Chapter Eight.A Day of Rest.“Gaily the troubadour touched his guitar.”On the third Sunday morning after Alvar’s arrival, Mr Lester came down as usual at the sound of the gong, and as he glanced round the dining-room missed his two elder sons.Prayers were over and breakfast had begun before Alvar entered.“Ah pardon,” he said, bowing to his grandmother; “I did not know it was late.”“I make a point of being punctual on Sunday,” said Mr Lester, in a tone of incipient displeasure.“Cheriton is late too,” said Alvar.“No,” said Jack, “he’s gone to Church.”“All, thenwedo not go to-day,” said Alvar, with an air of relief so comical that even the solemn Jack could hardly stand it.“Oh, yes, we do,” he said, “this is extra.”“Cheriton,” said Mr Lester, “is very attentive to his religious duties.”“I suppose he’ll have breakfast at the Vicarage,” said Nettie, as Alvar raised his eyebrows and gave a little shrug.It was a gesture habitual to him, and was not intended to express contempt either for religion or for Cheriton, but only a want of comprehension of the affair; but it annoyed Mr Lester and called his attention to the fact that Alvar had appeared in a black velvet coat of a peculiar foreign cut, the sight of which he disliked on a week-day, and considered intolerable when it was contrasted with the spruce neatness of the rest of the party. He could not very well attack Alvar on the subject, but he sharply reproved Bob for cutting hunches of bread when no one wanted them, and found fault with the coffee. And then, apparentlyà proposof nothing, he began to make a little speech about the importance of example in a country place, and the influence of trifles.“And I can assureevery onepresent,” he concluded emphatically, “that there is no need to look far for an example of the evil effects of neglect in these particulars.”“Elderthwaite?” whispered Nettie to Jack.“Ay,” said Mrs Lester, “young people should show respect to Sunday morning. It is what in my father’s house was always insisted on. Your grandfather, too, used to say that he liked his dogs even to know Sunday.”“It is strange to me,” said Alvar coolly.“It will be well that you should give yourself the pains to become accustomed to it,” said his father curtly.It was the first time that the stately stranger had been addressed in such a tone, and he looked up with a flash of the eye that startled the younger ones.“Sir, it is by your will I am a stranger here,” he said, with evident displeasure.“Stranger or no, my regulations must be respected,” said Mr Lester, his colour rising.Alvar rose from his seat and proved his claim at any rate to the family temper by bowing to his grandmother and marching out of the room.“Highty tighty!” said the grandmother. “Here’s a spirt of temper for you!”“Intolerable insolence!” exclaimed Mr Lester. “Under my roof he must submit to what I please to say to him.”“It’s just what I told ye, Gerald; a foreigner’s ways are what we cannot do with,” said Mrs Lester.“Of course,” blurted out Jack, with the laudable desire of mending matters; “of course he is a foreigner. How can you expect him to be anything else? And father never said it was his coat.”“His coat?” said Mr Lester. “It is his temper to which I object. When he came I told him that I expected Sunday to be observed in my house, and he agreed.”“But he did not understand that you thought that coat improper on Sunday,” said Jack with persevering justice.“I am not in the habit of being obscure,” said Mr Lester, as he rose from the table, while Jack thought he would give Alvar a little good advice.Cherry was too soft; he was equally impartial, and would be more plain spoken. But as he approached the library he heard an ominous tinkling, and entering, beheld Alvar, still in the objectionable coat, beginning to play on the still more objectionable guitar, an air which Jack did not think sounded like a hymn tune.Jack really intended to mend matters, but his manner was unfortunate, and in the tone he would have used to a disobedient fag he remarked, as he stood bolt upright beside his brother,—“I say, Alvar, I think you’d better not play on that thing this morning.”“There is no reason for you to tell me what to do,” said Alvar quietly.“It’s not, you know,” said Jack, “thatIthink there’s any harm in it.Myviews are very liberal. I only think it’s a frivolous and unmanly sort of instrument; but the governor won’t like it, and there’ll be no end of a row.”“You have not a musical soul,” said Alvar loftily, for he had had time to cool down somewhat.“Certainlynot,” said the liberal Jack, with unnecessary energy and a tone of disgust; “but that’s not the question. It’s not the custom here to playthat sort of thing on a thing like thaton a Sunday morning. Ask Cherry.”“Would it vex my brother?” asked Alvar.“If you mean Cheriton, it certainly would. He hates a row.”“A row?” said the puzzled Alvar, “that is a noise—my guitar?”“Oh, hang it! no, a quarrel,” began Jack, when suddenly—“Sir, I consider this an act of defiance; I beg I may see that instrument put away at once,” and Mr Lester’s voice took the threatening sound that made his anger always appear so much worse than it really was. “I will have the proprieties of my house observed, and no example of this kind set to your younger brothers.”Alvar had taken Jack’s interference with cool contempt, but now he started up with a look of such passion as fairly subdued Jack into a hasty—“Oh come, come, I say, now—don’t!” Alvar controlled himself suddenly and entirely.“Sir, I obey my father’s commands. I will say good morning,” and taking up his guitar went up to his own room, from which he did not emerge at church time, and as no one ventured to call him they set off without him. Among themselves they might quarrel and make it up again many times a day, but Alvar’s feelings were evidently more serious.It was occasionally Cheriton’s practice to sing in the choir, more for the popularity of his example than for his voice, which was indifferent. Alvar had been greatly puzzled at his doing so, and had then told him that “in that white robe he looked like the picture of an angel,” a remark which so discomfited Cherry that he had further perplexed his unlucky brother by saying,—“Praydon’t say such a thing to the others, I should never hear the last of it. You’d better say I look like an ass at once.”He did not therefore see anything of his family till he met them after the service, when Jack attacked him.“What induced you to go out this morning? Everything has gone utterly wrong, and I shouldn’t wonder if we should find Alvar gone back to Spain.”“Why, what’s the matter?”“Alvar came down late in that ridiculous coat and then played the guitar. And if ever you saw a fellow in a passion! He likes his own way.”“Was father angry?”“I should just think so, I don’t expect they’ll speak.”This was a pleasant prospect. Cheriton saw that his father’s brow was cloudy, and as he went upstairs his grandmother called him into her room.“Cheriton,” she said mysteriously, as she sat down and untied her bonnet, “Jack has told you of your brother’s behaviour, and it’s my belief there’s a clue to it, and I hope you’ll take warning, for I sometimes think ye’ve a hankering after that way yourself.”“What way, grandmamma? I never play the guitar on a Sunday morning.”“Nay, but there’s more behind. It’s well known how Sunday is profaned in Popish countries. I’ve heard they keep the shops open in France. Your brother has been brought up among Papists, and it would be a sad thing for your father’s son to give all this property into the hands of the priests.”“Dear me, granny, what a frightful suggestion. But I’m sure Alvar has no Romish sympathies. He has no turn for anything of the kind, and I should think the Roman Church was very unattractive in Spain.”“Ay, but they’re very deep.”“Well,” said Cherry, “if Alvar is a Jesuit in disguise, as you say, and rather a dissipated person, as my father seems to think, and has such an appalling temper as Jack describes, we’re in a bad way. I think I’ll go and see for myself.”When Cherry entered Alvar’s room he found this alarming compound of qualities sitting by the fire looking forlorn and lonely. “Why, Alvar, what’s all this about?”“Ah, my brother,” said Alvar, “you were absent and all has been wrong. My father is offended with me. I know not why. He insulted me.”“Oh, nonsense! we never talk about being insulted. My father’s a little hasty, but he means nothing by it. What did you do that annoyed him?”“I played my guitar and Jack scolded me. No one shall do so but you.”“I daresay Jack made an ass of himself—he often does; but he is a thorough good fellow at bottom. You know we do get up in our best clothes on Sunday.”“I can do that,” said Alvar, “but your Sunday I do not understand. You tell me I may not play at cards or at billiards; you do not dance nor go to the theatre. What good does it do? I would go to church, though it is tiresome, and I shudder at the singing. It is a mark, doubtless, of my father’s politics; but at home—well, I can smoke, if that is better?”Driven back to first principles, Cheriton hardly knew what to say. “Of course,” he answered. “I have often heard the matter discussed, and I don’t pretend to say that at Oxford the best of us are as particular as we might be. But in a country place like this, carelessness would do infinite harm. And, on the whole, I shouldn’t like the rule to be otherwise.”Alvar sighed, and made no answer.“But,” continued Cherry, “I think no one has a right to impose rules on you. I wouldn’t bring out the guitar in the morning—it looks rather odd, you know—nor wear that coat. But we’re not so very strict; there are always newspapers about, and novels, and, as you say, you can smoke or talk, or play the piano—I’m sure no one would know what the tune was—or write letters. Really, it might be worse, you know.”Perhaps Cherry’s coaxing voice and eyes were more effectual than his arguments; any way, Alvar said, “Well, I will offer my hand to my father, if he will take it.”“Oh, no; pray don’t make a scene about it. There’s the gong. Put on your other coat, and come down. Wedoeat our dinner on Sunday, and I’m awfully hungry.”Whether Mr Lester accepted the coat as a flag of truce, or whether he did not wish to provoke a contest with an unknown adversary, nothing more was said; but Alvar’s evil star was in the ascendant, and he was destined to run counter to his family in a more unpardonable way.He had no sympathy whatever with the love for animals, which was perhaps the softest side of his rough kindred. All the English Lesters were imbued with that devotion to live creatures which is ingrain with some natures. No trouble was too great to take for them. Bob and Nettie got up in the morning and went out in all weathers to feed their ferrets, or their jackdaws, or whatever pet was young, sick, or troublesome. Cheriton’s great Saint Bernard, Rolla, ranked somewhere very near Jack in his affections, and had been taught, trained, beaten, and petted, till he loved his master with untiring devotion. Mrs Lester had her chickens and turkeys, Mr Lester his prize cattle and his horses, some of the latter old and well-tried friends.It must be admitted that Oakby was a trying place for people devoid of this sentiment. Every one had a dog, more or less valuable, and jackdaws and magpies have their drawbacks as members of a family. Alvar openly said that he had never seen anybody make pets of dumb animals, and that he could not understand doing so; and though he took no notice of them, Rolla and an old pointer of Mr Lester’s, called Rose, had already been thrashed for growling at him.On this particular Sunday afternoon, the bright cold weather clouded over and promised a thaw. Alvar preferred dulness to the weather out-of-doors, and Cheriton accompanied his father on the Sunday stroll, which included all the beasts on the premises, and generally ended in visits to the old keeper and coachman, who thought it the height of religious advantage to bear the squire read a chapter.Mr Lester was aware that he had been impatient with his son, and that Alvar could not be expected to be imbued with an instinctive knowledge of those forms of religion with which his father had been inspired by his young brilliant wife, when “Fanny” had taught him to restore his church and build his schools in a fuller fashion than had satisfied his father, and made him believe that his position demanded of himself and his family a personal participation in all good works—some control of them he naturally desired.He was, as Mr Ellesmere said, with a little shrug, when forced to yield a point, “a model squire,” conscientious and open-handed, but unpersuadable. Perhaps the clear-eyed, wide-souled Fanny might have allowed more readily for the necessary changes of twenty years. Certainly she would better have appreciated a newcomer’s difficulties; while poor Mr Lester felt that Fanny’s ideal was invaded, and not by Fanny’s son. It spoilt his walk with Cheriton, and made him reply sharply to the latter’s attempts at agreeable conversation. Cheriton at length left him at the old gamekeeper’s; and while Mr Lester’s irritable accents were softened into kindly inquiries for the old father, now pensioned off, he chatted to the son, at present in command, who had been taking care of a terrier puppy for him.Finding that Buffer, so called from his prevailing colour, was looking strong and lively, Cheriton thought it would be as well to accustom him to society, and took him back to the house. He could not help wondering what would become of Alvar when he was left alone at Oakby. Another fortnight would hardly be sufficient to give him any comfortable, independent habits; how could he endure such deadly dulness as the life there would bring him? That fortnight would be lively enough, and there would be his cousin, Rupert Lester, for an additional companion, and another Miss Seyton, more attractive than Virginia, for an occasional excitement. If Alvar was so fascinating a person to young ladies, would he—would she—? An indefinite haze of questions pervaded Cheriton’s mind, and as he reckoned over the county beauties whom he could introduce to Alvar, and whom he would surely admire more than just the one particular beauty who had first occurred to his thoughts, he reached the house. He found his brothers and Nettie alone in the library, Alvar sitting apart in the window, and looking out at the stormy sky.“Hallo!” said Jack, “so you have brought Buffer up. Well, he has grown a nice little chap.”“Yes, I thought it was time he should begin his education. Nice head, hasn’t he? He is just like old Peggy.”“Yes, he’ll be a very good dog some day.”“Set him down,” said Bob; “let’s have a look at him.”“Little darling!” said Nettie, enthusiastically.Buffer was duly examined, and then, as Cherry turned to the fire to warm himself, observing that it was colder than ever, began to play about the room, while they entered on a discussion of the merits of all his relations up to their dim recollection of his great-grandmother.Buffer made himself much at home, poked about the room, and at last crossed over to Alvar, who had sat on, unheeding his entrance. Buffer gave his trousers a gentle pull. Alvar shook him off. Here was another tiresome little beast; then, just as Cherry crossed over to the window in search of him, he made a dart at Alvar’s foot and bit it sharply. Alvar sprang up with a few vehement Spanish words, gave the little dog a rough kick, and then dashed it away from him with a gesture of fierce annoyance. Buffer uttered a howl of pain.“I say, that’s too rough,” exclaimed Cherry, snatching up the puppy, which cried and moaned.“But it bit me!” said Alvar, angrily.“I believe you have killed him,” said Cheriton.“You cruel coward,” cried Nettie, bursting into a storm of tears.Alvar stood facing all the four, their blue eyes flashing scorn and indignation; but, angry as they were, they were too practical to waste time in reproaches. Jack brought a light, and Bob, whose skill in such matters equalled his literary incapacity, felt Buffer’s limbs scientifically.“No ribs broken,” he said; “he’s bruised, though, poor little beggar! Ah! he has put his shoulder out. Now, Cherry, if your hand’s going to shake, give him to Jack. I’ll pull it in again.”“I can hold him steady,” said Alvar, in a low voice.“No, thank you,” said Cherry, curtly, as Jack put a hand to steady his hold, and the operation was performed amid piteous shrieks from Buffer. Alvar had the sense to watch them in silence. What had he done? A kick and a blow to any domestic animal was common enough in Spain. And now he had roused all this righteous indignation, and, far worse, offended Cherry, and seen his distress at the little animal’s suffering, and at its cause. Buffer was no sooner laid in Nettie’s arms to be cossetted and comforted, than he seized Cherry’s hand.“Ah, my brother! I did not know the little dog was yours. I would not touch him—”“What difference does that make?” said Cherry, shaking him off and walking away.“I shall keepmydog out of his way,” said Bob, contemptuously.“I suppose Spaniards are savages,” said Jack, in a tone of deadly indignation.“He’d better play a thousand guitars than hurt a poor little innocent puppy!” said Nettie, half sobbing.Alvar stood looking mournfully before him; his anger had died out; he looked almost ready to cry with perplexity.Cheriton turned round. “I won’t have a fuss made,” he said. “Take Buffer upstairs to my room, and don’t say a word to any one. It can’t be helped.”“I knowwhoI shall never say a word to,” said Nettie; but she obeyed, followed by Jack and Bob. Alvar detained Cheriton.“Oh, my brother, forgive me. I would have broken my own arm sooner than see your eyes look at me thus. It is with us a word and a blow. I will never strike any little beast again—never.”He looked so wretched that Cheriton answered reluctantly, “I don’t mean to say any more about it.”“But you are angry still?”“No, I’m not angry. I suppose you feel differently. I hate to see anything suffer.”“And I to see you suffer, my brother.”“I? nonsense! I tell you that’s nothing to do with it. There, let it drop. I shall say no more.”He escaped, unable further to satisfy his brother, and went upstairs, where Buffer had been put to bed comfortably.“Did you ever know such a nasty trick in your life?” said Jack, as they left the twins to watch the invalid’s slumbers.“Oh!” said Cherry, turning into his room, “it’s all hopeless and miserable. We shall never come to any good—never!”“Oh, come, come now, Cherry,” said Jack, for once assuming the office of consoler. “Buffer’ll do well enough; don’t be so despairing.”Cheriton had much the brighter and serener nature of the two; but he was subject to fits of reaction, when Jack’s cooler temperament held its own.“It’s not Buffer,” he said, “it’s Alvar! How can one ever have any brotherly feeling for a fellow like that? He’s as different as a Red Indian!”“It would be very odd and unnatural if you had much brotherly feeling for him,” said Jack. “Why do you trouble yourself about him?”“But he does seem to have taken a sort of fancy to me, and the poor fellow’s a stranger!”“You’re a great deal too soft about him. Of course he likes you, when you’re always looking him up. Don’t be superstitious about it—he’s only our half-brother; and don’t go down to tea looking like that, or you’ll have the governor asking what’s the matter with you.”“Remember, I’ll not have a word said about it,” said Cheriton emphatically.Nothing was said publicly about it, but Alvar was made to feel himself in disgrace, and endeavoured to re-ingratiate himself with Cherry with a simplicity that was irresistible. He asked humbly after Buffer’s health, and finally presented him with a silver chain for a collar.When Buffer began to limp about on three legs, his tawny countenance looking out above the silver engraved heart that clasped the collar with the sentimental leer peculiar to puppyhood, the effect was sufficiently ludicrous; but he forgave Alvar sooner than his brothers did, and perhaps grateful for his finery, became rather fond of him.
“Gaily the troubadour touched his guitar.”
“Gaily the troubadour touched his guitar.”
On the third Sunday morning after Alvar’s arrival, Mr Lester came down as usual at the sound of the gong, and as he glanced round the dining-room missed his two elder sons.
Prayers were over and breakfast had begun before Alvar entered.
“Ah pardon,” he said, bowing to his grandmother; “I did not know it was late.”
“I make a point of being punctual on Sunday,” said Mr Lester, in a tone of incipient displeasure.
“Cheriton is late too,” said Alvar.
“No,” said Jack, “he’s gone to Church.”
“All, thenwedo not go to-day,” said Alvar, with an air of relief so comical that even the solemn Jack could hardly stand it.
“Oh, yes, we do,” he said, “this is extra.”
“Cheriton,” said Mr Lester, “is very attentive to his religious duties.”
“I suppose he’ll have breakfast at the Vicarage,” said Nettie, as Alvar raised his eyebrows and gave a little shrug.
It was a gesture habitual to him, and was not intended to express contempt either for religion or for Cheriton, but only a want of comprehension of the affair; but it annoyed Mr Lester and called his attention to the fact that Alvar had appeared in a black velvet coat of a peculiar foreign cut, the sight of which he disliked on a week-day, and considered intolerable when it was contrasted with the spruce neatness of the rest of the party. He could not very well attack Alvar on the subject, but he sharply reproved Bob for cutting hunches of bread when no one wanted them, and found fault with the coffee. And then, apparentlyà proposof nothing, he began to make a little speech about the importance of example in a country place, and the influence of trifles.
“And I can assureevery onepresent,” he concluded emphatically, “that there is no need to look far for an example of the evil effects of neglect in these particulars.”
“Elderthwaite?” whispered Nettie to Jack.
“Ay,” said Mrs Lester, “young people should show respect to Sunday morning. It is what in my father’s house was always insisted on. Your grandfather, too, used to say that he liked his dogs even to know Sunday.”
“It is strange to me,” said Alvar coolly.
“It will be well that you should give yourself the pains to become accustomed to it,” said his father curtly.
It was the first time that the stately stranger had been addressed in such a tone, and he looked up with a flash of the eye that startled the younger ones.
“Sir, it is by your will I am a stranger here,” he said, with evident displeasure.
“Stranger or no, my regulations must be respected,” said Mr Lester, his colour rising.
Alvar rose from his seat and proved his claim at any rate to the family temper by bowing to his grandmother and marching out of the room.
“Highty tighty!” said the grandmother. “Here’s a spirt of temper for you!”
“Intolerable insolence!” exclaimed Mr Lester. “Under my roof he must submit to what I please to say to him.”
“It’s just what I told ye, Gerald; a foreigner’s ways are what we cannot do with,” said Mrs Lester.
“Of course,” blurted out Jack, with the laudable desire of mending matters; “of course he is a foreigner. How can you expect him to be anything else? And father never said it was his coat.”
“His coat?” said Mr Lester. “It is his temper to which I object. When he came I told him that I expected Sunday to be observed in my house, and he agreed.”
“But he did not understand that you thought that coat improper on Sunday,” said Jack with persevering justice.
“I am not in the habit of being obscure,” said Mr Lester, as he rose from the table, while Jack thought he would give Alvar a little good advice.
Cherry was too soft; he was equally impartial, and would be more plain spoken. But as he approached the library he heard an ominous tinkling, and entering, beheld Alvar, still in the objectionable coat, beginning to play on the still more objectionable guitar, an air which Jack did not think sounded like a hymn tune.
Jack really intended to mend matters, but his manner was unfortunate, and in the tone he would have used to a disobedient fag he remarked, as he stood bolt upright beside his brother,—
“I say, Alvar, I think you’d better not play on that thing this morning.”
“There is no reason for you to tell me what to do,” said Alvar quietly.
“It’s not, you know,” said Jack, “thatIthink there’s any harm in it.Myviews are very liberal. I only think it’s a frivolous and unmanly sort of instrument; but the governor won’t like it, and there’ll be no end of a row.”
“You have not a musical soul,” said Alvar loftily, for he had had time to cool down somewhat.
“Certainlynot,” said the liberal Jack, with unnecessary energy and a tone of disgust; “but that’s not the question. It’s not the custom here to playthat sort of thing on a thing like thaton a Sunday morning. Ask Cherry.”
“Would it vex my brother?” asked Alvar.
“If you mean Cheriton, it certainly would. He hates a row.”
“A row?” said the puzzled Alvar, “that is a noise—my guitar?”
“Oh, hang it! no, a quarrel,” began Jack, when suddenly—
“Sir, I consider this an act of defiance; I beg I may see that instrument put away at once,” and Mr Lester’s voice took the threatening sound that made his anger always appear so much worse than it really was. “I will have the proprieties of my house observed, and no example of this kind set to your younger brothers.”
Alvar had taken Jack’s interference with cool contempt, but now he started up with a look of such passion as fairly subdued Jack into a hasty—
“Oh come, come, I say, now—don’t!” Alvar controlled himself suddenly and entirely.
“Sir, I obey my father’s commands. I will say good morning,” and taking up his guitar went up to his own room, from which he did not emerge at church time, and as no one ventured to call him they set off without him. Among themselves they might quarrel and make it up again many times a day, but Alvar’s feelings were evidently more serious.
It was occasionally Cheriton’s practice to sing in the choir, more for the popularity of his example than for his voice, which was indifferent. Alvar had been greatly puzzled at his doing so, and had then told him that “in that white robe he looked like the picture of an angel,” a remark which so discomfited Cherry that he had further perplexed his unlucky brother by saying,—“Praydon’t say such a thing to the others, I should never hear the last of it. You’d better say I look like an ass at once.”
He did not therefore see anything of his family till he met them after the service, when Jack attacked him.
“What induced you to go out this morning? Everything has gone utterly wrong, and I shouldn’t wonder if we should find Alvar gone back to Spain.”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“Alvar came down late in that ridiculous coat and then played the guitar. And if ever you saw a fellow in a passion! He likes his own way.”
“Was father angry?”
“I should just think so, I don’t expect they’ll speak.”
This was a pleasant prospect. Cheriton saw that his father’s brow was cloudy, and as he went upstairs his grandmother called him into her room.
“Cheriton,” she said mysteriously, as she sat down and untied her bonnet, “Jack has told you of your brother’s behaviour, and it’s my belief there’s a clue to it, and I hope you’ll take warning, for I sometimes think ye’ve a hankering after that way yourself.”
“What way, grandmamma? I never play the guitar on a Sunday morning.”
“Nay, but there’s more behind. It’s well known how Sunday is profaned in Popish countries. I’ve heard they keep the shops open in France. Your brother has been brought up among Papists, and it would be a sad thing for your father’s son to give all this property into the hands of the priests.”
“Dear me, granny, what a frightful suggestion. But I’m sure Alvar has no Romish sympathies. He has no turn for anything of the kind, and I should think the Roman Church was very unattractive in Spain.”
“Ay, but they’re very deep.”
“Well,” said Cherry, “if Alvar is a Jesuit in disguise, as you say, and rather a dissipated person, as my father seems to think, and has such an appalling temper as Jack describes, we’re in a bad way. I think I’ll go and see for myself.”
When Cherry entered Alvar’s room he found this alarming compound of qualities sitting by the fire looking forlorn and lonely. “Why, Alvar, what’s all this about?”
“Ah, my brother,” said Alvar, “you were absent and all has been wrong. My father is offended with me. I know not why. He insulted me.”
“Oh, nonsense! we never talk about being insulted. My father’s a little hasty, but he means nothing by it. What did you do that annoyed him?”
“I played my guitar and Jack scolded me. No one shall do so but you.”
“I daresay Jack made an ass of himself—he often does; but he is a thorough good fellow at bottom. You know we do get up in our best clothes on Sunday.”
“I can do that,” said Alvar, “but your Sunday I do not understand. You tell me I may not play at cards or at billiards; you do not dance nor go to the theatre. What good does it do? I would go to church, though it is tiresome, and I shudder at the singing. It is a mark, doubtless, of my father’s politics; but at home—well, I can smoke, if that is better?”
Driven back to first principles, Cheriton hardly knew what to say. “Of course,” he answered. “I have often heard the matter discussed, and I don’t pretend to say that at Oxford the best of us are as particular as we might be. But in a country place like this, carelessness would do infinite harm. And, on the whole, I shouldn’t like the rule to be otherwise.”
Alvar sighed, and made no answer.
“But,” continued Cherry, “I think no one has a right to impose rules on you. I wouldn’t bring out the guitar in the morning—it looks rather odd, you know—nor wear that coat. But we’re not so very strict; there are always newspapers about, and novels, and, as you say, you can smoke or talk, or play the piano—I’m sure no one would know what the tune was—or write letters. Really, it might be worse, you know.”
Perhaps Cherry’s coaxing voice and eyes were more effectual than his arguments; any way, Alvar said, “Well, I will offer my hand to my father, if he will take it.”
“Oh, no; pray don’t make a scene about it. There’s the gong. Put on your other coat, and come down. Wedoeat our dinner on Sunday, and I’m awfully hungry.”
Whether Mr Lester accepted the coat as a flag of truce, or whether he did not wish to provoke a contest with an unknown adversary, nothing more was said; but Alvar’s evil star was in the ascendant, and he was destined to run counter to his family in a more unpardonable way.
He had no sympathy whatever with the love for animals, which was perhaps the softest side of his rough kindred. All the English Lesters were imbued with that devotion to live creatures which is ingrain with some natures. No trouble was too great to take for them. Bob and Nettie got up in the morning and went out in all weathers to feed their ferrets, or their jackdaws, or whatever pet was young, sick, or troublesome. Cheriton’s great Saint Bernard, Rolla, ranked somewhere very near Jack in his affections, and had been taught, trained, beaten, and petted, till he loved his master with untiring devotion. Mrs Lester had her chickens and turkeys, Mr Lester his prize cattle and his horses, some of the latter old and well-tried friends.
It must be admitted that Oakby was a trying place for people devoid of this sentiment. Every one had a dog, more or less valuable, and jackdaws and magpies have their drawbacks as members of a family. Alvar openly said that he had never seen anybody make pets of dumb animals, and that he could not understand doing so; and though he took no notice of them, Rolla and an old pointer of Mr Lester’s, called Rose, had already been thrashed for growling at him.
On this particular Sunday afternoon, the bright cold weather clouded over and promised a thaw. Alvar preferred dulness to the weather out-of-doors, and Cheriton accompanied his father on the Sunday stroll, which included all the beasts on the premises, and generally ended in visits to the old keeper and coachman, who thought it the height of religious advantage to bear the squire read a chapter.
Mr Lester was aware that he had been impatient with his son, and that Alvar could not be expected to be imbued with an instinctive knowledge of those forms of religion with which his father had been inspired by his young brilliant wife, when “Fanny” had taught him to restore his church and build his schools in a fuller fashion than had satisfied his father, and made him believe that his position demanded of himself and his family a personal participation in all good works—some control of them he naturally desired.
He was, as Mr Ellesmere said, with a little shrug, when forced to yield a point, “a model squire,” conscientious and open-handed, but unpersuadable. Perhaps the clear-eyed, wide-souled Fanny might have allowed more readily for the necessary changes of twenty years. Certainly she would better have appreciated a newcomer’s difficulties; while poor Mr Lester felt that Fanny’s ideal was invaded, and not by Fanny’s son. It spoilt his walk with Cheriton, and made him reply sharply to the latter’s attempts at agreeable conversation. Cheriton at length left him at the old gamekeeper’s; and while Mr Lester’s irritable accents were softened into kindly inquiries for the old father, now pensioned off, he chatted to the son, at present in command, who had been taking care of a terrier puppy for him.
Finding that Buffer, so called from his prevailing colour, was looking strong and lively, Cheriton thought it would be as well to accustom him to society, and took him back to the house. He could not help wondering what would become of Alvar when he was left alone at Oakby. Another fortnight would hardly be sufficient to give him any comfortable, independent habits; how could he endure such deadly dulness as the life there would bring him? That fortnight would be lively enough, and there would be his cousin, Rupert Lester, for an additional companion, and another Miss Seyton, more attractive than Virginia, for an occasional excitement. If Alvar was so fascinating a person to young ladies, would he—would she—? An indefinite haze of questions pervaded Cheriton’s mind, and as he reckoned over the county beauties whom he could introduce to Alvar, and whom he would surely admire more than just the one particular beauty who had first occurred to his thoughts, he reached the house. He found his brothers and Nettie alone in the library, Alvar sitting apart in the window, and looking out at the stormy sky.
“Hallo!” said Jack, “so you have brought Buffer up. Well, he has grown a nice little chap.”
“Yes, I thought it was time he should begin his education. Nice head, hasn’t he? He is just like old Peggy.”
“Yes, he’ll be a very good dog some day.”
“Set him down,” said Bob; “let’s have a look at him.”
“Little darling!” said Nettie, enthusiastically.
Buffer was duly examined, and then, as Cherry turned to the fire to warm himself, observing that it was colder than ever, began to play about the room, while they entered on a discussion of the merits of all his relations up to their dim recollection of his great-grandmother.
Buffer made himself much at home, poked about the room, and at last crossed over to Alvar, who had sat on, unheeding his entrance. Buffer gave his trousers a gentle pull. Alvar shook him off. Here was another tiresome little beast; then, just as Cherry crossed over to the window in search of him, he made a dart at Alvar’s foot and bit it sharply. Alvar sprang up with a few vehement Spanish words, gave the little dog a rough kick, and then dashed it away from him with a gesture of fierce annoyance. Buffer uttered a howl of pain.
“I say, that’s too rough,” exclaimed Cherry, snatching up the puppy, which cried and moaned.
“But it bit me!” said Alvar, angrily.
“I believe you have killed him,” said Cheriton.
“You cruel coward,” cried Nettie, bursting into a storm of tears.
Alvar stood facing all the four, their blue eyes flashing scorn and indignation; but, angry as they were, they were too practical to waste time in reproaches. Jack brought a light, and Bob, whose skill in such matters equalled his literary incapacity, felt Buffer’s limbs scientifically.
“No ribs broken,” he said; “he’s bruised, though, poor little beggar! Ah! he has put his shoulder out. Now, Cherry, if your hand’s going to shake, give him to Jack. I’ll pull it in again.”
“I can hold him steady,” said Alvar, in a low voice.
“No, thank you,” said Cherry, curtly, as Jack put a hand to steady his hold, and the operation was performed amid piteous shrieks from Buffer. Alvar had the sense to watch them in silence. What had he done? A kick and a blow to any domestic animal was common enough in Spain. And now he had roused all this righteous indignation, and, far worse, offended Cherry, and seen his distress at the little animal’s suffering, and at its cause. Buffer was no sooner laid in Nettie’s arms to be cossetted and comforted, than he seized Cherry’s hand.
“Ah, my brother! I did not know the little dog was yours. I would not touch him—”
“What difference does that make?” said Cherry, shaking him off and walking away.
“I shall keepmydog out of his way,” said Bob, contemptuously.
“I suppose Spaniards are savages,” said Jack, in a tone of deadly indignation.
“He’d better play a thousand guitars than hurt a poor little innocent puppy!” said Nettie, half sobbing.
Alvar stood looking mournfully before him; his anger had died out; he looked almost ready to cry with perplexity.
Cheriton turned round. “I won’t have a fuss made,” he said. “Take Buffer upstairs to my room, and don’t say a word to any one. It can’t be helped.”
“I knowwhoI shall never say a word to,” said Nettie; but she obeyed, followed by Jack and Bob. Alvar detained Cheriton.
“Oh, my brother, forgive me. I would have broken my own arm sooner than see your eyes look at me thus. It is with us a word and a blow. I will never strike any little beast again—never.”
He looked so wretched that Cheriton answered reluctantly, “I don’t mean to say any more about it.”
“But you are angry still?”
“No, I’m not angry. I suppose you feel differently. I hate to see anything suffer.”
“And I to see you suffer, my brother.”
“I? nonsense! I tell you that’s nothing to do with it. There, let it drop. I shall say no more.”
He escaped, unable further to satisfy his brother, and went upstairs, where Buffer had been put to bed comfortably.
“Did you ever know such a nasty trick in your life?” said Jack, as they left the twins to watch the invalid’s slumbers.
“Oh!” said Cherry, turning into his room, “it’s all hopeless and miserable. We shall never come to any good—never!”
“Oh, come, come now, Cherry,” said Jack, for once assuming the office of consoler. “Buffer’ll do well enough; don’t be so despairing.”
Cheriton had much the brighter and serener nature of the two; but he was subject to fits of reaction, when Jack’s cooler temperament held its own.
“It’s not Buffer,” he said, “it’s Alvar! How can one ever have any brotherly feeling for a fellow like that? He’s as different as a Red Indian!”
“It would be very odd and unnatural if you had much brotherly feeling for him,” said Jack. “Why do you trouble yourself about him?”
“But he does seem to have taken a sort of fancy to me, and the poor fellow’s a stranger!”
“You’re a great deal too soft about him. Of course he likes you, when you’re always looking him up. Don’t be superstitious about it—he’s only our half-brother; and don’t go down to tea looking like that, or you’ll have the governor asking what’s the matter with you.”
“Remember, I’ll not have a word said about it,” said Cheriton emphatically.
Nothing was said publicly about it, but Alvar was made to feel himself in disgrace, and endeavoured to re-ingratiate himself with Cherry with a simplicity that was irresistible. He asked humbly after Buffer’s health, and finally presented him with a silver chain for a collar.
When Buffer began to limp about on three legs, his tawny countenance looking out above the silver engraved heart that clasped the collar with the sentimental leer peculiar to puppyhood, the effect was sufficiently ludicrous; but he forgave Alvar sooner than his brothers did, and perhaps grateful for his finery, became rather fond of him.
Chapter Nine.Ruth.“She has two eyes so soft and brown.”There was a little oak-panelled bedroom at Elderthwaite, which had been called Ruth’s ever since, as a curly-haired, brown-skinned child, the little orphan cousin had come from her grandmother’s in London and paid a long visit in the North some five or six years before the winter’s day on which she now occupied it, when she came to be present at the Lesters’ ball. She was a nut-brown maid still, with rough, curly hair and great dark eyes, with curly, upturned lashes—eyes that were like Virginia’s in shape, colour, and fervour, but which glanced and gleamed and melted after a fashion wholly their own. She was slender and small, and though with no wonderful beauty of feature or perfection of form, whether she sat or stood she made a picture; all colours that she wore became her, all scenes set off her peculiar grace. Now, her brown velvet dress, her rusty hair against the dark oak shutter, as she sat crouched up in the window-seat, were a perfect “symphony in brown.”Ruth Seyton was an orphan, and lived with her grandmother, Lady Charlton, a gentle, worldly old lady, whose great object was to see her well married, and to steer her course safely through all the dangers that might affect the course of a well-endowed and very attractive girl. The scorn which Ruth felt for the shallow feelings and worldly notions with which she was expected to enter on the question of her own future was justifiable enough, and led to a violent reaction and to a fervour of false romance. Ruth had found her hero and formulated her view of life, and the hero was Rupert Lester, whom she was about to meet at the ball given in Alvar’s honour, and between whom and herself lay the memory of something more than a flirtation.The theory was, that the hero once found, the grand passion once experienced, was its own justification, itself the proof of depth of character and worth of heart. A girl who paused to consider her lover’s character or her friends’ disapproval, when she had once given her heart away, was a weak and cold-natured creature in her opinion. She knew that many difficulties lay between her and Rupert Lester, and she gloried in the thought of how they should be overcome, rejoiced in her own discrimination, which could see the difference between this real passion and the worldly motives of some of her other admirers, or the boyish fancy of Cheriton Lester, who talked to her about his brothers and his occupations, and had room in his heart, so it seemed to her, for a thousand lesser loves. Ruth believed that she despised flirtation; but there could be no harm in being pleasant to a boy she had known all her life and whose attentions just now were so convenient. Besides, Cheriton was really very like his cousin Rupert, very like the photograph which she now hid away as Virginia came in search of her.The two cousins had been a great deal together at intervals and were fond of each other, and Virginia knew something about Rupert; but Ruth knew better than to give her full confidence on the subject.“Well,” she said, as her cousin entered, “and how does the world go with you? Do you see much of the Lesters?”“Yes; while the frost lasted I used to go down to the ice with the boys, and we met there. Cheriton comes over here sometimes, and once he brought his brother.”“What, the Spaniard? Howdothey manage? Is he very queer?”“Oh, no! Of course he is very unlike the others. Cherry gets on very well with him. I believe Mr Lester does not wish the boys to come here much,” added Virginia, abruptly.“Well, it wasn’t approved of in Roland’s time,” said Ruth.“Were we always bad company?” said Virginia. “I have had a great deal to learn. Why did you never make me understand better what Elderthwaite was like?”“But, Queenie,” said Ruth cautiously, using a pet name of Virginia’s girlhood, “surely youweretold how tumbledown the place was, and how stupid and behindhand everything would be. Poor dear Uncle James ought to have lived fifty years since.”“I don’t believe that parish priests taught their people nothing but to catch rats fifty years since,” said Virginia, with a touch of the family bitterness in her voice. “Is it because papa is poor that the men-servants get tipsy, and Dick and Harry are always after them? Oh, Ruth,” suddenly softening, “I ought not to have said it, but the boys aren’t brought up well; and if yousawhow wretched the people in the village are—and they look so wicked.”“Yes,” said Ruth, as Virginia’s tears silenced her, “but you know we Seytonsarea bad lot. We’re born, they say, with a drop of bad blood in us. Look at Aunt Julia,shewas driven desperate and ran away—small blame to her—when her lover’s father forbade the match; but they caught and stopped her. After that she never cared what she did, and just lived by making fun of things.”Virginia shuddered. Could her lazy, sarcastic aunt have ever known the thrillings and yearnings which were beating in her own heart now?“There is not much fun in it,” she said. “No. As for Dick, I don’t think much of him. Poor old Roland was worth a dozen of him. I don’t care what peopledoas long as theyaresomething. But Dick has no fine feelings.”“Ruth,” said Virginia, “I think I was not taught better for nothing. I am sure papa is very unhappy; he thinks how wrong everything is. Poor papa! Grandpapa was such a bad father for him. I cannot make friends with Dick, and Harry will go back to school. Indoors I have nothing to do; but I am going to ask Uncle James, and then if I go to the cottages and get the children together a little, perhaps it may be better than nothing. Old nurse says they all grow up bad. Poor things, how can they help it!”“Well, Queenie,” said Ruth dubiously, “I don’t think the people are very fit for you to go to. I don’t think Uncle Seyton would like it.”“I should not be afraid of them,” said Virginia. “It would be doing something for papa, and doing good besides.”To think of her father as an involuntary victim to the faults of others was the one refuge of Virginia’s heart; his graceful, melancholy gentleness had caught her fancy, and she was filled with a pity which, however strange from a child to a father, vibrated in every tender string of her nature. On the other hand, all her notions of right were outraged by the more obvious evils prevailing at Elderthwaite, and she went through in those first weeks a variety of emotions, for which action seemed the only cure. She felt as if the sins of generations lay on her father’s shoulders, and she wanted to pull them on to her own—wanted to stand in the deadly breach with the little weapon that her small experience had put into her hand. She wanted to teach a few poor children, a thing that might only be a pleasant occupation or the most commonplace of duties. But it was turning her face right round on the smooth slope the Seytons were treading, and trying to make a step up hill.Ruth did not think that first step would be easy, and would have liked to see Virginia go downstairs in a somewhat less desperate humour, to find her uncle chatting to Miss Seyton in the drawing-room.“Ha, ha, Miss Ruth! Come North just in time to make a conquest of the fine Frenchman at Oakby.”“I thought he was a Spaniard, uncle,” said Ruth.“Eh, pretty much of a muchness, aren’t they? I’ve got a card for a grand ball to go and see him. Ha, ha! I’d sooner see him with a red coat on at Ashrigg meet next Thursday.”“But you must go to the ball, uncle, and dance with me,” said Ruth.“That’s a bargain,” said the jolly parson, striking his hands together. “Any dance I like?”“To be sure.”“Ah, mind you look out, then. When you’re sitting quiet with the Frenchman you’ll see your old uncle round the corner.”“I never dance with any one who doesn’t know thetrois temps, uncle.”“Bless my soul! My favourite dance is the hornpipe, or old Sir Roger—kiss the girls as you pop under. That’s an old parson’s privilege, you know.”All this time Virginia had been standing apart, working up her courage, and now, regardless of the unities of conversation, and with a now-or-never feeling, she began, her fresh young voice trembling and her colour rising high.“Uncle James, if you please. I wanted to tell you I shall be very glad to do anything to help you, if you will allow me.”“Help me, my dear? Teach me thetroy tong, or whatever Ruth calls it?”“To help you in the parish, uncle.”“Parish? Ha, ha! Do they have the pretty girls to read prayers in the grand Ritualistic places nowadays?”“I thought I might perhaps teach some of the children,” faltered poor Virginia through her uncle’s peal of laughter.“Teach? We don’t have many newfangled notions here, my dear. Do your wool-work, and dance yourtroy tong, and mind your own business.”“I have always been accustomed to do something useful,” said Virginia, gaining courage from indignation.“Now look here, Virginia,” said Parson Seyton emphatically. “Don’t you go putting your finger into a pie you know nothing of. There’s not a cottage in the place fit for a young lady to set her foot in. There’s a vast deal too much of young women’s meddling in these days; and as for Elderthwaite, there’s an old Methody, as they call him, who groans away to the soberer folks, and comforts their hearts in his own fashion. What could a chit of a lass like you do for them? Go and captivate the Frenchman with your round eyes—you’ve a grand pair of them—and give me a kiss.”Parson Seyton put out his hand and drew her towards him.“But, uncle,” she stammered, yielding to the kiss in such utter confusion of mind that she hardly knew what she was doing—“But, uncle, do youlikethat Methodist to—to attract the people?”“Bless your heart, child, people must have their religion their own way. They’d stare to hearmeconvicting them of their sins. ‘What’s the parson done with his own?’ they’d ask. But it comforts them like blankets and broth, and it’s little they get of either,” with a side glance at his sister; “so I take good care to keep out of the way. I told Cherry Lester I should go and hear him some Sunday afternoon. ‘Hope it would do you good, parson,’ says he, coolly. Eh, he’s a fine lad. What a confounded fool old Lester must think himself to have this foreign fellow ready to step into his place.”“Are you and Cheriton as great friends as ever, uncle?” asked Ruth.“Friends! Oh, he’s like Virginia here. Wants to teach me a lesson now and then. Got me over last year to their grand meeting of clergy and laity for educational purposes, and there I was up on the platform with the best of them.”“Did you make a speech, uncle?” asked Ruth.“I did, my lass, I did! When they had quarrelled and disputed, and couldn’t by any means agree, some one asked my opinion, and I said, ‘My lord,’—Lord — was there, you know,—‘and my reverend brethren, having no knowledge whatever of the subject, I have no opinion to give.’ And old Thorold—he comes from the other side of the county, mind you,—remarked that ‘Mr Seyton’s old-fashioned wisdom might find followers with advantage.’ Ha—ha—you should have seen Cherry’s blue eyes down below on the benches when I gave him a wink! ‘Old-fashioned wisdom,’ Miss Virginia; don’t you despise it.”“Hallo, uncle!” shouted Harry, putting his head in, “here’s a fellow come tearing up to say the wedding’s waited an hour, and if the parson isn’t quick they’ll do without him.”“Bless my soul, I forgot all about ’em. Coming—coming—and I’ll give ’em a couple of rabbits for the wedding dinner. Virginia’ll never ask me to marry her, that’s certain.” And off strode the parson, while poor Virginia, scandalised and perplexed as she was, was fain, like every one else, to laugh at him.
“She has two eyes so soft and brown.”
“She has two eyes so soft and brown.”
There was a little oak-panelled bedroom at Elderthwaite, which had been called Ruth’s ever since, as a curly-haired, brown-skinned child, the little orphan cousin had come from her grandmother’s in London and paid a long visit in the North some five or six years before the winter’s day on which she now occupied it, when she came to be present at the Lesters’ ball. She was a nut-brown maid still, with rough, curly hair and great dark eyes, with curly, upturned lashes—eyes that were like Virginia’s in shape, colour, and fervour, but which glanced and gleamed and melted after a fashion wholly their own. She was slender and small, and though with no wonderful beauty of feature or perfection of form, whether she sat or stood she made a picture; all colours that she wore became her, all scenes set off her peculiar grace. Now, her brown velvet dress, her rusty hair against the dark oak shutter, as she sat crouched up in the window-seat, were a perfect “symphony in brown.”
Ruth Seyton was an orphan, and lived with her grandmother, Lady Charlton, a gentle, worldly old lady, whose great object was to see her well married, and to steer her course safely through all the dangers that might affect the course of a well-endowed and very attractive girl. The scorn which Ruth felt for the shallow feelings and worldly notions with which she was expected to enter on the question of her own future was justifiable enough, and led to a violent reaction and to a fervour of false romance. Ruth had found her hero and formulated her view of life, and the hero was Rupert Lester, whom she was about to meet at the ball given in Alvar’s honour, and between whom and herself lay the memory of something more than a flirtation.
The theory was, that the hero once found, the grand passion once experienced, was its own justification, itself the proof of depth of character and worth of heart. A girl who paused to consider her lover’s character or her friends’ disapproval, when she had once given her heart away, was a weak and cold-natured creature in her opinion. She knew that many difficulties lay between her and Rupert Lester, and she gloried in the thought of how they should be overcome, rejoiced in her own discrimination, which could see the difference between this real passion and the worldly motives of some of her other admirers, or the boyish fancy of Cheriton Lester, who talked to her about his brothers and his occupations, and had room in his heart, so it seemed to her, for a thousand lesser loves. Ruth believed that she despised flirtation; but there could be no harm in being pleasant to a boy she had known all her life and whose attentions just now were so convenient. Besides, Cheriton was really very like his cousin Rupert, very like the photograph which she now hid away as Virginia came in search of her.
The two cousins had been a great deal together at intervals and were fond of each other, and Virginia knew something about Rupert; but Ruth knew better than to give her full confidence on the subject.
“Well,” she said, as her cousin entered, “and how does the world go with you? Do you see much of the Lesters?”
“Yes; while the frost lasted I used to go down to the ice with the boys, and we met there. Cheriton comes over here sometimes, and once he brought his brother.”
“What, the Spaniard? Howdothey manage? Is he very queer?”
“Oh, no! Of course he is very unlike the others. Cherry gets on very well with him. I believe Mr Lester does not wish the boys to come here much,” added Virginia, abruptly.
“Well, it wasn’t approved of in Roland’s time,” said Ruth.
“Were we always bad company?” said Virginia. “I have had a great deal to learn. Why did you never make me understand better what Elderthwaite was like?”
“But, Queenie,” said Ruth cautiously, using a pet name of Virginia’s girlhood, “surely youweretold how tumbledown the place was, and how stupid and behindhand everything would be. Poor dear Uncle James ought to have lived fifty years since.”
“I don’t believe that parish priests taught their people nothing but to catch rats fifty years since,” said Virginia, with a touch of the family bitterness in her voice. “Is it because papa is poor that the men-servants get tipsy, and Dick and Harry are always after them? Oh, Ruth,” suddenly softening, “I ought not to have said it, but the boys aren’t brought up well; and if yousawhow wretched the people in the village are—and they look so wicked.”
“Yes,” said Ruth, as Virginia’s tears silenced her, “but you know we Seytonsarea bad lot. We’re born, they say, with a drop of bad blood in us. Look at Aunt Julia,shewas driven desperate and ran away—small blame to her—when her lover’s father forbade the match; but they caught and stopped her. After that she never cared what she did, and just lived by making fun of things.”
Virginia shuddered. Could her lazy, sarcastic aunt have ever known the thrillings and yearnings which were beating in her own heart now?
“There is not much fun in it,” she said. “No. As for Dick, I don’t think much of him. Poor old Roland was worth a dozen of him. I don’t care what peopledoas long as theyaresomething. But Dick has no fine feelings.”
“Ruth,” said Virginia, “I think I was not taught better for nothing. I am sure papa is very unhappy; he thinks how wrong everything is. Poor papa! Grandpapa was such a bad father for him. I cannot make friends with Dick, and Harry will go back to school. Indoors I have nothing to do; but I am going to ask Uncle James, and then if I go to the cottages and get the children together a little, perhaps it may be better than nothing. Old nurse says they all grow up bad. Poor things, how can they help it!”
“Well, Queenie,” said Ruth dubiously, “I don’t think the people are very fit for you to go to. I don’t think Uncle Seyton would like it.”
“I should not be afraid of them,” said Virginia. “It would be doing something for papa, and doing good besides.”
To think of her father as an involuntary victim to the faults of others was the one refuge of Virginia’s heart; his graceful, melancholy gentleness had caught her fancy, and she was filled with a pity which, however strange from a child to a father, vibrated in every tender string of her nature. On the other hand, all her notions of right were outraged by the more obvious evils prevailing at Elderthwaite, and she went through in those first weeks a variety of emotions, for which action seemed the only cure. She felt as if the sins of generations lay on her father’s shoulders, and she wanted to pull them on to her own—wanted to stand in the deadly breach with the little weapon that her small experience had put into her hand. She wanted to teach a few poor children, a thing that might only be a pleasant occupation or the most commonplace of duties. But it was turning her face right round on the smooth slope the Seytons were treading, and trying to make a step up hill.
Ruth did not think that first step would be easy, and would have liked to see Virginia go downstairs in a somewhat less desperate humour, to find her uncle chatting to Miss Seyton in the drawing-room.
“Ha, ha, Miss Ruth! Come North just in time to make a conquest of the fine Frenchman at Oakby.”
“I thought he was a Spaniard, uncle,” said Ruth.
“Eh, pretty much of a muchness, aren’t they? I’ve got a card for a grand ball to go and see him. Ha, ha! I’d sooner see him with a red coat on at Ashrigg meet next Thursday.”
“But you must go to the ball, uncle, and dance with me,” said Ruth.
“That’s a bargain,” said the jolly parson, striking his hands together. “Any dance I like?”
“To be sure.”
“Ah, mind you look out, then. When you’re sitting quiet with the Frenchman you’ll see your old uncle round the corner.”
“I never dance with any one who doesn’t know thetrois temps, uncle.”
“Bless my soul! My favourite dance is the hornpipe, or old Sir Roger—kiss the girls as you pop under. That’s an old parson’s privilege, you know.”
All this time Virginia had been standing apart, working up her courage, and now, regardless of the unities of conversation, and with a now-or-never feeling, she began, her fresh young voice trembling and her colour rising high.
“Uncle James, if you please. I wanted to tell you I shall be very glad to do anything to help you, if you will allow me.”
“Help me, my dear? Teach me thetroy tong, or whatever Ruth calls it?”
“To help you in the parish, uncle.”
“Parish? Ha, ha! Do they have the pretty girls to read prayers in the grand Ritualistic places nowadays?”
“I thought I might perhaps teach some of the children,” faltered poor Virginia through her uncle’s peal of laughter.
“Teach? We don’t have many newfangled notions here, my dear. Do your wool-work, and dance yourtroy tong, and mind your own business.”
“I have always been accustomed to do something useful,” said Virginia, gaining courage from indignation.
“Now look here, Virginia,” said Parson Seyton emphatically. “Don’t you go putting your finger into a pie you know nothing of. There’s not a cottage in the place fit for a young lady to set her foot in. There’s a vast deal too much of young women’s meddling in these days; and as for Elderthwaite, there’s an old Methody, as they call him, who groans away to the soberer folks, and comforts their hearts in his own fashion. What could a chit of a lass like you do for them? Go and captivate the Frenchman with your round eyes—you’ve a grand pair of them—and give me a kiss.”
Parson Seyton put out his hand and drew her towards him.
“But, uncle,” she stammered, yielding to the kiss in such utter confusion of mind that she hardly knew what she was doing—“But, uncle, do youlikethat Methodist to—to attract the people?”
“Bless your heart, child, people must have their religion their own way. They’d stare to hearmeconvicting them of their sins. ‘What’s the parson done with his own?’ they’d ask. But it comforts them like blankets and broth, and it’s little they get of either,” with a side glance at his sister; “so I take good care to keep out of the way. I told Cherry Lester I should go and hear him some Sunday afternoon. ‘Hope it would do you good, parson,’ says he, coolly. Eh, he’s a fine lad. What a confounded fool old Lester must think himself to have this foreign fellow ready to step into his place.”
“Are you and Cheriton as great friends as ever, uncle?” asked Ruth.
“Friends! Oh, he’s like Virginia here. Wants to teach me a lesson now and then. Got me over last year to their grand meeting of clergy and laity for educational purposes, and there I was up on the platform with the best of them.”
“Did you make a speech, uncle?” asked Ruth.
“I did, my lass, I did! When they had quarrelled and disputed, and couldn’t by any means agree, some one asked my opinion, and I said, ‘My lord,’—Lord — was there, you know,—‘and my reverend brethren, having no knowledge whatever of the subject, I have no opinion to give.’ And old Thorold—he comes from the other side of the county, mind you,—remarked that ‘Mr Seyton’s old-fashioned wisdom might find followers with advantage.’ Ha—ha—you should have seen Cherry’s blue eyes down below on the benches when I gave him a wink! ‘Old-fashioned wisdom,’ Miss Virginia; don’t you despise it.”
“Hallo, uncle!” shouted Harry, putting his head in, “here’s a fellow come tearing up to say the wedding’s waited an hour, and if the parson isn’t quick they’ll do without him.”
“Bless my soul, I forgot all about ’em. Coming—coming—and I’ll give ’em a couple of rabbits for the wedding dinner. Virginia’ll never ask me to marry her, that’s certain.” And off strode the parson, while poor Virginia, scandalised and perplexed as she was, was fain, like every one else, to laugh at him.
Chapter Ten.The Old Parson.“He gave not of that text a pulled henThat saith that hunters ben not holy men.”Perhaps no amount of angry opposition to her wishes could so have perplexed Virginia as her uncle’snonchalance, which, whether cynical or genial, seemed to remove him from the ranks of responsible beings, and to make him a law unto himself. When we read of young high-souled martyrs, we are apt to fancy that their way was plain before them; that however hard to their flesh, it was at least clear to their spirit; that Agnes or Cecilia, however much afflicted by the wickedness of their adversaries, were never perplexed by anything in them that was perhaps not wicked. Virginia Seyton was full of desires as pure, wishes as warm to lead the higher life, was capable of as much “enthusiasm of humanity” as any maiden who defied torture and death; but she was confronted by a kind of difficulty that made her feel like a naughty girl; the means to fulfil her purpose were open to so much objection that she could hardly hold firmly to the end in view. It may seem a very old difficulty, but it came upon her as a startling surprise that so much evil could be permitted by those who were not altogether devoid of good. For she was inclined to be sorry for this jolly, genial uncle, and not to wish to vex him; while yet his every practice and sentiment was such as she had been rightly taught to disapprove.Anxious for a chance of settling her confused ideas, she slipped away by herself, and went out into the muddy lanes, heedless of a fast-falling shower.The thaw had set in rapidly, and rich tints of brown, green, and yellow succeeded to the cold whiteness of the snow on moor and hill-side. A thaw, when the snow has fairly gone, even in the depth of winter, has a certain likeness to spring; the violent, buffeting wind was warm and soft, and the sky, instead of one pale sheet of blue, showed every variety of wild rain-cloud and driven mist.Virginia plunged on through the mud with a perplexity in her soul as blinding as the tears that rose and confused the landscape already half-blotted out by wreaths of mountain mist. Suddenly, as she turned a corner, something bounced up against her, nearly knocking her down, and a voice exclaimed,—“Down, Rolla! How dare you, sir! Oh, dear me, how sorry I am! that great brute has covered you with mud;” and Cheriton Lester, very muddy himself, and holding by the neck an object hardly recognisable as Buffer, appeared before her.“I was very muddy before,” said Virginia. “Why, what has happened to the puppy?”“He fell into the ditch. Nettie will wash him; it’s her favourite amusement. I was coming up here to ask after a young fellow I know, who works at this farm; he hasn’t been going on very well lately.”“I suppose you know every one in Oakby,” said Virginia, abruptly.“Pretty well,” answered Cherry. “I couldn’t help doing so.”“I should like to know the people in Elderthwaite,” said Virginia.“It would be a very good thing for some of them if you did.”“Ah!” she said, suddenly, “but Uncle James will not let me do so.”“Ah!” said Cherry, with an inflection in his voice that Virginia did not understand. Then he added quickly, “What did you want to do?”“I wanted,” said Virginia, moved, she hardly knew why, to confidence as they walked on side by side, “to go to the cottages sometimes, and perhaps teach some of the children. Don’t you think it would be right?”“I think it would hardly do for you to go about at haphazard among the cottagers.”“But why? I am used to poor people,” said Virginia.Her sentences were short, because she was afraid of letting her voice tremble; but she looked at him earnestly, and how could he tell her that many of the people whom she wished to benefit owed her family grudges deep enough to make her unwelcome within their walls, how betray to her that the revelations they might make to her would affect her relations to her own family more than she could hope to affect their lives in return. But Cheriton was never deaf to other people’s troubles, and he answered with great gentleness—“Because we’re a rough set up here in the North, and they would scarcely understand your kind motives. But the children—I wish you could get hold of them! I do wish something could be done for them. What did the old parson say to you?”“He said he didn’t approve of education.”“Oh, that’s no matter at all! I declare I think I see how you might do it, and we’ll make the parson hunt up a class for you himself! What! you don’t believe me? You will see. Could you go down to the vicarage on Sunday mornings?”“Oh, yes! but Uncle James—”“Oh, I’ll make him come round. They might send over some benches from Oakby, and the children would do very well in the vicarage hall.”“But, Cheriton,” exclaimed the astonished Virginia, “you can’tknowwhat my uncle said about it!”“He said, ‘Eh, they’re a bad lot. No use meddling with them,’ didn’t he?” said Cheriton, in the very tone of the old parson.“Something like it.”“Never mind. He would like to see them a better lot in his heart, as well as you or I would.”“Ruth says he is really very kind,” said Virginia; “and I think he means to be.”“Ah, yes, your cousin knows all our odd ways, you know. She is with you?”“Yes, she came yesterday.”“Ah! she knows that heisa very kind old boy. He loves every stone in Elderthwaite, and you would be surprised to find how fond some of the people are of him. Now I’ll go and see him, and come and tell you what he says. May I?”“To be sure,” said Virginia, “and perhaps then Aunt Julia will not object.”“Oh, no, not to this plan,” said Cherry. He called Rolla, and went in search of the parson.Cherry liked management; it was partly the inheritance of his father’s desire for influence, and partly his tender and genial nature, which made him take so much interest in people as to enjoy having a finger in every pie. As he walked along, he contrived every detail of his plan.Jack was wont to observe that Elderthwaite was a blot on the face of the earth, and a disgrace to any system, ecclesiastical or political, that rendered it possible. But then Jack was much devoted to his young house-master, and wrote essays for his benefit, one of which was entitled, “On the Evils inherent in every existing Form of Government,” so that he felt it consistent to be critical. Cheriton had a soft spot in his heart for a long existing form of anything.He soon arrived at the vicarage, a picturesque old house, built half of stone and half of black and white plaster. It was large, with great overgrown stables and farm-buildings, all much out of repair. Cheriton found the parson sitting in the old oak dining-room before a blazing fire, smoking his pipe. Some remains of luncheon were on the table, and the parson was evidently enjoying a glass of something hot after it. Cheriton entered with little ceremony.“How d’ye do, Parson?” he said.“Ha, Cherry! how d’ye do, my lad? Sit down and have some lunch. What d’ye take? there’s a glass of port in the sideboard.”“Thanks, I’d rather have a glass of beer and some Stilton,” said Cherry, seating himself.As he spoke, a little bit of an old woman came in with some cold pheasant and a jug of beer, which she placed before him. She was wrinkled up almost to nothing, but her steps were active enough, and she had lived with Parson Seyton all his life.“Ay, Deborah knows your tastes. And what do you want of me?”“I want to give you a lecture, Parson,” said Cherry coolly.“The deuce you do? Out with it, then.”“Virginia has been telling me that you will not let her teach the little kids on a Sunday.”“Bless my soul, Cheriton! d’ye think I’m going to let the girl run all over the place and hear tales of her father and brothers, and may be of myself into the bargain?”“No,” said Cherry; “but you ought to be very much obliged to her, Parson. It’s a shame to see those little ruffians. Now you’re going to call on half-a-dozen decentish people and tell them to send their children down here of a Sunday morning at ten o’clock. Virginia will teach them in the hall. I’ll get them to send over a couple of forms from Oakby. Don’t let her begin with above a dozen, and don’t have any big boys at first. Deborah might give them a bit of cake now and again to make the lessons go down. What do you say?”“I say you’re the coolest hand in Westmoreland, and enough to wile the flounders out of the frith!” said the old parson, as Cherry peeped at him over his shoulder to see the effect of his words.“What are we coming to?”“A model school, perhaps.”“And a model parson. Eh, Cherry, these enlightened days can’t do with the old lot much longer.”“Oh, you’re moving with the times,” said Cherry, as he came and stood with his back to the fire, looking down at the parson as he filled his pipe, and smiling at him. Perhaps no other being in the world could have got Parson Seyton to consent to such an innovation, but he loved Cheriton Lester, who little knew how much self-respect the allegiance of his high-principled, promising youth was worth to the queer old sporting parson. One atom of pretence or of priggishness in a well-conducted correct young man would have been of all things odious to him, but the shrewd old man believed in Cheriton to the backbone, and of all the admiration and affection that the popular young man had won perhaps none did him so much credit as the love that made him a sort of good angel to rough Parson Seyton.“You got my best dog out of me when I gave you Rolla,” he said, “so I suppose you’ll have your own way now.”“And it’ll turn out quite as well as Rolla,” said Cherry rather illogically.Parson Seyton set about fulfilling his promise after a manner of his own.He rapped with his dog-whip at a cottage door and thus addressed the mother:—“Eh, Betty, there’s a grand new start in Elderthwaite. Here’s Miss Virginia going to turn all the children into first-rate scholars. Wash them up and send them over to my house on Sunday morning, and I’ll give a penny to the cleanest, and a licking to any one that doesn’t mind his manners.”If Parson Seyton had been a school-board visitor he could hardly have put the matter more plainly, and on the whole could hardly have adopted language more likely to be effectual.
“He gave not of that text a pulled henThat saith that hunters ben not holy men.”
“He gave not of that text a pulled henThat saith that hunters ben not holy men.”
Perhaps no amount of angry opposition to her wishes could so have perplexed Virginia as her uncle’snonchalance, which, whether cynical or genial, seemed to remove him from the ranks of responsible beings, and to make him a law unto himself. When we read of young high-souled martyrs, we are apt to fancy that their way was plain before them; that however hard to their flesh, it was at least clear to their spirit; that Agnes or Cecilia, however much afflicted by the wickedness of their adversaries, were never perplexed by anything in them that was perhaps not wicked. Virginia Seyton was full of desires as pure, wishes as warm to lead the higher life, was capable of as much “enthusiasm of humanity” as any maiden who defied torture and death; but she was confronted by a kind of difficulty that made her feel like a naughty girl; the means to fulfil her purpose were open to so much objection that she could hardly hold firmly to the end in view. It may seem a very old difficulty, but it came upon her as a startling surprise that so much evil could be permitted by those who were not altogether devoid of good. For she was inclined to be sorry for this jolly, genial uncle, and not to wish to vex him; while yet his every practice and sentiment was such as she had been rightly taught to disapprove.
Anxious for a chance of settling her confused ideas, she slipped away by herself, and went out into the muddy lanes, heedless of a fast-falling shower.
The thaw had set in rapidly, and rich tints of brown, green, and yellow succeeded to the cold whiteness of the snow on moor and hill-side. A thaw, when the snow has fairly gone, even in the depth of winter, has a certain likeness to spring; the violent, buffeting wind was warm and soft, and the sky, instead of one pale sheet of blue, showed every variety of wild rain-cloud and driven mist.
Virginia plunged on through the mud with a perplexity in her soul as blinding as the tears that rose and confused the landscape already half-blotted out by wreaths of mountain mist. Suddenly, as she turned a corner, something bounced up against her, nearly knocking her down, and a voice exclaimed,—
“Down, Rolla! How dare you, sir! Oh, dear me, how sorry I am! that great brute has covered you with mud;” and Cheriton Lester, very muddy himself, and holding by the neck an object hardly recognisable as Buffer, appeared before her.
“I was very muddy before,” said Virginia. “Why, what has happened to the puppy?”
“He fell into the ditch. Nettie will wash him; it’s her favourite amusement. I was coming up here to ask after a young fellow I know, who works at this farm; he hasn’t been going on very well lately.”
“I suppose you know every one in Oakby,” said Virginia, abruptly.
“Pretty well,” answered Cherry. “I couldn’t help doing so.”
“I should like to know the people in Elderthwaite,” said Virginia.
“It would be a very good thing for some of them if you did.”
“Ah!” she said, suddenly, “but Uncle James will not let me do so.”
“Ah!” said Cherry, with an inflection in his voice that Virginia did not understand. Then he added quickly, “What did you want to do?”
“I wanted,” said Virginia, moved, she hardly knew why, to confidence as they walked on side by side, “to go to the cottages sometimes, and perhaps teach some of the children. Don’t you think it would be right?”
“I think it would hardly do for you to go about at haphazard among the cottagers.”
“But why? I am used to poor people,” said Virginia.
Her sentences were short, because she was afraid of letting her voice tremble; but she looked at him earnestly, and how could he tell her that many of the people whom she wished to benefit owed her family grudges deep enough to make her unwelcome within their walls, how betray to her that the revelations they might make to her would affect her relations to her own family more than she could hope to affect their lives in return. But Cheriton was never deaf to other people’s troubles, and he answered with great gentleness—
“Because we’re a rough set up here in the North, and they would scarcely understand your kind motives. But the children—I wish you could get hold of them! I do wish something could be done for them. What did the old parson say to you?”
“He said he didn’t approve of education.”
“Oh, that’s no matter at all! I declare I think I see how you might do it, and we’ll make the parson hunt up a class for you himself! What! you don’t believe me? You will see. Could you go down to the vicarage on Sunday mornings?”
“Oh, yes! but Uncle James—”
“Oh, I’ll make him come round. They might send over some benches from Oakby, and the children would do very well in the vicarage hall.”
“But, Cheriton,” exclaimed the astonished Virginia, “you can’tknowwhat my uncle said about it!”
“He said, ‘Eh, they’re a bad lot. No use meddling with them,’ didn’t he?” said Cheriton, in the very tone of the old parson.
“Something like it.”
“Never mind. He would like to see them a better lot in his heart, as well as you or I would.”
“Ruth says he is really very kind,” said Virginia; “and I think he means to be.”
“Ah, yes, your cousin knows all our odd ways, you know. She is with you?”
“Yes, she came yesterday.”
“Ah! she knows that heisa very kind old boy. He loves every stone in Elderthwaite, and you would be surprised to find how fond some of the people are of him. Now I’ll go and see him, and come and tell you what he says. May I?”
“To be sure,” said Virginia, “and perhaps then Aunt Julia will not object.”
“Oh, no, not to this plan,” said Cherry. He called Rolla, and went in search of the parson.
Cherry liked management; it was partly the inheritance of his father’s desire for influence, and partly his tender and genial nature, which made him take so much interest in people as to enjoy having a finger in every pie. As he walked along, he contrived every detail of his plan.
Jack was wont to observe that Elderthwaite was a blot on the face of the earth, and a disgrace to any system, ecclesiastical or political, that rendered it possible. But then Jack was much devoted to his young house-master, and wrote essays for his benefit, one of which was entitled, “On the Evils inherent in every existing Form of Government,” so that he felt it consistent to be critical. Cheriton had a soft spot in his heart for a long existing form of anything.
He soon arrived at the vicarage, a picturesque old house, built half of stone and half of black and white plaster. It was large, with great overgrown stables and farm-buildings, all much out of repair. Cheriton found the parson sitting in the old oak dining-room before a blazing fire, smoking his pipe. Some remains of luncheon were on the table, and the parson was evidently enjoying a glass of something hot after it. Cheriton entered with little ceremony.
“How d’ye do, Parson?” he said.
“Ha, Cherry! how d’ye do, my lad? Sit down and have some lunch. What d’ye take? there’s a glass of port in the sideboard.”
“Thanks, I’d rather have a glass of beer and some Stilton,” said Cherry, seating himself.
As he spoke, a little bit of an old woman came in with some cold pheasant and a jug of beer, which she placed before him. She was wrinkled up almost to nothing, but her steps were active enough, and she had lived with Parson Seyton all his life.
“Ay, Deborah knows your tastes. And what do you want of me?”
“I want to give you a lecture, Parson,” said Cherry coolly.
“The deuce you do? Out with it, then.”
“Virginia has been telling me that you will not let her teach the little kids on a Sunday.”
“Bless my soul, Cheriton! d’ye think I’m going to let the girl run all over the place and hear tales of her father and brothers, and may be of myself into the bargain?”
“No,” said Cherry; “but you ought to be very much obliged to her, Parson. It’s a shame to see those little ruffians. Now you’re going to call on half-a-dozen decentish people and tell them to send their children down here of a Sunday morning at ten o’clock. Virginia will teach them in the hall. I’ll get them to send over a couple of forms from Oakby. Don’t let her begin with above a dozen, and don’t have any big boys at first. Deborah might give them a bit of cake now and again to make the lessons go down. What do you say?”
“I say you’re the coolest hand in Westmoreland, and enough to wile the flounders out of the frith!” said the old parson, as Cherry peeped at him over his shoulder to see the effect of his words.
“What are we coming to?”
“A model school, perhaps.”
“And a model parson. Eh, Cherry, these enlightened days can’t do with the old lot much longer.”
“Oh, you’re moving with the times,” said Cherry, as he came and stood with his back to the fire, looking down at the parson as he filled his pipe, and smiling at him. Perhaps no other being in the world could have got Parson Seyton to consent to such an innovation, but he loved Cheriton Lester, who little knew how much self-respect the allegiance of his high-principled, promising youth was worth to the queer old sporting parson. One atom of pretence or of priggishness in a well-conducted correct young man would have been of all things odious to him, but the shrewd old man believed in Cheriton to the backbone, and of all the admiration and affection that the popular young man had won perhaps none did him so much credit as the love that made him a sort of good angel to rough Parson Seyton.
“You got my best dog out of me when I gave you Rolla,” he said, “so I suppose you’ll have your own way now.”
“And it’ll turn out quite as well as Rolla,” said Cherry rather illogically.
Parson Seyton set about fulfilling his promise after a manner of his own.
He rapped with his dog-whip at a cottage door and thus addressed the mother:—
“Eh, Betty, there’s a grand new start in Elderthwaite. Here’s Miss Virginia going to turn all the children into first-rate scholars. Wash them up and send them over to my house on Sunday morning, and I’ll give a penny to the cleanest, and a licking to any one that doesn’t mind his manners.”
If Parson Seyton had been a school-board visitor he could hardly have put the matter more plainly, and on the whole could hardly have adopted language more likely to be effectual.
Chapter Eleven.Alvar Confidential.“He talked of daggers and of darts,Of passions and of pains.”The rain had ceased, and long pale rays of sunshine were streaming through the mist as Cheriton made his way through a very dilapidated turnstile and across a footpath much in need of drainage towards Elderthwaite House. As he came up through the overgrown shrubberies he saw in front of him a small fur-clothed figure, and his colour deepened and his heart beat faster as he recognised Ruth. He had been thinking that he should see her ever since his promise to Virginia, but he had not expected to meet her out-of-doors on so wet a day, and he had hardly a word to say as he lifted his hat and came up to her. She was less discomposed, perhaps less astonished.“Ah! how do you do?” she said. “Do you know when I saw some one coming I hoped it might be your new brother. I amsocurious to see him.”“He is not a bit like any of us,” said Cherry.“No? That would be a change, for all you Lesters are so exactly alike.”Ruth had a way of saying saucy things in a soft serious voice, with grave eyes just ready to laugh. Cheriton and she had had many a passage of arms together, and now he rallied his forces and answered,—“Being new, of course he’ll be charming. Rupert and Jack and I will know all our partners are longing for him. But as he can only dance with one young lady at a time, in the intervals I shall hope—I am much improved in my waltzing—just to get a turn.”“Really improved—at last?” said Ruth; then suddenly changing to sympathy—“But isn’t it very strange for you all? How do you get on? How doyoulike him?”“Oh, he isn’t half a bad fellow, and we’re excellent friends.”“That’s very good of you. Now I have such a bad disposition that if I were in your place I should be half mad with jealousy.”Cheriton laughed incredulously.“I daresay you would stroke us all down the right way. Rupert says he feels as if he were lighting his cigar in a powder-magazine. But they get on very well, and Grace and Mary Cheriton think him perfectly charming.”“I think I shall come to the ball in a mantilla. But have you done anything for poor Virginia?”“Oh, yes; the old parson only wanted a little explanation,” said Cherry, quite carelessly enough to encourage Ruth in adding earnestly,—“It issogood of her to want to help these poor people. Queenie is like a girl in a book. I really think she likes disagreeable duties.”“I am sure you, who can sympathise with Virginia and yet know all the troubles, will be able to make it smooth for her. I wish you would.”“Ah, but I am not nearly so good as Virginia,” said Ruth—a perfectly true statement, which she herself believed. Whether she expected Cheriton to believe it was a different matter.Alvar had no excuse now for finding Oakby dull; the house was full of people, Lady Cheriton and her daughters were enchanted with his music, and he brightened up considerably and was off Cheriton’s mind, so that nothing spoilt the radiance of enjoyment that transfigured all the commonplace gaiety into a fairy dream. The younger ones found the times less good. Jack was shy and bored by fine people, Bob hated his dress clothes, Nettie was teased by Rupert, who varied between treating her as a Tomboy and flattering her as an incipient beauty, and thought her grandmother’s restrictions to white muslin and blue ribbons hard. But Mrs Lester had no notion of letting her forestall her career as a county beauty.When Cheriton came back from Elderthwaite he found the whole party by the hall fire in the full tide of discussion and chatter, Nettie on the rug with Buffer in her arms complaining of the white muslin.“Sha’n’t I look horrid, Rupert?”“Frightful; but as you’ll be sure to bring Buffer into the ball-room he’d tear anything more magnificent.”“I sha’n’t bring in Buffer! Rupert, what an idea! He’ll be shut up, poor darling! But at least I may turn up my hair, and I shall. I’m quite tall enough.”“Turn your hair up? Don’t you do anything of the sort, Nettie. Little girls are fashionable, and yellow manes and muslin frocks will carry the day against wreaths and silk dresses. You let your hair alone, and then people will know it’s all real by-and-by.”“Well, I’d much rather turn it up,” said Nettie simply.“Well, perhaps I would,” said Rupert. “Fellows might say you let it down on purpose.”Rupert conveyed a great deal of admiration of the golden locks in his tone, but Nettie, though vain enough, was insensible to veiled flattery.“Plait it up, Nettie,” said Cherry briefly.“If anybody thought I did such a nasty, mean, affected thing as that I’d never speak to him again.Never! I’d cut it all off sooner,” cried Nettie.“Young ladies’ hair does come down sometimes,” said Rupert; “when it’s long enough.”“Minenevershall,” said Nettie emphatically.“Don’t do it yourself, then,” said Cherry.“If Nettie ever takes to horrid, affected, flirting ways,” said Jack, who had joined the party, “I for one shall have nothing more to say to her.”“You don’t admire flirts, Jack?” said Rupert.“I don’t approve of them,” said Jack crossly.“Oh, come, come, now, Jack, that’s very severe.”“Poor Jack!” said Cherry; “he speaks from personal experience. There was that heartless girl last summer, who, after hours of serious conversation with him, went off to play croquet with Tom Hubbard, and gave him a moss-rose-bud. Poor Jack! it was a blow; he can’t recover from it! It has affected all his views of life, you see.”“Poor fellow!” said Rupert, as Jack forcibly stopped Cherry’s mouth; “I’d no notion it was a personal matter. Will she be at the ball?”“No; you see, we avoided asking her.”“Cherry!” interposed the disgusted Jack, “how can you go on in this way! It’s all his humbug, Rupert.”This serious denial produced, of course, shouts of laughter—in the midst of which Alvar entered and joined himself to the group round the fire as they waited for the arrival of some friends of Cheriton’s.“And what have you been about?” asked Cherry.“I have been singing with your cousins. Ah, it is pleasant when there are those who like music!”“You found all these fellows awful savages, didn’t you?” said Rupert.Alvar turned his great dark eyes on Cheriton with the same sort of expression with which Rolla was wont to watch him.“Ah, no,” he said; “my brother is not a savage. But I do like young ladies.”“But I thought,” said Rupert, “that in Spain young ladies were always under a duenna, so that there was no chance of an afternoon over the piano?”“But I assure you Miladi Cheriton was present,” said Alvar seriously.“Oh, that alters the question!” said Rupert. “But come, now, we have been hearing Jack’s views—let us have your confessions. Is the duennaalwaysthere, Alvar?”“Here is my sister,” said Alvar, with the oddest sort of simplicity, and yet with a tone that conveyed a sort of reproach to Rupert and—for the first time—of proprietorship in Nettie.Rupert burst into a shout of laughter: “My dear fellow, what are you going to tell us?”“She is a young girl; surely even here you do not say everything to her?” said Alvar, looking perplexed.“By Jove, no!” said Rupert; “not exactly.”“Since Nettie is here, we should not have asked you to tell us anything we did not wish her to hear,” said Cheriton, with a sense of annoyance that Alvar should be laughed at.“Youdid not ask me,” said Alvar quietly.At this moment Bob called Nettie so emphatically, that she was obliged unwillingly to go away.“Now then, Alvar,” said Rupert, “now for it. We won’t be shocked. Tell us how you work the duennas.”“It would not have been well to explain that to Nettie,” said Alvar seriously.“Why not?” said Jack, suddenly boiling up. “Do you thinkshewould ever cheat or want a duenna? English girls can always be trusted!”“Canthey?” said Rupert. “Shut up, Jack; you don’t understand. We only want you to tell us how you do in Spain.Affaires du coeur—you know, Alvar.”Alvar looked round with an air half-shrewd, half-sentimental; while Cheriton listened a little seriously. He knew very little of Alvar’s former life; perhaps because he had been too reticent to ask him questions; perhaps because Alvar found himself in the presence of a standard higher than he was accustomed to. Anyway, Nettie might have heard his present revelations.“There was a time,” he said, sighing, “when I did not intend to come to England—when I had sworn to be for ever a Spaniard. Ah, my cousin, if you had seen my Luisa, you would not have wondered. I sang under her window; I went to mass that I might gaze on her.”“Did you now? Foreign customs!” interposed Rupert; while Cherry laughed, though he felt they were hardly treating Alvar fairly.“I knew not how to speak to her. She was never alone; and it was whispered that she was already betrothed. But one day she dropped her fan.”“No, no—surely?” said Cherry.“I seized it, I kissed it, I held it to my heart,” said Alvar, evidently enjoying the narration, “and I returned it. There were looks between us—then words. Ah, I lived in her smiles. We met, we exchanged vows, and I was happy!”Rupert listened to this speech with amusement, which he could hardly stifle. It was inexpressibly ludicrous to Cheriton; but the fun was lost in the wonder whether Alvar meant what he said. This was neither like the joking sentiment nor the pretended indifference of an Englishman’s reference to such passages in his life; yet the memory evidently cost Alvar no pain. Jack sat, looking totally disgusted.“At last,” Alvar went on, “we were discovered. Ah, and then my grandfather was enraged, and her parents, they refused their consent, since she was betrothed already. I am an Englishman, and I do not weep when I am grieved, but my heart was a stone. I despaired.”“She must have been a horrid little flirt not to tell you she was engaged,” said Jack.“She did not know it till we had met,” said Alvar.“What awful tyranny!”“Ah, and she was your only love!” sighed Rupert.“No,” said Alvar simply, “I have loved others; but she was the most beautiful. But I submitted, and now I forget her!”“Hm—the truest wisdom,” said Rupert.Cherry was growing angry. He did not think that Rupert had any business to make fun of Alvar, and he was in a rage with Alvar for making himself ridiculous. That Alvar should tell a true love-tale with sentimental satisfaction to an admiring audience, or sigh over a flirtation which ought to have been a good joke, was equally distasteful to him. He burst out suddenly, with all his Lester bluntness, and in a tone which Alvar had hitherto heard only from Jack,—“If you fellows are not all tired of talking such intolerable nonsense, I am. It’s too bad of you,” with a sharp look at Rupert. “I don’t see that it’s any affair of ours.”“You’re not sympathetic,” said Rupert, as he moved away; for he was quite familiar enough with his cousins for such giving and taking.
“He talked of daggers and of darts,Of passions and of pains.”
“He talked of daggers and of darts,Of passions and of pains.”
The rain had ceased, and long pale rays of sunshine were streaming through the mist as Cheriton made his way through a very dilapidated turnstile and across a footpath much in need of drainage towards Elderthwaite House. As he came up through the overgrown shrubberies he saw in front of him a small fur-clothed figure, and his colour deepened and his heart beat faster as he recognised Ruth. He had been thinking that he should see her ever since his promise to Virginia, but he had not expected to meet her out-of-doors on so wet a day, and he had hardly a word to say as he lifted his hat and came up to her. She was less discomposed, perhaps less astonished.
“Ah! how do you do?” she said. “Do you know when I saw some one coming I hoped it might be your new brother. I amsocurious to see him.”
“He is not a bit like any of us,” said Cherry.
“No? That would be a change, for all you Lesters are so exactly alike.”
Ruth had a way of saying saucy things in a soft serious voice, with grave eyes just ready to laugh. Cheriton and she had had many a passage of arms together, and now he rallied his forces and answered,—
“Being new, of course he’ll be charming. Rupert and Jack and I will know all our partners are longing for him. But as he can only dance with one young lady at a time, in the intervals I shall hope—I am much improved in my waltzing—just to get a turn.”
“Really improved—at last?” said Ruth; then suddenly changing to sympathy—“But isn’t it very strange for you all? How do you get on? How doyoulike him?”
“Oh, he isn’t half a bad fellow, and we’re excellent friends.”
“That’s very good of you. Now I have such a bad disposition that if I were in your place I should be half mad with jealousy.”
Cheriton laughed incredulously.
“I daresay you would stroke us all down the right way. Rupert says he feels as if he were lighting his cigar in a powder-magazine. But they get on very well, and Grace and Mary Cheriton think him perfectly charming.”
“I think I shall come to the ball in a mantilla. But have you done anything for poor Virginia?”
“Oh, yes; the old parson only wanted a little explanation,” said Cherry, quite carelessly enough to encourage Ruth in adding earnestly,—
“It issogood of her to want to help these poor people. Queenie is like a girl in a book. I really think she likes disagreeable duties.”
“I am sure you, who can sympathise with Virginia and yet know all the troubles, will be able to make it smooth for her. I wish you would.”
“Ah, but I am not nearly so good as Virginia,” said Ruth—a perfectly true statement, which she herself believed. Whether she expected Cheriton to believe it was a different matter.
Alvar had no excuse now for finding Oakby dull; the house was full of people, Lady Cheriton and her daughters were enchanted with his music, and he brightened up considerably and was off Cheriton’s mind, so that nothing spoilt the radiance of enjoyment that transfigured all the commonplace gaiety into a fairy dream. The younger ones found the times less good. Jack was shy and bored by fine people, Bob hated his dress clothes, Nettie was teased by Rupert, who varied between treating her as a Tomboy and flattering her as an incipient beauty, and thought her grandmother’s restrictions to white muslin and blue ribbons hard. But Mrs Lester had no notion of letting her forestall her career as a county beauty.
When Cheriton came back from Elderthwaite he found the whole party by the hall fire in the full tide of discussion and chatter, Nettie on the rug with Buffer in her arms complaining of the white muslin.
“Sha’n’t I look horrid, Rupert?”
“Frightful; but as you’ll be sure to bring Buffer into the ball-room he’d tear anything more magnificent.”
“I sha’n’t bring in Buffer! Rupert, what an idea! He’ll be shut up, poor darling! But at least I may turn up my hair, and I shall. I’m quite tall enough.”
“Turn your hair up? Don’t you do anything of the sort, Nettie. Little girls are fashionable, and yellow manes and muslin frocks will carry the day against wreaths and silk dresses. You let your hair alone, and then people will know it’s all real by-and-by.”
“Well, I’d much rather turn it up,” said Nettie simply.
“Well, perhaps I would,” said Rupert. “Fellows might say you let it down on purpose.”
Rupert conveyed a great deal of admiration of the golden locks in his tone, but Nettie, though vain enough, was insensible to veiled flattery.
“Plait it up, Nettie,” said Cherry briefly.
“If anybody thought I did such a nasty, mean, affected thing as that I’d never speak to him again.Never! I’d cut it all off sooner,” cried Nettie.
“Young ladies’ hair does come down sometimes,” said Rupert; “when it’s long enough.”
“Minenevershall,” said Nettie emphatically.
“Don’t do it yourself, then,” said Cherry.
“If Nettie ever takes to horrid, affected, flirting ways,” said Jack, who had joined the party, “I for one shall have nothing more to say to her.”
“You don’t admire flirts, Jack?” said Rupert.
“I don’t approve of them,” said Jack crossly.
“Oh, come, come, now, Jack, that’s very severe.”
“Poor Jack!” said Cherry; “he speaks from personal experience. There was that heartless girl last summer, who, after hours of serious conversation with him, went off to play croquet with Tom Hubbard, and gave him a moss-rose-bud. Poor Jack! it was a blow; he can’t recover from it! It has affected all his views of life, you see.”
“Poor fellow!” said Rupert, as Jack forcibly stopped Cherry’s mouth; “I’d no notion it was a personal matter. Will she be at the ball?”
“No; you see, we avoided asking her.”
“Cherry!” interposed the disgusted Jack, “how can you go on in this way! It’s all his humbug, Rupert.”
This serious denial produced, of course, shouts of laughter—in the midst of which Alvar entered and joined himself to the group round the fire as they waited for the arrival of some friends of Cheriton’s.
“And what have you been about?” asked Cherry.
“I have been singing with your cousins. Ah, it is pleasant when there are those who like music!”
“You found all these fellows awful savages, didn’t you?” said Rupert.
Alvar turned his great dark eyes on Cheriton with the same sort of expression with which Rolla was wont to watch him.
“Ah, no,” he said; “my brother is not a savage. But I do like young ladies.”
“But I thought,” said Rupert, “that in Spain young ladies were always under a duenna, so that there was no chance of an afternoon over the piano?”
“But I assure you Miladi Cheriton was present,” said Alvar seriously.
“Oh, that alters the question!” said Rupert. “But come, now, we have been hearing Jack’s views—let us have your confessions. Is the duennaalwaysthere, Alvar?”
“Here is my sister,” said Alvar, with the oddest sort of simplicity, and yet with a tone that conveyed a sort of reproach to Rupert and—for the first time—of proprietorship in Nettie.
Rupert burst into a shout of laughter: “My dear fellow, what are you going to tell us?”
“She is a young girl; surely even here you do not say everything to her?” said Alvar, looking perplexed.
“By Jove, no!” said Rupert; “not exactly.”
“Since Nettie is here, we should not have asked you to tell us anything we did not wish her to hear,” said Cheriton, with a sense of annoyance that Alvar should be laughed at.
“Youdid not ask me,” said Alvar quietly.
At this moment Bob called Nettie so emphatically, that she was obliged unwillingly to go away.
“Now then, Alvar,” said Rupert, “now for it. We won’t be shocked. Tell us how you work the duennas.”
“It would not have been well to explain that to Nettie,” said Alvar seriously.
“Why not?” said Jack, suddenly boiling up. “Do you thinkshewould ever cheat or want a duenna? English girls can always be trusted!”
“Canthey?” said Rupert. “Shut up, Jack; you don’t understand. We only want you to tell us how you do in Spain.Affaires du coeur—you know, Alvar.”
Alvar looked round with an air half-shrewd, half-sentimental; while Cheriton listened a little seriously. He knew very little of Alvar’s former life; perhaps because he had been too reticent to ask him questions; perhaps because Alvar found himself in the presence of a standard higher than he was accustomed to. Anyway, Nettie might have heard his present revelations.
“There was a time,” he said, sighing, “when I did not intend to come to England—when I had sworn to be for ever a Spaniard. Ah, my cousin, if you had seen my Luisa, you would not have wondered. I sang under her window; I went to mass that I might gaze on her.”
“Did you now? Foreign customs!” interposed Rupert; while Cherry laughed, though he felt they were hardly treating Alvar fairly.
“I knew not how to speak to her. She was never alone; and it was whispered that she was already betrothed. But one day she dropped her fan.”
“No, no—surely?” said Cherry.
“I seized it, I kissed it, I held it to my heart,” said Alvar, evidently enjoying the narration, “and I returned it. There were looks between us—then words. Ah, I lived in her smiles. We met, we exchanged vows, and I was happy!”
Rupert listened to this speech with amusement, which he could hardly stifle. It was inexpressibly ludicrous to Cheriton; but the fun was lost in the wonder whether Alvar meant what he said. This was neither like the joking sentiment nor the pretended indifference of an Englishman’s reference to such passages in his life; yet the memory evidently cost Alvar no pain. Jack sat, looking totally disgusted.
“At last,” Alvar went on, “we were discovered. Ah, and then my grandfather was enraged, and her parents, they refused their consent, since she was betrothed already. I am an Englishman, and I do not weep when I am grieved, but my heart was a stone. I despaired.”
“She must have been a horrid little flirt not to tell you she was engaged,” said Jack.
“She did not know it till we had met,” said Alvar.
“What awful tyranny!”
“Ah, and she was your only love!” sighed Rupert.
“No,” said Alvar simply, “I have loved others; but she was the most beautiful. But I submitted, and now I forget her!”
“Hm—the truest wisdom,” said Rupert.
Cherry was growing angry. He did not think that Rupert had any business to make fun of Alvar, and he was in a rage with Alvar for making himself ridiculous. That Alvar should tell a true love-tale with sentimental satisfaction to an admiring audience, or sigh over a flirtation which ought to have been a good joke, was equally distasteful to him. He burst out suddenly, with all his Lester bluntness, and in a tone which Alvar had hitherto heard only from Jack,—
“If you fellows are not all tired of talking such intolerable nonsense, I am. It’s too bad of you,” with a sharp look at Rupert. “I don’t see that it’s any affair of ours.”
“You’re not sympathetic,” said Rupert, as he moved away; for he was quite familiar enough with his cousins for such giving and taking.