An English Squire

“How d’ye do?” said Jack. “Down, Buffer, you’re all over mud.”

“Oh, never mind, I don’t care, dear little fellow!” exclaimed Virginia, who would have hugged Buffer, mud and all, but for very shame. “I did not know you were at home, Jack.”

“Yes, but I’m going to Oxford next week.”

“And – and you have good accounts of Cherry?”

“Yes, pretty good, better than at first. He says that he looks better, and does not cough so much, and he likes it, – so he says, at least,” replied Jack, who, conceiving that propriety precluded the mention of Alvar’s name, found his personal pronouns puzzling.

“I am very glad,” said Virginia softly.

“Yes, I suppose they are at Seville by this time; they stayed at San José till Cherry was stronger. Al – he – they thought it best.”

“Your eldest brother would be very careful of him, I am sure,” said Virginia, with a gentle dignity that reassured Jack, though she blushed deeply.

“Yes,” he said more freely, “and they have made some friends; Mr Stanforth, the artist, you know, and his daughter; they’re very nice people, and they have been learning Spanish together. He writes in very good spirits,” concluded Jack viciously, and referring to Cherry, though poor Virginia’s imagination supplied another antecedent.

“I am glad to hear it,” she said. “I met that Miss Stanforth once. She was a pretty, dark-eyed child then. Good-bye, Jack, I am going soon to stay with my cousin Ruth.”

“Good-bye,” said Jack, with a scowl which she could not account for. “I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.”

“Good-bye; good-bye, Buffer.”

Jack took his way home through the wet shrubberies. He felt sorry for Virginia, whom he regarded as injured by Alvar, but he thought that she ought to be angry with Ruth, never supposing that the latter’s delinquencies were unknown to her.

As he walked on he passed by a cart shed belonging to a small farm of his father’s above which was a hay loft, reached by a step ladder, to the foot of which Buffer and Rolla both rushed, barking rapturously, and trying to get up the ladder.

“Hullo! what’s up? – rats, I suppose,” thought Jack; and mounting two or three steps of the very rickety ladder, he looked into the loft, his chin on a level with the floor. Suddenly a blinding heap of hay was flung over his head; there was a scuffle and a rush, and Jack freed himself from the hay to find his head in Nettie’s very vigorous embrace; and to see Dick Seyton swing himself down from the window of the loft and run away.

“Stop, I say. Nettie, let go, what are you doing here? Dick, stop, I say,” cried Jack, scrambling up the ladder and rushing to the window; but Dick had vanished.

“Don’t stamp, Jack, you’ll come through; you should have run after him,” said Nettie saucily.

Jack turned, but caught his foot in a hole and fell headlong into the hay, while Nettie sat and laughed at him, and the dogs howled at the foot of the ladder.

Jack picked himself up cautiously, and sitting down on the hay, for there was hardly room for him to stand upright, said severely, —

“Now, Nettie, what is the meaning of this?”

“The meaning of what?”

“Of your being here with Dick. I told you in the summer that I didn’t approve of your being so friendly with him, and now I insist on knowing at once what you were doing with him.”

“Well, then, I shan’t tell you,” said Nettie coolly.

“I say you shall. I couldn’t have believed that my sister would be so unladylike. Just tell me how often you have met him, and what you were doing here?”

“It’s no business of yours,” said Nettie, making a sudden rush at the ladder; but Jack caught her, and a struggle ensued, in which of course he had the upper hand, though she was strong enough to make a considerable resistance; and he felt the absurdity of fighting with her as if she were a naughty child, when her offence was of such a nature.

“Now, Nettie,” he said, in a tone that she could not resist. “Stop this nonsense. I mean to have an answer. What has induced you to meet Dick Seyton in secret, and how often have you done so? You can’t deny that you have.”

“No,” said Nettie, “I have, often, and I shall ever so many times more.”

“I couldn’t have believed it of you, Nettie,” said Jack, so seriously and so mildly that Nettie looked quite frightened, and then exclaimed, —

“Jack, if you dare to venture to think that I meet Dick that we may make love to each other, or any nonsense of that kind, I’ll – I’ll kill you – I’ll never speak to you again, never!”

“Why – why what else can I think?” said Jack, blushing, and by far the more shamefaced of the two.

“Well, then, it’s abominable and shameful of you. Do you think I would be so horrid? As if I ever meant to marry any one. I shall live with Bob.”

“Don’t be so violent, Nettie. You have acted very deceitfully.”

“Deceitfully! Do you think I’d tell you a story?”

As Nettie had never been known to “tell a story” in her life, Jack could not say that he thought she would; but he replied, —

“You have acted deceitfully. You have run after Dick when we all thought you were somewhere else, and – there’s no use in being in a passion – but what do you suppose any one would think of a girl who behaved in such a manner?”

Nettie blushed, but answered, —

“I can’t help what any one thinks, Jack. I know I’m right, and I must go on doing it.”

“Indeed you won’t,” said Jack angrily; “for unless you promise never to meet him any more, I shall tell father at once that I found you here. What do you think Cherry would say to you?”

“Cherry would say I was perfectly right, and would do exactly the same thing himself,” said Nettie, triumphantly. “I am not doing any harm; and I must go on. I can’t tell you why I am doing it, because I promised not, and I’ll do it nearer home if you like it better. Bob and I quarrelled about it many a time, he knows.”

“Oh, he knows, does he? What a fool he must have been to let you do it.”

“He won’t tell of me,” said Nettie, “and he never did let me when he was at home. But I am not a silly, horrid girl, Jack, whatever you think; and I’m not flirting with Dick, nor – nor – engaged to him; and when – when – it’s right, I don’t mind people thinking so!”

But this speech ended in a flood of tears, as poor Nettie’s latent maidenliness began to assert itself.

“And pray,” said Jack, “does Dick come after you because it’s right?”

“No – no,” sobbed Nettie; “because I make him.”

“And how can you make him, I should like to know?”

Nettie made no answer but renewed tears. At last she sobbed out, “Oh, Jack, Jack, I wish you were Cherry!”

“I wish I were with all my heart,” said Jack. “Would you tell me if I were Cherry?”

“No; but I know he would be kind, and not think me horrid.”

“Well, Nettie, I’ll try to be kind; but you frighten me by all this. Now just listen. I believe I ought to tell father directly.”

“Oh, Jack! dear Jack! Don’t, don’t – it would be dreadful! Don’t you believe me?”

“Yes,” said Jack, “I believe you; but how do I know about a young scamp like Dick? You tell me the whole truth, and then I can judge, or I shall tell my father this moment. You’re my sister, and I shall take care of you. You’ve done a thing that may be told against you all your life, and nothing can make it right, say what you will.”

“But I can’t tell you, Jack; I’ve promised.”

“Well, then, I shall have it out first with Dick.”

“Oh, Jack, everything will be undone then!”

“And pray, if you don’t care about him, why does it matter to you so much about him?”

“Indeed – indeed, Jack, I’m not in love with him in the least. I never was with anybody, and I never mean to be,” said Nettie, fixing her great blue eyes full on Jack, and speaking with convincing eagerness.

“And how about him?” said Jack crossly.

“No, it’s nothing to do with it,” said Nettie; but the tone of her voice altered a little, and Jack had a sort of feeling that there was more in the matter than she herself knew, for he never thought of disbelieving her.

“Will you tell, and will you promise?” he said.

“No, I won’t,” said Nettie.

“Then you are a very naughty, disobedient girl, and you shall come home with me this minute.”

“I hate you, Jack. I’ll never forgive you,” said Nettie passionately, as she followed him; and all the way home she sobbed and pouted, with an intolerable sense of shame, while Jack, utterly puzzled, walked by her side, a desire to horsewhip Dick Seyton contending in his mind with a dread of making a row.

They came in by the back-door, and Nettie rushed upstairs at once; while Jack, virtuous and resolute, went into the study.

Resolute as the girl was, she listened trembling, till her father’s loud call of “Nettie, Nettie, come here this moment!” brought her down to the study, where were her father, her grandmother, and Jack.

“Eh, what’s all this, Nettie?” said Mr Lester. “I can’t have you running about the country with young Seyton. What’s the meaning of it?”

“Papa,” said Nettie, “I haven’t run about the country. Dick and I have got a secret; it’s a very good secret.”

“Well, what is it, then?” said her father.

“I don’t mean to tell. I never tell secrets,” said Nettie, with determination. “We have had it a long time.”

“My dear,” said Mr Lester, much more mildly than he would have spoken to any of his boys, “I must put an end to it. You have been running wild with your brothers till you forget how big a girl you are getting. Never go out with Dick again by yourself – do you hear?”

Nettie made no answer, and her father continued, more sternly, —

“I am sorry, Nettie, that you did not know better how to behave. Never let me hear of such a thing again.”

Still silence; and Jack said, —

“She won’t promise. I shall see what Dick says about it.”

“Then you’ll just do nothing of the sort, Jack,” said his grandmother, “making mountains out of mole-hills. Nettie is going to London to stay with her aunt Cheriton, and have some music and French lessons with Dolly and Kate. I’d settled it all this morning. She doesn’t attend enough to her studies here. You’ll take her up when you go to Oxford, and there’ll be an end of the matter.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr Lester. “Grandmamma and I were talking it over just now.”

“Not that it is on account of your remarks, Jack,” said Mrs Lester. “That would be making far too much of her foolish behaviour; but in London she’ll learn better.”

“To be sure,” said Mr Lester, who had been stopped on his way out riding by Jack’s appeal, and was now glad to escape from an unpleasant discussion. “Nettie will come back at Christmas, and we shall hear no more of such childish tricks.”

Nettie looked like a statue, and never spoke a word; but there was a look of fright through all her sullenness. Jack was not accustomed to think much of her appearance, but he knew as a matter of fact that she was handsome, and it struck him forcibly that she looked “grown-up.”

“You’ve done more harm than you know,” she said; “but I will not tell, and I will not promise.” And with a sort of dignity in her air, she walked out of the room.

“What does she mean?” said Jack.

“Never you mind,” said his grandmother, “and don’t you raise the countryside on her by saying a word to Dick or any one. Hold your tongue, and be thankful. The Seytons are the plague of the place, and we’ll ask them all to dinner before Nettie goes, Dick included.”

“Ask them to dinner?” said Jack.

“Yes; we’ll have no talk of a quarrel. And besides, your father finds that people are apt to think that it was Virginia’s fault that your half-brother left her in the lurch; and that’s not so, though she is a Seyton.”

“No, indeed!”

“So my son means to have a dinner-party, and to show that we are all good friends, and pay them proper attention. A bad lot they are; there’s not one of them to be trusted.”

“But, Granny,” said Jack anxiously, “what do you think about Nettie? What secret can she have?”

“Eh, I can’t tell. He may be getting her a puppy or a creature of some kind; but Nettie’s secret may be one and Dick’s another. I always blamed Cherry for encouraging the Seytons about the place.”

“Poor Cherry!” muttered Jack to himself, with a great longing to throw the burden of his difficulty on to Cherry’s shoulders.

Nettie remained sullen and impenetrable. She treated Jack with an intense resentment that vexed him more than he could have supposed. Neither her father nor her grandmother asked her any questions; but she was watched, though not palpably in disgrace, and she suffered from an agony of shame and of self-reproach which contended strangely with the motive that in her view justified the stolen meetings. Whether her womanly instincts, roughly awakened, justified the warnings given her, or whether, she merely resented the unjust suspicion, she herself scarcely knew, and not for worlds would she have explained her feelings. The dread of giving an advantage, the intense sulky self-respect that leads to an exaggeration of reserve and false shame, was in her nature as in that of all the Lesters, and if Cheriton had been present she could not probably have uttered a word to him. Being absent, she could venture to soften at the thought of him, and cried for him many a time in secret.

Chapter Six.

Broken Links

“Love is made a vague regret.”

Virginia, when she parted from Jack, walked slowly homewards through the mist and the falling leaves, and thought of the bloom and the brightness of that fair Seville which she had so often pictured to herself. How happy the two brothers would be there together, among all the surroundings which she had heard described so often! Alvar would never think of her. “At least, I should have had letters from him if I had not sent him away,” she thought; and though she did not regret the parting in the sense of blaming herself for it, she felt in her utter desolation as if she had rather have had her lover cold and indifferent than not have him at all.

For life was so dreary, home so wretched, and Virginia could not mend it. Indeed in many ways a less high-minded girl with stronger spirits and more tact might have been far more useful there. Virginia held her tongue resolutely; but she could not shut her eyes. She had lost her bearings, and could not possibly understand the proportion of things. Thus even in her inmost soul she never blamed her father for his life-long extravagance, for the vague stories of his dissipated youth – these things were not for her to judge; but the conversation, which he intended to be perfectly fit for her ears, was full of small prejudices, small injustices, and trifles taken for granted that grated on her every hour. She tried very hard to be gentle and pleasant to her aunt; but she could not bring herself, as Ruth could, to laugh at scandalous stories, old or new, or even to think herself right in listening to them. And though her father and aunt so far as they knew how, respected her innocence, the latter only laughed at the ignorance that thought one thing as bad as another. For there were virtues, or at least self-denials in their lives, for which, with all her love and with all her charity, she could not possibly credit them. It was something that Mr Seyton had pulled through without utterly succumbing to debt and difficulty, it was something that when writhing under an injury which she never forgot or forgave, his sister stuck to him and kept things as straight as they were. It was a godless, idle, aimless household, above stairs and below; but it was not a scandalous one, and, with all the antecedents, it easily might have been. But the obvious outcome of this hard narrow life was a deadness to all outer or higher interests, an ignorance of the ordinary views of society, and of modern forms of thought never attained save by selfish people, an absence of restraint of temper, a delight in utter littleness, which were intensely wearying. Higher principles would have made life more interesting if nothing more. The narrowest form of belief in religion and goodness would have given a wider outlook. Virginia was sick to death of tales of little local incidents spiced with ill-nature, or incessant complaints of someone’s ill-behaviour about a fence or a cow. If she had lived at Oakby she would have heard a good deal of the same sort of thing; but there there would have been something else to fall back on, and she would not have heard small triumphs over small overreaching, which Mr Seyton did not mix enough with his kind to hear commented on.

Virginia used to wonder if she would grow like her aunt, her life was so empty. All her young-lady interests, the essay and drawing clubs, the correspondence and the art needlework, with which like other girls she had amused herself, had languished entirely during her engagement, and she did not care to resume them. She would have liked to be a resource to Dick; but she was not used to boys, and had not much faculty for amusing them, and Dick did not care for her. Her Sunday class tired her, and were naughty because her teaching was languid; the children by no means offering the consolations to her depression which they are sometimes represented as doing in fiction. The Ellesmeres, who were always kind to her, were away for their annual holiday, and the library books for which she subscribed, and which might have amused her, could never, by any chance be fetched from the station when she wanted them.

Her uncle showed his sympathy by scolding her roundly for fretting for a black-eyed foreigner, till she was almost too angry to speak to him.

Under all these circumstances Ruth’s urgent invitation had been welcome, and as she received others from her friends at Littleton, she resolved to go and try to pick up the threads that Alvar had broken. Soon after she parted with Jack she met the Parson, and told him what she knew would be welcome news, that Cherry was better.

“Ay,” said Mr Seyton, “Jack brought me a message from him that he would write me an account of a bull-fight. Wonder he’s not ashamed to go near one. Cruel, unmanly sport – disgraceful!”

“Well, uncle,” said Virginia, “I think you ought to be pleased that Cherry is well enough to go.”

“Eh? I’ll ask him if he’ll come and see a cock-fight when he comes home. Plenty of ’em here – round the corner. So you’re going to London to get a little colour in your cheeks, I think it’s time.”

“Yes, uncle; Mrs Clement will teach the children while I’m away.”

“Very well, and tell Miss Ruth she was blind of one eye when she made her choice, but I can see out of both.”

“Uncle, I shouldn’t think of telling her such a thing. What do you mean?”

“Never mind, she’ll understand me. Good-bye, my dear, and never mind the Frenchman.”

Virginia smiled, but she could not turn her thoughts away, not merely from Alvar, but from her life without him. Fain would she have refused the invitation which soon arrived to a solemn dinner-party at Oakby; but it had been accompanied by a hint from Mr Lester to her aunt which caused the latter to insist on accepting it, and they went accordingly to meet Sir John and Lady Hubbard, and one or two other neighbours. Mr Lester was markedly polite to Virginia. Mrs Lester wore her best black velvet, and a certain diamond brooch, only produced on occasions of state. Jack looked proper, silent, and bored. Every one wished to ask after the universally popular Cheriton, but felt that Alvar was an awkward subject of conversation, so that the adventures of the travellers could not be used to enliven the dulness. Nettie did not of course appear at dinner, and afterwards sat in a corner of the drawing-room in her white muslin, apparently determined not to open her mouth. Dick strolled up to her when the gentlemen came in, and was instantly followed by Jack, who stood by her silent and frowning. Nettie looked up under her eyebrows, and said, “Dick, I am going to London.”

“So I hear,” said Dick, with a smile and a slight shrug.

“I hate it, but I can’t help it. You go on.”

Dick smiled again and nodded, and then looked at Jack with an air of secret amusement, indescribably provoking. “All right,” he said, but he turned away and made no further demonstration; and Mrs Lester desired Nettie to show Miss Hubbard “Views on the Rhine,” a very handsome book reserved for occasions of unusual dulness.

Altogether the evening did not raise Virginia’s spirits, and she was half inclined to resent the special kindness shown to her by Mr Lester, as implying blame to his absent son.

It was a wonderful change of scene and circumstance, when she found herself, some few days later, sitting in Lady Charlton’s pleasant London drawing-room, full of books, work, plants, and pretty things, with Ruth, bright-eyed and blooming, sitting on the rug at her feet, ready for a confidential chatter.

She was to be married directly after Christmas, she told Virginia. Rupert did not mean to sell out of the army; she did not at all dislike the notion of moving about for a few years, and now the regiment was at Aldershot she could see Rupert often while she remained in London to get her things.

“And, Queenie, you must choose the dresses for the bridesmaids. Grandmamma will have a gay wedding. I think it will be a great bore.”

“Your bridesmaids ought to wear something warm and gay and bright, like yourself, Ruthie. Are you going to ask Nettie Lester?”

“Oh, no!” said Ruth hurriedly. “Why should I?”

“She is Rupert’s cousin, and she is so handsome.”

“I never thought of her! I am angry with them all since Don Alvar has made you miserable. My darling Queenie, I should like to stamp on him! Now, don’t be angry; but tell me how it all came about?”

“I don’t think I could ever make you understand it, Ruth. He did nothing wrong. It was only that – that I did not suit him, and I found it out,” said Virginia, with a sort of ache in her voice, as she turned her head away.

“The more – well, I won’t finish the sentence. Any way, he has spoiled your life for you; for I am afraid he is your love if you are not his,” said Ruth, scanning her sad face curiously. “Queenie, weren’t you ready to kill him and Cherry, too, when they went off comfortably together?”

“No,” said Virginia, “he could not help going —that was not it. And as for Cherry, he was the only person who understood anything about it – he was so kind! Oh, I hope he is really better!”

“I dare say he is, by this time,” said Ruth, rather oddly; “but they are all so easily frightened about him – they spoil him. I wonder what they would all say if he fell in love with a naughty, wicked siren – a female villain, who broke his heart for him – just for fun.”

“She would break something worth having,” said Virginia indignantly. “But, do you know anything about Cherry, Ruth?”

“I? I don’t believe in sirens who break hearts just for fun and vanity. And as for Cherry, if he did meet with a little trouble, he’d mend up again, heart and lungs and all. There’s something happy-go-lucky about him – don’t you think so?”

“I think Cherry is too many-sided to be left without an object in life, if that is what you mean,” said Virginia. “Besides, it is so different for a man, they can always do something.”

Then Ruth put aside the little uneasy feeling of self-reproach and doubt that had prompted her to talk about Cherry, and put her arms round Virginia, kissing her tenderly.

“My darling Queenie! You have been fretting all by yourself at Elderthwaite till things seem worse than they are.”

“No,” said Virginia; “but my life has all gone wrong. When I found that he did not love me everything seemed over for me.”

Ruth interposed a question, and at last acquired a clearer knowledge of the circumstances under which Alvar and her cousin had parted. She had a good deal of knowledge of the world, and some judgment, though she did not always use it for her own benefit, and she did not think that the case sounded hopeless. She tried an experiment.

“If you gave him up, Queenie, because you discovered that he did not come up to your notions of what he ought to be, why there’s an end of it, for he never will; but it looks to me much more like a very commonplace lovers’ quarrel aggravated by circumstances. He isn’t a bad sort of fellow in his own way; but it’s not the way that you think perfection.”