Chapter Nine.
Jack on his Mettle
“Lat me alone in chesing of my wyf,
That charge upon my bak I wol endure.”
Chaucer.
That same morning, when Jack and Alvar had ridden hurriedly up to the hotel, looking eagerly to catch sight of those who were so anxiously watching for them, their eyes fell on Gipsy’s solitary figure, standing motionless, with eyes turned towards the mountain, and hands dropped listlessly before her. Jack’s heart gave a great bound, and at the sound of the horses’ hoofs, she turned with a start and scream of joy, and sprang towards them, while Jack, jumping off, caught both her hands, crying, —
“Oh, don’t be frightened any more, we’re come!”
“Your brother!” exclaimed Gipsy, as she flew into the house; but her cry of “Papa! papa!” was suddenly choked with such an outburst of blinding, stifling tears and sobs, that she paused perforce; and as they ran upstairs, Mariquita, the pretty Spanish girl who waited on them, caught her hand and kissed her fervently.
“Ah, señorita, dear señorita; thanks to the saints, they have sent her lover back to her. Sweet señorita, now she will not cry!”
A sudden access of self-consciousness seized on Gipsy; she blushed to her fingertips, and only anxious to hide the tears she could not check, she hurried away, round to the back of the inn, into a sort of orchard, where grew peach and nectarine trees, apples and pears already showing buds, and where the ground was covered with jonquils and crocuses, while beyond was the rocky precipice, and, far off, the snowy peaks that still made Gipsy shudder. Unconscious of the strain she had been enduring, she was terrified at the violence of her own emotion, for Gipsy was not a girl who was given to gusts of feeling. Probably the air and the solitude were her best remedies, for she soon began to recover herself, and sat up among the jonquils. Oh, how thankful she was that the danger was over, and the bright, kindly Cheriton spared from such a terrible sorrow! But was it for Cheriton’s sake that these last two days had been like a frightful dream, that her very existence seemed to have been staked on news of the lost ones? No one —no one could help such feelings. Miss Weston had cried about it, and her father had never been able to touch a pencil. But that foolish Mariquita! Here Gipsy sprang to her feet with a start, for close at her side stood Jack. At sight of him, strong and ruddy and safe, her feeling overpowered her consciousness of it, and she said, earnestly, —
“Oh, I am so thankful you are safe! It was so dreadful!”
“And it was not dreadful at all in reality, only tiresome and absurd,” said Jack.
“It was very dreadful here,” said Gipsy, in a low voice, with fresh tears springing.
“Oh, if you felt so!” cried Jack ardently; “I wish it could happen to me twenty times over!”
“Oh, never again!” she murmured; and then Jack, suddenly and impetuously, —
“But I am glad it happened, for I found out up in that dirty hole how I felt. There was never any one like you. I – I – could you ever get to think of me? Oh, Gipsy, I mean it. I love you!” cried the boy, his stern, thoughtful face radiant with eagerness, as he seized her hand.
“Oh, no – you don’t!” stammered Gipsy, not knowing what she said.
“I do!” cried Jack desperately. “I never was a fellow that did not know his own mind. Of course I know I’m young yet; but I only want to look forward. I shall work and get on, and – and up there at school and at Oakby I never thought there was any one like you. I disliked girls. But now – oh, Gipsy, won’t you begin at the very beginning with me, and let us live our lives together?”
Boy as he was, there was a strength of intention in Jack’s earnest tones that carried conviction. Perhaps the mutual attraction might have remained hidden for long, or even have passed away, but for the sudden and intense excitement that had brought it to the surface.
“Won’t you – won’t you?” reiterated Jack; and Gipsy said “Yes.”
They stood in the glowing sunshine, and Jack felt a sort of ecstasy of unknown bliss. He did not know how long was the pause before Gipsy, starting, and as if finishing the sentence, went on, —
“Yes – but I don’t know. What will they all say? Isn’t it wrong when we are so young?”
“Wrong! as if a year or two made any difference to feelings like mine!” cried Jack. “If I were twenty-five, if I were thirty, I couldn’t love you better!”
“Yes – but – ” said Gipsy, in her quick, practical way. “You are young, and – and – papa – If he says – ”
“Of course I shall tell him,” said Jack. “I am not going to steal you. If you will wait, I’ll work and show your father that I am a man. For I love you!”
“I’ll wait!” said Gipsy softly; and then voices sounded near, and she started away from him, while Jack – but Jack could never recollect exactly what he did during the next ten minutes, till the thought of how he was to tell his story sobered him. Practical life had not hitherto occupied much of Jack’s mind; he had had no distinct intentions beyond taking honours, and if possible a fellowship, till he had been seized upon by this sudden passion, which in most lads would probably have been a passing fancy, but in so earnest and serious a nature took at once a real and practical shape. But when Jack thought of facing Mr Stanforth, and still worse his own father, with his wishes and his hopes, a fearful embarrassment seized on him. No, he must first make his cause good with the only person who was likely to be listened to – he must find Cherry. However, the first person he met was Mr Stanforth, who innocently asked him if he knew where his daughter was. Jack blushed and stared, answering incoherently, —
“I was only looking for Cherry.”
“There he is. I heard him asking for you. Perhaps Gipsy is in the orchard.” Jack felt very foolish and cowardly, but for his very life he could not begin to speak, and he turned towards the bench where Cherry sat in the sun, smoking his pipe comfortably, and conscious of little but a sense of utter rest and relief.
“Well, Jack, I haven’t heard your story yet,” he said, as Jack came and sat down beside him. “I don’t think you have grown thin, though Alvar says they nearly starved you to death.”
“Where is Alvar?” asked Jack.
“I got him to go to the mayor, intendant, whatever the official is called here, and see if anything could be done for poor Pedro. His mother was here just now in an agony. Jack, I think the ‘evils of government’ might receive some illustrations.”
“Cheriton,” said Jack, with unusual solemnity, “I’ve got to ask your advice – that is, your opinion – that is, to tell you something.”
“Don’t you think I should look at it from a ludicrous point of view?” said Cherry, whose spirits were ready for a reaction into nonsense.
“I don’t know,” said Jack; “but it is very serious. I have made up my mind, Cherry, that I mean to marry Miss Stanforth, and I shall direct all my efforts in life to accomplish this end. I know that I am younger than is usual on these occasions; but such things are not a question of time. Cherry, do help me; they’ll all listen to you.”
Cheriton sat with his pipe in his hand, so utterly astonished, that he allowed Jack’s sentences to come to a natural conclusion. Then he exclaimed, —
“Jack! You! Oh, impossible!”
“I don’t see why you should think it impossible. Anyhow, it’s true!”
“But it is so sudden. Jack, my dear boy, you’re slightly carried off your head just now. Don’t say a word about it – while we’re all together at least; it wouldn’t be fair.”
“But I have,” answered Jack, “and – and – ” in a different tone, “Cherry, I don’t know how to believe it myself, but she – it is too wonderful – she will.”
Cherry did not answer. He put his hand on Jack’s with a sudden, quick movement.
“I suppose you think I ought to have waited till I had a better right to ask her,” said Jack presently.
A look of acute pain passed over Cheriton’s face. He said doubtfully, “Are you quite sure?”
“Sure? Sure of what?”
“Of your own mind and hers?”
“Did I ever not know my own mind? I’m not a fool!” said Jack angrily. “And, if you could have seen just the way she looked, Cherry, you wouldn’t have any doubts.”
“I am afraid,” said Cherry very gently, and after a pause, “that you have been very hasty. I don’t think that father, or Mr Stanforth either, would listen to you now.”
“I want you to ask them,” said Jack insinuatingly. “Father would do anything for you now; and, besides, we are young enough to wait, and I’ve got the world before me, and I mean to keep straight and get on. Why should Mr Stanforth object? I feel as if I could do anything. You don’t think it would make me idle? No, I shall work twice as hard as I should without it.”
“Yes,” said Cherry quietly; “no doubt.” Something in his tone brought recent facts to Jack’s remembrance, as was proved by his sudden silence. Cherry looked round at him and smiled.
“You know, Jack, I wasn’t prepared to find the schoolboy stage passed into the lover’s. I’ll speak to Mr Stanforth, if that is what you want, and even if things don’t fit in at once, if you feel as you say, you won’t be much to be pitied with such an aim before you!”
“I’m not at all ashamed of telling my own story,” said Jack, “but – ”
“But there is Mr Stanforth coming out of the house, so if you mean to run away you had better make haste about it.”
Jack rose, but he paused a moment, and as Mr Stanforth came towards them, said bluntly, —
“Mr Stanforth, I want Cheriton to tell you about it first;” then deliberately walked away.
Poor Mr Stanforth, who had little expected such an ending to his tour with his favourite little daughter, was feeling himself in a worse scrape than the lovers, and though he had romance enough to sympathise with them, was disposed to be angry with Jack for his inconsiderate haste, and to feel that “What will your mother say?” was a more uncomfortable question to himself than to his daughter.
Cheriton, on his side, would have been very glad of a few minutes for reflection, but Mr Stanforth began at once, —
“I see I have not brought news to you.”
“No,” said Cherry. “Jack has been talking to me; I had no idea of such a thing. But, Mr Stanforth, there is no doubt that Jack is thoroughly in earnest,” as a half smile twinkled on the artist’s perplexed countenance.
“In earnest, yes; but what business has he to be in earnest? What would your father say to such a proceeding? What can he say at your brother’s age, and of people of whom he knows nothing, and of a connexion of which, knowing nothing, he probably would not approve?”
Cheriton blushed, knowing that this last assertion contained much truth.
“But he does know,” he said, “of all your kindness, and he will know more – and – and when he knows you, he could not think – ”
“Excuse me, my dear fellow, but he will think. He will think I have thrown my daughter in the way of his sons – for which I have only my own imprudence, I suppose, to thank. And he would no doubt dislike a connexion the advantages of which, whatever they may be, are not enumerated in Burke’s ‘Landed Gentry.’”
Mr Stanforth smiled, though he spoke with a certain spirited dignity, and Cheriton could not contradict him; for though Mr Stanforth had not risen out of any romantic obscurity, he certainly owed his present position to his own genius and high personal character. He had himself married well, and all would depend on the way in which it was put to a man like Mr Lester, slow to realise unfamiliar facts. Cheriton could not take the liberty of saying that he thought such an objection would be groundless, or at least easily overcome; but he was afraid that his silence might be misconstrued, and said, – “But on your side, Mr Stanforth, would you think it wrong to give Jack a little hope? I think he has every prospect of success in life. And he is a very good fellow. Sudden as this is, I feel sure that he will stick to it.”
“As to that,” said Mr Stanforth, “I like Jack very well, and for my part I think young people are all the better for having to fight their way; but whatever may take place in the future I can allow no intercourse till your father’s consent is obtained. That will give a chance of testing their feelings on both sides. Gipsy is a mere child, she may not understand herself.”
“I think,” said Cheriton, “that if Jack writes to my father now, or speaks to him when he gets home, that no one will attend to him. But if it could wait till we all go back, I could explain the circumstances so much better. It is always difficult to take in what passes at a distance.”
“Well,” said Mr Stanforth, “all I have to say is that when Jack applies to me, with his father’s consent, I will hear what he has to say, not before. Come, Cheriton,” he added, “you know there is no other way of acting. This foolish boy has broken up our pleasant party, and upset all our plans.”
“Perhaps I ought to have made more apologies for him,” said Cherry, with a smile. “But I want things to go well with Jack. It would be so bad for him to have a disappointment of that kind just as he is making his start in life.”
Mr Stanforth noticed the unconscious emphasis, “I want things to go well with Jack,” and said kindly, “Jack couldn’t have a better special pleader, and if he has as much stuff in him as I think, a few obstacles won’t hurt him.”
“Oh, Jack has plenty of good strong stuff in him, mental, moral – and physical, too,” added Cherry hurriedly.
Mr Stanforth was touched by the allusion, which was evidently intended to combat a possible latent objection on his part.
“Jack is excellent – but inconvenient,” he said, thinking it better not to make the subject too serious. “The thing is what to do next.” As he spoke, Jack himself came up to them, and Mr Stanforth prevented his first words with, “My dear fellow, I have said my say to your brother, and I don’t mean to listen to yours just yet.”
“I believe, sir,” said Jack, “that I – I have not observed sufficient formalities. I shall go straight home to my father, and I hope to obtain his full consent. But it is due to me to let me say that my mind is, and always will be, quite unalterable. And I’m not sorry I spoke, sir – I can’t be!”
“No,” said Mr Stanforth; “but I must desire that you make no further attempt at present.”
“I hope, Mr Stanforth, that you don’t imagine I would attempt anything underhand!” cried Jack impetuously.
“I shall have every confidence in you,” said Mr Stanforth gravely; “but remember, I cannot regard you as pledged to my daughter by anything that has passed to-day.” Jack made no answer, but he closed his lips with an expression of determination.
When Alvar came back, having succeeded in instituting an inquiry into the merits of Pedro’s character, there was a discussion of plans, which ended in the three brothers agreeing to go by the shortest route to Seville, whence Jack could at once start for England; while the Stanforths followed them by a longer and more picturesque road, and after picking up their own property, would also go home via Madrid some week or two later. Alvar was not nearly so much astonished as the others, nor so much concerned.
“It was natural,” he said, “since Jack’s heart was not preoccupied, and would doubtless pass away with absence.”
Jack was so excessively indignant that he did not condescend to a reply, only asking Cherry if he was too tired to start at once.
This proposal, however, was negatived by Mr Stanforth, who remarked that he did not want to hear of any more adventures in the dusk; and it was agreed that both parties should start early on the following morning. In the meantime the only rational thing was to behave as usual. Jack was, however, speechless and surly with embarrassment, and stuck to Cheriton as if he was afraid to lose sight of him; while Gipsy bore herself with a transparent affectation of unconsciousness, and, though she blushed at every look, coined little remarks at intervals. Miss Weston kindly professed to be seized with a desire to inspect the Dominican Convent, and carried her and Alvar off for that purpose; while Jack held by Cherry, who was glad to rest, though this startling incident had one good effect, in driving away all the haunting memories of the late alarm.
The next morning all were up with the sun, Gipsy busily dispensing the chocolate and pressing it on Cheriton as he sat at the table. Suddenly she turned, and, with a very pretty gesture, half confident, half shy, she held up a cup to Jack, who stood behind.
“Won’t you have some?” she said, with a hint of her own mischief in her eyes and voice. Jack seized the cup, and – upset it over the deft, quick hands that tendered it to him.
“Oh, I have burnt you!” he exclaimed, in so tragic a voice that all present burst out laughing.
“No,” said Gipsy, “early morning chocolate is not dangerously hot; but you have spoiled my cuffs, and spilled it, and I don’t think there’s any more of it.”
“Jack’s first attention!” said Cherry, under his breath; but he jumped up and followed Alvar, who had gone to see about the mount provided for them. Miss Weston was tying various little bags on to her saddle.
“I say, Mr Stanforth,” called Cherry, “there’s such a picturesque mule here; do come and see it.”
He looked up with eyes full of mischievous entreaty as Mr Stanforth obeyed his call. “Well,” said the latter with a smile, “I may ask you to come and see me at Kensington, for I must get the picture finished.”
“That was a much prettier picture, just now,” said Cheriton; “and I’m sure Jack would be happy to sit for it any time.”
When Gipsy, long afterwards, was pressed on the subject of that little parting interview, she declared that Jack had done nothing but say that he wouldn’t make love to her on any account; but however that might be, she soon came running out, rosy and bashful; while Cheriton put her on her mule and gave her a friendly hand-squeeze and a look of all possible encouragement. Mr Stanforth went into the house and called Jack to bid him a kind farewell. After the party had set off, Gipsy looked back and saw the crowd of mule drivers and peasants, the host and hostess, with Mariquita kissing her hands, and the three brothers standing together in the morning sunshine, waving their farewells. As they passed out of sight, her father touched her hand and made her ride up close to his side.
“My little girl,” he said, “this is a serious thing that has come to you; I do not know how it may end for you. I am sure that it will bring you anxiety and delay. Be honest with yourself, and do not exaggerate the romance and excitement of these last few days into a feeling which may demand from you much sacrifice.”
Gipsy had never heard her father speak in this tone before – she was awed and silenced.
“Be honest,” repeated her father, “for I think it is a very honest heart that you have won.”
“Papa,” said Gipsy, “I am honest, and I think I know what you mean. But I don’t mind waiting if I know he is waiting too. He said ‘begin at the beginning’ with him.”
“Well,” said Mr Stanforth with a sigh, “Che sará sará;” but with a sudden turn, “He is young, too, you know, and many things may happen to change his views.”
“I cannot help it now, papa,” said Gipsy, who felt that those days and nights of terror had developed her feelings more than weeks of common life. She gave her father’s hand a little squeeze, and looked up in his face with the tears on her black eyelashes. She meant to say, “I love you all the better because of this new love which has made everything deeper and warmer for me,” but all she managed to say was – “There! There are all the things tumbling out of your knapsack! I’m not going to have that happen again even if – if – whatever should take place in the future.”
“I hope, my dear, that nothing more will happen, at least till we are at home again,” said Mr Stanforth meekly; but Gipsy put the things into the knapsack, and after a little silence they fell into a conversation on the scenery as naturally as possible.
Chapter Ten.
A Summons
“Once from high Heaven
Is a father given.
Once – and, oh, never again!”
After Jack returned home, with the understanding that the disclosure of his holiday occupation should await his brother’s return, and after the Stanforths had also left Seville, Alvar and Cheriton spent several weeks there without any adventures to disturb their tranquillity. Alvar was a good deal with his grandfather, whose health was not at this time good, but who had evinced great curiosity as to the details of their detention on the mountains. He used also to go to the different clubs and meet acquaintances, where they talked politics and scandal, and played at cards, dominoes, and billiards. It was an aimless existence, and Cheriton sometimes fancied that Alvar grew restless under it, and would not be sorry to return to England. This, however, might have been owing to Cheriton’s own decided dislike to the young Sevillanos, who struck him as almost justifying his grandmother’s preconceived theory of Alvar’s probable behaviour.
“Ah, they do not suit you, that is not what you like,” Alvar said cheerfully; but he never said, “It is not good, this sort of life does not make a nation great or virtuous.”
Manoel was of another type, and perhaps a more respectable one; but they saw very little of him. Cheriton liked the ladies, who were kind, and possessed many domestic virtues; and at Don Guzman’s country place there was something exceedingly pleasant in the cheerfulness and gaiety of the peasants. He would have liked to have found out something of the working of the Church, of the views of the clergy, and how far they differed, not only from those of an Anglican, but of an intelligent Roman priest in more civilised countries, but on these subjects no one would talk to him. He heard mutterings of hatred towards the priests in some quarters, and a good deal of chatter about processions and ceremonies from the young ladies, but nothing further. He did not want for occupation. He could now read and speak Spanish easily; and although the Cid, Ferdinand and Isabella, the Armada, and the Inquisition had been about the only salient points in his mind previously, he made a study of Spanish history, without much increase of his admiration for the Spaniards. He was able, also, to do much more sight-seeing than at first, and of the cathedral he never tired, and never came to the end of its innumerable chapels, each with some great picture, which Mr Stanforth had taught him how to see; never ceased to find something new in the mystery and solemnity of its aisles with their glory of coloured lights.
These quiet weeks formed a sort of resting-place, during which he was able to think both of the past and of the future; he could dare now to look away from the immediate present. Cheriton’s eyes were very clear, his moral sense very keen, and he saw that he had been under a delusion, that Ruth and he were as the poles asunder, that her deliberate deception, her want of any sense of honour, had marked a nature that never could have satisfied his. Love in his case was no longer blind, but it was none the less passionate, and, whatever else life might hold for him, the memory of all his first, best hopes could never bring him anything but pain. This pain had been as much as he could bear, but others, he thought, had suffered as keenly, and had led lives that were neither ignoble nor unhappy. Because one great love had gone out of his life was nothing else worthy or dear? “Nothing” had been the answer of his first anguish, but Cheriton’s nature was too rich in love for such an answer to stand. The help for which he had prayed had been sent to him, and it came in the sense that home faces were still dear —how dear his late alarm had taught him – home duties still paramount, that he could be a good son and brother and friend still. And he thought with a sort of surprise of the many pleasant and not unhappy hours he had passed of late; how much, after all, he had “enjoyed himself.” He hardly knew that his quick intelligence was a gift to be thankful for, or that his unselfish interest in others brought its own reward. On another side of his nature, also, he resisted the aimlessness of his lost hopes. The thought of Ruth had sweetened his success at Oxford, but he would not be such a coward as to give up all his objects in life, he would make a name for himself still, and show her that she had not brought him to utter shipwreck. This motive was strong in Cheriton, though it ran alongside with much higher ones.
One picture in the cathedral exercised a great fascination over Cheriton’s mind. It hangs in the Capella del Consuelo, over a side altar, dedicated to the Angel de la Guarda, and is one of the many masterpieces of Murillo to be found in Seville. It represents a tall, strong angel with wide-spread wings, and grave, benevolent face, leading by the hand a child – a subject which has been of course repeated in every form of commonplace prettiness. But in this picture the figure of the angel conveys a sense of heavenly might and unearthly guardianship which no imitation or repetition could give. It is called the “Guardian Angel;” but Cheriton had been told by one of the priests that the name given to it by the painter himself was “The Soul and the Church,” which for some reason or other had been changed by the monks of the Capuchin Convent, to whom the picture had originally belonged. It was a thought and a carrying out of the thought which, seen among such surroundings, was full of suggestion, how and why that Divine Guidance seemed here in great measure to have gone astray, how the great angel’s finger had not always pointed upward, and yet how utterly helpless and rudderless the nation was when it cast off the Guide of its fathers. Then his thoughts turned to his own life and to the Hand that held it, to the Guidance that was sometimes so hard to recognise, so difficult to yield to, and yet how the sense of a love and a wisdom above his own, speaking to him, whether in the events of his own life, the better impulses of his own heart, or in the visible forms of religion, was the one light in the darkness.
“O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone.”
As he murmured the words half aloud a hand touched his shoulder. He looked up and saw Alvar standing beside him.
“Mi querido, I have been looking for you. Will you come home? I want you,” he said.
“There is something the matter,” said Cheriton quickly, as he looked at him. “What is it?”
“Ah, I must tell you!” said Alvar reluctantly. “It is bad news, indeed. Sit down again – here – I have received this.” He took a telegraph paper out of his pocket and put it into Cherry’s hand.
“Mrs Lester to Alvar Lester.
“Your father has met with a dangerous accident. He wishes to see you. Come home at once. He desires Cheriton to run no risk.”
Cheriton looked up blankly for a moment, then started to his feet, crushing up the paper in his hand.
“Quick,” he said, “we must go at once. When? By Madrid is the shortest way.”
“Yes – I – ” said Alvar; “but see what he says.”
“I must go,” said Cheriton. “Don’t waste any words about it. I know he wants me. I’ll be careful enough, only make haste.”
But he paused, and dropping on his knees on the altar step, covered his face with his hands, rose, and silently led the way out of the cathedral.
Alvar, with his usual tact, perceived at once that it would be impossible to persuade him to stay behind, and did not fret him by the attempt, though this hasty journey and the return to Oakby in the first sharp winds of March were more on his own mind than the thought of what news might meet them at the journey’s end.
It was still early in the day, and they were able to start within a few hours, only taking a few of their things with them, amid a confusion of tears, sympathy, and regret; Don Guzman evidently parting from Alvar with reluctance, and bestowing a tremendous embrace on Cheriton in return for his thanks for the kindness that had been shown to him. Manoel, on the other hand, was evidently relieved at their early departure.
Some days later, on a wild, blustering morning in the first week of March, Jack Lester stood on the step of the front door of Oakby. The trees were still bare, and scarcely a primrose peeped through the dead leaves beneath them; pale rays of sun were struggling with the quick driven clouds, the noisy caw of the rooks mingled with the rustle of the leafless branches. Jack was pale and heavy-eyed. He looked across the wide, wild landscape as if its very familiarity were strange to him, then started, as up the park from a side entrance came a carnage and pair as fast as it could be driven, and in another minute pulled up at the door.
“Oh, Cherry, we have never dared to wish for you!” cried Jack, as Cheriton sprang out and caught both his hands. “Come in – come in! Oh, if you had but come last night!”
“Not too late – not too late altogether?” Jack shook his head, his voice choked, but they knew too well what he would tell them, and the two brothers stood just within the door, holding by each other, Jack sobbing with relief from the strain of responsibility and loneliness, and Cheriton dazed and silent, unable to utter a word.
The servants began to gather round them. “Oh, Mr Cheriton, it’s some comfort to see you back, sir!” said the butler; and – “Thank heaven, sir, you’re come to help your poor grandmother!” cried the old housekeeper; while Nettie, flying downstairs, threw herself into Cheriton’s arms, as if they were a refuge from the agony of new and most forlorn sorrow, while he held her fast with long speechless kisses.
Alvar stood still. In that instinctive mutual clinging in the first shock of their common grief he had no share, and for the moment he stood as much a stranger among them as when, more than a year before, he had come into the midst of their Christmas merry-making, and had silenced their laughter by his unwelcome presence.
Jack was the first to awaken to a sense of present necessity.