An English Squire

Ruth’s was a very brilliant wedding. Everything was arranged by her grandmother, and bridesmaids, dresses, breakfast, and even church, were all chosen with exact regard to the correct fashion of the moment. Ruth wished it all to be over that she might find herself away with Rupert; then perhaps she would feel at rest. As it was, their rapid, interrupted surface intercourse tantalised her almost as much as their occasional interviews in the days of secrecy and silence. And when they were alone, Ruth was afraid to go deep. Often had she said, “In my love there shall be perfect confidence; there shall be nothing between my soul and his.” And now her past transgression, however excusable it might seem, erred against this perfect confidence. And Rupert’s “soul” was not at all ready to display itself to her, or to himself either, partly because he was not serious in his emotions, any more than in his principles, but partly also because he not unnaturally considered that when his deeds were satisfactory to Ruth, it was quite unnecessary to analyse his feelings. So she had no encouragement to confidence, and the perfect union for which she had longed, disappointed her, partly through her past falsity, but more from the want of any common aim or principle to unite them. Ruth was fairly happy; but she was the same Ruth still, with a nature that could never be satisfied without earnestness equalling her own, an earnestness from the purity and simplicity of which she had turned aside to seek a sort of consecration of life which only a man of high principle and strong purpose could really have helped her to find, in a love which she thought more powerful because it was more regardless of duty, in which view she did but follow much teaching and many writers.

Ruth did not make the confession which would have set her right with herself if not with Rupert, she had practised too much self-pleasing to find the courage for it. She married; and as life went on her aspirations would either die into the commonplace she had despised, or she might be driven to satisfy them elsewhere than with Rupert.

And Virginia, who equally with Ruth idealised life and its relations, and who also found her ideal unfulfilled – unfulfilled, but not destroyed. She had lost her lover, but the good and holy life which she had thought to lead with him, though its beauty took a sterner cast, was possible without him. Life was not purposeless, though it was very difficult, and poor Virginia was diffident of her own powers, and was, moreover, in many ways ill-fitted to live with those whose views of life were uncongenial to her.

“If I had more tact I should get on better at home; if I had had more patience, more charity, I should not have quarrelled with Alvar,” she thought, and with some truth. But when she came back to Elderthwaite it was coming home. Dick and Harry were glad to see her; her father said it looked cheerful to have her about again; the little housemaid, whom she had taught for an hour on Sundays, was enchanted, and had written copies and learnt hymns in her absence; while she could not but be welcome to her aunt, whom she found suffering from a severe attack of rheumatism, which confined her to her room. Virginia had no natural skill in nursing, and Miss Seyton was not fond of attentions. But, though she was severely uncomplaining, Virginia’s companionship was enlivening, and, moreover, while she was incapacitated, her niece was obliged to manage the house. She had bought enough bitter experience now not to be frightened and startled at the state of things, and she perceived how much Miss Seyton had done to keep things straight. But the young, fresh influence brightened up the old dependents, and she managed, too, to introduce some little comfort. But a piece of home work really within her powers came to her in an unexpected quarter. Dick’s examination was to take place in about six weeks, and she found from Harry that he had been really reading for it, and to her great surprise and pleasure he did not resent her interest in it. Her French, and history, and arithmetic were quite enough in advance of Dick’s to make her aid valuable to him, and finding how much he was behindhand, spite of some honest though fitful efforts, she gave him some lessons with the tutor at Hazelby to whom Bob Lester was sent, and as Dick always brought his papers to her afterwards, there was no question that he actually availed himself of the opportunity.

As for the old parson, he greeted her with a perfect effusion of delight. He had come to love her better than anything in the world except Cheriton, whose illness had been a real sorrow to him. The little improvements had not been allowed to languish – indeed others had been projected. Mr Clements had not been idle. A poor widow, whose continued respectability had certainly been partly owing to her attachment to Mr Seyton’s rival or assistant, “the old Methody,” had a niece who had been trained as a pupil-teacher in a parish belonging to a friend of Mr Ellesmere’s, and, her health failing, the girl had come to live with her aunt. Hence a proposal for a little day-school; and actually a subscription set on foot by Mr Clements.

(This of course took place before the passing of the Education Act.)

“So you see, Miss Seyton,” he had said, “we have not been quite idle in your absence.”

“Indeed,” said Virginia, smiling, “you seem to have done better without me.”

“No, Miss Seyton, whatever better things we may succeed in doing in Elderthwaite in the future, it is your doing that the wish to improve had been awakened.”

Virginia blushed at this magnificent compliment; but it was true. High principle, recommended by gentleness and humility, must in the end win its way.

These various changes formed a safe subject of conversation in a meeting that could not fail on many accounts to be trying, when Cheriton, as he came up to the vicarage, met Virginia going in there also. He did not want to talk about his own health or home difficulties, she could not fail to be conscious; but the parson was only restrained, or not restrained, by her presence from lamentations over Alvar’s succession, and looked unspeakably wicked when Cherry implied that they were getting on smoothly. So the new school came in handy, and Parson Seyton talked about a “Government grant,” and winked at Cherry over his shoulder.

“It’s all getting beyond me, Cherry,” he said; “I’m not the man for these new lights.”

“You’ll have to get a curate, parson,” said Cherry.

“Nay – nay!” said the parson sharply. “I’ll have no strangers prying into all our holes and corners, and raking out the dust. I don’t like curates – hate their long coats and long faces.”

“You might put in the advertisement ‘round and rosy preferred,’” said Cherry.

“Nay, nay, my lad; no curates for me, unless you will apply for the situation.”

“Cherry has a very long coat on,” said Virginia, smiling and pointing to his “ulster.”

“And not too round a face nowadays, eh? Never mind, if he came here I’d let him wear – ”

“A cassock, perhaps,” said Cheriton. “I feel all the force of the compliment. But I think Queenie is the best curate for Elderthwaite at present.”

Virginia’s heart danced at the familiar brotherly name by which Cheriton had learned from Ruth to call her in the days of her engagement, but which had never become her home appellation, and something in her face made him whisper under his breath as she rose to take leave, —

“Though Oakby grudges her to you.” Virginia hurried away, but she was presently overtaken by Cheriton as she paused at a cottage door, and they walked up the lane together, and talked of the Stanforths; and when Virginia praised Gipsy, neither could help a smile of implied comprehension and sympathy.

It was a bright, pleasant day, the puddles and ditches of the Elderthwaite hedgerows sparkled in the spring sunshine, the blackthorn put out its shy blossoms on each side. Virginia smiled and looked up gaily, and Cheriton’s voice took its natural lively tone as he related some of the humours of their Spanish journey.

“I must turn off here,” said Cherry, as they came to a stile. But Virginia did not answer him, for, leaning against the fence, stood Alvar, watching them as they approached. A hayrick and tumble-down cart-shed, and a waggon with its poles turned up in the air, formed a strangely incongruous background for his graceful figure, his deep mourning giving him an additional air of picturesque dignity.

There was no escape for Virginia. She turned exceedingly pale, but with a self-command that, in Cheriton’s opinion, did her infinite credit, she bowed – she had not courage to put out her hand – and said timidly, —

“Good morning.”

Alvar’s olive face coloured all over; he bowed, for once utterly and evidently at a loss, while Cherry plunged into the breach.

“Hallo, Alvar, have you come to look for me? I have been to see Parson Seyton. You have no idea what grand doings there are now in Elderthwaite.”

“I did not come to look for you,” said Alvar, with some emphasis.

“Well, I was coming home.”

Then Alvar turned, and with a sort of haughty politeness hoped that Mr and Miss Seyton were well; and Virginia, in the sweet tones unheard for so many months, replied to him, and after shaking hands with Cheriton, walked away down the sunny lane, from which she could not turn aside, and which afforded no shelter from any eyes that might choose to follow her.

Alvar, however, turned away, and Cherry following, said, —

“I think a little light will dawn on Elderthwaite one day, thanks to Virginia.”

Alvar did not make any answer, and Cheriton was not at all sorry to see how much the meeting had disturbed him.

He never alluded to it again, but whether from any feelings connected with it or from the worries of his new position, he was less even-tempered than usual.

There was much to try him. So many matters pressed on him, and he was so very much at fault as to the way of dealing with them. Mr Lester had kept a considerable portion of his property in his own hands; he had also been a most active magistrate, sat upon innumerable county committees, and had united in his own person the chief lay offices of the parish. In all these capacities he had done a considerable amount of useful work, and though no one expected Alvar to take up the whole of it, he ought to have endeavoured to make himself master of the more necessary parts.

But the real defect of Alvar’s nature – the intense pride, that made the sense of being at a disadvantage hateful to him – worked at first in a wrong direction. The great effort of bending himself to learn to do badly what those around him could do well, was beyond one who had never felt the need of repentance, never acknowledged an error in himself; nor did the sense of duty to his neighbour, that counteracted this tendency in others of his name, appeal to the conscience of one who inherited the selfish instincts of the Spanish grandee. After the very first he grew impatient of the tasks that were so new to him, and yet resentful of any comment on his behaviour. He resented the standard to which he would not conform, all the more because an unspeakable soreness connected it with Virginia’s rejection of him.

Perhaps this was more hopeful than his former good-humoured indifference, but it was with exceeding pain that Cheriton, before Easter came, began to perceive that though Alvar would let him please himself in any special instance, his hopes of exerting any general influence were vain, and that Alvar would resent the attempt even from him.

“Did you expect to make the leopard change his spots by the force of your will, Cherry?” said Mr Ellesmere to him, when some instance had brought this prominently forward. “You cannot do it, my boy, and excuse me for saying that I think you should not try.”

“I only wanted to help the leopard to accommodate his coat to our climate,” said Cherry, with rather a difficult smile.

“He must do that himself when stress of weather shows him the need. If he had married, such an influence as your mother’s might have come into his life; but, my dear boy, even that could not have sufficed, unless it had appealed to something higher.”

“I know,” said Cherry slowly. “I know what you mean about it. No man ought to stand dictation as to his duty, and we all lay down the law to each other. But I cannot break myself of feeling that matters here are my own concern.”

“I think that is a habit of mind common to a great many people hereabouts,” said Mr Ellesmere kindly; “and, after all, what I said was only meant as a warning.”

“Much needed! But I believe Alvar will find things out in time; and we none of its make half enough allowance for him.”

Jack came home for a few days at Easter, and there was a final discussion and arrangement of plans, which resulted after all in a general flitting. Alvar declared that Oakby was too dull without his brother, and that he should himself go to London for some time. No one could exactly find fault with this scheme, and if he had exerted himself hitherto to get his new duties in train, they would have welcomed it, as his resolute avoidance of the Seytons produced social difficulties, and Jack thought Cheriton’s London life so much of an experiment as to be glad that he should not have to carry it out entirely alone. But they both knew that without any difference that would strike outsiders, there was just the essential change from good to bad management, from care to neglect, in every matter with which the master of Oakby was concerned.

Nettie was to go to a London boarding-school for a year. This was the express desire of Mrs Lester, who thought this amount of “finishing” essential. Lady Cheriton was choosing the school, and the brothers of course consented, though Cheriton felt that it was like caging a wild bird, and Alvar remarked with much truth, —

“My sister is a woman; it is foolish to send her to school.”

Nettie wept torrents of tears over Rolla, Buffer, her pony, nay, every living creature about the place; but she did not resist, it was part of the plan of life to which she was accustomed.

If Mrs Lester herself had not insisted on sending Nettie away, the others would have made no proposal which involved a separation; but to the surprise of them all, she proposed spending the ensuing three months at Whitby. Lady Milford would be there, and it had always been an occasional resort of Mrs Lester’s, and with her old favourite maid, she declared that she should be perfectly comfortable there; and if she was dull, she would ask Virginia Seyton to stay with her.

One other member of the family remained to be disposed of, and while Cheriton and Jack were consulting with each other what they could say to their uncle with regard to Bob, he took the matter into his own hands, and as he walked across the park with Cheriton to view some drainage operations which had been begun by their father, and which Alvar was very glad to let them superintend, he remarked suddenly, —

“Cherry, I wish you would let me go to Canada, or New Zealand, or some such place, and take land. It is the only thing I’m fit for.”

Cheriton was taken by surprise, though the idea had crossed his own mind.

“Do you really wish it?” he said.

“Yes,” said Bob. “I’m not going to try my hand in life at things other fellows can beat me at.”

“I’m afraid that rule would limit the efforts of most of us!”

“Well,” said Bob, “I hate feeling like a fool; and besides, I don’t see the good of Latin and Greek. But I mean to do some thing that’s some use in the world. I approve of colonising.”

“Really, Bob,” said Cherry, “I don’t think you were ever expected to go in for more Latin and Greek than would prevent you from feeling like a fool. There’s a great deal in what you say; but have you thought of a farm in England or Scotland?”

“Yes; but I think that is generally a fine name for doing nothing. Now, I shall have some capital, and I’m big and strong, and can make my way. Cherry, don’t you think I should have been allowed to go?”

“Yes, Bob, I think you would; but you are too young to start off at once on your own resources.”

“Well, I could go to the agricultural college for a year, and there are men out there who take fellows and give them a start. You can talk it over with Uncle Cheriton, and if you agree, I don’t care for the others.”

“Does Nettie know about it?”

“Yes,” said Bob; “she wouldn’t speak to me for a week, she was so sorry. But she came round, and says she shall come out and join me. Of course she won’t – she’ll get married.”

They had reached a little bridge which crossed a stream, on either side of which lay the swampy piece of ground which they had come to inspect. Looking forward, was the wide panorama of heathery hills, known to them with life-long knowledge; looking back, the wide, white house, in its group of fir-trees, with the park stretching away towards the lake. All the woods were tinted with light spring green, and the air was full of the song of numberless birds, and with that cawing of the rooks, which Cheriton had once said at Seville was to him like the sound of the waves to a person born by the sea.

“Of course,” said Bob, “if one went a hundred thousand miles, one would never forget this old place.”

“No,” said Cheriton; “nor, I sometimes fancy, if one went a longer journey still!”

“But I hate it as it is now, and I shall come back when you’re Lord Chancellor, and Jack, Head Master of Eton.”

“Well, Bob,” said Cherry, “wherever we may any of us go, or whatever we may be, I think we cannot be really parted, while we remember the old place, and all that belongs to it.”

Chapter Four.

The Dragon Slayer

“Life has more things to dwell onThan just one useless pain.”

There are few places where the charm of a bright June day is felt more perfectly than in a London garden. The force of contrast may partly account for this; but The Laurels, as the Stanforths’ house was called, was a lovely place in itself, dating from days before the villas by which it was now almost surrounded. Within its old brown sloping walls flourished white and pink acacias, magnolias, wisterias, and quaint trees only found in such old gardens; a cork-tree, more curious than beautiful; a catalpa, which once in Gipsy’s memory had put out its queer brown and white blossoms; and a Judas-tree, still purple with its lovely flowers. The house, like the garden-walls, was built of brown old brick, well draped with creepers; and Mr Stanforth’s new studio had been so cunningly devised that it harmonised wonderfully with the rest. That garden was a very pleasant place in the estimation of a great many people, who liked to come and idle away an hour there, and was famous for pleasant parties all through the summer; while it was a delightful play-place for the little Stanforths, a large party of picturesque and lively-minded children, who, in spite of artistic frocks and hats, and tongues trained to readiness by plenty of home society, were very thoroughly educated and carefully brought up. They were a great amusement to Cheriton Lester, who was always a welcome guest at The Laurels, and felt himself thoroughly at home there.

Cheriton’s London life was in many ways a pleasant one. He found himself in the midst of old friends and schoolfellows, he could have as much society as he wished for, he was free of his uncle’s house and of the ‘Stanforths’, and he had none of the money anxieties which troubled many of those who, like him, were beginning their course of preparation for a legal life. He saw a good deal, in and out, of Alvar, who had established himself in town, and was an exceedingly popular person in society; and as the obligations of his mourning, which he was careful to observe, diminished, was full of engagements of all sorts, enjoyed himself greatly, and thought as little of Oakby as business letters allowed. Lady Cheriton thought that he ought to have every opportunity of settling, “so much the best thing for all of them,” and arranged her introductions to him accordingly; but Alvar walked through snares and pitfalls, and did not even get himself talked of in connexion with any young lady. Cheriton was much less often to be met with; he found that he could not combine late hours and anything like study, and so kept his strength for his more immediate object – an object which, however, was slowly changing into an occupation. Cheriton soon found out that the pleasures and pains of hard and successful labour were no longer for him; that though he did not break down in the warm summer weather, the winter would always be a time of difficulty, and that his strength would not endure a long or severe strain – in short, that though reading for the bar was just as well now as anything else for him, and might lead the way to interests and occupations, he could not even aim at the career of a successful lawyer. Besides, London air made him unusually languid and listless.

“Yes, he is a clever fellow, but he is not strong enough to do much. It is a great pity, but, after all, he has enough to live on, and plenty of interests in life,” said Judge Cheriton; and his wife made her house pleasant to Cherry, and encouraged him to come there at all hours, and no one ever said a word to him about working, or gave him good advice, except not to catch cold; while he himself ceased to talk at all about his prospects, but went on from day to day and took the pleasant things that came to him. And sometimes he felt as if his last hope in life was gone – and sometimes, again, wondered why he did not care more for such a disappointment. But now and then, in these days that were so silent and self-controlled, there came to him an indifference of a nobler kind, an inward courage, a consoling trust, the reward of much struggling, which a year ago he could never have brought to bear on such a trial.

Mr Stanforth’s presence always gave him a sense of sympathy, and he spent so many hours at The Laurels, that his aunt suspected him of designs on Gipsy, though Jack’s secret, preserved in his absence, was likely to ooze out now that the end of the Oxford term had brought him to London for a few days, previous to joining a reading party with some of his friends.

The Laurels, with its pretty garden, might be a pleasant resting-place for Cheriton, but it was a very Arcadia, a fairy-land to Jack, when he found his way there late on one splendid afternoon, so shy that he had walked up and down the road twice before he rang the bell, happy, uncomfortable, and conscious all at once, looking at Gipsy, who had just come home from a garden party, in a most becoming costume of cream colour and crimson, but quite unable to say a word to her, as she sat under the trees, and fanned herself with a great black fan, appealing to Alvar, who was there with Cheriton, whether she had quite forgotten her Spanish skill. Gipsy was very happy, and not a bit shy as she peeped at her solemn young lover over the top of the fan, and laughed behind it at Jack’s look of disgust when Cherry remarked that he had grown since Easter.

“Don’t be spiteful, Cherry,” said Mr Stanforth, with a smile. “Shall we come and see the picture?”

Jack and Gipsy were left to the last as they came up towards the house, and she made a little mischievous gesture of measuring herself against him.

“Yes, I think it’s true!”

“Well,” said Jack gruffly, though his eyes sparkled, “I shall leave off growing some time, I suppose. I say, are you going to dine at my aunt’s to-morrow?”

“Yes,” said Gipsy. “Lady Cheriton has been here, and she brought your sister. How handsome she is; but she was so silent. I was afraid of her. I wonder if she liked me,” said Gipsy, blushing in her turn.

“Shy with Nettie?” exclaimed Jack. “You might as well be shy of a wild cat. She doesn’t like any one much but Bob and her pets.”

“All, young ladies grow as well as young gentlemen,” said Gipsy. “Next year – ”

“Yes; next year – ” said Jack; but Gipsy opened the studio door, and ended the conversation.

Mr Stanforth’s studio was arranged with a view more to the painting of pictures than to the display of curtains, carpets, and china; but it was still a pretty and pleasant place, with a few rare works of art by other hands than those of its owner. There were few finished pictures of Mr Stanforth’s there then; but one large canvas on which he was working, and, besides various portraits in different stages, the drawing of Mr Lester, which Jack had not hitherto seen. Mr Stanforth brought it forward, and asked him to make any comment that occurred to him. It was a fine drawing of a fine face, and brought out forcibly the union of size and strength with beauty which none of the sons fully equalled, though there might be more to interest in all their faces. For, after all, the little imperfections of expression, that which was wanting as well as that which was present in the coming out and going in, the pleasures, the duties, and the failures, the changes of mood and temper, the smiles and the frowns of daily life, had made the individual man, and could not be shown in a likeness so taken. It was a picture that would satisfy them better as the years went by. Indeed Alvar thought it perfect, and Jack could hardly say that he saw anything wanting; but Cherry, after many praises and some hesitation, had said, “Yes, it is very like, but it is as if one saw him from a distance. Perhaps that is best.”