Chapter Four.
El Toro
“The ungentle sport that oft invites
The Spanish maid and cheers the Spanish swain.”
One of Alvar’s first occupations was to find a lodging for the Stanforths, and for one of the Miss Westons, whom they brought with them, and he succeeded in obtaining a flat in a casa de pupillos or pension, not far from the De la Rosa’s, in a picturesque street, with a pleasant shady sitting-room, where Mr Stanforth could paint. There was a delightful landlady, Señora Catalina, who went to mass with the greatest regularity every morning, but afterwards was ready to spend any part of the day in escorting the ladies wherever they wished to go, only objecting to Gipsy’s dislike to allow her dress to trail on the pavement, a point on which neither could convince the other, Spanish ladies considering the looping of the dress improper, and Gipsy not being able to reconcile herself to the normal condition of the pavements of Seville. Mr Stanforth, however, frequently accompanied them, and they did a vast amount of sight-seeing, in which they were joined by the two Lesters so far as Cheriton’s strength would permit; and as sketching often made Mr Stanforth stationary, Cherry liked to sit by him, enjoying a great deal of discursive talk on things in general, and entering with vivid interest into the novelty and beauty around. Cherry asked a great many more questions about Moorish remains, and ecclesiastical customs, than Alvar was at all able to answer; and as his Spanish improved, endeavoured to pick the brains of every one with whom he came in contact; was so intelligent and so inquisitive about the arrangement of the different churches, that old Padre Tomè, the ladies’ confessor, looked upon him as a possible convert, and though solemnly warned by Alvar never to talk politics with any one, could not always resist teasing him by hovering round the subject. He got on very well with Don Guzman, and listened to a great deal of prosing about the best way of breeding young bulls for the ring, and about all the varieties of game to be found on the old gentleman’s country estate, and soon perceived that he had considerably underrated the sporting capacities of the peninsula. He was not a favourite with Don Manoel, who suspected himself of being laughed at; and though Dona Luisa was very kind to him, he was hardly allowed to exchange a word with the young ladies, and to his great amusement perceived that he was considered likely to follow his father’s example, and make love to them. Little Dolores, however, was less in bondage to propriety, and became very fond of him, making vain endeavours to pronounce “Cherry,” and teaching him a great deal of Spanish. Miss Weston, who was a hearty enthusiastic woman, with rather an overpowering amount of conversation, approved of what she called his spirit of inquiry, and was possibly not insensible to his good looks and winning manners. He did not now shrink from home letters, and indeed spent more time than Alvar thought good for him in replying to Jack’s voluminous disquisitions on his first weeks of Oxford. Alvar thought that he had entirely recovered his spirits, and indeed Cheriton was one whose “mind had a thousand eyes,” and they let in a good deal of surface light, though he was himself well aware of colder, darker depths whose sun had set for ever, and which could only be reached by the slowly penetrating rays of a far intenser light. Though no word of direct confidence ever passed between him and Mr Stanforth, the latter knew perfectly well that mental as well as physical change had been sought in the sunny south. His health improved considerably, though with many ups and downs, he felt fairly well, and did not attempt to try the extent of his powers.
He was very anxious not to be a restraint on Alvar’s intercourse with his friends or on his natural occupations; but except that he sometimes went to evening parties which Cheriton avoided, Alvar generally preferred escorting Gipsy and Miss Weston to the tops of all the buildings which Mr Stanforth sketched from below, or into every corner of the Alcazar, and every chapel of the cathedral, both of which places had a wonderful charm for Cheriton.
Miss Stanforth was allowed to make friends with Alvar’s cousins. Carmen and Isabel. She had once gone to a fancy ball, dressed in a mantilla, and had been told that she looked “very Spanish,” with her dark eyes and hair; a delusion from which she awoke the first time she saw her new friends dressed for church (they did not wear mantillas often on secular occasions); and great was their amusement at Gipsy’s vain endeavour to give exactly the becoming twist to the black lace, and to flirt her fan in the approved style. Gipsy was a bit of a mimic, but she could not satisfy herself or them.
“It is of no use, Miss Stanforth,” said Cheriton, when she complained to him of her difficulties. “Alvar does not like walking out with me in an ‘Ulster’ when the wind is cold, so he endeavoured to teach me to wear one of those marvellous cloaks which they all throw about their shoulders; but I can only get it over my head, and under my feet, and everywhere that it ought not to be.”
“Well,” said Alvar, “you would not let me go to Hazelby in my cloak; you said that the little boys would laugh at me.”
“But a great coat,” said Cherry, “is a rational kind of garment that can’t look odd anywhere.”
“That is as you think,” said Alvar; “but I do not care what you wear, if you like it. You will not certainly look like a Spaniard even in the cloak.”
“A great coat,” said Mr Stanforth, “is one of those graceful garments which have commended themselves to all ages. I do not know what early tradition was followed by the inventors of Noah’s Arks in the case of that patriarch – ”
“Now, Mr Stanforth, that is too hard,” interrupted Cherry. “At least it has pockets.”
“So many,” said Alvar, “that what you want is always in another one.”
“Alvar, that cloak is your one weakness. You clung to it in England, and you put it on the moment you landed in Spain.”
“Cheriton thinks it is a seal-skin,” said Mr Stanforth smiling.
“Seal-skin,” said Alvar. “No, it is cloth and silk.”
“Did you never hear of the fisherman who married a mermaid, and she lived happily on shore till she fell in with a seal-skin; when she put it on, and, forgetting her husband and children, jumped into the sea, and never came up any more?”
“Ah, no!” said Alvar. “It is only that I want Cherry to be comfortable while he is down among the fishes.”
“I will take to it some day, for the sake of astonishing Jack,” said Cherry. “But, Alvar, those friends of yours last night were very much interested in my travelling coat, and asked me if it was a Paris fashion. They put it on, and I tried to get Don Manoel into it; but he thought it was a heretical sort of affair.”
“Cherry, if you laugh at Manoel, he will think you insult him. He hates Englishmen, and our father especially. He was angry because you gave the jessamine to Isabel – and – we are polite here to each other; but if there is what you call a row, it is worse than when every one is sulky all at once at Oakby.”
Cherry looked as if the temptation to provoke this new experience was nearly irresistible; but Alvar continued to Mr Stanforth, —
“I am glad that Cherito should laugh once more as he used to do; but my cousin does not understand.”
“My dear Alvar, I will content myself with laughing at you; you always understand a joke, don’t you?”
“I do not care if I understand or no. When I see you laughing,” said Alvar simply, “that is good.”
Something in this speech so touched Cheriton that his laughter softened away into a very doubtful smile, and he changed the subject; but he tried afterwards to propitiate Don Manoel by the most courteous treatment. The Spaniard did not respond, and he perceived that contending elements were discordant in Seville as well as in England.
Carmen and Isabel found novelty less distasteful. It is true that they thought Gipsy’s free intercourse with their cousin Alvar and with the English stranger shocking; but they preferred them to any other subject of conversation, and Isabel in particular made quite a romance of the incident of the Cape Jessamine, and how Don Cherito had looked at her when he gave it to her.
“But why shouldn’t he pick a bit of jessamine for you, if you couldn’t reach it for yourself?” asked Gipsy.
“Oh, Manoel said it was an attention.”
“Oh dear no,” said Gipsy, rather cruelly, “we shouldn’t think anything of it in England. Don Manoel needn’t be afraid.”
“Oh, but Manoel is terrible. He swore before Don Cherito came that he would poniard us if we, like our Aunt Maria, listened to a heretic, a stranger. For Don Giraldo was a wild wicked Englishman, but beautiful in the extreme; they have no religion, and no morals.”
“Isabel!”
“Ah, I tell you what Manoel says. He came, he pretended an accident, and then Dona Maria married him. Now, he says it is the same with Don Cherito. An illness – ”
“Any one can see that Cheriton Lester is really ill, at any rate.”
“Well – Manoel was angry with my grandfather for letting him come, and he has told Alvar that it should be death before such a marriage. Alvar told him he knew nothing of his English brother, who loved an English lady. But Manoel says that what happened once might again happen.”
“Isabel,” said her sister, “it is wrong to talk of this. If Zingara repeats it, there will be a quarrel.”
“I shall not repeat it,” said Gipsy; “but it is all nonsense, I assure you.”
“Ah,” said Isabel, “Manoel knows not. He knows not that I love one whom I have seen at mass, though I know not his name. But with my fan I can show him – ”
“Isabel!” again said the grave Carmen; while Gipsy, who was far too well bred and well brought up to have made signs in church with anything, thought that “mass” and “a signal with a fan” sounded interesting, and that what would have been highly unladylike at home was rather romantic in Seville.
On their side, Carmen and Isabel thought Gipsy hardly used in being kept away from the bull-fights, though she was too loyal to her nationality to express any wish to see them.
Don Manoel was a great lover of the ring, and as certain young bulls from Don Guzman’s estate were to be brought forward at the last corrida of the season, there was a great desire that the Englishmen should be present. Mr Stanforth intended to avail himself of the chance of seeing such a spectacle, and Cheriton, Don Guzman said, might see one contest, and go away before the other bulls were brought forward, if he found the fatigue too much for him. They would get seats on the shady side of the bull-ring, the great amphitheatre said to be capable of holding ten thousand spectators.
Cheriton, who went against Alvar’s wish, did not stay for the end, and Mr Stanforth went to see if he had repented of the rather perverse desire to prove himself capable of enduring the spectacle. He found him, still full of excitement, resting on a sofa in the patio; while Alvar sat near him, smoking, and looking cool and bored, as if the bull-fight had been a croquet party.
Mr Stanforth’s entrance was rather inopportune, for Cherry was still too full of his impressions not to talk of them, and, in answer to Mr Stanforth’s question, said eagerly, —
“Oh, the heat has tired me – that is nothing. But it made one feel like a fiend. I felt all the fascination of it – even the horror had a dreadful sort of attraction. I could not have come away if Alvar had not pulled me out when I was too dizzy to resist him.”
“Very unwholesome fascination,” said Mr Stanforth.
“Unwholesome! I should think so! It is abominable that such things should be. I tell Alvar that in his place I never would encourage an appeal to the worst passions of human nature.”
“Well, you would go, mi caro. I told you you would not like it,” said Alvar coolly.
“You should set an example of indignation!”
“I? I do not care what they do to amuse themselves. It does not interest me, as much, I think, as it did you, my brother.”
“No,” said Cherry slowly, “I understand a good many things by this. I should be as bad as any of them. But when a country encourages and allows such ‘amusements,’ when women look on and like it, one cannot wonder at Spanish cruelties. It appeals to everything that is bad in one.”
“You insult my country and your hosts! Don Cherito, such language is unpardonable!” exclaimed an unexpected voice; and Don Manoel came suddenly forward from one of the curtained doorways, close at hand. “What right have you, señor, to speak of our ancient customs in terms like these?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Cheriton, after a moment’s pause of amazement, “if I have said anything to annoy you; but – I was not aware that you were present. I was speaking to my brother.”
“Would you insinuate that I disguised my presence?” cried the Spaniard, with real rage in his tones, and a determination to show it.
Then Alvar fired up with the sudden passion that had always startled his English kindred.
“How dare you so address my brother! He shall say what he chooses!”
“He shall not – nor you either! You call yourself Spaniard – Andaluz – you claim rights in Seville, and listen with complacence to the cowardly scruples – ”
Here Alvar broke in with much too rapid Spanish for the Englishmen to follow, interrupted as it was by Manoel’s rejoinder, and by furious gestures as if the disputants were going to fly at each other’s throats, while Mr Stanforth’s mild attempts at interposing with – “Come – come now; what nonsense! What is all this about?” were entirely unheard.
Meanwhile, Cheriton’s previous excitement cooled down completely. He got up from the sofa, and stepped between them, laying his hand on Alvar’s arm.
“Excuse me, Alvar,” he said, in his slow, careful Spanish, “this seems to be my affair. Señor Don Manoel, will you have the goodness to tell me why you are offended with me?”
“He called you a coward – you, my brother!”
“My dear fellow, be quiet, don’t be an ass.” (This in English for Alvar’s benefit.) “Would you tell me what has provoked you?”
“Señor Don Cherito,” said Manoel, forced to answer civilly by Cheriton’s coolness – “first, did you mean to insinuate that I listened to your conversation with my cousin?”
“By no means,” said Cherry. “I merely meant to say that I had not seen you.”
“Then I ask you, señor, to repeat or to withdraw the remarks you made about the bull-fight,” said Don Manoel, with the air of delivering an ultimatum.
“He will not withdraw them!” cried Alvar. “He is no coward!”
“I hope,” said Cheriton, “I did nothing to offend. Were I in Don Manoel’s place I should feel, I am sure, as he does. I, too, am attached to the customs of my country. It is no doubt difficult for a stranger to judge. If I said the sport was cruel, I did not for a moment mean to imply that – that – those who see it must be cruel. Excuse my bad Spanish. I cannot express myself, but – pray let us shake hands.”
He smiled, and held out his hand.
“Well, señor, you are Don Guzman de la Rosa’s guest. If this is meant for an apology – ”
“For having offended you – yes. Being Don Guzman’s guest, I could not quarrel with his nephew.”
“I accept, the apology,” said Don Manoel, with much solemnity, and accepting Cherry’s hand.
“But,” said Alvar, “you applied an expression to my brother.”
“Oh, nonsense, Alvar; you know we never think of ‘expressions’ when we are angry; and I’m not aware of having had any opportunity of showing either cowardice or courage.”
“H’m,” said Mr Stanforth, in English, “a tolerably cool head, I think.”
Don Manoel, who appeared to have made up his mind to be magnanimous, remarked that his expression had been used too hastily to a stranger; but that a true Spaniard would look on any scene with equanimity. Cherry’s lip curved a little, as if he thought this a doubtful advantage; but he answered with a laugh, —
“I am a stranger, señor; and besides, I was fatigued.”
“Ah,” said Manoel, “that amounts to an entire excuse. The expression is withdrawn.”
And with a profound bow to Cheriton, he went away, and Cherry burst out laughing.
“What in the world did all that mean?” he said. “Did I really offend his national pride by turning sick at the dying horses?”
“That is not all,” said Alvar hurriedly; “he hates the English and us all; he would like to kill me.”
“Ah, ha, Alvar, it is my turn to talk about ‘excitement’ now.”
“Well, I do not understand you. When you came home you could not be still; you seemed crazy. And now, when any gentleman would be enraged, you laugh.”
“Oh, I hate quarrels. And besides,” shrugging his shoulders, “why in the world should I care for such mock-heroics as that?”
“Ah, Cherry,” said Mr Stanforth, “there spoke the very essence of English scorn.”
Cheriton coloured.
“True,” he said, candidly, “Don Manoel had a right to be angry with me, after all. But I don’t mean it. I dare say he isn’t half a bad fellow.”
“Ah, you are coughing. You will be tired out; and I am sure that you will not sleep,” said Alvar. “Come, you shall not talk any more about anything.”
“Very wise advice,” said Mr Stanforth, “especially as Gipsy has persuaded the whole party to come to-morrow to see my sketches, and drink English ‘afternoon tea.’ So rest now in preparation.”
Cheriton paid for his day’s work by a bad night and much weariness. Don Manoel made very polite inquiries after him; but there was something in the atmosphere that, to quote Alvar, Cherry “did not understand.”
Chapter Five.
Nettie at Bay
“A child, and vain.”
After the departure of the travellers, a period of exceeding flatness and dulness settled down on Oakby and its neighbourhood. The weather was dismal, one or two other neighbouring families were away, and no one thought it worth while to do anything. Jack had refused a congenial invitation, and conscientiously stayed at home “to make it cheerful,” until he went up to Oxford; but, though he was too well conducted and successful not to be a satisfactory son, he and his father were not congenial, and never could think of anything to say to each other. He had outgrown companionship with Bob, and did not now get on very well with him; while Nettie was never sociable with any one but her twin. Mrs Lester, though very attentive to her son’s dinners and other comforts, did not trouble herself much about the boys, and moreover did not possess the comfortable characteristic common to most elderly ladies – of being often to be found in one place. As Jack expressed it to himself, “no one was ever anywhere;” and prone as he was to look on the dark side of things, the thought that this was what home would be without Cherry, was perpetually before his mind. He did not like to go to Elderthwaite, and saw nothing of its inhabitants till one misty day early in October, as he was walking through the lanes with Rolla and Buffer at his heels, he came suddenly upon Virginia, leaning over a stile, and looking, not at the view, for there was none, but at the mist and the distant rain. Her figure, in its long waterproof cloak, under an arch of brown and yellow hazel boughs, had an indescribably forlorn aspect; but Jack, awkward fellow, was conscious of nothing but a sense of embarrassment and doubt what to say. She started and coloured up, but with greater self-possession spoke to him, and held out her hand.
“How d’ye do?” said Jack. “Down, Buffer, you’re all over mud.”
“Oh, never mind, I don’t care, dear little fellow!” exclaimed Virginia, who would have hugged Buffer, mud and all, but for very shame. “I did not know you were at home, Jack.”
“Yes, but I’m going to Oxford next week.”
“And – and you have good accounts of Cherry?”
“Yes, pretty good, better than at first. He says that he looks better, and does not cough so much, and he likes it, – so he says, at least,” replied Jack, who, conceiving that propriety precluded the mention of Alvar’s name, found his personal pronouns puzzling.
“I am very glad,” said Virginia softly.
“Yes, I suppose they are at Seville by this time; they stayed at San José till Cherry was stronger. Al – he – they thought it best.”
“Your eldest brother would be very careful of him, I am sure,” said Virginia, with a gentle dignity that reassured Jack, though she blushed deeply.
“Yes,” he said more freely, “and they have made some friends; Mr Stanforth, the artist, you know, and his daughter; they’re very nice people, and they have been learning Spanish together. He writes in very good spirits,” concluded Jack viciously, and referring to Cherry, though poor Virginia’s imagination supplied another antecedent.
“I am glad to hear it,” she said. “I met that Miss Stanforth once. She was a pretty, dark-eyed child then. Good-bye, Jack, I am going soon to stay with my cousin Ruth.”
“Good-bye,” said Jack, with a scowl which she could not account for. “I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.”
“Good-bye; good-bye, Buffer.”
Jack took his way home through the wet shrubberies. He felt sorry for Virginia, whom he regarded as injured by Alvar, but he thought that she ought to be angry with Ruth, never supposing that the latter’s delinquencies were unknown to her.
As he walked on he passed by a cart shed belonging to a small farm of his father’s above which was a hay loft, reached by a step ladder, to the foot of which Buffer and Rolla both rushed, barking rapturously, and trying to get up the ladder.
“Hullo! what’s up? – rats, I suppose,” thought Jack; and mounting two or three steps of the very rickety ladder, he looked into the loft, his chin on a level with the floor. Suddenly a blinding heap of hay was flung over his head; there was a scuffle and a rush, and Jack freed himself from the hay to find his head in Nettie’s very vigorous embrace; and to see Dick Seyton swing himself down from the window of the loft and run away.
“Stop, I say. Nettie, let go, what are you doing here? Dick, stop, I say,” cried Jack, scrambling up the ladder and rushing to the window; but Dick had vanished.
“Don’t stamp, Jack, you’ll come through; you should have run after him,” said Nettie saucily.
Jack turned, but caught his foot in a hole and fell headlong into the hay, while Nettie sat and laughed at him, and the dogs howled at the foot of the ladder.
Jack picked himself up cautiously, and sitting down on the hay, for there was hardly room for him to stand upright, said severely, —
“Now, Nettie, what is the meaning of this?”
“The meaning of what?”
“Of your being here with Dick. I told you in the summer that I didn’t approve of your being so friendly with him, and now I insist on knowing at once what you were doing with him.”
“Well, then, I shan’t tell you,” said Nettie coolly.
“I say you shall. I couldn’t have believed that my sister would be so unladylike. Just tell me how often you have met him, and what you were doing here?”
“It’s no business of yours,” said Nettie, making a sudden rush at the ladder; but Jack caught her, and a struggle ensued, in which of course he had the upper hand, though she was strong enough to make a considerable resistance; and he felt the absurdity of fighting with her as if she were a naughty child, when her offence was of such a nature.
“Now, Nettie,” he said, in a tone that she could not resist. “Stop this nonsense. I mean to have an answer. What has induced you to meet Dick Seyton in secret, and how often have you done so? You can’t deny that you have.”
“No,” said Nettie, “I have, often, and I shall ever so many times more.”
“I couldn’t have believed it of you, Nettie,” said Jack, so seriously and so mildly that Nettie looked quite frightened, and then exclaimed, —
“Jack, if you dare to venture to think that I meet Dick that we may make love to each other, or any nonsense of that kind, I’ll – I’ll kill you – I’ll never speak to you again, never!”
“Why – why what else can I think?” said Jack, blushing, and by far the more shamefaced of the two.
“Well, then, it’s abominable and shameful of you. Do you think I would be so horrid? As if I ever meant to marry any one. I shall live with Bob.”
“Don’t be so violent, Nettie. You have acted very deceitfully.”
“Deceitfully! Do you think I’d tell you a story?”
As Nettie had never been known to “tell a story” in her life, Jack could not say that he thought she would; but he replied, —
“You have acted deceitfully. You have run after Dick when we all thought you were somewhere else, and – there’s no use in being in a passion – but what do you suppose any one would think of a girl who behaved in such a manner?”
Nettie blushed, but answered, —
“I can’t help what any one thinks, Jack. I know I’m right, and I must go on doing it.”
“Indeed you won’t,” said Jack angrily; “for unless you promise never to meet him any more, I shall tell father at once that I found you here. What do you think Cherry would say to you?”
“Cherry would say I was perfectly right, and would do exactly the same thing himself,” said Nettie, triumphantly. “I am not doing any harm; and I must go on. I can’t tell you why I am doing it, because I promised not, and I’ll do it nearer home if you like it better. Bob and I quarrelled about it many a time, he knows.”
“Oh, he knows, does he? What a fool he must have been to let you do it.”
“He won’t tell of me,” said Nettie, “and he never did let me when he was at home. But I am not a silly, horrid girl, Jack, whatever you think; and I’m not flirting with Dick, nor – nor – engaged to him; and when – when – it’s right, I don’t mind people thinking so!”
But this speech ended in a flood of tears, as poor Nettie’s latent maidenliness began to assert itself.
“And pray,” said Jack, “does Dick come after you because it’s right?”
“No – no,” sobbed Nettie; “because I make him.”
“And how can you make him, I should like to know?”
Nettie made no answer but renewed tears. At last she sobbed out, “Oh, Jack, Jack, I wish you were Cherry!”
“I wish I were with all my heart,” said Jack. “Would you tell me if I were Cherry?”
“No; but I know he would be kind, and not think me horrid.”
“Well, Nettie, I’ll try to be kind; but you frighten me by all this. Now just listen. I believe I ought to tell father directly.”
“Oh, Jack! dear Jack! Don’t, don’t – it would be dreadful! Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes,” said Jack, “I believe you; but how do I know about a young scamp like Dick? You tell me the whole truth, and then I can judge, or I shall tell my father this moment. You’re my sister, and I shall take care of you. You’ve done a thing that may be told against you all your life, and nothing can make it right, say what you will.”
“But I can’t tell you, Jack; I’ve promised.”
“Well, then, I shall have it out first with Dick.”
“Oh, Jack, everything will be undone then!”
“And pray, if you don’t care about him, why does it matter to you so much about him?”
“Indeed – indeed, Jack, I’m not in love with him in the least. I never was with anybody, and I never mean to be,” said Nettie, fixing her great blue eyes full on Jack, and speaking with convincing eagerness.
“And how about him?” said Jack crossly.
“No, it’s nothing to do with it,” said Nettie; but the tone of her voice altered a little, and Jack had a sort of feeling that there was more in the matter than she herself knew, for he never thought of disbelieving her.
“Will you tell, and will you promise?” he said.
“No, I won’t,” said Nettie.
“Then you are a very naughty, disobedient girl, and you shall come home with me this minute.”
“I hate you, Jack. I’ll never forgive you,” said Nettie passionately, as she followed him; and all the way home she sobbed and pouted, with an intolerable sense of shame, while Jack, utterly puzzled, walked by her side, a desire to horsewhip Dick Seyton contending in his mind with a dread of making a row.
They came in by the back-door, and Nettie rushed upstairs at once; while Jack, virtuous and resolute, went into the study.
Resolute as the girl was, she listened trembling, till her father’s loud call of “Nettie, Nettie, come here this moment!” brought her down to the study, where were her father, her grandmother, and Jack.
“Eh, what’s all this, Nettie?” said Mr Lester. “I can’t have you running about the country with young Seyton. What’s the meaning of it?”
“Papa,” said Nettie, “I haven’t run about the country. Dick and I have got a secret; it’s a very good secret.”
“Well, what is it, then?” said her father.
“I don’t mean to tell. I never tell secrets,” said Nettie, with determination. “We have had it a long time.”
“My dear,” said Mr Lester, much more mildly than he would have spoken to any of his boys, “I must put an end to it. You have been running wild with your brothers till you forget how big a girl you are getting. Never go out with Dick again by yourself – do you hear?”
Nettie made no answer, and her father continued, more sternly, —
“I am sorry, Nettie, that you did not know better how to behave. Never let me hear of such a thing again.”
Still silence; and Jack said, —
“She won’t promise. I shall see what Dick says about it.”
“Then you’ll just do nothing of the sort, Jack,” said his grandmother, “making mountains out of mole-hills. Nettie is going to London to stay with her aunt Cheriton, and have some music and French lessons with Dolly and Kate. I’d settled it all this morning. She doesn’t attend enough to her studies here. You’ll take her up when you go to Oxford, and there’ll be an end of the matter.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr Lester. “Grandmamma and I were talking it over just now.”
“Not that it is on account of your remarks, Jack,” said Mrs Lester. “That would be making far too much of her foolish behaviour; but in London she’ll learn better.”
“To be sure,” said Mr Lester, who had been stopped on his way out riding by Jack’s appeal, and was now glad to escape from an unpleasant discussion. “Nettie will come back at Christmas, and we shall hear no more of such childish tricks.”
Nettie looked like a statue, and never spoke a word; but there was a look of fright through all her sullenness. Jack was not accustomed to think much of her appearance, but he knew as a matter of fact that she was handsome, and it struck him forcibly that she looked “grown-up.”