Chapter Five.
A New Suggestion
“Once remember
You devoted soul and mind
To the welfare of your brethren
And the service of your kind,
Now what sorrow can you comfort?”
Soon after the scenes recorded in the last chapter, Alvar received a letter from Mrs Lester, in which she thanked him, in a dignified and cordial manner, for his proposal that the home at Oakby should go on as usual, but said she did not consider that her residence there would be for the happiness of any one. During her son’s married life she had lived in a house at Ashrigg, which was part of the Lester property, and was called The Rigg. This was now again vacant, and she proposed to take it, making it a home for Nettie, and for any of her grandsons who chose so to consider it. The great sorrow of her dear son’s death would be more endurable to her, she said, anywhere but at Oakby. The neighbourhood of the Hubbards would provide friends for herself and society for Nettie, who would be very lonely at Oakby in her brothers’ constant absences. Alvar was sincerely sorry. He was accustomed to the idea of a family home being open to all, and did not, in any way, regard himself as trammelled by his grandmother’s presence there, while Cheriton was utterly taken by surprise, and hated the additional change and uprooting. He did not think the step unwise, especially as regarded Nettie, but he marvelled at his grandmother’s energy in devising and resolving on it. He had expected a great outcry from Nettie, but she proved not to be unprepared, and said briefly, “that she liked it better than staying at home now.”
“But you will not desert me?” said Alvar. “Shall I drive you too away from your home?”
“No,” said Cherry. “No, I’ll come home for the holidays, and the boys, too, if you will have them; though I suppose granny will want to see us all sometimes.”
“I wish that I could take you home now,” said Alvar. “I think you are tired with London – you see too many people.”
Cheriton coloured a little at the allusion, but he disclaimed any wish to leave London then, shrinking indeed from breaking through the externals of his profession. It ended by Alvar going down to meet his grandmother at Oakby, and to make arrangements for the change, during which he proved himself so kind, courteous, and helpful to her, that he quite won her heart; and Nettie, on her return, was astonished at hearing Alvar’s judgment deferred to, and “my grandson” quoted as an authority, on several occasions.
Jack, after a few days in London, joined a reading party for the first weeks of the vacation; and Bob, on his return from the gentleman who was combining for him the study of farming and of polite literature, joined Nettie in London, and took her down to Ashrigg; so that the early part of August found only Cheriton and Alvar at Oakby.
Cherry liked this well enough, for though the house could not but seem forlorn and empty to him, daily life was always pleasant with Alvar, and he would have gladly helped him through all the arrears of business that came to hand. These were considerable, for Mr Lester’s subordinates had not been trained to go alone, and none of them had been allowed universal superintendence. Cheriton thought that Alvar required such assistance, and that he ought to have an agent with more authority; but oddly enough he did not take to the proposal, and in the meantime he made mistakes, kept decisions waiting, failed to recognise the relative importance of different matters, and, still worse, of different people.
One afternoon, towards the end of August, Cheriton went over to Elderthwaite. What with business at home, expeditions to Ashrigg, and a great many calls on his attention from more immediate neighbours, he had not seen very much of the parson, and as he neared the rectory he beheld an unwonted sight in the field adjoining, namely, some thirty or forty children drinking tea, under the superintendence of Virginia and one of the Miss Ellesmeres.
“Hallo, Cherry,” said the parson, advancing to meet him; “where have you been? Seems to me we must have a grand – what d’ye call it? – rural collation before we can get a sight of you.”
“As you never invited me to the rural collation, I was not aware of its existence,” said Cherry laughing, as Virginia approached him.
“Oh, Cherry, stay and start some games,” she said. “You know they are so ignorant, they never even saw a school-feast before.”
“Then, Virginia, I wonder at you for spoiling the last traces of such refreshing simplicity. Introducing juvenile dissipation! Well, it doesn’t seem as if the natural child wanted much training to appreciate plum-cake!”
“No; but if you could make the boys run for halfpence – ”
“You think they won’t know a halfpenny when they see one.”
“Do have some tea!” said Lucy Ellesmere, running up to him. “Perhaps you are tired, and Virginia has given them beautiful tea, and really they’re very nice children, considering.”
So Cherry stayed, and advanced the education of the Elderthwaite youth by teaching them to bob for cherries, and other arts of polite society, ending by showing them how to give three cheers for the parson, and three times three for Miss Seyton; and while Virginia was dismissing her flock with final hunches of gingerbread, the parson called him into the house.
“Poor lassie!” he said; “she is fond of the children, and thinks a great deal of doing them good; but it’s little good she can do in the face of what’s coming.”
“How do you mean?” said Cheriton. “Is anything specially amiss?”
“Come in and have a pipe. A glass of wine won’t come amiss after so much tea and gingerbread.”
They went into the dining-room, and the parson poked up the fire into a blaze, for even August afternoons were not too warm at Elderthwaite for a fire to be pleasant, and as he subsided into his arm-chair, he said gravely, —
“Eh, Cherry, we Seytons have been a bad lot – a bad lot – and the end of it’ll be we shall be kicked out of the country.”
“Oh, I hope not!” said Cherry, quite sincerely. “What is the matter?”
“Well, look round about you. Is there a wall that’s mended, or a plantation preserved as it ought to be? Look at the timber – what is there left of it? and what’s felled lies rotting on the ground for want of carting. There’s acres of my brother’s hay never was led till the rain came and spoiled it. Look at the cottages. Queenie gets the windows mended, but she can’t make the roofs water-tight. Look at those woods down by the stream, why, there’s not a head of game in them, and once they were the best preserves in the country!”
“Things are bad, certainly,” said Cherry.
“And yet, Cherry, we’ve loved the place, and never have sold an acre of it, spite of mortgages and everything. Well, my brother’s not long for this world. He has been failing and failing before his time, and though he has led a decent life enough, things have gone more to the bad with years of doing nothing, than with all the scandals of my father’s time.”
“Is Mr Seyton ill?” said Cheriton.
“Not ill altogether; but mark my words, he’ll not last long. Well, at last, he was so hard up that he wrote to Roland – and I know, Cheriton, it was the bitterest pill he ever swallowed – and asked his consent to selling Uplands Farm. What does Roland do but write back and say, with all his heart; so soon as it came into his hands he should sell every acre, house and lands, advowson of living and all, and pay his debts. He hated the place, he said, and would never live there. Sell it to the highest bidder. There were plenty of fortunes made in trade, says he, that would give anything for land and position. So there, the old place’ll go into the hands of some purse-proud stranger. But not the church – he shan’t go restoring and improving that with his money. I’m only fifty-nine, and a good life yet, and I’ll stick in the church till I’m put into the churchyard!”
Cherry smiled, it was impossible to help it; but the parson’s story made him very sad. He knew well enough that it was a righteous retribution, that Roland’s ownership would be a miserable thing for every soul in Elderthwaite, and that the most purse-proud of strangers would do something to mend matters; and yet his heart ached at the downfall, and his quick imagination pictured vividly how completely the poor old parson would put himself in the wrong, and what a disastrous state of things would be sure to ensue.
“I’d try and not leave so much ‘restoration’ for any stranger to do,” he said.
“Eh, what’s the good?” said the parson. “She had better let it alone for the ‘new folks.’”
“Nay,” said Cherry, “you cannot tell if the ‘new folks,’ as you call them, will be inclined for anything of the sort, and all these changes may not take place for years. It doesn’t quite pay to do nothing because life is rather more uncertain to oneself than to other people.”
Cheriton spoke half to himself, and the parson went on with his own train of thought.
“Ay, I’ll stick to the old place, though I thought it a heavy clog round my neck once; and if you knew all the ins and outs of that transaction, you’d say, maybe, I ought to be kicked out of it now.”
“No, I should not,” said Cherry, who knew, perhaps, more of the Elderthwaite traditions than the parson imagined. “Things are as they are, and not as they might have been, and perhaps you could do more than any one else to mend matters.”
The parson looked into the fire, with an odd, half humble, half comical expression, and Cherry said abruptly, —
“Do you think Mr Seyton would sell Uplands to me?”
“To you? What the dickens do you want with it?”
“Why – I don’t think it would be a bad speculation, and I should like, I think, to have it.”
“What? Does your brother make Oakby too hot to hold you?”
“No, indeed. He is all that is kind to me,” said Cherry indignantly. “Every one misconstrues him. But I should like to have a bit of land hereabouts, all the same.”
“Well, you had better ask my brother yourself. He may think himself lucky, for I don’t know who would buy a bit of land like that wedged in between the two places. Ah, here’s Queenie to say good-night. Well, my lassie, are you pleased with your sport?”
“Yes, uncle; and the children were very good.”
Cheriton walked a little way with Virginia, beyond the turning where they parted from Lucy Ellesmere. He found that she was unaware of the facts which the parson had told him, and though somewhat uneasy about her father, very much disposed to dwell on the good accounts of Dick and Harry, and on the general awakening in the place that seemed to demand improvements. Oakby offered a ready-made pattern, and other farmers had been roused by Mr Clements to wish for changes, while some, of course, were ready to oppose them.
“They begin to wish Uncle James would have a curate, Cherry,” she said; “but I don’t think he ever will find one that he could get on with. No one who did not know all the ins and outs of the place could get on either with him or with the people.”
“It would be difficult,” said Cheriton thoughtfully; “yet I do believe that a great deal might be done for parson as well as people.”
“Ah, Cherry,” said Virginia, with a smile, “if you hadn’t got another vocation, Uncle James would let you do anything you liked. I wish you were a clergyman, and could come and be curate of Elderthwaite; for you are the only person who could fit into all the corners.”
Virginia spoke in jest, as of an impossible vision, but Cheriton answered her with unexpected seriousness.
“It would be hard on Elderthwaite to put up with a failure, and an offering would not be worth much which one had waited to make till one had nothing left worth giving; I’m afraid, too, my angles are less accommodating than you suppose – ask Alvar.” Cherry finished his sentence thoughtlessly, and was recalled by Virginia’s blush; but she said as they parted, “That is a safe reference for you.”
Cheriton laughed; but as he walked homeward he turned and looked back on the tumble-down, picturesque village at his feet. Loud, rough sounds of a noisy quarrel in the little street came to his ears, and some boys passed him manifestly the worse for drink, though they pulled themselves up and tried to avoid his notice. It was not quite a new idea which Virginia had put into shape; but as the steep hill forced him to slacken his steps, he could not see that the strength which had proved insufficient for a more selfish object was likely to be worth consecrating to the service of his neighbours.
Chapter Six.
A New Ambition
“Like a young courtier of the king’s – like the king’s young courtier.”
In the first week of September Jack came home, and Bob also came over from Ashrigg to assist in demolishing the partridges. The empty, lonely house affected the spirits of the two lads in a way neither of them had foreseen; the unoccupied drawing-room, the absence of Nettie’s rapid footsteps, the freedom from their grandmother’s strictures on dress and deportment – all seemed strange and unnatural; and when they were not absolutely out shooting, they hung about disconsolately, and grumbled to Cheriton over every little alteration. Jack, indeed, recovered himself after a day or two, but he looked solemn, and intensified Cherry’s sense that things were amiss, strongly disapproving of his principle of non-interference. He contrived, too, whether innocently or not, to ask questions that exposed Alvar’s ignorance of the names and qualities of places and people, and betrayed delays in giving orders, misconceptions of requirements, and many a lapse from order and method. Moreover, the way in which some of the excellent old dependents showed their loyalty to the old regime, was by doing nothing without orders. Consequently, a hedge remained unmended till the cows got through into a plantation, and ate the tops off the young trees, – “Mr Lester had given no order on the subject;” and a young horse was thrown down and broke his knees through Mr Lester desiring the wrong person to exercise him. Then, of two candidates for a situation, Alvar often managed to choose the wrong one, and with the sort of irritability that seemed to be growing on him, would not put up with suggestions.
“What?” said Jack; “one of those poaching, thieving Greens taken on as stable-boy! And Jos, too – the worst of the lot! Why, he has been in prison twice. A nice companion for all the other lads about the place! I saw little Sykes after him this morning. I should have thought you would have stopped that, Cherry, at least!”
“I did not know of it, Jack, till too late,” said Cherry quietly.
“Well,” said Jack, driving his hands into his pockets and frowning fiercely, “I don’t think it’s right to let such things pass without a protest. Something will happen that cannot be undone. I don’t approve of systems by which people’s welfare is thrown into the hands of a few; but if they are – if you are those few, it’s – it’s more criminal than many things of which the law takes cognisance, to neglect their interest. It’s destroying the last relics of reality, and bringing the whole social edifice to destruction.”
“What I think,” said Bob, “is that if a man’s a gentleman, and has been accustomed to see things in a proper point of view, he acts accordingly.”
“A gentleman! A man’s only claim to be a gentleman is that he recognises the whole brotherhood of humanity and his duties as a human being.”
“Come, I don’t know,” said Bob, not quite sure where these expressions were leading him.
“His duty to his neighbour,” said Cheriton.
“You worry yourself fifty times too much about it all,” said Jack, with vehement inconsistency.
“Well, perhaps I do,” said Cheriton, glad to turn the conversation. “Come, tell me how you got on in Wales, I have never heard a word of it.”
Jack looked at him for a moment, and with something of an effort began to talk about his reading party; but presently he warmed with the topic, and Cherry brightened into animation at the sound of familiar names and former interests; they began to laugh over old jokes, and quarrel over old subjects of disputation; and they were talking fast and eagerly against each other, with a sort of chorus from Bob, when, looking up, Cherry suddenly saw Alvar standing before them with a letter in his hand.
He was extremely pale, but his eyes blazed with such intensity of wrath, he came up to them with a gesture expressive of such passion, that they all started up; while he burst out, —
“I have to tell you that I am scorned, injured, insulted. My grandfather has died – ”
“Your grandfather, Don Guzman? Alvar, I am sorry,” exclaimed Cheriton; but Alvar interrupted him, —
“Sorrow insults me! I learn that he has made his will, that he leaves all to Manoel, that I– I, his grandson – am not fit to be his heir, ‘since I am a foreigner and a heretic, and unfit to be the owner of Spanish property.’”
“That seems very unjust,” said Cheriton, as Alvar paused for a moment.
“Unjust!” cried Alvar. “I am the victim of injustice. Here and there – it is the same thing. I have been silent – yes, yes – but I will not bear it. I will be what I please, myself – there, here, everywhere!”
“Nay, Alvar,” said Cherry gently; “here at least, you have met with no injustice.”
“And why?” cried Alvar, with the sudden abandonment of passion which now and then broke through his composure. “You are doubtless too honourable to plot and scheme; but your thoughts and your wishes, are they not the same – the same as this most false and unnatural traitor, who has stolen from me my inheritance and my grandfather’s love? What do you wish, my brothers – wish in your hearts – would happen to the intruder, the stranger, who takes your lands from you? Would you not see me dead at your feet?”
“We never wished you were dead,” said Bob indignantly, as Alvar walked about the room, threw out his hands with vehement gestures, stamped his foot, and gave way to a violence of expression that would have seemed ludicrous to his brothers but for the fury of passion, which evidently grew with every moment, as if the injury of years was finding vent. All the strong temper of his father seemed roused and expressed with a rush of vindictive passion, his southern blood and training depriving him at once of self-consciousness and self-control.
“What matter what you wish? Am I not condemned to a life which I abhor, to a place that is hateful to me, despised by one whose feet I would kiss, disliked by you all, insulted by those who should be my slaves? What is this country to me, or I to it? I care not for your laws, your magistrates, your people – who hate me, who would shoot me if they dared. And this – this – has lost me the place where I was as good as others. I lose my home for this – for you who stand together and wonder at me. I curse that villain who has robbed me; I curse the fate that has made me doubly an outlaw; most of all, I curse my father, whose neglect – ”
“Silence!” said Cheriton; “you do not speak such words in our presence.”
The flood of Alvar’s words, half Spanish, half English, had fairly silenced the three brothers with amazement. Now he faced round furiously on Cheriton, —
“I will speak – ”
“You will not,” said Cheriton, grasping his hand, and looking full in his face. “You forget yourself, Alvar. Don’t say what we could never forget or forgive.”
But Alvar flung him off with a violence and scorn that roused the two lads to fury, and made Cheriton’s own blood tingle as Jack sprang forward, —
“I won’t have that,” he said, in a tone as low as Alvar’s was high, but to the full as threatening.
“I’ll give you a licking if you touch my brother,” shouted Bob, with a rough, schoolboy enforcement of the threat.
“Hush!” said Cheriton; “for God’s sake, stop – all of you! We are not boys now, to threaten each other. Stop, while there is time. Stand back, I say, Jack, and be silent!”
The whole thing had passed in half a minute; Alvar’s own furious gesture had sobered him, and he threw himself into a seat; while Cheriton’s steady voice and look controlled the two lads, and gave Jack time to recollect himself.
There was a moment’s silence. Then Alvar stood up, bowed haughtily, like a duellist after the encounter, and walked out of the room. Jack, after a minute, broke into an odd, harsh laugh, and, pushing open the window, leant out of it.
“One wants air. That was a critical moment,” he said.
“I’ll not stand that sort of thing; I’ll go back to Ashrigg; I’ll not come here again,” said Bob. “What did you stop us for, Cherry, when we were going to show him a piece of our minds?”
“I did not think anybody’s mind was fit to be exhibited,” said Cheriton. “Don’t begin to quarrel with me too, Bob; and do not go away to-day on any account.”
“Well!” said Bob; “if you like such a hollow peace – but I’ll not shoot his partridges, nor ride his horses; I’ll go for a walk, and I shan’t come in to dinner!”
Bob flung out of the room, banging the door behind him.
At first the other two hardly spoke a word to each other. Cherry sat down a little apart, and mechanically took up a newspaper. Jack sat in the window, and as his heat subsided, thought over the scene that had passed. He felt that it was more than a foolish outburst of violent temper; it had been a revelation to themselves and to each other of a state of feeling that it seemed to him impossible any longer to ignore. He knew that Cheriton’s presence of mind had saved them from words and actions that might have parted them for ever; but what was the use of pretending to get on with Alvar after such a deadly breach? Better leave him to do the best he could in his own way, and go theirs. And Jack’s thoughts turned to his own way in the future that he hoped for, success and congenial labour, and sweet love to brighten it. After all, a man’s early home was not everything to him. And then he looked towards Cheriton, who had dropped his newspaper, and sat looking dreamily before him, with a sad look of disappointment on his face.
“What are you going to do, Cherry?” said Jack.
“Do? Nothing. What can I do?” said Cherry. Then he added, “We must not make too much of what passed to-day; let us all try and forget it. Alvar has been ill-treated, and we are none of us so gentle as not to know what a little additional Spanish fire might make of us.”
“To be rough with you!” said Jack.
“Oh, that was accidental. It is the terrible resentment. There, I did not mean to speak of it. Let us get out into the air, and shake it off.”
“It is too wet and cold for you,” said Jack, looking out.
Cheriton flushed at the little check with an impatience that showed how hardly the scene had borne on him.
“Nonsense; don’t be fanciful,” he said. “It won’t hurt me – what if it did?”
Jack followed him in silence, and as they walked Cherry talked resolutely of other matters, though with long pauses of silence between.
In the meantime Alvar endured an agony of self-disgust. He could not forgive himself for his loss of dignity, nor his brothers for having witnessed it. Cheriton had conquered him, and the thought rankled so as to obscure even the love he bore him; while all the bitter and vindictive feelings, never recognised as sinful, took possession of him, and held undisputed sway. He was enough of an Englishman to reject his first impulse of rushing back to Seville and calling out his cousin and fighting him. After all, the bitterness was here; and at dinner-time he appeared silent and sullen in manner. Cheriton looked ill and tired, and could hardly eat; but Alvar offered no remark on it, and the younger boys (for Bob did come back) were shy and embarrassed. Alvar answered when Cheriton addressed him with a sort of stiff politeness, and by the next morning had resumed a more ordinary demeanour; but when Bob again suggested going back to Ashrigg, Cheriton and Jack agreed that he had better do so, only charging him not to let Nettie or their grandmother guess at any quarrel.
“And, Cherry,” Jack said, “suppose we come somewhere together for a little while? A little sea air would do you good – and you could help me with my reading. No one could think it strange, and I am sure you want rest and quiet.”
“No, Jack,” said Cherry. “It is very good of you, my boy, but – I’ll try a little longer. Alvar and I could not come together again if I went away now, and I’ll not give up hoping that after all things may right themselves. Think of all he has been to me. But you must do as you think best yourself.”
“I shall not leave you here without me,” said Jack; “but I don’t see the use of staying.”
“Well – I shall stay,” said Cherry.
Alvar never alluded again to his letter from Spain; and the others were afraid to start the subject. He was very polite to them, and together they formed engagements, went over to Ashrigg, and led their lives in the usual manner; but there was no real approach, and Cheriton missed Alvar’s caressing tenderness, and the tact that had always been exercised on his behalf.
He did not, with all this worry, find as much strength to face the coming winter as he had hoped for, and while he thought that going back to London would put an end to the present discomfort, he believed that he would do no good there; and would not a parting from Alvar now be a real separation?
Alvar, meanwhile, took a fit of attending to business. He spent much time about the place, insisted on being consulted on all subjects, and still more on being instantly obeyed; King Log had vanished, and a very peremptory king Stork appeared in his place. The gentle, courteous, indifferent Alvar seemed possessed with a captious and resentful spirit that brooked no opposition. No one had ever dared to disobey Mr Lester’s orders; but then they had been given with a due regard to possibility, and often after consultation with those by whom they were to be obeyed.
Alvar now proved himself to be equally determined; but he was often ignorant of what was reasonable and of what was not, and though the sturdy north-countrymen had given in against their inclination to their superior, they thought it very hard to be driven against their judgment when they were right and “t’ strange squire” was wrong, or at least innovating. Now Alvar did know something about horses, and his views of stable management differed somewhat from those prevailing at Oakby, and being based on the experience of a different climate and different conditions, were not always applicable there, and could only of course be carried, as it were, at the sword’s point.
Full of this new and intense desire to feel himself master, and to prove himself so, Alvar not unnaturally concentrated his efforts on the one subject where he had something to say. He could not lay down the law about turnips and wheat; but he did think that he knew best how to treat the injuries the young horse had received by his own mistaken order.
Perhaps he did; but so did not think old Bill Fisher, who had been about the stables ever since he was twelve, and who, though past much active work, still considered himself an authority from which there was no appeal.
Alvar visited the horse, and desired a certain remedy to be applied to a sprained shoulder, taking some trouble to explain how it was to be made.
Old Bill listened in an evil silence, and instead of saying that so far as he knew one of the ingredients was unattainable at Oakby, or giving his master an alternative, said nothing at all in reply to Alvar’s imperious – “Remember, this must be done at once;” but happening soon after to encounter Cheriton, requested him to visit the horse, and desired his opinion of the proper treatment.
Cheriton, ignorant of what had passed, naturally quoted the approved remedy at Oakby, adding, —
“Why, Bill, I should have thought you would have known that for yourself.”
“Ay, no one ever heard tell of no other,” muttered the old man, proceeding to apply it with some grumbling about strangers, which Cheriton afterwards bitterly rued having turned a deaf ear to.
The next morning Alvar went to see if his plans had been carried out, and discovering how his orders had been disregarded, turned round, and said sternly, —
“How have you dared to disobey me?”
“Eh, sir,” said Bill, rather appalled at his master’s face, “this stuffs cured our horses these fifty year.”
“You have disobeyed me,” said Alvar, “and I will not suffer it. I dismiss you from my service – you may go. I will not forgive you.”
Old Bill lifted up his bent figure, and stared at his master in utter amaze.
“I served your honour’s grandfather – me and mine,” he said.
“You cannot obey me. What are your wages? I will pay them – you may go.” Neither the old man himself, nor the helpers who had begun to gather round, belonged to a race of violent words, or indeed of violent deeds; but there was more hate in the faces that were turned on Alvar than would have winged many an Irish bullet. All were silent, till a little brother of Cherry’s friends, the Flemings, called out, saucily enough, – “’Twas Mr Cherry’s orders.”
As if stung beyond endurance, Alvar turned, caught the boy by the shoulder, and raising his cane, struck him once, twice, several times, with a violence of which he himself was hardly conscious.
This was the scene that met Cheriton’s startled eyes as he came up to the stable to inquire for the sick horse.
He uttered a loud exclamation of astonishment and dismay, and put his hand on Alvar’s shoulder.
Alvar, with a final blow, threw the lad away from him, and faced round on Cheriton, drew himself up, and folded his arms, as he said, regardless of the spectators, —
“I will not have it that you interfere with me, to alter my orders, or to stop me in what I do. You shall not do it.”
“I have never interfered with you!” cried Cheriton fiercely. “Assuredly I never will. I – I – ” He checked himself with a strong effort, and said, very low, “We are forgetting ourselves by disputing here. If you have anything to say to me, it can be said at a better moment.”
Then, without trusting himself with a word or look, he walked slowly away.
Alvar said emphatically, —