An English Squire

She had no cause to feel neglected, while Ruth was chafing at the sight of Rupert’s flirtations. And when the news came of Cheriton’s success, was she not proud of Alvar’s generous delight? Yes, but she had never stirred his passive content to such pleasure; he had never been in such high spirits for her! Ah! how hatefully selfish she was to think of it!

The two girls exchanged no confidences. Ruth’s heart was too sore, and Virginia’s too loyal for a word; but as they consulted over their dresses, and speculated whether Cheriton would arrive in time for the tenants’ dance that night, each wondered what the other would say to the secret thoughts of her heart.

Chapter Eighteen.

Red Sunrise

“O happy world!” thought Pelleas, “all me seemsAre happy – I the happiest of them all.”

On that same hot summer night, when Ruth and Rupert were first making each other miserable, and then finding out separately that they were very miserable themselves, Cheriton, with hope and joy in his heart, was speeding home to Oakby. With hope and joy, for Ruth had made up for her cold farewell, by making some little excuse for writing to him, and asking him to get her a picture of the Arms of the Colleges, a commission which, it is needless to say, he found time to execute.

This pleasure had helped him through his hard work, for he was excitable enough to have felt the last few weeks of effort and suspense a severe strain, and had not brought quite his usual health and strength to bear on them; for he had caught a bad cold with the race in the rain at Black Tarn, and had never given himself a chance of getting rid of it. However, it was all over now, he thought, his mind was relieved, and the prospect of home with its leisure and its occupations had never seemed so delightful to him. For his love for Ruth did not shut out the thought of all other affections, it rather cast a radiance over them, and made him more conscious of their sweetness.

It was a lovely summer morning, as the train came in to Ashrigg station, the wide landscape showed clear and fresh against the cloudless sky, the peculiar northern sharpness was in the air. It was sweet to Cherry’s senses, and finding no conveyance so early at Ashrigg, he set off to walk home across the dewy fields, Buffer, enchanted at his release from durance vile, trotting and barking at his heels.

By various short cuts the walk was under three miles, and Cheriton soon found himself at the house, where he had time to get some breakfast, and to feel somewhat disappointed that no one was at home to hear his good news, for he felt too tired to go and seek for congratulations at the Vicarage, where Nettie was staying, or where he would have been at least equally certain of them, to the Lodge to which the old family nurse had migrated.

So he contented himself with greeting all the dogs, and with the delightful consciousness that he had no need to exert himself, till Lord Milford’s telegram arrived, and the thought of so quickly greeting Ruth, and of finding her belonging as it were to his own party, and thus making a thousand opportunities for paying her attention, roused him from his fit of languor and fatigue, and he eagerly made his preparations, and started off in the middle of the bright June day, on his further travels.

The midsummer weather in that northern country had still much of the freshness and the delicacy of the spring. The trees were in their first bright green, the bluebells lingered in the woods, the birds sang songs of hopefulness to him. Milford was in a softer, more richly-wooded landscape than Oakby, and the gardens were splendid with early roses and flowering shrubs, the park still here and there white with hawthorn.

This was the children’s day, a great school feast for all the parishes round, to be followed by a children’s dance in the evening. Cheriton arrived in the midst of a grand tea in the park, and pausing to detect his relations, perceived Alvar looking even unusually tall, stately, and graceful, as he walked along a row of the very tiniest children, and filled their mugs with milk and water from a huge can. He looked up as he came to the end, and saw Cheriton’s laughing eyes fixed full upon him.

“Ah! Cheriton!” he exclaimed, “you are here, and with all your honours! Welcome.”

“Thanks; I knew you would be pleased. So you are making yourself useful. Where’s my father?”

“In the tent with Lady Milford. I will show you.”

Cheriton was inclined to think it a great bore to find his own people surrounded by strangers, and was ashamed of the congratulations which the circumstances of his arrival and the warm-heartedness of his hosts called forth. So he and his father hardly said a word to each other, though they experienced a great content in being together; perhaps a more uncommon ending to a university career than Cherry’s honours, even had they been doubled.

“Come, Lester,” said Lord Milford, “and make yourself useful. I know you are great at sack-races, and three-legged races, and such diversions.”

“After being up all night? Well, as long as I am not expected to jump in a sack myself – ” said Cheriton. “Come, Alvar, don’t you want another can of milk and water?”

“All! you laugh at me,” said Alvar contentedly. “I am too glad to see you to care. This fête is very pleasant. I am glad you came back in time for it.”

“Yes; but I wish we were all at home,” said Cheriton absently, and looking anxiously round him. He soon discovered Virginia, much in her element among a crowd of school-girls; and at length his eyes found the object of their search. A little apart on a bench sat Ruth in the most delicate of white muslins, gloves, fan, and ribbons, all in first-rate order, looking, with the fantastic fashion, and brilliant dashes of colour in her dress, like a figure on a fan. She gave a little start as she saw Cheriton’s figure in the distance, and her flush of disappointment as he came nearer was at once noted by him, and – misinterpreted.

“So you have got your laurels?” she said softly, as she held out her hand, and looked up in his face. “I am glad.”

“Then they are worth having?” said Cheriton.

It might have been a mere jesting answer, but Ruth did not so take it, nor did he intend that she should do so. He would have altered nothing in her greeting to him, it was a better meeting than he could have imagined. Afterwards, if Ruth had wished to discourage him, she would not have found it easy; he had but one purpose, and he set himself to fulfil it; hopeful through the charm of present bliss. It was not often that Cheriton’s native skies were so cloudless, nor were these hot, full summer days at all typical of the home that he loved so well. But it was in such “blue unclouded weather,” in such smiling midsummer beauty, that he pictured afterwards the wind-swept moors and hardy fir-woods of his north-country home. Nor did the memory of hot, glaring sunshine, of dust, and noise, and fatigue, cease to haunt Ruth for many a day to come.

She was one of those to whom excitement gives another and an intenser self. Of this she was dimly conscious, and when she had said that she could die for Rupert, she had perhaps not been far wrong. That extreme anger would urge her to a course almost equally desperate she had never guessed, but to give Rupert pain, to cause him chagrin and remorse, in short, to make him jealous and miserable as he had made her, she would have endured tortures.

When people are thus minded, in other words, when they are in a passion, life always helps them on. Whether by accident or by malice, she had heard plenty of gossip about Rupert; he had written no word of repentance; she knew that Lady Alice would shortly meet him again. Well, if her conduct was discussed between them, he should hear enough, both to hurt his provoking self-love, and to show that he did not suffer. And Cheriton offered the sort of strange counter-attraction often felt on such occasions to any one else than the object of anger.

She had always liked to “talk to Cherry,” his love was flattering, and she instinctively knew that it was true. He was also a singularly attractive and lovable person, and in Ruth’s sore-hearted rage she felt his charm. “It was nice to be with him – he did her good;” and if she could wound Rupert and please herself, the possible disappointment to Cheriton was not worth considering. But Ruth reckoned without her host. She neither allowed for Cheriton’s ardour, nor for the effect that it would have on her; she did not know how definite her choice must be.

Cherry was not nearly so useful as his friend had expected; he was too tired to play games, and dancing, he said, gave him a pain in his side and made him cough, which was true, and would have been an equally good reason against wandering about in the shrubberies and distant paths with Ruth, where he incurred other dangers than night air and dewy grass. He was too happy to heed any of them. She listened, as Ruth knew how to listen, to his account of his Oxford life – his hopes and fears – his future prospects – and she was carried away, spite of herself, by the single-minded earnestness with which he spoke. He interested her, and she forgot herself for the moment as they strolled along; the yellow sunset dying in the distance, the first star shining over the great house behind them. Suddenly Cheriton turned and took her hand.

“Ruth,” he said, “I have told you all this because it is so sweet to see you listen. I have something more to tell you now. I have a great many aims and ambitions – there’s one dearer than the rest. I love my own people – my home – very much. I love you best, infinitely best. I always have loved you. Can you love me?”

“Oh, Cherry!” cried Ruth, in desperate self-defence, “don’t say so! That sort of love is all a mistake. Keep to the other sort – it is a great deal better for you.”

“Better!” exclaimed Cheriton. “One thing is best for me – to have you for my wife. Oh, Ruth, my darling! ever since I was a boy I have loved you. Can’t you care a little for me? I think you can – I hope you can. You have always listened to me and understood me. I think you know me better than any one does!”

“I know – you do care,” said Ruth, half to herself.

“It is my very life,” he said, and as she, trembling, hardly able to stand, made a half movement towards – not away from him – he threw his arms round her and drew her close. “My darling! – oh, my darling! am I so happy? – ah! thank God! Thank God!”

Ruth burst into a passion of tears. Retreat was growing impossible; she hardly knew what she wished; anger, a sort of wild triumph, the difficulty of resisting this passionate pleading, the inconceivable joy of Cheriton’s face and voice, added to the overstrained excitement of her previous feelings, completely overpowered her, till her sobs were uncontrollable, and with them came the strangest impulse to tell him all, the most incongruous confidence in the justice and sympathy of this passionate lover for the love and sorrows that would have wrecked his hopes. Ah! if she had but done so!

“Oh, what a fool I have been!” cried Cheriton, exceedingly distressed. “Oh, Ruth, my darling! I have frightened you. I’ll be patient; I’ll not say another word. See, here’s a seat – sit down. I deserve that you should never speak to me again.”

Ruth let him lead her to the bench, and endeavoured to collect her senses.

“I am not half good enough for you. You don’t know what you want,” she faltered.

“Oh, yes, I do. I know just what I want,” said Cheriton softly and gently; but venturing to sit down beside her, and trying to reassure her by a little playfulness; “but I don’t know how to ask for it. Alvar might have shown me the way.”

“Oh, you know well enough,” said Ruth, in a more natural tone, and in the few moments, while he sat watching her, her excitement cooled down, or rather hardened itself into shape. Her tears dried up, and she said, —

“What would your father say?”

“He will think me too happy! Will you forgive me for startling you, and give me my answer now?”

He was half smiling, as he timidly put out his hand again. She had given reason enough to hope for the answer he wanted, and suddenly there darted into her mind as an excuse, a reason, an explanation of all this conflict of impulses, of the wish to pique Rupert to avenge herself on the one side – to snatch something from life if she could not have all on the other – a thought – “When Rupert knows he has such a rival, if he loves me, he will not give me up.” She yielded her hand to Cheriton’s, and said quickly, —

“Only promise me one thing. I did not think of this – it is so sudden. I am going away to-morrow, to Mrs Grey’s, for a fortnight. Promise not to tell any one – your father, your brothers, till I come back. Give me time to – to get used to it first.”

“Of course,” said Cheriton reluctantly, “that must be as you please. But I long to tell them of my great happiness. And my father will care so much about it. But of course I promise. But I may write to you?”

“No – no – then every one will find it out!” said Ruth, with recurring agitation. “You – you don’t know how I feel about it.”

“Well, I have gained too much to complain,” said Cheriton, too loyal-hearted, and too inexperienced, for a single doubt. “But Ruth, my Ruth, one thing – give me one kiss to remember!”

“Go then – go! some one will find us!” cried Ruth, and startled by approaching footsteps, she rushed away from him; but the treacherous kiss was given, though she felt in a moment that she would almost have died to recall it. She had revenged herself; she hated herself; she already began to try to excuse herself.

A little later, while troops of gaily-dressed children were dancing in the lighted hall, and the outdoor guests were rapidly departing, Alvar was standing on the terrace, wondering what could have become of his brother. More than one person had remarked that he looked delicate and overworked; and Alvar felt anxious as he saw him come slowly up from the grounds towards him.

“Where have you been, Cherry?” he said. “Are you not well?”

Cheriton smiled rather dreamily.

“Oh, yes, quite well,” he said. There was a far-away look of blissful, peaceful content in his eyes, as if it were indeed well with him; an expression of perfect, thankful happiness, as far removed from the ordinary state of this tolerably comfortable work-a-day world as one of great wretchedness and misery; and as remarkable. As Alvar looked at him, they heard the cry of a little child. Cheriton turned and saw trotting along the terrace in the dusk a very little boy, left behind by some of the schools now trooping out of the park. Cherry lifted him up in his arms and smiled kindly at him, trying to make out whom he belonged to, and the child clung to him, quite at ease with him. “Milford School; ah! I see their flag. Come, my lad, we’ll go and find them. There, don’t cry, nobody must cry to-night, of all nights in the year.”

“When Lady Milford has been so kind,” said Alvar, for the child’s benefit.

“Ah! every one is kind!” said Cherry, with a little laugh, as he carried away the child, “and we must – say thank you.”

End of Volume One

PART II

Brothers

“There are none so dependent on the kindness of others as those that are exuberantly kind themselves.”

Chapter One.

Life and Death

“As we descended, following hope,There sat the shadow feared of man.”

Perhaps it was well for the permanence of Cheriton’s new-born happiness that he had but a very short glimpse of Ruth. The next morning, the Oakby party started early, that Mr Lester might arrive in time to attend a magistrate’s meeting at Hazelby, while Ruth remained for the later train that was to take her on her separate visit. She would not give him a chance of seeing her alone, and one look, one clasp of the hand, and – “Remember your promise” was all the satisfaction he obtained from her. Yet he could hardly collect his thoughts to answer his father’s many questions on their journey home, and trying to shout through the noise of the train made him cough so much that his grandmother scolded him for catching such a bad cold.

“Young men are so foolish,” she said, but she did not look at all uneasy. Her grandchildren’s illnesses were never serious; and all the Lesters thought any amount of discomfort preferable to “having a fuss made.” Cherry hardly knew himself how ill he was feeling, as they reached home and the day went on; but he was so weary with bad nights and fatigue that it was a perpetual effort to remember that all his suspense of every sort was over, that the examination was passed, and that Ruth was his. He lay on the sofa trying to rest; but the cough disturbed him, and by dinner-time he was obliged to own himself beaten and to go to bed, saying that a night’s rest would quite set him up again.

“Boys have no moderation,” said Mr Lester, in a tone of annoyance. “It is well it is all over now. Cheriton might have taken quite as good a place without overworking himself in this way.”

Alvar, not understanding that peculiarly English form of anxiety that shows itself in shortness of temper, thought this remark very unfeeling. Mrs Lester suggested some simple remedy for the cough; Cherry promised to try it, and was left to his “night’s rest.”

He woke in the early morning from a short, feverish sleep, to such pain and breathlessness and such a sense of serious illness as he had never experienced in his life, and, thoroughly frightened and bewildered, was trying to think how he could call any one, when his door was softly opened, and Alvar came in.

“I heard you cough so much,” he said. “You cannot sleep. I am afraid you are ill.”

“Very ill,” said Cherry. “You must send some one for the doctor.”

He was but just able to tell Alvar where to find the young groom who could ride into Hazelby to fetch him; and soon there was terrible alarm through all the prosperous household, as, roused one after another, they came to see what was amiss. Nettie fled, with her hands up to her ears, right out into the dewy garden, away from the house, afraid to hear what the doctor said of Cherry. Mr Lester gave vent to one outburst of rage with examiners, examination, and Oxford generally, then braced himself to wait in silence for tidings; as he had waited once before when his wife lay in mortal danger – would the verdict be the same now? Mrs Lester preserved her self-possession, sent for the keeper’s wife, who was the best nurse at hand, and though sadly at a loss what remedies to suggest, sat down to watch her grandson, because it was her place to do so.

They were all too thankful for any help in the crisis to wonder that it was Alvar who held Cherry in an easier position, and soothed him with quiet tenderness.

When the doctor at length arrived, he pronounced that Cheriton was suffering from a violent attack of inflammation of the lungs. He was very ill; but his youth and previous good health were in his favour. Overwork and the neglected cold would doubtless account for it.

“Will it be over – in a fortnight?” said Cherry, suddenly.

“We’ll hope so – we’ll hope so,” said the doctor. “You have only to do as you are told, you know. Now, have you a good nurse?” turning to Mrs Lester.

“Yes, we think Mrs Thornton very trustworthy – she was nursery-maid here before she married.”

“There must be as few people about him as possible. No talking and no excitement.”

“But – Alvar will stay?” said Cherry, wistfully. “Father, he came in the night – I want him.”

“Hush, hush, my boy – yes, of course he will stay with you if you like,” said Mr Lester, hastily.

“Of course,” said Alvar, with a curious accent, half-proud, half-tender, as he laid his hand on Cheriton’s.

The foreign brother was the last person whom Mr Adamson expected to see in such a capacity; but if he was inefficient, both he and his patient would probably soon discover it; he looked the most self-possessed of the party, and his manner soothed Cheriton. Mrs Thornton had plenty of practical experience to supply his inevitable ignorance. Cheriton was exceedingly ill; his strength did not hold out against the remedies as well as had been hoped, and he suffered so much as to be hardly ever clearly conscious.

“I was so happy!” he said several times with a sort of wonder, and his father felt that the words gave him another pang.

Mr Lester was threatened with the most terrible sorrow that could befall him, and no mitigation of the agony was possible to him. He thought that his best-loved son would die, and made up his mind to the worst, feeling hope impossible; but he made a conscientious effort at endurance, an effort sadly unsuccessful.

“Eh! my son,” said his old mother, “he is a good lad, take that comfort.”

And this reserved hint at the one real consolation was almost the only attempt at comforting each other that any of them made. No one tried to “make the best of it,” to look at the hopeful side, or to find in any mutual tenderness a little lightening of the burden. They held apart from each other with a curious shyness, and as far as possible pursued their several businesses. Nettie went to her lessons, and refused to hear a word of sympathy from her friends, and when at last she could endure the agony no longer, ran away by herself into the woods and hid herself all day. Why should they kiss her and give her flowers – it did not cure Cherry, or make it less dreadful that another doctor was coming from Edinburgh, because Mr Adamson thought him so ill. But she did not want to see him, and had no instinct whatever to do anything for him. Speech was no relief to any of them; it was easier to conceal than to indulge their feelings; and Mr Lester went about silent and stern; Nettie attempted to comfort no one but the dogs; and her grandmother found no relief but in talking of Cherry’s “folly in overworking himself” to Virginia, who came hurriedly at the first report that reached Elderthwaite. She was a rare visitor; it was characteristic of her relations with Alvar that a sort of shyness kept her away. She forgot to be shy, however, when Alvar came to speak to her for a moment, and sprang towards him.

“Oh! dear Alvar, this is terrible. I am so sorry for you. But you think he will be better.”

“Yes, surely,” said Alvar, as if no other view had occurred to him. “Mi dona, this is wrong that I should let you seek me; but I cannot leave him – he suffers so much – that cough is frightful.”

“But he likes to have you with him?”

“Yes, I can lift him best, and I do not ask him how he is when he cannot speak,” said Alvar, with the simplicity that was so like sarcasm. “Ah! it is not right to let you go back alone, mi Reyna– but I dare not stay.”

“That does not matter; only take care of yourself,” said Virginia, as Alvar kissed her hand and opened the door for her, and promised to let her have news every day.

But she went away tearful for more than Cheriton’s danger. Alvar had never told her that it comforted him to see her; he did not care whether she came or not.

“Eh! my lass, what news have you?” said an anxious voice, and looking up, Virginia saw her uncle, looking unusually clerical for a week day, hanging about the path in front of her.

“Alvar thinks he will be better, he is very ill now,” said Virginia; “they have sent for another doctor.”

“Ah! that’s bad! There’s never been such another in all the country. Queenie, did I ever tell you how he kept up our credit with the bishop?”

And Parson Seyton, whose nature was very different from his neighbour’s, spent a long hour in telling tales of Cherry’s boyhood to his willing listener. “Eh!” he concluded, “and I meant to fetch him over to hear our fine singing, and see how spick and span we are now-a-days – new surplice and all! Eh! he wrote me a sermon once – when he was a little lad not twelve years old – and I’ll swear it might have been preached with the best.”

Although Virginia had said nothing and done little to mend matters at Elderthwaite, there had been a certain revival of the elements of respectability. A drunken old farmer had been succeeded by his son, who had been brought up and had married elsewhere. This young couple came to church, and Virginia had by chance made acquaintance with the bride. Her husband got himself made churchwarden – Elderthwaite was not enlightened enough for parochial contests, and Virginia having shyly intimated that want of means need not stand in the way, the windows were mended, and some yards of cocoa-nut matting appeared in the aisle. There had always been a little forlorn singing; young Mr and Mrs Clement were musical, and the Sunday children were collected in the week and taught to sing. The parson had been presented with the surplice, and as by this time he would have done most things to please his pretty niece, accepted it with some pride. Whether from the effect of these splendours, or from consideration for the fair attentive face that he never failed to see before him, the parson himself began to conduct the service with a slight regard to decency and order; and being with his Seyton sense of humour fully conscious of the improvement, and, with the simplicity that was like a grain of salt in his character, rather proud of it, had looked forward to Cherry’s approbation.