But it was not all at once that this absence of all that makes life worth living could be apparent, and Virginia found her first confirmation of Harry’s words as she walked through the village on Christmas morning, and noted the wild, untidy look of the people, and the wretched state of their houses, and observed the sullen look of their faces as her father passed. Dick did not appear at all; Harry audibly “supposed the governor was going to church because Virginia was there,” and certainly church-going did not appear to be a fashion of the village.
Neither her childish recollections, nor Harry’s remarks, had prepared her, as they came into the small, ivy-grown church, for broken floors, cracked windows, and damp fustiness; still less for the very scantiest of congregations, and a rustling silence where responses should have been. Her uncle read the service rapidly, with the broad northern accent now strange to her ears. The old clerk trotted about whenever his services were not required, and did a little sweeping. Her uncle paused as he began the Litany, and called to him in a loud and cheerful voice to shut the door.
Virginia peeped out between the faded green-baize curtains that, hanging round the great square pew, represented to her every Church principle she had been taught to condemn; and found her view obstructed by a large cobweb. Harry poked at the spider, and Virginia recalling her own attention from her despairing visions of having no better church than this, perceived that her father was leaning idly back in his corner. All her standards of right and wrong seemed confused and shocked; so much so that, at the moment, she hardly distinguished the pain of finding herself left alone after the sermon, and seeing her father turn away, from her horror at her uncle’s dirty surplice, and the dreary degradation of the whole place. When the parson came after her after service, and loudly told her she was the prettiest lass he’d seen for long enough, kissing her under the church porch, she still felt as if the typical bad parish priest of her imagination had come to life, and behold he was her own uncle!
Since this comprehensible form of evil was so plain to her eyes, what terrible secrets might not lurk behind it! Virginia felt as if she would never be light-hearted again.
Chapter Seven.
Fire and Snow
“A northern Christmas, such as painters love.
* * * * *
Red sun, blue sky, white snow, and pearled ice,
Keen ringing air which sets the blood on fire.”
Christmas is no doubt, theoretically, the right season for relations who have been long parted to meet, and there was an ideal appropriateness in the long absent heir appearing at Oakby for the first time on Christmas Day. But practically it would have been better for Alvar if he had come home at any other time of the year. In the first place the frost continued with unabated severity, and precluded every outdoor amusement but skating, in which Alvar of course had no skill, and which he did not seem at all willing to learn. Besides, the season brought an amount of local and parish business which Mr Lester attended to vigorously in person, but the existence of which Alvar never seemed to realise. His grandmother’s charities he understood, and was rather amused at seeing the old women come to fetch their blankets and cloaks; but what could he have to do with any of these people?
Tenants’ dinners and choir-suppers might form a good opportunity for introducing him to his neighbours; and Cheriton, who was the life and soul of such festivities, tried to put him forward; but he only made magnificent silent bows, and comported himself much as his brother Jack had done, when in an access of gruff shyness and democratic ardour he had called the Christmas feasts “relics of feudalism,” and had shown his advanced notions of the union of classes by never speaking a word to any one.
Between the newcomer and his father there was an impassable distance. Alvar never failed in courtesy; but Cheriton’s quick eyes soon perceived that he resented deeply the long neglect; saw too that the sight of him was a pain and distress to his father, sharpened his temper, and produced constant rubs; though he was careful to do everything that the proper introduction of his son demanded of him. A grand ball was organised in his honour, and also a stiff and ponderous dinner-party at which Alvar was to be introduced to the county magnates.
Special invitations were also sent to him by their various neighbours, and he created quite an excitement in the dull country neighbourhood. Mr Lester only half liked being congratulated on his son’s charming foreign manners; but still, as a novelty, Alvar had great attractions, and in society never seemed shy or at a loss. Mr Lester’s brother-in-law, Judge Cheriton, invited the stranger to pay him a visit when the season had a little advanced, and to let him see a little London society; for which attention Mr Lester, who hated London, was very grateful, as Alvar’s grandfather had Spanish friends there, and it would have been too intolerable for the heir of Oakby to have appeared there under auspices which, however distinguished, Mr Lester thought suitable only to a political refugee or a music master.
He had, when he had ceased to pay for Alvar’s English tutor, made him an allowance which had been magnificent in Spain, and greatly added to Alvar’s consideration there, and he now increased this to what he considered a sufficient sum for his eldest son’s dignity. In short he did everything but overcome his personal distaste to him; he never willingly spoke to him, and the very sight of him was an irritation to him. He got less too than usual of Cheriton’s company; their walks, and talks, and consultations were curtailed by Alvar’s requirements. Indeed Cherry was pulled in many different directions, and he ended by sacrificing all the reading that was to have been got through during the vacation. For the home life was very difficult, and the more they saw of the stranger the less they liked him.
“He’s not of our sort,” said Bob, as if that settled the matter, not perceiving that his slowness to receive impressions, and difficulty in accommodating himself to a new life, might spring as much from his Lester blood as from his Spanish breeding.
“He might try and look like an Englishman,” growled Jack.
“When you go to Spain, we shall see you in a sombrero dancing under the orange-trees to a pair of castanets,” retorted Cheriton. “We should all be so ready at foreign languages and so accommodating, shouldn’t we?”
Alvar’s individuality was not to be ignored, though unfortunately it was very distasteful to his kindred. He was so dignified, so terribly polite they were half afraid of him, and as the awe wore off, they wanted to quarrel with him. He announced that he loved riding, and seemed to know something of horses; he played billiards much too well to be a pleasant opponent to his father, he sang much too quaintly and prettily for his family to appreciate, and he played the guitar! Even Cheriton wished it had been a fiddle. He hated going to walk, smoked incessantly, and was indifferent to every one except Cheriton, to whom he deferred in everything.
Poor Cheriton! “Among the blind, the one-eyed is king,” and his sentiments were amazingly liberal for Oakby; but he was very young and deeply attached to his home and his surroundings, too tender-hearted not to be touched at Alvar’s preference, imaginative enough to realise his position, and yet repelled and put out of countenance by his peculiarities. To be tenderly addressed as “my brother,” “mi caro,” “mi Cheriton,” “Cherito mio,” to be deferred to on all occasions, and even told in the hearing of Jack and Bob “that his eyes when he laughed were the colour of the Mediterranean on a sunny day,” was, as he said, “so out-facing, that it made him feel a perfect fool,” especially when his brothers echoed it at every turn.
Yet he put up with it. It was so hard on the poor fellow if no one was kind to him! So hard, he added to himself, to be an unloved and unloving son.
Perhaps, after all, Alvar’s essential strangeness prevented Cheriton from feeling himself put aside.
Cheriton was very popular at school and at college. He had strong, intellectual ambitions, and though of less powerful mind than Jack, had attained to much graceful scholarship and possessed much command of language. He hoped to take honours, to go to the bar, and distinguish himself there under his uncle, Judge Cheriton’s, auspices. He had too a further and a sweeter hope, hitherto confided to no one.
But it was a certain “genius for loving” that really distinguished him from his fellows – really made him every one’s friend. He did not seek out his poorer neighbours so much from a sense of duty, as because his heart went out to every one belonging to Oakby, nay, every animal, every bit of ground – nothing was a trouble that conduced to the welfare of the place. This loving-kindness was a natural gift; but Cheriton made good use of it. He had high principles, and deep within his soul, struggling with the temptations of this ardent nature, were the pure aspirations and the capability of fervent piety which have made saints – responsibilities with which he was born.
But all this fire and force did not make tolerance easy; he was full of instinctive prejudices, and perhaps his greatest aids in his dealings with his new brother were his joyous unchecked spirits and the keen sense of the ludicrous that enabled him to laugh at himself as well as at other people.
Some little time after Alvar’s arrival there was a deep fall of snow, and while the pond was being swept for skating, the young Lesters, with Harry Seyton and the children from the rectory, who had come up for the purpose, proceeded to erect a snow man of gigantic proportions in front of the house.
“What a fright you have made of him!” said Cheriton, coming up with Alvar as they finished; “he has no nose and no expression.”
“Well, come and do his nose, then; it keeps on coming off,” said Nettie, who was standing on a bench to put the finishing touches.
Cherry was nothing loath, and was soon engaged in moulding the snowy countenance with the skill of long practice, while Alvar, with his great crimson-lined cloak wrapped about him, stood looking on.
“Give him a good lumpy nose, that won’t melt,” said Cherry. “There, he’s lovely! got an old pipe for him?”
As he spoke a great snowball came stinging against his face, and in a moment, to the astonishment of Alvar, the whole party set on Cherry, and a wild bout of snowballing ensued.
“No, no, that’s not fair! I can’t fight you all,” shouted Cherry; “and you’ve got all your snowballs ready made. Give me the girls, and then – Come on.”
“Oh, yes, yes; we’ll be on Cherry’s side,” cried Nettie.
It was a picturesque scene enough – the pale blue sky overhead, the dazzling snow under foot, the little girls in their scarlet cloaks or petticoats, their long hair flying as they darted in and out, the great boys struggling, wrestling, knocking each other about with small mercy. No one threw a snowball at Alvar; perhaps they had forgotten him, as he stood silently watching them as if they were a troop of Berserkers, till the contest terminated in a tremendous struggle between Cheriton and Jack, who were, of course, much the biggest of the party. Cherry was getting decidedly the worst of it, and either tripped in the rough snow or was thrown down into it by Jack, when suddenly Alvar threw off his cloak, stepped forward, and seizing Jack by the shoulders, pulled him back with sudden irresistible force.
“By Jove!” was all that Jack could utter.
“What on earth did you do that for?” ejaculated Cherry as soon as he gained his breath and his feet.
“He might have hurt you, my brother,” said Alvar, who looked flushed, and for once excited. “And besides, I am stronger than either of you. I could struggle with you both.”
“Hurt me? Suppose he had?” said Cherry disdainfully. “But, Jack – Jack, I do believe you’re getting too many for me at last.”
“That is what you call athletics,” said Alvar, who looked unusually bright.
“Yes; wrestling is a regular north-country game, and the fellows about here have taught us all the tricks of it. Come, Jack, let us show him a bout.”
The two brothers pulled off their coats, and set to with a will; and after a long struggle, and with considerable difficulty, Cheriton succeeded in throwing Jack.
“There, I’ve done it once more!” he said breathlessly, “and I don’t suppose I shall ever do it again. You’re getting much stronger than I am, and of course you’re heavier.”
“Let me try to throw you down,” said Alvar eagerly.
“Nay, Jack may have first turn; but it’s fair to tell you there’s a great deal of knack in it.”
Alvar, however, was man instead of boy; he was quite as tall as Jack, and however he might have learnt to exercise his muscles, his grasp was like steel; and though Jack’s superior skill triumphed in the end, Alvar rose up cool and smiling, and Jack panted out, in half-unwilling admiration, —
“You’d beat us all with a little training.”
“Ah yes; that is because I am an Englishman,” said Alvar complacently. “But I bear no malice, Jack. It is in sport.”
“Of course,” said Jack. “Now, Cherry, you try.”
“It’s hardly fair in a biting frost,” said Cherry; “nobody can have any wind. However, here’s for the honour of Westmoreland.”
The younger ones gathered round in an admiring circle, and Cheriton, who did not like to be beaten, put forth all the strength and skill of which he was master. But he was the more slightly made, and had met his match, and to the extreme chagrin of his brothers and Nettie, sustained an entire defeat.
“Well, I never thought you would throw him,” said Jack, in a tone of deep disappointment.
“Ah,” said Alvar, “they always called me the strong Englishman.”
“Papa was the strongest man in Westmoreland,” said Nettie.
“Then,” said Alvar, “so far I have proved myself his son, and your brother. I would not skate with you, for I should look like a fool; but I knew you could not easily throw me down, since that is your sport. But, my brother, I have hurt you.”
“No,” said Cheriton getting up, “only knocked all the wind out of me, and made me look like a fool! Never mind, we shall understand each other all the better. Come upstairs, and we will show you some of the cups and things we have won in boat-races and athletics.”
This was a clever stroke of Cheriton’s; he wanted to make Alvar free of the premises, and had not yet found a good excuse. So, leaving the younger ones to finish their snowballing, he and Jack conducted Alvar up to the top of the house, where, at the end of the passage where they slept, was a curious low room, with a long, low window, looking west, above the west window of the drawing-room, and occupying nearly one side of the room, almost like the windows of the hand-loom weavers in the West Riding.
There was a low seat underneath, broad enough to lie on, but furnished with very dilapidated cushions. There was a turning-lathe in the room, and a cupboard for guns, and sundry cases of stuffed birds, one table covered with tools, glue-pots, and messes of all descriptions; and another, it is but justice to add, supplied with ink, pens, and paper, and various formidable-looking books, for here the boys did their reading. There was a great, old-fashioned grate with a blazing fire in it, and very incongruous ornaments above it – a stuffed dormouse, Nettie’s property – she maintained a footing in the room by favour – various pipes, two china dogs, white, with brown spots on them, presented to Cherry in infancy by his nurse, and a wooden owl carved by their cousin Rupert – a cousin in the second degree, who had been much with them owing to his father’s early death. On one side of the room were arranged on a sort of sideboard the cups and tankards which were the trophies of the brothers’ prowess, and these were now each pointed out to Alvar, and the circumstances of their acquisition described. Cheriton’s were fewer in proportion, and chiefly for leaping and hurdle-racing; and Jack explained that Cherry’s forte was cricket, and that, since he had once knocked himself up at school by a tremendous flat-race, their father had greatly objected to his going into training.
“Oh, it’s not that,” said Cherry; “he would not care now; but I really haven’t time. I must grind pretty hard from now to midsummer.”
“There is one thing I have read of,” said Alvar, “in English newspapers. It is a race of boats on the Thames between Oxford and Cambridge.”
“Oh, yes, you must go and see it. That’s Jack’s ambition – to be one of the crew.”
“Ah, but you see there’s no river at R – , and that’s so unlucky,” said Jack seriously.
And so what with explanations and questions the ice melted a little. Alvar looked smiling and beneficent; he did not seem at all ashamed of his own ignorance; and Jack evidently regarded him with a new respect.
Cheriton also contrived that the Seytons, with the vicar of Oakby, Mr Ellesmere and his wife, should be asked to dinner; and as the vicar had some general conversation, some information about Spain was elicited from Alvar, who, moreover, was pleased to find himself in ladies’ society, and was evidently at ease in it; while Virginia, in exchange for the pleasant talk that seemed to come out of her old life, could tell Cheriton that her cousin Ruth was coming to stay with her, and could confide in him that home was still a little strange.
“Well, strangers are strange,” said Cherry. “We are shaking down, but the number of tempers lost in the process might be advertised for ‘as of no value except to the owners,’ if to them. Only the home-made article, you understand – ”
“Dear me,” said Virginia, “I should as soon think of losing my temper with the Cid. Aren’t you afraid of him?”
Cheriton made an irresistibly ludicrous face.
“Don’t tell,” he said, “but I think we are; and yet, you know, we think ‘yon soothern chap,’ as old Bates called him, must be ‘a bit of a softy’ after all.”
“Oh, Cherry, that is how you talked yourself when we were children,” exclaimed Virginia impulsively. “Do you know I feel I was born here, when I hear the broad Westmoreland. I never forgot it.”
“Nay, I’m glad you don’t say I talk so now,” said Cherry. “They tell me at Oxford that my tongue always betrays me when I am excited. But here comes Alvar; now make him fall in love with Westmoreland. Alvar, Miss Seyton has been abroad, so she is not quite a benighted savage.”
“My brother Cheriton is not a savage,” said Alvar, smiling, as Cherry moved away. “He is the kindest and most beautiful person I have ever seen.”
“Yes, he is very kind. But I hope, Mr Lester, that you do not think us all savages, with that one exception.”
“In future I can never think so,” said Alvar, with a bow. “These boys are savage certainly – very savage, but I do not care.”
“It is strange, is it not,” said Virginia, rather timidly, “to have to make acquaintance with one’s own father?”
“Of my father I say nothing,” said Alvar, with a sudden air of hauteur, that made the impulsive Virginia blush, and feel as if she had taken a liberty with him, till he added, with a smile, “Miss Seyton, too, I hear, is a stranger.”
“Yes, I have been away ever since I was a little girl, and – and I had forgotten my relations.”
“I have not known mine,” said Alvar; “Cheriton wrote to me once a little letter. I have it now, and since then I have loved him. I do not know the rest, and they wish I was not here.”
“But don’t you think,” said Virginia earnestly, “that we – that you will soon feel more at home with them?”
“Oh, I do not know,” said Alvar, with a shrug. “It is cold, and I am so dull that I could die. They understand no thing. And in Spain I was the chief; I could do what I wished. Here I must follow and obey. My name even is different. I do not know ‘Mr Lester.’ I am ‘Don Alvar.’ Will you not call me so?”
“But that would be so very strange to me,” said Virginia, parrying this request. “Every one will call you Mr Lester. How tall Nettie is grown. Do you not think her very pretty?”
“Oh, she is pink, and white, and blue, and yellow; but she is like a little boy. There is not in her eyes the attraction, the coquetry, which I admire,” said Alvar, pointing his remark with a glance at his companion’s lucid, beaming, interested eyes, in which however there was little conscious coquetry.
“I am sorry to hear you admire coquettes,” was too obvious an answer to be resisted.
“Nay, it is the privilege of beauty,” said Alvar.
Virginia, like many impulsive people, was apt to recollect with a cold chill conversations by which at the time she had been entirely carried away. But on looking back at this one she liked it. Alvar’s dignity and grace of manner made his trifling compliments both flattering and respectful. His feelings, too, she thought, were evidently deep and tender; and how she pitied him for his solitary condition!