"The story would not be worth telling if it were not true," said Mr Armstrong, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his gla.s.s into his eye and taking a fresh survey of the picture. "One very hot summer we were becalmed off Colombo, and lay for days with nothing to do but whistle for a wind and quarrel among ourselves. My mate and I kept the peace for a couple of days, but then we fell out like the rest. I forget what it was about--a trifle, probably a word. We didn"t fight on deck--it was too hot--but jumped overboard and fought in the water. I remember, as I plunged, I caught sight, a hundred yards away, of an ugly grey fin lying motionless on the water, and knew it belonged to a shark. But I didn"t care. Well, we two fought in the water--partly in spite, partly to pa.s.s the time.
Suddenly I could see my opponent"s swarthy face become livid. "Good G.o.d!" he gasped; "a shark!" and quick as thought he caught me by the shoulders and pushed me between him and the brute. I heard it swish up, and saw it half turn with gaping jaws. In that moment I lived over my life again, with all its folly and crime, and for the first time for years I prayed. How it happened I cannot tell; the shark must either have made a bad shot at me or else I must have ducked instinctively, for I remember feeling the sc.r.a.pe of his fin across my cheek and being pushed aside by his great tail. Next moment my mate"s hands let go their grip of me and there was a yell such as I pray I may never hear again. When at last they hauled me on board I was not the same man who three minutes before had dived into the water. That was the scene your picture reminded me of, Miss Oliphant. You have told me one of your troubles, and I have told you one of mine, which makes us quits. But my horse is getting fidgety down there; I must look after him. Good-bye."
Mr Armstrong was a little surprised, when he came to go through the accounts with his co-trustee that afternoon, to find that he must have been mistaken in his previous supposition that they were not all correct and straightforward. Everything appeared quite plain and properly accounted for, and he agreed with the figures, rather abashed to feel that, after all, he was not as acute a man of business as he had flattered himself. Mr Pottinger and the captain rallied him about his deserted mares"-nest, and bored him with invitations to go through all the items again, to give him a chance of proving them wrong. He declined with thanks, and signed the balance with the best grace he could summon.
"Odd," said he to himself, as he strode home after the interview; "either you must be very clever or I must be very stupid. I should greatly like to know which it is."
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
MR. RATMAN VISITS HIS PROPERTY.
"Dear Armstrong," wrote Roger from London about a week after the tutor"s return to Maxfield, "you will be surprised to hear I am just off to Paris to look for a Mr Pantalzar. This is how it comes about. Long Street does not exist, as I told you, nor any trace of the family Callot. But old Directories are still available, and in one of these I found that fifteen years ago there was a Long Street, and that Number 2 was then occupied by a person of the uncommon name I have mentioned.
The name seemed too promising a one to be let drop; so I tracked it down to the year before last, when I found a Pantalzar was proprietor of a cook-shop in Sh.o.r.editch. Of course, when I went to inquire, my gentleman had vanished. I"m sick of asking the interminable question, "Does So-and-so live here?" The present cook-man, however, remembered the queer name as that belonging to his predecessor, and informed me that, not having made the business pay over here, he had decamped two years ago without saying good-bye to his creditors, and announced his intention of starting a _cafe_ in Paris. This, then, is my off-chance.
Unless he has changed his name, I should be able to discover him in Paris; and if he turns out to be the man who once lived at Number 2 Long Street, he may be able to tell me something about the Callots; and the Callots, if by a miracle I can find them, may be able to tell me something about Rogers, the Ghost in _Hamlet_. I only wish you were coming to back me up, but, from what you say, I would ever so much rather you remained on the spot at Maxfield. I hope it will be possible to help Oliphant out of his fix. Try. You"d better write to the _Poste Restante_ at Paris. Remember me at home.
"Yours ever,--
"R. Ingleton."
The tutor read this letter with a somewhat troubled countenance. It proved to him that his ward was desperately in earnest in his uphill quest, and it filled him with some concern to feel that he himself was not, where he should have liked to be, at the boy"s side.
But to leave Maxfield at present seemed impossible. Rosalind claimed his help on behalf of her father; and the possibility that any day Mr Ratman might turn up and court exposure decided the tutor to remain where he was. Another motive for this step was a haunting perplexity as to the hallucination under which he had apparently laboured with regard to the estate accounts. He never flattered himself he was a particularly good man of business, but it puzzled him to explain why a few weeks ago there should have appeared to be discrepancies and irregularities to the tune of several hundred pounds, whereas now everything was in startling apple-pie order.
Much to Mr Pottinger"s annoyance, he took to visiting the honest lawyer"s office every other day, and spent hours in trying to discover where it was he had made his great mistake. Mr Pottinger was unable to render him any a.s.sistance; and the captain, when once he referred to the subject, only smiled pityingly and advised him to take a few lessons in the elements of finance; which advice, to do him justice, the tutor humbly proceeded to take. The result was to deepen his perplexity and cause him to regret that he had so compliantly countersigned an account which, every time he studied it in the light of his new wisdom, appeared to bristle with problems.
Faithful to her promise, at the end of a week Rosalind presented herself at Maxfield.
"Well, my child?" said the parent blandly, laying down his newspaper.
"I said I would come and speak again about what you were saying the other day. Have you heard any more from your creditor?"
"Things remain, as far as he is concerned, in _statu quo_; and I am no nearer being able to satisfy him to-day than I was a week ago; unless, indeed--"
"All I have to say," said Rosalind nervously, "is, that I would work like a slave to help you, if I could."
"Is that all?" asked the captain with falling face.
"You know it is, father. You knew it a week ago. You knew I would even go to this man and on my knees beg him to be merciful."
Her father laughed dismally.
"In other words," said he, "you can do nothing. I do not complain; I expected nothing, and I have not been disappointed. I was foolish to think such a thing possible; Heaven knows I have been punished for my folly."
She tried hard to keep back the tears, and rose to go.
"Stay!" said he sternly; "I have a question to ask you. A week ago you seemed to hold a different mind to this. What has changed it?"
"No," said she, "it was out of the question; you said so yourself."
"I ask you," repeated he sternly, and not heeding her protest, "what has changed it? Have you taken counsel with any one on the subject? Have you spoken to any one of this wretched business?"
"Yes; I have spoken to Mr Armstrong."
"Exactly. I thought as much. I understand. Leave me, Rosalind."
"Father, you are wrong-- Oh, but you must hear me," she said, as he raised his hand deprecatingly and took up his newspaper. "You must not misunderstand. I told Mr Armstrong of your difficulties, and who your creditor was. I told him no more. My only object was to see if there was any way to help you."
"You mean to tell me," said he, interrupting in an angry voice, "that you considered it consistent with your duty as a daughter to gossip about my private affairs with a scoundrel who--"
"No, father," she said. "Mr Armstrong is a gentleman--"
"Naturally _you_ say so. But enough of this. I forbid you, as I have already done, to hold any communication with Mr Armstrong. Know that, of the two men, the man you affect to scorn is infinitely less a villain than this smug hypocrite. Go!"
She made no reply, but went, choking with misery and a smarting sense of injustice. No longer was it easy to hug herself into the delusion that this was all a horrid dream. Her father stood on the brink of ruin, and she could not help him.
"If only," said she, "it had been anything else! O G.o.d, pity my poor father!"
The captain"s thoughts were of a very different kind. He had clung to the hope that Rosalind would after all solve his difficulties by undertaking the venture he had set before her. He had already in imagination soothed his own conscience and smoothed away all the difficulties which beset the undertaking.
"It might be for her good, after all, dear girl! She will reclaim him.
A fortune lies before them; for Roger will be easily convinced, and will surrender his claim to them. Ratman is too long-sighted not to see that I can help him in the matter, and that on my own terms. We shall start fresh with a clear balance-sheet, and live in comfort." Now, however, these bright hopes were dashed, and to the captain"s mind he owed his failure, first and last, to Mr Frank Armstrong. Had he not come home, he said to himself, Rosalind would have yielded.
With him still at Maxfield everything came to a dead lock. Ratman could not be propitiated, still less satisfied. The accounts would be restlessly scrutinised.
Rosalind, and in less degree Tom and Jill, would be mutinous. Roger, at home or abroad, would be beyond reach.
All the grudges of the past months seemed to culminate in this crowning injury; and if to wish ill to one"s fellow is to be a murderer, Captain Oliphant had already come perilously near to adding one new sin to his record.
But where, all this while, was the ingenuous Mr Ratman? Why had he not, true to his word, come to claim his own--if not the Maxfield estate, at any rate the little balance due to him from his old Indian crony?
The captain, after a week or two of disappointed dread, was beginning to recover a little of his ease of mind, and flattering himself that, after all his creditor"s bark was worse than his bite, when the blow abruptly fell.
Mr Armstrong had gone for the day to visit one of his very few old college friends on the other side of the county, and Tom, released from his lessons (the captain"s animosity for the tutor, by the way, stopped short at withdrawing his son from the benefit of the gratuitous education of which for the last year that youth had been the recipient) was trundling a "boneshaker" bicycle along the Yeld lanes, when he perceived the jaunty form of Mr Ratman, bag in hand and cigar in mouth, strolling leisurely in the direction of Maxfield.
Tom, who was only a beginner in the art of cycling, was so taken aback by this apparition, that, after one or two furious lurches from one side of the road to the other, and a frantic effort to keep his balance, he came ignominiously to the ground at the very feet of the visitor.
"Hullo!" said that worthy; "as full of fun as ever, I see."
"Hullo, Ratty!" said Tom, picking himself up; "got over your kicking?"
This genial reference to the circ.u.mstances under which the so-called lost heir had last quitted Maxfield grated somewhat harshly on the feelings of the gentleman to whom it was addressed.
"Look here, young fellow," said he, "you"d better keep a civil tongue in your head, or I shall have to pull your ear."
"Try it," retorted Tom.
Mr Ratman seemed inclined to accept the invitation; but as he was anxious for information just now, he decided to forego the experiment.