An English Squire

“No, I understand that. But if I were you I should not like to be supposed to be an outsider.”

“In both countries?” said Alvar. “No; but you see I had been taught that I was an Englishman.”

“Yet your grandfather would not let you come to England when you were a boy.”

“My grandfather,” said Alvar, “hates the priests. He would rather have me for his heir, though I am a heretic, than Manoel. That is true, though he would not say so. Look, he has seen many changes in this country, one is as bad as the other; he would rather be quiet and let things pass. So would I.”

“The Vicar of Bray,” murmured Cherry. “That creed is born of despair,” he said aloud. “I should be miserable to think so of any country.”

“Yes?” said Alvar, with a sort of unmoved inquiry in his tone. “You have convictions. In England they are not difficult. But, besides, my grandmother loved me very much, and not only was she religious like all women, she was what you call good. She would not part with me, and I loved her.”

Alvar paused and put his hand across his eyes, with more emotion than he often showed.

“She thought,” he continued, “that I should perhaps become a Catholic if I married a Sevillana, and that my father’s neglect would make me altogether a De la Rosa. Forgive me, Cherito, it is not quite to be forgotten.”

“I think it was very likely to be the case,” said Cheriton.

“No, it was not the part for my father’s son, nor for an Englishman, nor did my grandfather wish it. I am no Catholic – never!”

“I suppose your tutor was – was a strong Protestant?” said Cheriton, rather surprised at the first religious conviction he had ever heard from Alvar’s lips.

“Well, I do not think you would have approved of him nor my father if he had known. He, what is it you say? – did no duty – and I do not think he was much like your Mr Ellesmere. He told me that he was paid ‘to put the English doctrines into me and teach me to speak English;’ and he would say, ‘Remember it is your part to be a Protestant because you are an English gentleman.’”

“But,” said Cherry, “when you came to England you must surely have seen that we did not look on it in that way?”

“I did not much attend to your words on it,” said Alvar. “As you know, what my father required of me I did, and I saw that English gentlemen thought much of their churches and their priests – or at least, that my father did so. I conformed, but I had not expected that in England, too, I should be a foreigner– a stranger. And I would not be other than my real self.”

“I’m afraid we were very unkind to you.”

“You? Never!” said Alvar.

“But why did you never tell me all this before? I should have understood you so much better.”

“I did not think of it till I considered what would seem strange to you here – what you would not comprehend easily.”

Cheriton remained silent. That Alvar had all his life considered himself so entirely as a Lester and an Englishman was a new light to him, and he could fully appreciate the check of finding himself regarded by the Lesters as an alien, for he knew that even he himself had never ceased so to look upon Alvar.

“We understand each other now,” he said affectionately. “I am glad you have told me this. But, Alvar, though ‘convictions’ may seem to you easy in England, you would make a great mistake if you imagined that the religion of such a man as my father was for the sake of what you call conformity, and that it did not influence his life.”

“No,” said Alvar, “I did not think so of my father and you. I did not comprehend at first, but I see now that – it interests you.”

“Never doubt that,” said Cheriton earnestly. “You have seen all my failures, but never doubt that is the one thing ‘interesting,’ the one thing to – to give one another chance.”

He paused as a look of unspeakable enthusiastic conviction passed over his face; then blushed intensely, and was silent. Like most young men, whatever their views, he was in the habit of talking a good deal of “theology,” and could have rectified Alvar’s hazy notions with ease; but personal experiences in such discussions were generally left on one side.

Alvar did not follow him; but perhaps that look made more impression than a great many arguments on the status of religion in England.

“Don’t imagine I underrate your difficulties, or my own, or any one’s,” Cherry added hurriedly.

“I have no difficulties,” said Alvar simply; “I believe you – always – Now, do not talk any longer – rest before you get up.”

Cheriton now perceived that the sort of separation that had been pursued with regard to Alvar accounted for much of his indolence and indifference. He recognised how deeply his pride had been wounded by his kindred’s cold reception, and he in a measure understood the sort of loyalty, half-proud, half-faithful, that held him to his own. He found that Alvar had never written a word of complaint of his family home to Seville; he perceived that as time went on he dropped nothing that he had acquired in England, either of dress or speech, attended the English service at the Consulate regularly, even if Cheriton was unable to go, and preferred to be called Mr Lester. Cheriton saw that he intended no one to think that his English residence had been a failure.

But there was one phase of this feeling of which even Cheriton had no suspicion. Alvar did not forget that one thing had belonged to him in England, to which Spain offered no parallel. He refused to answer any questions from his grandfather as to his engagement or its breach. He had not been brought up to think that romantic passion was a necessary accompaniment of a marriage engagement, but rather as a thing to be got through first; and it had been with a very quiet appreciation that he had given his hand away at his father’s request. And when Virginia was once his, he was thoroughly contented with her, her rejection had wounded him exceedingly, and now he missed her confiding sweetness increasingly, he felt that a good thing was gone from him, and he would not now have attempted to console Cheriton as he had done at Oakby. But he never spoke of his feelings, and as Cheriton could not think that he had acted rightly by Virginia, the subject was never mentioned between them.

Chapter Four.

El Toro

“The ungentle sport that oft invitesThe Spanish maid and cheers the Spanish swain.”

One of Alvar’s first occupations was to find a lodging for the Stanforths, and for one of the Miss Westons, whom they brought with them, and he succeeded in obtaining a flat in a casa de pupillos or pension, not far from the De la Rosa’s, in a picturesque street, with a pleasant shady sitting-room, where Mr Stanforth could paint. There was a delightful landlady, Señora Catalina, who went to mass with the greatest regularity every morning, but afterwards was ready to spend any part of the day in escorting the ladies wherever they wished to go, only objecting to Gipsy’s dislike to allow her dress to trail on the pavement, a point on which neither could convince the other, Spanish ladies considering the looping of the dress improper, and Gipsy not being able to reconcile herself to the normal condition of the pavements of Seville. Mr Stanforth, however, frequently accompanied them, and they did a vast amount of sight-seeing, in which they were joined by the two Lesters so far as Cheriton’s strength would permit; and as sketching often made Mr Stanforth stationary, Cherry liked to sit by him, enjoying a great deal of discursive talk on things in general, and entering with vivid interest into the novelty and beauty around. Cherry asked a great many more questions about Moorish remains, and ecclesiastical customs, than Alvar was at all able to answer; and as his Spanish improved, endeavoured to pick the brains of every one with whom he came in contact; was so intelligent and so inquisitive about the arrangement of the different churches, that old Padre Tomè, the ladies’ confessor, looked upon him as a possible convert, and though solemnly warned by Alvar never to talk politics with any one, could not always resist teasing him by hovering round the subject. He got on very well with Don Guzman, and listened to a great deal of prosing about the best way of breeding young bulls for the ring, and about all the varieties of game to be found on the old gentleman’s country estate, and soon perceived that he had considerably underrated the sporting capacities of the peninsula. He was not a favourite with Don Manoel, who suspected himself of being laughed at; and though Dona Luisa was very kind to him, he was hardly allowed to exchange a word with the young ladies, and to his great amusement perceived that he was considered likely to follow his father’s example, and make love to them. Little Dolores, however, was less in bondage to propriety, and became very fond of him, making vain endeavours to pronounce “Cherry,” and teaching him a great deal of Spanish. Miss Weston, who was a hearty enthusiastic woman, with rather an overpowering amount of conversation, approved of what she called his spirit of inquiry, and was possibly not insensible to his good looks and winning manners. He did not now shrink from home letters, and indeed spent more time than Alvar thought good for him in replying to Jack’s voluminous disquisitions on his first weeks of Oxford. Alvar thought that he had entirely recovered his spirits, and indeed Cheriton was one whose “mind had a thousand eyes,” and they let in a good deal of surface light, though he was himself well aware of colder, darker depths whose sun had set for ever, and which could only be reached by the slowly penetrating rays of a far intenser light. Though no word of direct confidence ever passed between him and Mr Stanforth, the latter knew perfectly well that mental as well as physical change had been sought in the sunny south. His health improved considerably, though with many ups and downs, he felt fairly well, and did not attempt to try the extent of his powers.

He was very anxious not to be a restraint on Alvar’s intercourse with his friends or on his natural occupations; but except that he sometimes went to evening parties which Cheriton avoided, Alvar generally preferred escorting Gipsy and Miss Weston to the tops of all the buildings which Mr Stanforth sketched from below, or into every corner of the Alcazar, and every chapel of the cathedral, both of which places had a wonderful charm for Cheriton.

Miss Stanforth was allowed to make friends with Alvar’s cousins. Carmen and Isabel. She had once gone to a fancy ball, dressed in a mantilla, and had been told that she looked “very Spanish,” with her dark eyes and hair; a delusion from which she awoke the first time she saw her new friends dressed for church (they did not wear mantillas often on secular occasions); and great was their amusement at Gipsy’s vain endeavour to give exactly the becoming twist to the black lace, and to flirt her fan in the approved style. Gipsy was a bit of a mimic, but she could not satisfy herself or them.

“It is of no use, Miss Stanforth,” said Cheriton, when she complained to him of her difficulties. “Alvar does not like walking out with me in an ‘Ulster’ when the wind is cold, so he endeavoured to teach me to wear one of those marvellous cloaks which they all throw about their shoulders; but I can only get it over my head, and under my feet, and everywhere that it ought not to be.”

“Well,” said Alvar, “you would not let me go to Hazelby in my cloak; you said that the little boys would laugh at me.”

“But a great coat,” said Cherry, “is a rational kind of garment that can’t look odd anywhere.”

“That is as you think,” said Alvar; “but I do not care what you wear, if you like it. You will not certainly look like a Spaniard even in the cloak.”

“A great coat,” said Mr Stanforth, “is one of those graceful garments which have commended themselves to all ages. I do not know what early tradition was followed by the inventors of Noah’s Arks in the case of that patriarch – ”

“Now, Mr Stanforth, that is too hard,” interrupted Cherry. “At least it has pockets.”

“So many,” said Alvar, “that what you want is always in another one.”

“Alvar, that cloak is your one weakness. You clung to it in England, and you put it on the moment you landed in Spain.”

“Cheriton thinks it is a seal-skin,” said Mr Stanforth smiling.

“Seal-skin,” said Alvar. “No, it is cloth and silk.”

“Did you never hear of the fisherman who married a mermaid, and she lived happily on shore till she fell in with a seal-skin; when she put it on, and, forgetting her husband and children, jumped into the sea, and never came up any more?”

“Ah, no!” said Alvar. “It is only that I want Cherry to be comfortable while he is down among the fishes.”

“I will take to it some day, for the sake of astonishing Jack,” said Cherry. “But, Alvar, those friends of yours last night were very much interested in my travelling coat, and asked me if it was a Paris fashion. They put it on, and I tried to get Don Manoel into it; but he thought it was a heretical sort of affair.”

“Cherry, if you laugh at Manoel, he will think you insult him. He hates Englishmen, and our father especially. He was angry because you gave the jessamine to Isabel – and – we are polite here to each other; but if there is what you call a row, it is worse than when every one is sulky all at once at Oakby.”

Cherry looked as if the temptation to provoke this new experience was nearly irresistible; but Alvar continued to Mr Stanforth, —

“I am glad that Cherito should laugh once more as he used to do; but my cousin does not understand.”

“My dear Alvar, I will content myself with laughing at you; you always understand a joke, don’t you?”

“I do not care if I understand or no. When I see you laughing,” said Alvar simply, “that is good.”

Something in this speech so touched Cheriton that his laughter softened away into a very doubtful smile, and he changed the subject; but he tried afterwards to propitiate Don Manoel by the most courteous treatment. The Spaniard did not respond, and he perceived that contending elements were discordant in Seville as well as in England.

Carmen and Isabel found novelty less distasteful. It is true that they thought Gipsy’s free intercourse with their cousin Alvar and with the English stranger shocking; but they preferred them to any other subject of conversation, and Isabel in particular made quite a romance of the incident of the Cape Jessamine, and how Don Cherito had looked at her when he gave it to her.

“But why shouldn’t he pick a bit of jessamine for you, if you couldn’t reach it for yourself?” asked Gipsy.

“Oh, Manoel said it was an attention.”

“Oh dear no,” said Gipsy, rather cruelly, “we shouldn’t think anything of it in England. Don Manoel needn’t be afraid.”

“Oh, but Manoel is terrible. He swore before Don Cherito came that he would poniard us if we, like our Aunt Maria, listened to a heretic, a stranger. For Don Giraldo was a wild wicked Englishman, but beautiful in the extreme; they have no religion, and no morals.”

“Isabel!”

“Ah, I tell you what Manoel says. He came, he pretended an accident, and then Dona Maria married him. Now, he says it is the same with Don Cherito. An illness – ”

“Any one can see that Cheriton Lester is really ill, at any rate.”

“Well – Manoel was angry with my grandfather for letting him come, and he has told Alvar that it should be death before such a marriage. Alvar told him he knew nothing of his English brother, who loved an English lady. But Manoel says that what happened once might again happen.”

“Isabel,” said her sister, “it is wrong to talk of this. If Zingara repeats it, there will be a quarrel.”

“I shall not repeat it,” said Gipsy; “but it is all nonsense, I assure you.”

“Ah,” said Isabel, “Manoel knows not. He knows not that I love one whom I have seen at mass, though I know not his name. But with my fan I can show him – ”

“Isabel!” again said the grave Carmen; while Gipsy, who was far too well bred and well brought up to have made signs in church with anything, thought that “mass” and “a signal with a fan” sounded interesting, and that what would have been highly unladylike at home was rather romantic in Seville.

On their side, Carmen and Isabel thought Gipsy hardly used in being kept away from the bull-fights, though she was too loyal to her nationality to express any wish to see them.

Don Manoel was a great lover of the ring, and as certain young bulls from Don Guzman’s estate were to be brought forward at the last corrida of the season, there was a great desire that the Englishmen should be present. Mr Stanforth intended to avail himself of the chance of seeing such a spectacle, and Cheriton, Don Guzman said, might see one contest, and go away before the other bulls were brought forward, if he found the fatigue too much for him. They would get seats on the shady side of the bull-ring, the great amphitheatre said to be capable of holding ten thousand spectators.

Cheriton, who went against Alvar’s wish, did not stay for the end, and Mr Stanforth went to see if he had repented of the rather perverse desire to prove himself capable of enduring the spectacle. He found him, still full of excitement, resting on a sofa in the patio; while Alvar sat near him, smoking, and looking cool and bored, as if the bull-fight had been a croquet party.

Mr Stanforth’s entrance was rather inopportune, for Cherry was still too full of his impressions not to talk of them, and, in answer to Mr Stanforth’s question, said eagerly, —

“Oh, the heat has tired me – that is nothing. But it made one feel like a fiend. I felt all the fascination of it – even the horror had a dreadful sort of attraction. I could not have come away if Alvar had not pulled me out when I was too dizzy to resist him.”

“Very unwholesome fascination,” said Mr Stanforth.

“Unwholesome! I should think so! It is abominable that such things should be. I tell Alvar that in his place I never would encourage an appeal to the worst passions of human nature.”

“Well, you would go, mi caro. I told you you would not like it,” said Alvar coolly.

“You should set an example of indignation!”

“I? I do not care what they do to amuse themselves. It does not interest me, as much, I think, as it did you, my brother.”

“No,” said Cherry slowly, “I understand a good many things by this. I should be as bad as any of them. But when a country encourages and allows such ‘amusements,’ when women look on and like it, one cannot wonder at Spanish cruelties. It appeals to everything that is bad in one.”

“You insult my country and your hosts! Don Cherito, such language is unpardonable!” exclaimed an unexpected voice; and Don Manoel came suddenly forward from one of the curtained doorways, close at hand. “What right have you, señor, to speak of our ancient customs in terms like these?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Cheriton, after a moment’s pause of amazement, “if I have said anything to annoy you; but – I was not aware that you were present. I was speaking to my brother.”

“Would you insinuate that I disguised my presence?” cried the Spaniard, with real rage in his tones, and a determination to show it.

Then Alvar fired up with the sudden passion that had always startled his English kindred.

“How dare you so address my brother! He shall say what he chooses!”

“He shall not – nor you either! You call yourself Spaniard – Andaluz – you claim rights in Seville, and listen with complacence to the cowardly scruples – ”

Here Alvar broke in with much too rapid Spanish for the Englishmen to follow, interrupted as it was by Manoel’s rejoinder, and by furious gestures as if the disputants were going to fly at each other’s throats, while Mr Stanforth’s mild attempts at interposing with – “Come – come now; what nonsense! What is all this about?” were entirely unheard.

Meanwhile, Cheriton’s previous excitement cooled down completely. He got up from the sofa, and stepped between them, laying his hand on Alvar’s arm.

“Excuse me, Alvar,” he said, in his slow, careful Spanish, “this seems to be my affair. Señor Don Manoel, will you have the goodness to tell me why you are offended with me?”

“He called you a coward – you, my brother!”

“My dear fellow, be quiet, don’t be an ass.” (This in English for Alvar’s benefit.) “Would you tell me what has provoked you?”

“Señor Don Cherito,” said Manoel, forced to answer civilly by Cheriton’s coolness – “first, did you mean to insinuate that I listened to your conversation with my cousin?”

“By no means,” said Cherry. “I merely meant to say that I had not seen you.”

“Then I ask you, señor, to repeat or to withdraw the remarks you made about the bull-fight,” said Don Manoel, with the air of delivering an ultimatum.

“He will not withdraw them!” cried Alvar. “He is no coward!”

“I hope,” said Cheriton, “I did nothing to offend. Were I in Don Manoel’s place I should feel, I am sure, as he does. I, too, am attached to the customs of my country. It is no doubt difficult for a stranger to judge. If I said the sport was cruel, I did not for a moment mean to imply that – that – those who see it must be cruel. Excuse my bad Spanish. I cannot express myself, but – pray let us shake hands.”

He smiled, and held out his hand.

“Well, señor, you are Don Guzman de la Rosa’s guest. If this is meant for an apology – ”

“For having offended you – yes. Being Don Guzman’s guest, I could not quarrel with his nephew.”

“I accept, the apology,” said Don Manoel, with much solemnity, and accepting Cherry’s hand.

“But,” said Alvar, “you applied an expression to my brother.”

“Oh, nonsense, Alvar; you know we never think of ‘expressions’ when we are angry; and I’m not aware of having had any opportunity of showing either cowardice or courage.”

“H’m,” said Mr Stanforth, in English, “a tolerably cool head, I think.”

Don Manoel, who appeared to have made up his mind to be magnanimous, remarked that his expression had been used too hastily to a stranger; but that a true Spaniard would look on any scene with equanimity. Cherry’s lip curved a little, as if he thought this a doubtful advantage; but he answered with a laugh, —

“I am a stranger, señor; and besides, I was fatigued.”

“Ah,” said Manoel, “that amounts to an entire excuse. The expression is withdrawn.”

And with a profound bow to Cheriton, he went away, and Cherry burst out laughing.

“What in the world did all that mean?” he said. “Did I really offend his national pride by turning sick at the dying horses?”

“That is not all,” said Alvar hurriedly; “he hates the English and us all; he would like to kill me.”

“Ah, ha, Alvar, it is my turn to talk about ‘excitement’ now.”

“Well, I do not understand you. When you came home you could not be still; you seemed crazy. And now, when any gentleman would be enraged, you laugh.”

“Oh, I hate quarrels. And besides,” shrugging his shoulders, “why in the world should I care for such mock-heroics as that?”

“Ah, Cherry,” said Mr Stanforth, “there spoke the very essence of English scorn.”

Cheriton coloured.

“True,” he said, candidly, “Don Manoel had a right to be angry with me, after all. But I don’t mean it. I dare say he isn’t half a bad fellow.”

“Ah, you are coughing. You will be tired out; and I am sure that you will not sleep,” said Alvar. “Come, you shall not talk any more about anything.”

“Very wise advice,” said Mr Stanforth, “especially as Gipsy has persuaded the whole party to come to-morrow to see my sketches, and drink English ‘afternoon tea.’ So rest now in preparation.”

Cheriton paid for his day’s work by a bad night and much weariness. Don Manoel made very polite inquiries after him; but there was something in the atmosphere that, to quote Alvar, Cherry “did not understand.”

Chapter Five.

Nettie at Bay

“A child, and vain.”

After the departure of the travellers, a period of exceeding flatness and dulness settled down on Oakby and its neighbourhood. The weather was dismal, one or two other neighbouring families were away, and no one thought it worth while to do anything. Jack had refused a congenial invitation, and conscientiously stayed at home “to make it cheerful,” until he went up to Oxford; but, though he was too well conducted and successful not to be a satisfactory son, he and his father were not congenial, and never could think of anything to say to each other. He had outgrown companionship with Bob, and did not now get on very well with him; while Nettie was never sociable with any one but her twin. Mrs Lester, though very attentive to her son’s dinners and other comforts, did not trouble herself much about the boys, and moreover did not possess the comfortable characteristic common to most elderly ladies – of being often to be found in one place. As Jack expressed it to himself, “no one was ever anywhere;” and prone as he was to look on the dark side of things, the thought that this was what home would be without Cherry, was perpetually before his mind. He did not like to go to Elderthwaite, and saw nothing of its inhabitants till one misty day early in October, as he was walking through the lanes with Rolla and Buffer at his heels, he came suddenly upon Virginia, leaning over a stile, and looking, not at the view, for there was none, but at the mist and the distant rain. Her figure, in its long waterproof cloak, under an arch of brown and yellow hazel boughs, had an indescribably forlorn aspect; but Jack, awkward fellow, was conscious of nothing but a sense of embarrassment and doubt what to say. She started and coloured up, but with greater self-possession spoke to him, and held out her hand.