Chapter Five

Andrew hadn’t been in Rose Cottage to hear the news of his father’s early arrival. Consequently, he was walking slowly towards the King farmhouse, quite oblivious to the man driving the horse and buggy in the same direction. Wrapped up in his own thoughts, he paid no attention until the horse came to a halt beside the front door of the farmhouse, shook its bridle and neighed, making Andrew lift his head.

For a long moment, Andrew’s eyes blinked in sheer disbelief. Then his face was transformed by pure joy.

“Father!” he shouted, and he started running as fast as his legs would carry him towards the buggy.

Roger King, who had just climbed down in front of the gate, turned to the racing boy.

“Andrew!”

“Father, you’re here!” Andrew cannonballed into the man’s arms and gave him a terrific hug. “I missed you, Papa.”

“And I missed you, too,” Roger said hoarsely, hugging the boy tightly again.

A moment later, Roger released Andrew, took him by the shoulders and stood back a little.

“Well, let me look at you,” he murmured, scanning the boy fondly from top to toe. “My God, how you’ve grown.”

A year was a very long time for a father to be away from a son just verging on fourteen. Fourteen was a tumultuous time of life, full of changes—physical and mental—happening practically every day. Thriving on all the good food, fresh air and bracing work about the King farm, Andrew had shot up by inches.

Andrew beamed back at his father, too, seeing a tall, handsome man with dark, curly hair and a naturally distinguished air about him. The elegant, white suit Roger wore was more suited to the tropics, from which he had just come, than to Avonlea. His tanned face attested to all the time he had recently spent under the Brazilian sun.

Before Andrew and his father could so much as exchange another word, Hetty, Olivia and Alec burst upon the scene. They had all sped over from Rose Cottage as fast as their legs could carry them, and they were flushed from the effort. Alec’s hat was crooked. Olivia still had her apron on. Hetty clutched her hand to her heart, as though the effect of having her favorite brother sprung upon her without warning might make her faint clean away.

“Roger!” Alec cried, rushing up. “How are you?”

“Hello, Alec.”

Alec had been about to pump his younger brother’s hand, but something inside him restrained the impulse and turned the gesture into a simple handshake.

Roger let go of Alec and turned to the others, his gaze flying first to his older sister.

“Hetty!”

“Welcome home, Roger,” Hetty breathed, so much emotion in her voice that it cracked out right. “Goodness, it feels as if you’ve been gone a lifetime!”

Eyes damp, Hetty held out her hands to her brother. Roger, in a gesture of great gallantry, swept up Hetty’s fingers and kissed them while Alec, behind, smothered a grimace. Roger broke off only when Olivia rushed up, flung her arms around him and kissed him soundly on the cheek.

“Olivia!” Roger laughed and hugged her back, openly indulgent towards the baby of the family.

“Roger! Oh, it’s been so long,” Olivia cried, her smile huge and heartfelt.

“That’s quite enough sentimentality, Olivia,” Hetty broke in, even though she was dabbing at tears in her own eyes. “The poor man must be exhausted. Alec, get Roger’s luggage for him, will you?”

Hetty was a woman accustomed to taking control, and her order to Alec was tossed off in much the same voice she had used when telling Felix to do Andrew’s milking. She swept past her siblings and linked arms with her newly returned brother.

“Oh, no, no,” Roger protested, “I’ll get it.”

“You will not.” Hetty pointed him straight towards the house. “Alec will take care of it. Come on. Let’s go inside. I’m sure Janet and Felicity will have some morsel for you to eat.”

Roger had no choice but to obey, leaving Alec to deal with all the suitcases and boxes in the back of the buggy. A man did not come back from a year in South America without a mountain of baggage, observed Alec as he gritted his teeth and heaved at the most manageable-looking of the lot.

Roger started towards the house, a pronounced limp apparent in his walk. Olivia and Andrew, still smiling tremendously, trotted after. Alec, burdened with the weight of two suitcases, staggered in the rear.

“I wasn’t expecting you for at least another week,” Hetty told Roger affectionately, patting his wrist as if to reassure herself that he was real. “You must tell me all about Brazil. Oh, and Andrew has been my prize student all year.”

Special attention from Hetty was obviously something Roger was used to, and it made him glow. He shook his head at her, his eyes dancing with all the wonderful things he had to relate.

“Oh, Hetty, it’s been quite a year, and I have so many stories to tell you.”

The party headed up the steps of the farm house and into the front hall. No sooner had they got inside than Janet King came running from the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron.

“Oh, Roger King!” she cried, flustered and overjoyed at the same time. “Oh, this is a surprise. We weren’t expecting you so soon.”

She immediately gathered Roger into a huge bear hug. Felicity, Cecily, Felix and Sara crowded into the hallway behind her, wide-eyed at the arrival of their uncle.

“I had to cut short my lecture tour—other obligations,” Roger told Janet, while recovering from the force of her good-natured embrace.

“Well, that’s our gain,” Janet declared. Then she turned happily to her family.

“You remember Felicity and Felix, don’t you? And Cecily, our little baby. She wasn’t even born when you were last here.”

“Hello, Uncle Roger,” Felicity said, politely shaking hands even though her eyes were wide with excitement. Felicity was very particular about her manners.

Roger stood back and looked over the crop of young Kings.

“A fine family, Alec.”

“Pleased to meet you, Uncle Roger,” Cecily piped up, in exact imitation of her older sister. Like all the rest, Cecily had been hearing about her Uncle Roger for ages, and now she couldn’t get enough of looking at him.

“And this is Sara Stanley, Ruth’s daughter,” Janet said, turning to Sara, who was standing a little apart.

Ruth King had left Avonlea to marry Sara’s father and had died of tuberculosis when Sara was three. Until she had come to stay with her Aunt Hetty, Sara hadn’t met any of her King relatives, and certainly not her Uncle Roger.

Roger looked Sara up and down, smiles wreathing his face.

“Sara, I’ve read so much about you in Andrew’s letters.”

Sara broke into a grin and stuck out her hand, too.

“Welcome to Avonlea, Uncle Roger.”

“Now this is what I call a homecoming,” Roger boomed out, surrounded by just about everyone who was dear to him in the world.

Hetty had managed to get to his side again.

In the way she gazed up at him, she made it clear to everyone that Roger was the apple of her eye. She had much grander things in mind for him than a simple family get-together.

“Not at all,” she informed Roger. “Your real homecoming is going to be a small reception that I’m—that we’re arranging for you. You can be sure all of Avonlea will be there.”

“Oh, don’t go making a fuss now, Hetty,” Roger said, looking a bit alarmed. Once Hetty got going on something, she really could go overboard.

“Nonsense,” Hetty said breezily. “How often does this community get a chance to honor a world-famous geologist?”

Roger’s face twisted into a wry smile. “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

“Oh no, none of your false modesty, Roger King,” chirped Hetty playfully. “You must accept what you are—a brilliant man.” She paused. “Oh, goodness, that reminds me.” She had been so flustered by Roger’s surprise arrival that she had almost forgotten her greatest coup. “I contacted the Halifax Herald. They’re sending a photographer and a reporter to the reception, to do a story on your accomplishments.”

Roger was openly flabbergasted. Halifax was a big city, and certainly a long way from modest, rural Prince Edward Island.

“You can’t be serious!”

“I couldn’t be more so,” Hetty replied with a flourish, just as Alec, laden like a packhorse, panted in with another load of Roger’s luggage.

“Where would you like me to put these?” he asked, wondering just how much of the luggage was actually loaded with rocks.

Roger turned and saw Alec heavily weighed down.

“Let me give you a hand.”

“Oh no,” insisted Janet, with complete disregard for her husband’s back, “that’s all right. I’ll show Alec where it goes.”

Ignoring Alec, Hetty took Roger by the elbow again.

“You poor thing. You must be famished! Now, hear that, Janet? We must feed our conquering hero.”

“Papa,” said Andrew ecstatically, putting his arm around his father, and with that, the little group set off towards the kitchen, leaving Alec to deal with the baggage.

Janet, pausing behind, bent close to her husband. Her expression now exactly mirrored that on Alec’s face.

“I tell you, Alec,” she whispered through her teeth, “if I have to listen to one more minute of Hetty’s adoration, I’m going to be sick to my stomach!”

Alec managed a feeble grin in response and struggled up the stairs as Janet swept out of the hall.

Sara Stanley now saw a chance to get the answer to some questions of her own. Just outside the kitchen, she pulled her Aunt Olivia discreetly aside.

“Aunt Olivia, what happened to Uncle Roger’s leg?” Observant child that she was, she had noticed Roger’s limp

“Oh,” said Olivia quickly, “he fell and hurt it when he was a little baby.”

“How?”

“Oh, Sara, it happened a long time ago. Don’t say anything about it, please.” Olivia’s imploring look squelched the rest of the questions on Sara’s lips.