"You see, father has never stayed away like this before," said Ralph. "If he went for a long time, he always took me, and if for a little while, he came back just when he had promised to do. I thought he was going to London for three days, and now, maybe he won't be back for Christmas. He says the people he is with cannot do with children, because of their grown-up visitors. I think they might have me, for I'm a boy, not a baby."
Ralph tossed back his head with an air of insulted dignity, but strove to keep back threatening tears. His father had been ten days absent, and Christmas was very near. There had always been visitors of some sort at this season, and if there had been no one else, his father's presence would have satisfied Ralph.
"Perhaps," said Kathleen, "one boy would have been considered in the way. If there were other boys in the house, you know, it would be different."
"I wouldn't have bothered anybody. But it's no use; a fellow can't go to a place unless people ask him, can he, Miss Mountford? 'Specially if they don't know him. Besides, I don't know where father is staying. He writes to me and sends me envelopes directed like this."
Ralph showed his latest, somewhat tumbled through being carried, together with his father's letter, in a pocket too narrow to hold it properly.
Kathleen declined to look at the address which Ralph was eager to show her, but she could not well refuse to listen when the boy said, "Here is a bit for you. Father says, 'Tell Miss Mountford that I do not know how to thank her for being so good to my motherless boy. I am more grateful to her than words can express. When I come back, I shall try to tell her how deeply I feel her goodness.'"
"And you have been good. You have asked me here four times, besides bringing me from the station that first day. You've let me ride out on the Kelpie twice, along with you, and once you let me try if I could sit your beautiful mare. I enjoyed that most of all, for Polly is a beauty, though she would be too big for me in a general way, you know."
"Fie, Ralph, to say you enjoyed riding Polly more than riding out with me, when I had her, and you had Kelpie. Your pony, in his way, is quite as good as Polly."
"You are not really vexed," replied Ralph, in a confident tone. "You are only pretending. People always pretend when they talk to boys, just as if we didn't know when they are in earnest. It was because you thought it would please me so much that you lent me Polly."
"Perhaps it was, Ralph. Any way, I am glad you were pleased."
The boy nodded. Then a grave look came on his face, and he asked, "Should you be very sorry if Polly were taken away from you, Miss Mountford?"
"I should indeed, Ralph, but I do not think any one will take her away from me. Why do you ask?"
"Because father once said, 'Maybe you and I will have to do without either horse or pony, my boy.' I cried awfully, for you see, Miss Mountford, a fellow can't help being fond of his pony, can he?"
"Certainly not, Ralph, and Kelpie is a darling on four legs."
"That's what I say, only I don't think I quite called him a darling. That's a girl's word. I say he is a plucky little chap, 'just as good as they make 'em.' It was Jem Capes taught me that. He's our groom, and he says funny things sometimes that make me laugh. If I tell them to Sarah, she scolds me, and says, grooms may talk so, but gentlemen should know better. I don't mind. I will say that nobody could make a better pony than the Kelpie. He's such a fellow to go, and such a kind, good-tempered one. I don't know what I should do without him."
"You shall not do without him, Ralph," said Kathleen, for she felt a lump rising in her throat as the boy ran on about his pet. "If your father ever wishes to part with Kelpie, I will buy him, and he shall still be your very own to ride and use as you like, only I will keep him here for you."
With a wild cry of delight the boy flung his arms round Kathleen's neck, and kissed her repeatedly, then lay sobbing on her shoulder.
The girl was deeply moved, and she returned the child's caresses whilst her arms clasped him lovingly.
After a few minutes Ralph raised his head and wiped away his tears, seeming, Kathleen thought, a little ashamed of them.
"I'm sorry I cried," he said. "It looks so silly for a boy to cry, but a fellow can't always help it, 'specially when his father isn't coming home for Christmas, can he, Miss Mountford?"
"I don't think you were foolish to cry, Ralph," replied Kathleen, who saw that the allusion to his father's absence was nearly making the boy break down a second time.
"I'm so glad of that. It is nice to have a real friend besides the Kelpie. Father does not want to be away. He told me so in his letter, and he said if only I could be with—But I ought not to tell you that. It would be like asking. It would be mean."
Ralph shut his lips and held them tightly, as if battling against the temptation to continue.
Kathleen guessed the rest of the sentence, and said—
"Do you know, Ralph, I had been wondering whether you could come here for Christmas Day. I knew that your father would want you if he were at home, so I did not ask you when I invited the Stapleton children and some more whom you know. But I meant to do so, if you were likely to be alone."
"Did you though, Miss Mountford?" asked the boy, with sparkling eyes.
"Yes," said Kathleen, laughing; and, crossing to her writing-table, she took up a dainty note, with a sprig of holly for a seal, and addressed to Ralph Torrance, which she handed to him.
The boy took it eagerly, and then said, "Please excuse me," after the fashion of his elders, and waited till Kathleen gave him permission before he opened the note.
"Shan't I be glad to come? It will be next best to having father home. Best of all would be if he were here too; wouldn't it, Miss Mountford? I suppose I ought to write a proper answer to this note," he added, without waiting for Kathleen's reply to his former question, or else taking it for granted that she would agree with him.
"As you have promised me the pleasure of your company, Ralph, I shall not want a written answer," said Kathleen, much to the boy's relief, for he was cogitating as to whether he should ask his tutor how to word his reply, or if Sarah would be able to help him in so important a matter.
"I will come, as you have been so kind as to ask me," said Ralph. Then he folded the precious note, and put it into his pocket in company with his father's letter and various boyish treasures, which made it bulge out to its utmost extent.
"Why, how rosy your cheeks are!" he added, looking at Kathleen, on whose face a fine colour had suddenly appeared when the boy spoke of having his father at the Hall.
Kathleen only laughed, and told Ralph she liked to have rosy cheeks, then gave the boy a list of the guests who were coming on Christmas Day.
"They are all children," she said. "I have asked no grown-up people."
"Not one at all? Not Mr. Matheson?"
"Yes, I hope Mr. Matheson will come, but he is away just now, only for a night, however. I don't know what I should do without him, for he always helps to make things bright for my young visitors. So does my cousin, Miss Ellicott, you know, but I do not count her or Mr. Matheson as visitors."
"They are very nice and kind to me always," said Ralph. "I think I may tell you what father wrote in his letter, now you have asked me to come, Miss Mountford. It is here. 'If you could spend your Christmas Day with your kind friend at the Hall, I should be quite happy about you, my dear boy.' I shall tell father I am coming, and that you did not know he was wishing I could be here till after you had really asked me. You quite understand why I didn't read that at first. It would have been asking for an invitation, wouldn't it now?"
"I don't think I should have taken it in that way, Ralph. However, it was best for you to do exactly what you thought was honourable. Besides, nothing could have made any difference when my note was written."
"But you might have thought I was asking, for all that," said Ralph, proud that he was placed above suspicion.
The boy's next letter to his father was an unusually long one. He had so much to tell. The writing of it cost him no little self-denial, and gave the Kelpie a holiday; but if the boy could have seen the delight with which his father read it, and the look of triumph on his face, he would have felt repaid for the loss of his ride.
Sarah was never allowed to see Ralph's letters to his father, much to her disgust.
"I mayn't be much of a scholar, Master Ralph," she would say, "but I'd be ashamed of myself if I couldn't do without snaking blots and smearing them with my thumb as you do. It's well the captain sends you envelopes ready directed and stamped, or the post people would never read your writing."
"I don't want them to read my writing, and I'll seal my letter and post it myself, so that you shan't," said Ralph defiantly, and in a very different tone from that in which he addressed Miss Mountford. "Father says he can read what I write, and that is good enough for me."
Ralph made a grimace at Sarah, waved his letter round his head, then raced off to post it.
"I'll be even with him yet," thought Sarah, for she was not a little anxious to find out something about her master's doings and whereabouts, Ralph having steadily refused all information. Her curiosity was not of an unkindly sort, but she had long known that her master's position was becoming desperate, and that utter ruin hung over Monk's How. She grieved for the downfall of the old name, for the mistress whom she had served so faithfully, for the boy she had nursed from his birth. She would have made any sacrifice for Ralph, and he, whilst he teased and harassed her, as only an over-indulged lad can tease, would have fought one far above his own size, if he had dared to annoy Sarah.
When Ralph returned triumphant from the post, Sarah was on her way to it by a different road. The postmaster was, of course, a village neighbour, and to him she appealed.
"Master Ralph has just posted a letter for his father," she said. "I'm afraid he has not put a stamp on, and I'm not sure if it's right directed."
"I'll look," said the postmaster, and accordingly he sought for and found the only letter addressed to Captain Torrance. "It's all right, only a bit tumbled, and the stamp is straight enough. The address is well-written, in a man's hand; if I'm not mistaken, the captain's own. I should know, I've seen it often enough."
"It's the inside I'm anxious about. Master Ralph is that self-willed, he won't let me see if the spelling is all right. I should like—"
"Come now, Sarah, that won't do. Neither you nor I have any business with the inside of a letter, or the outside either, for that matter, when it has once been posted. I've obliged you so far as seeing it is directed plainly, and stamped, because of it being a boy's letter. But I wouldn't go beyond that, no, not if the Queen herself was to ask me;" and the letter was dropped into the mail-bag again.
"I'm sure I'm very much obliged for what you have done," said Sarah. "It's lucky it is to the captain, who will excuse blots and bad spelling."
On her homeward way Sarah thought, "I can turn-out the boy's pockets after he's asleep. If I find the captain's letter to him, it will tell me what I want to know."
Again she was disappointed. Ralph knew the contents of that precious letter by heart, and feeling that no one could rob him of them, he had burned the letter itself to ashes. He, however, displayed Miss Mountford's note of invitation to her admiring eyes, and told her he should be all right for Christmas Day.
"And I am glad the lady has asked you, Master Ralph," said Sarah. "I have been making myself miserable about you being all by yourself here. Not but what no company is better than bad," she thought, but she kept this sentiment unspoken.
Sarah could look back on recent Christmases and lament, as she pictured the guests that her master had gathered around him then, and permitted this boy to mix with. She gave Ralph many admonitions as to his conduct, especially as to the language he should use in Miss Mountford's presence.
"I don't want you to tell me what to say," replied Ralph. "Do you think I shall talk to a lady as if she were Jem Capes? Father has taught me how to behave to ladies."
"Then don't forget, Master Ralph, that's all. Be a good boy, and a gentleman, whoever you are with, and then you won't need to be put in mind." From which warnings it will be understood that Sarah was aware how her charge varied his mode of speech to suit the company in which he found himself. If Miss Mountford could have heard her protégé in conversation with the groom, her opinion of him would have been modified.
Still, there was much that was lovable and even noble in the child, whilst his faults were inseparable from his surroundings. He copied his father's words and ways with the utmost exactitude, and John Torrance laughed as, from time to time, he noted this, but without rebuking his boy.
"How can I?" he thought. "If Ralph is to turn over a new leaf, I must set the example, for he makes me his model in all things. He is a sharp-sighted youngster, but blind on one point, for he thinks his father can do no wrong. I wish I were a better man, for his sake. The less he sees of me, especially now, the more likely he is to improve."
This last thought followed the reading of that letter which had cost Ralph so much trouble little disappointment. All she had learned was, that her master's correspondence went to the address of his London lawyer, but of his movements she knew nothing. It seemed as if every one in the neighbourhood was equally ignorant.
CHAPTER XV BOYISH CONFIDENCES
CHRISTMAS came and went. Kathleen's party was a great success, largely owing to the efforts of Aylmer, Geraldine, and Hetty Stapleton, who had been pressed into the service. Without them, the hands of the young hostess would have been too full.
