Chapter Two.
San José
“The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps,
The purple flowers droop.”
At Gibraltar the new acquaintances parted, and Mr Stanforth and his daughter went at once to join their friends at San José, with many hopes expressed of soon meeting at Seville; whither Cheriton, unwilling to detain Alvar from his friends, wished to go immediately. Mr Stanforth’s holiday was not an idle one. Every walk he took, every change of light and shade was a feast of new colour and form for him, to be perpetuated by sketches more or less elaborate, and the enjoyment of which was intense. But the pair of dissimilar brothers had afforded him interest of another kind, and it was with real pleasure that he thought of a renewal of the intercourse with them, which came about sooner than he had expected.
His friends, the Westons, were a brother and two sisters, lively people approaching middle age. Mr Weston had a government appointment in Gibraltar, and his sisters lived with him. They were enterprising, cultivated women, and very fond of Gipsy Stanforth; who possessed that power of quick sympathetic interest which of all things makes a delightful companion. She was always finding “bits” and “effects” for her father, or suggesting subjects for his pencil; and she was almost equally pleased to hunt for flowers for the botanical Miss Weston, and to look out words in the dictionary for the literary one, who was translating a set of Spanish tales.
À propos of these, she related with much interest their acquaintance on board ship, describing the two Lesters with a naïveté that amused her friends, and prompted Miss Weston to say, —
“You seem to have been very fortunate in your travelling companions, Gipsy.”
“Yes, we were. And it will be such an advantage to know a native family at Seville. That sounds as if they were heathens; but I declare that is Don Alvar, buying oranges! Oh, I am so glad to see you! So you have come here after all.”
“Yes. Cheriton was so ill at Gibraltar that it was plain that he could not bear the journey to Seville. It is cooler here, and he is a little better; but he can do nothing yet, and I am very unhappy. I do not know what to write to my father about him.”
“Oh, I am sorry,” said Gipsy warmly. “He seemed better on board. And this place is so lovely.”
“Yes,” said Alvar simply. “I could feel as if I was in heaven in the sunshine, and when I hear the voices of my home; but when he suffers, it darkens all. But I must go back to him.”
“Papa will come and see you,” said Gipsy; “and this is Miss Weston, with whom we are staying. Good-bye. I think your brother will be better when he has had a rest.”
Gipsy’s cheerful sympathy brightened Alvar, who had expected that Spanish sunshine would make a miraculous cure; but Cherry’s cough had been worse since they came on shore, and his spirits had failed unaccountably just when Alvar had expected him to recover them.
Alvar had all along declared that it would be better to go by a Cadiz packet and thence by rail to Seville; but Mr Lester believed in Peninsular and Oriental steamers, and in the English doctors and hotels of Gibraltar. But there the heat and glare were hateful to Cheriton, the servant they had brought proved more of a hindrance than a help, and Alvar thought himself fortunate in obtaining leave from some Gibraltar acquaintances to use their house at San José for a month, after which Cheriton might be better able to encounter the strangers whom he really dreaded more than the travelling. Certainly if change was what Cherry had needed he had obtained it thoroughly. Nothing could well have been more unlike Oakby than San José, and when Cheriton had had a little rest, had been teased by Mr Stanforth for comparing the marble-paved patio of the house to the Alhambra at the Crystal Palace, and, moved by the fortunate sympathy that had enabled him to “take a fancy” to the kindly artist, had confided to him that he was very homesick, and longed for Jack, though he did not like Alvar to know it, he brightened up and grew rather stronger. He was soon able to sit on the beach and try to learn Spanish, insisting on understanding the construction of the language, and asking questions sometimes rather puzzling to his tutor; while Gipsy set up a rivalry with him as to the number of words and phrases to be acquired in a day, in which she generally beat him hollow. Nor had he any real want of appreciation of the new and beautiful world around him, and Mr Stanforth helped him to enjoy it. Life would be very dull but for the involuntary inclinations to acquaintance and friendship that brighten its ordinary course, and “fancies” are more often things to be thankful for than to put aside. This one roused Cheriton from the dulness that accompanies sorrow and sickness, and enabled him to turn at any rate the surface of his mind to fresh interests.
Mr Stanforth, on the other hand, whose sympathy had been quickened by the practice of a most kindly life, found much to interest him in the bright, tender nature, evidently struggling under so heavy a cloud, and did not wonder at the affection with which the young man was obviously regarded – an affection made pathetic by the sad possibilities that were but too apparent.
Gipsy was on very friendly terms with both the brothers, and was a new specimen of girlhood for them. She was quite as clever and as well educated as either Ruth or Virginia, and had been in the habit of living with much more widely cultivated people – people who talked, and had something to talk about, so that she had a great deal to say; while there was a quaint matter-of-factness about her too, and she talked art as simply as she would have talked dress; and while she was very much interested in the two young men, she never troubled herself at all about her relations towards them. She scolded Cherry for walking too far, and discoursed on the suitability of his appearance for artistic purposes with equal simplicity; fetched and carried for him, and triumphed over his deficiencies in Spanish. She received Alvar’s courtesies and compliments with the greatest delight, and proceeded to return them in kind, till she actually rendered him almost free and easy, and he talked so much of her that Cheriton grew half-frightened, unknowing that his own remark, that he wished Nettie could know so nice a girl as Miss Stanforth, had inspired Alvar with the notion that Ruth might find a successor in La Zingara, as he called her. But Gipsy was perfectly unconscious, and was moreover carefully watched over by her father and her friends. By the end of the month Cheriton was able to undertake the journey to Seville, and the Stanforths proposed to start at the same time, but to go by a different route, which enabled them to see more of the country.
“But,” said Gipsy, one evening when they were all together on the beach, “we must get to Seville in time for a bull-fight, and Don Alvar says there are none in the winter.”
“But, Miss Stanforth,” said Cherry, “you surely would not go to a bull-fight?”
“Wouldn’t you?” said Gipsy mischievously.
“Well, yes – for once I think I should.”
“You would not like it, Cherito,” said Alvar.
“Don’t you?” echoed Cherry, with a glance at Gipsy.
“Oh, yes; it is grand! When the bull makes a rush one holds the breath, and then – it is a shout!”
“I suppose it is a wonderful spectacle,” said Mr Stanforth. “I hope to have a chance, but I think Gipsy will have to take it on trust.”
“Jack desired me not to encourage them,” said Cherry, “but I must own to a great curiosity about it.”
“But I shall not let you go,” said Alvar; “it would tire you far too much; and besides you are too tender-hearted. My brothers,” he added to Mr Stanforth, “cannot bear to see anything hurt, unless they hurt it themselves; then they do not mind.”
“Of course,” said Cherry, “there is an essential difference between incurring danger, or at least fatigue and exertion yourself, and sitting by to see other people incur it. I have no doubt it is a barbarous sort of thing, and there is something dreadful in the idea of a lady being present at it; but it would be stupid, I think, to come away without seeing anything so characteristic.”
“The Spanish ladies do not mind it, nor I,” said Alvar, “any more than you mind killing your foxes, or your fish; but it is different for foreigners. They do not like to see the horses, though they are mostly worthless ones, torn in pieces. You would be ill, querido, you might faint.”
“Nonsense,” said Cherry. “I might hate it, but I should not be so soft as that.”
“You do not know,” said Alvar, evidently not disposed to yield. “Some day,” with a glance at Gipsy, “I will tell you. You shot the old horse yourself for fear the coachman should hurt him – but it made you cry; and if a dog whines it grieves you.”
“Old Star that I learnt to ride on!” said Cherry indignantly. “What has that to do with it?”
“And besides,” resumed Alvar, perhaps a little wickedly, “bull-fights are usually on Sunday, and are quite as bad as billiards or the guitar, which you say in England are wrong.”
“These are frightful imputations on you, Cheriton,” said Mr Stanforth: “a tender heart and too strict a sense of duty. No wonder you are obstinate. But if what I have read be true, a bull-fight is a hard pull on our insular nerves sometimes, and I doubt if you are in condition for one.”
“I don’t want to see a bull-ring at Oakby,” said Cherry; “but Alvar is mistaken if he thinks I should mind it more than other people do. There is enough of a sporting element, I suppose, to keep one from dwelling on the details.”
“I see, Mr Lester,” said Gipsy, “that you don’t believe in the rights of women.”
“No, Miss Stanforth, I certainly don’t. I believe in my right to protect them from what is unpleasant.”
“But not to give them their own way! Papa, don’t look at me like that. I don’t want to go and see horses killed on a Sunday, if Mr Lester does. But a bull-fight – the national sport of Spain – and the matadors who are so courageous – ah! it makes such a difference the way things are put.”
“You must learn to look at the essentials, my dear. But now shall we have a last stroll to the point to see the sunset?”
“You need not tell Granny if I do go to the bull-fight,” whispered Cherry, as Alvar helped him up, and gave him his arm across the rough shingles.
Chapter Three.
Seville
“Golden fruit fresh plucked and ripe.”
“And now, my brother, you see Seville. At last I can show you my beautiful city!”
“Why – why, you never said it was like this!”
The Lesters had finally settled to go to Cadiz by sea, and thence by rail to Seville, again breaking their journey at Xeres. The Stanforths were making the journey across country; but Cheriton was not equal to long days on horseback, nor to risking the accommodations or no accommodations of the ventas and posadas (taverns and inns) where they might have to stop. He was quite ready, however, to be excited and patriotic as they passed through the famous waters of Trafalgar, and curious to taste sherry at Xeres, where it proved exceedingly bad. They arrived at Seville in the afternoon, and were driving from the station when Alvar interrupted Cherry’s astonished contemplation of the scene with the foregoing remark.
“Ah, it pleases you!” he said in a tone of satisfaction, as they passed under the Alcazar, the Moorish palace, with its wonderful relics of a bygone faith and power – the great cathedral, said to be “a religion in itself” – and saw the gay tints of the painted buildings, the picturesque turn of the streets, the infinite variety of colour and costume, and over all the pure blue of the sky and the glorious intensity of Southern sunlight.
Cheriton had no words to express his admiration, and only repeated, —
“You never told me that it was like this.”
“You did not understand,” said Alvar; “and perhaps I did not know.”
He did not show any emotion, but his face smoothed out into an expression of satisfaction and well-being, and he smiled with a little air of triumph at Cherry’s ecstasies. This was what he had belonging to himself in the background all the time, when his relations had thought him so ignorant and inexperienced, and Alvar, like all the Lesters, valued himself on his own belongings.
They drove up to the door of a large house, painted in various colours, and with gaily-striped blinds and balconies; while through the ornamental iron gates they caught glimpses of the patio, gay with flowers.
Cheriton thought of the winter’s night, the blazing fire, the shy, stiff greetings that had formed Alvar’s first glimpse of Oakby. The great gates were opened, and as they came in a tall old man came forward, into whose arms Alvar threw himself with some vehement Spanish words of greeting; then, in a moment, he turned and drew Cheriton forward, saying, still in Spanish, —
“My grandfather, this is my dear brother.”
Don Guzman de la Rosa bowed profoundly, and then shook hands with Cheriton, who contrived to understand his greeting and inquiry after his health, and to utter a few words in reply, feeling more shy than he had ever done in his life; but then he was at fault.
“My grandfather says you are like what our father was when he came here; that is true, is it not? And now come in.”
Don Guzman showed the way into an inner room, which seemed dark after the brilliant patio, and was furnished much like an ordinary drawing-room; and here Cheriton was introduced to Dona Luisa Aviego, a middle-aged lady, Don Guzman’s niece, and to two exceedingly pretty young girls, and a little girl, her daughters. He felt surprised at seeing them all in French fashions. Here also was their brother, Don Manoel, a tall, dark, solemn-looking young man, who exactly fulfilled Cheriton’s idea of a Spaniard, and enabled him to understand Dona Luisa’s remark that Alvar had grown into an Englishman. The old grandfather was like a picture of Don Quixote, a very ideal of chivalry, which character a life of prudent, careful indifferentism entirely belied.
Alvar would not let Cherry stay to talk, telling him that he must rest before dinner, which was at five, and soon took him upstairs into a very comfortable bedroom, looking out on a pretty garden, and opening into another belonging to himself.
Cheriton laughed and submitted, but the novelty and beauty had taken his impressionable nature by storm and carried him quite out of himself. When left alone, he had leisure for the surprising thought that his father had gone through all these experiences without their apparently leaving any trace except one of distaste and aversion; next, to wonder whether it was Alvar’s fault or their own that they had remained so ignorant of Alvar’s country; and lastly, that spite of the similarity of colouring to his Spanish kindred and something in the carriage, Alvar did look like a Lester and an Englishman after all.
Cherry had got used by this time in some degree to the Spanish eatables, and as he liked the universal chocolate and was as little fanciful as any one so much out of health could be, he got on as well as his bad appetite would let him, with the ollas and gazpachos spite of their garlic, and at any rate he liked omelettes and the bread, which was excellent. Their servant, Robertson, had, however, regarded everything Spanish with such horror, and had proved of so little use and so disagreeable, that Cheriton finally cut the knot by sending him back to Gibraltar, where he hoped to find a homeward-bound family, Alvar being certain that there would be sufficient attendance at his grandfather’s.
Conversation at dinner was difficult. They all understood a little English, which was rather more available than Cheriton’s Spanish, and Don Manoel spoke tolerably fluent French, to which, as Cheriton had in his time earned several French prizes, he ought to have been able to respond more readily than was perhaps the case. Cheriton did not mind seeing grapes and melons eaten after soup, though he thought the taste an odd one, but he could not quite reconcile himself to the universal smoking after the first course in the presence of the ladies. The young ones were very silent, though they cast speaking glances at him with their great languishing eyes; till after dinner the little girl, whom Cherry thought the softest and prettiest thing he had ever seen, produced a great blushing and tittering by whispering a question, which, while apparently reproving, Dona Carmen was evidently encouraging her to repeat to Alvar, who sat on her other side.
Alvar laughed and shook his head.
“No, Dolores; I think there is not one like him,” he said, adding to Cherry – “She wants to know if all Englishmen are like you – white and golden like the saints in the cathedral. It is true, she means the painted statues.”
“I am pale, because I have been ill,” said Cherry, in his best Spanish, and holding out his hand. “Little one, will you make friends? What shall I say to her, Alvar?”
But Dolores, with an ineffable expression of demure coquetry, retreated upon her sister, and would not accept his attentions, though she peeped at him under her long eye-lashes directly he turned away.
The family met at eleven for a sort of déjeuner à la fourchette, but every one had chocolate in their own rooms at any hour they pleased, with bread or sponge-cake, which they called pan del Rey. Alvar brought some on the next morning to Cheriton and while he was drinking it proceeded to enlighten him a little on the family affairs and habits.
“I perceive that the prayer-bell does not ring at half-past eight,” said Cherry smiling.
“No, the ladies all go to church every morning. In the country my grandfather is up early, and Manoel too, but here I cannot say – we meet at eleven. It is usual to write letters or transact business in the morning on account of the heat.”
“Does Don Manoel – is that what I ought to call him? – live here? Has he anything to do?”
Alvar then explained that Manoel had no regular occupation, having a little money of his own. He smoked and played cards, and went to the casino, “that is what you call a club.” Moreover he was a very good Catholic, and though he had not openly joined the Carlist party – the Royalists as Alvar called them – he was thought to have a leaning towards them: but Don Guzman never allowed politics to be discussed in his house – neither politics nor religion.
“Is he a ‘good Catholic,’ too?” asked Cherry.
Alvar shrugged his shoulders.
“He conforms,” he said. “You understand that I am English. I have no part in these matters, otherwise at times my grandfather might have suffered for allowing me to be brought up as a Protestant; but I was taught to see that they did not concern me. But, querido, you must not talk and ‘discuss’ as you do with Jack at home, or you might make a quarrel.”
“No, I understand that. But if I were you I should not like to be supposed to be an outsider.”
“In both countries?” said Alvar. “No; but you see I had been taught that I was an Englishman.”
“Yet your grandfather would not let you come to England when you were a boy.”
“My grandfather,” said Alvar, “hates the priests. He would rather have me for his heir, though I am a heretic, than Manoel. That is true, though he would not say so. Look, he has seen many changes in this country, one is as bad as the other; he would rather be quiet and let things pass. So would I.”
“The Vicar of Bray,” murmured Cherry. “That creed is born of despair,” he said aloud. “I should be miserable to think so of any country.”
“Yes?” said Alvar, with a sort of unmoved inquiry in his tone. “You have convictions. In England they are not difficult. But, besides, my grandmother loved me very much, and not only was she religious like all women, she was what you call good. She would not part with me, and I loved her.”
Alvar paused and put his hand across his eyes, with more emotion than he often showed.
“She thought,” he continued, “that I should perhaps become a Catholic if I married a Sevillana, and that my father’s neglect would make me altogether a De la Rosa. Forgive me, Cherito, it is not quite to be forgotten.”
“I think it was very likely to be the case,” said Cheriton.
“No, it was not the part for my father’s son, nor for an Englishman, nor did my grandfather wish it. I am no Catholic – never!”
“I suppose your tutor was – was a strong Protestant?” said Cheriton, rather surprised at the first religious conviction he had ever heard from Alvar’s lips.
“Well, I do not think you would have approved of him nor my father if he had known. He, what is it you say? – did no duty – and I do not think he was much like your Mr Ellesmere. He told me that he was paid ‘to put the English doctrines into me and teach me to speak English;’ and he would say, ‘Remember it is your part to be a Protestant because you are an English gentleman.’”
“But,” said Cherry, “when you came to England you must surely have seen that we did not look on it in that way?”
“I did not much attend to your words on it,” said Alvar. “As you know, what my father required of me I did, and I saw that English gentlemen thought much of their churches and their priests – or at least, that my father did so. I conformed, but I had not expected that in England, too, I should be a foreigner– a stranger. And I would not be other than my real self.”
“I’m afraid we were very unkind to you.”
“You? Never!” said Alvar.
“But why did you never tell me all this before? I should have understood you so much better.”
“I did not think of it till I considered what would seem strange to you here – what you would not comprehend easily.”
Cheriton remained silent. That Alvar had all his life considered himself so entirely as a Lester and an Englishman was a new light to him, and he could fully appreciate the check of finding himself regarded by the Lesters as an alien, for he knew that even he himself had never ceased so to look upon Alvar.
“We understand each other now,” he said affectionately. “I am glad you have told me this. But, Alvar, though ‘convictions’ may seem to you easy in England, you would make a great mistake if you imagined that the religion of such a man as my father was for the sake of what you call conformity, and that it did not influence his life.”
“No,” said Alvar, “I did not think so of my father and you. I did not comprehend at first, but I see now that – it interests you.”
“Never doubt that,” said Cheriton earnestly. “You have seen all my failures, but never doubt that is the one thing ‘interesting,’ the one thing to – to give one another chance.”
He paused as a look of unspeakable enthusiastic conviction passed over his face; then blushed intensely, and was silent. Like most young men, whatever their views, he was in the habit of talking a good deal of “theology,” and could have rectified Alvar’s hazy notions with ease; but personal experiences in such discussions were generally left on one side.
Alvar did not follow him; but perhaps that look made more impression than a great many arguments on the status of religion in England.
“Don’t imagine I underrate your difficulties, or my own, or any one’s,” Cherry added hurriedly.
“I have no difficulties,” said Alvar simply; “I believe you – always – Now, do not talk any longer – rest before you get up.”
Cheriton now perceived that the sort of separation that had been pursued with regard to Alvar accounted for much of his indolence and indifference. He recognised how deeply his pride had been wounded by his kindred’s cold reception, and he in a measure understood the sort of loyalty, half-proud, half-faithful, that held him to his own. He found that Alvar had never written a word of complaint of his family home to Seville; he perceived that as time went on he dropped nothing that he had acquired in England, either of dress or speech, attended the English service at the Consulate regularly, even if Cheriton was unable to go, and preferred to be called Mr Lester. Cheriton saw that he intended no one to think that his English residence had been a failure.
But there was one phase of this feeling of which even Cheriton had no suspicion. Alvar did not forget that one thing had belonged to him in England, to which Spain offered no parallel. He refused to answer any questions from his grandfather as to his engagement or its breach. He had not been brought up to think that romantic passion was a necessary accompaniment of a marriage engagement, but rather as a thing to be got through first; and it had been with a very quiet appreciation that he had given his hand away at his father’s request. And when Virginia was once his, he was thoroughly contented with her, her rejection had wounded him exceedingly, and now he missed her confiding sweetness increasingly, he felt that a good thing was gone from him, and he would not now have attempted to console Cheriton as he had done at Oakby. But he never spoke of his feelings, and as Cheriton could not think that he had acted rightly by Virginia, the subject was never mentioned between them.