his own company.
The unpleasant duty to which he was making up his mind, was the betaking
of himself to Cranston. It would be a constrained sort of a meeting,
and therefore unpleasant. He had gathered enough during his stay in
Wandsborough to show that his people had not changed for the better.
Well, it had to be got through somehow; but he would not betake himself
thither straight from here. He would run up to Town, and come down as
if for the first time.
His cogitations were interrupted by the voice of his landlady announcing
in a tone of flurried importance:
"Dr Ingelow, sir."
"So sorry I was not able to look in upon you earlier, Mr Rowlands,"
began the rector in his bright genial manner. "The fact is, I am
short-handed just now, and busy times are the result. And this must be
my excuse for calling at such an early hour."
"Not at all--very good of you. Here, Roy--come away, sir--I am afraid
that dog never will learn manners. Go and lie down, sir." For Roy,
without even a preliminary growl, had made friends at once with the
rector. Indeed so demonstrative had been his friendliness that that
excellent priest's cassock bore token of the same, in the acquisition of
many white and brown hairs.
"Don't send him away--he's taken to me at once--fine fellow?" said the
rector, patting him. "And pray don't throw away your cigar, as I see
you were about to do. I like smoke--too well, my girls tell me. And
how is Venn? Let me see, it must be many years since I saw him. What's
he doing now?"
"Something in the City--stockbroking, I believe."
"Is he! His people tried ever so hard to make a parson of him, but he
didn't see it at all--nothing would induce him to become one--and he was
right. Venn is the best of good fellows, but he'd never have done for a
parson. His father sent him to me to try and get him hammered into
Orders, and more than half quarrelled with me because I could take a
horse to the water but couldn't make him drink--ha! ha!"
"H'm! Queer people, fathers," said Roland with a laugh, in which his
visitor joined right heartily.
"You think so, do you? Wait till you get to my age, and you'll be still
more of that opinion. At least, if you're not it'll be for no want of
telling."
They chatted for a few minutes longer, and then the rector rose.
"I hope you'll come and dine with us some evening," he said in his easy
genial way. "There'll be only ourselves, and we shall be delighted to
see you. Let me see--why not come to-night--that is, if you have
nothing better to do?"
"Nothing will give me greater pleasure."
"Very good. Then this evening at seven. Now I must say good-bye, for I
have to rush about all the morning. So glad to make the acquaintance of
a friend of Venn's."
When the rector had gone, Roland was so preoccupied with recalling the
strong family likeness existing between his companion on the beach and
his departing visitor, that he quite overlooked the fact that the latter
had made no reference whatever to Cranston; rather a strange thing,
under the circumstances.
"Well, sir, and our rector's a nice pleasant gentleman, isn't he?"
remarked the landlady, while laying the cloth an hour later.
"He is indeed, Mrs Jenkins. Been here long?"
"Nigh upon sixteen years. Miss Margaret and Miss Olive were little
then, and Miss Sophie were a baby. They do say as Dr Ingelow was
dreadful cut up when he lost his poor lady."
"Oh, he's a widower then?"
"Yes, sir. His lady died shortly before he came here, I've heard tell.
But law bless you, sir, Miss Margaret, she did for all the younger ones
as though she was a grown-up young lady."
"How many of them are there--daughters, I mean?"
"Three, sir. You must have seen them in church, in the front seat of
all. Not on the side of the heagle--the other side."
"Oh!"
"Yes, and they're that good--although the two younger ones, leastways,
are merry and fond of a bit of mischief. Why when Jenkins broke his
leg"--and the good woman launched out into a dissertation after the
manner of her kind, straying far away from the goodness of the parson's
daughters, which Jenkins' broken leg was hauled in to illustrate--far
away even from that fractured, but once more useful, member itself into
a great cloud of reminiscence, wherein the speaker's uncle's deceased
wife's sister's third cousin once removed and a certain tom-cat endowed
with marvellous properties largely figured.
Her auditor gave a weary sigh. In the hope of finding out more about
his new acquaintance, he had let the woman's tongue run on, and found,
like the ingenious Oriental who invented a steamboat, that having once
set it going he was unable to stop it.
Roland ate his luncheon in a brown study. His landlady's gossip had
told him what he wanted to know. The girl by whose side he had sat and
walked yesterday morning--the girl who had so strangely attracted him in
the parish church, was the daughter of his late visitor--and to-night he
was to dine at the Rectory. Things couldn't have turned out better.
Yet all this was in the highest degree absurd. What could it matter to
him who she was--or indeed if he never saw her again! But that morning
on the beach! Bosh! He had not fallen in love with her--not he. He
knew better than that. Yet Roland Dorrien, gloomy of temperament and
entertaining no spark of affection for any living soul, was obliged to
admit to himself that he had thought and was still thinking a good deal
about that oval-faced girl with the dark expressive eyes.
And here a new idea struck him. That assumed name had been all very
well up to a certain point, but now that he had accepted the rector's
invitation it had an ugly look of entering a man's family circle under
false colours. He wished now he had never adopted it, but then his plan
of staying in Wandsborough _incog_, would have fallen through, and that
he did not wish at all. Well, he would let it alone for the present.
Perhaps during the evening he would find an opportunity of explaining
matters to his host: at any rate to-morrow he would run up to Town for a
day or two, and return to Cranston in ordinary and conventional style.
That would put matters right.