An English Squire

Young Fleming was very sorry; in that case he was better at home, and he hoped it would not be inconvenient if he took him away at once.

“I suppose it might be best,” said Cheriton, thoroughly sympathising with the grievance, and thankful to Fleming for not obliging him to hear or say much about it.

“Then, sir, maybe you will tell the squire that such is our wish.”

“No; I think you had better write him a note about it.”

The two young men looked at each other, and though Cheriton turned his eyes quickly away, he knew well enough that Fleming understood the whole matter.

“As you please, sir,” he said; “I wouldn’t wish for you to be annoyed, Mr Cherry, and so I’ll keep out of the squire’s way. But Westmoreland men are not black slaves, which no doubt the squire is accustomed to, and accounts for his conduct. It’s plain, sir, to any one that can read the newspapers, that there’s no liberty in foreign parts, where they’re all slaves and papists. Education, sir, teaches us that. And folks do remark that the squire doesn’t keep his church as others do; and I have heard that he means to establish a Popish chapel like the one at Ravenscroft.”

“Then you have heard the greatest piece of nonsense that ever was invented. Education might cure you of such notions,” said Cherry. “You must do as you think best for Chris. I am very sorry.”

The last words were involuntary, and Cherry hurried away before he was betrayed into any further discussion.

Some hours later, as it was growing dusk, he was lying on the window-seat in the library, thinking of how he could plead old Fisher’s cause without giving offence, and coming slowly to the conclusion that his presence there was doing far more harm than good, that he was risking peace with Alvar, and had better give up the straggle, when Alvar himself came into the room, and came up to him.

“Are you not well?” he said, rather constrainedly.

“Only very tired.”

“What have you been doing?” said Alvar, sitting down on the end of the broad-cushioned seat, and looking at him.

The words certainly gave an opening; but Cheriton, famous all his life for the most audacious coaxing, could not summon a smile or a joke.

“I have been tired all day,” he said, to gain time for reflection.

“See,” said Alvar suddenly, “you are unhappy about this old man, whom I have dismissed.”

“Yes. I don’t defend him, far from it; but he is old and crochety, and I think you were harsh with him,” said Cherry resolutely.

“But it is I who should decide what to do with him,” said Alvar.

“Of course. Don’t imagine I dispute it,” said Cheriton, thinking this assertion rather foolish.

“You tell me that I should be master; you have told me so often. Well, then, I can be harsh to my servants if I please.”

“If you please, remembering that you and they serve the same Master above.”

Alvar paused for a moment, then said, —

“I do not please, at present. I have grieved you, as when I hurt Buffer. I will not be ruled by any one, but the old man shall live in his cottage, and have his wages; but he shall not come into the stables nor near my horses. Does that please you, my brother?”

Cherry had his doubts as to how old Bill might regard or fulfil the conditions, and certainly forbidding a servant to do any work was rather an odd way of punishing him; but he answered gratefully, —

“Yes, thank you, you have taken a great weight off my mind.”

“You cough,” said Alvar, after a few moments; “the weather is getting too cold for you.”

“I thought,” said Cherry, forcing himself to take advantage of the excuse, “that I would go to the sea for a little while before the winter.”

“Yes; where shall we go?” said Alvar, in a tone of interest. “Look,” he continued, with wonderful candour; “here we vex each other because we do not think the same. We are angry with each other; but we will come away, and I will take care of you. Then you shall go to London, and I shall come back, and you will see, I will yet be the squire. Where shall we go, mi caro?”

It was almost a dismissal, and so Cheriton felt it to be; but after all it was his own decision, and the return of Alvar’s old kindness was very comfortable to him.

“I had hardly thought about that,” he said.

“Well,” returned Alvar, “we can talk about it. Now, it is cold here in the window; come nearer to the fire and rest till dinner-time.”

As Cheriton sat up and looked out at the stormy sunset, he saw little Chris Fleming coming up the path that led round to the back door.

“Ah,” said Alvar cheerfully, following his eyes, “I do not wish to punish that boy any more. He has had enough, that little rascal.”

Evidently, Alvar’s conscience was quite at ease, and he did not suppose that he had in any way compromised himself. He began to perceive that Alvar had his own ideas as to what would make him really master of Oakby.

Just after dinner a note was brought to Alvar.

“If you please, sir, this note was found in the passage, just inside the back door.”

Alvar took the letter, lit one of the candles on the chimney-piece, and proceeded to read it.

“Moor End Farm, September 29th.

“Honoured Sir, – After the events of this morning, I consider it for the best that my brother Christopher should leave your service at once. I have no objection to forfeit any wages due to him, as I do not feel able to give the usual month’s notice after what has passed.

“I remain, honoured sir, —

“Your obedient servant, —

“Edward Fleming.”

Alvar coloured deeply as he read. “What is this?” he exclaimed. “May I not punish even a little boy, who insults me? Look!” and he threw the letter to his brother.

“It is very awkward,” said Cheriton.

“I think it is insolent,” said Alvar.

“I think there is a great effort to avoid any want of respect in the letter.”

“To take the boy away because he was punished!”

“Well, Alvar, if you or I were in Ned Fleming’s place, we shouldn’t have liked it.”

“Did you know that this letter was coming?”

“Yes, I did.”

“It is perhaps as you have advised Fleming?”

“No. I gave him no advice; but I knew he would not let the boy stay here.”

“Do you then approve?” said Alvar, in a curious sort of voice.

“From their point of view – yes. You are right in saying that you must make yourself felt as the master; but there is no good in enforcing your authority in a way that is not customary, to say the least of it. In England we can’t lay hands on other people; and they might have summoned you for an assault, you know.”

“What! before a judge?”

“Before a magistrate.”

“I?” exclaimed Alvar, in a tone of such amazement that Cheriton nearly laughed. “Who would listen to that little boy against me, who am a gentleman and his master?”

“The little boy is your equal in the eyes of the law, and might meet with more attention just because you are his master. Not that I mean to say it would not be regarded as very annoying to convict you,” said Cheriton, thinking of the feelings of Sir John Hubbard on such an emergency.

“I will myself be a magistrate,” said Alvar.

“That you never will,” said Cherry, losing patience, “while these stories get about, for no one would trust you.”

“Can I not be a magistrate if I choose?”

“Not unless the Lord Lieutenant gives you a commission, of course.”

“I think there is power for every one but me!” said Alvar. “I may not punish that little – what is your word? – vulgar, common boy. I do not like so much law. Gentlemen should do as they wish. You talk so much about my being landlord and squire. What is the use of it if I may not do as I will? Well, I will send away Fleming from his farm – that is mine at least.”

“I am afraid he has a twenty-one years lease in it,” said Cheriton, rather wickedly, and Alvar, fancying himself laughed at, suddenly put the letter in his pocket and turned away, as the gong sounded for dinner. He disappeared afterwards when they went back to the library, and Cheriton had the forbearance to abstain from giving Jack the benefit of Alvar’s peculiar views on the British constitution, though they could not fail to speak of the events of the morning, and Jack said, —

“Well, at least he has heard reason about old Bill, and that was of most consequence; but I should think you would be glad to be back in London, and out of the way of it all.”

“I am not quite sure about London, Jack,” said Cheriton, after a moment.

“What, don’t you feel well enough?”

“I don’t think I shall ever be good for much there; and besides – I think I should like to talk to you a little, Jack, if you’ll listen.”

“Well?”

“You know how I always looked forward to settling in London, and how Uncle Cheriton wished it, and meant to help me on. In fact I never thought of anything else.”

“Yes, I know,” said Jack, briefly.

“There was a time when I desired that sort of success intensely, and when things were very much changed for me, I thought it would still – be satisfactory.”

“Yes?”

“But of course, as you know, I soon perceived that the hard continuous work, necessary for anything like success, was quite out of the question for me – I feel sure that it always will be; and, moreover, I never felt well in London. I was much better here when I first came back.”

Poor Jack looked as if the disappointment were much fresher and harder to him than to the speaker himself.

“You must know,” Cheriton continued, “that a doctor once told me at Oxford that the damp soft air there was very bad for a native of such a place as this, and I see now that the last few months there began the mischief; and London has something the same effect on me. That seems to settle the question.”

“I suppose so,” said Jack, so disconsolately, that Cherry half smiled, as he resumed, —

“Otherwise the pleasant idle life there might have its charms. Though, after all, Jack, I shouldn’t like it as things are now. When I expected to be a London man, I expected, as you know – a good deal else. And afterwards even, while all home ties here were safe and sound, one would not get selfish and aimless. But now I couldn’t be happy, I think, without a home-world that really belonged to me.”

“And so home is being spoilt for you too?” said Jack.

“I see,” returned Cheriton, “that it won’t do. If Alvar is left to himself here, he will fight his way now, I think, to some means of managing proper to himself.”

“Or improper,” said Jack.

“Well, to be honest, I am afraid he will make a great many mistakes, and do a great deal of mischief. But if I were here – I mean if this place were still to be home to me so that I still felt – as I should feel – a personal concern in all the old interests, Alvar would quarrel with me. I might prevent individual evils; but in the long run I should do harm. He thought at first that I should guide him. Perhaps I thought so too; but it is a false and impossible relation, and it must be put a stop to.”

“But, Cherry, I think father looked to you to keep things straight.”

“Yes,” said Cherry, “but not to make them more crooked, by such disputes as we have had lately.”

Cheriton spoke resolutely, though with a quiver of the lip, and Jack could guess well enough at the pain the resolve was costing him. “Alvar is quite changed to you!” he said, savagely.

“Yes, because he himself is changing. He is different in many ways, and conscious of all sorts of difficulties.”

“But what do you mean to do?”

“Oh, nothing desperate, nothing till the winter is over. Probably I shall go to the sea with Alvar, as he suggests. Then if I am pretty well, I shall go and see granny. I have a notion that I should be better here in the cold weather than in London. I want to try.”

“Had you all this in your mind when you settled to buy Uplands?” said Jack suddenly. “Yes – in part I had.”

“But, you are not thinking of living there! What are you driving at, Cherry, I can’t understand you?”

“Well, Jack,” said Cherry, slowly and with rising colour, “I will tell you, but I wanted to show you the process. And you must remember that it is only an idea known to no one, and very probably may prove impossible, perhaps undesirable.”

“Tell me,” said Jack, more gently. Any scheme for the future was a relief from listening to the laying aside of hopes which he knew had been so much a part of Cheriton’s being.

“Well,” said Cherry again, “I’m afraid my motives are rather poor ones. You see, after Oakby there’s no place for me like Elderthwaite. I want the feeling, as I say, of a place and neighbours of my own. I suppose I am used to playing first fiddle, and to looking after other people’s concerns. Granny always said I was a gossip. Then I’m narrow-minded, perhaps I have had too much taken out of me to think of starting fresh. And you know the old parson will always put up with me, and so will Elderthwaite people. And I want an object in life – if you knew how dreary it is to be without one! If they had a strange curate he would set them all by the ears, and the parson would make a fool of himself! So if Mr Ellesmere thinks the bishop would consent, and approves, and if I am fit for anything, I thought that I would try.”

Jack was silent for some moments. He understood Cheriton well enough to “follow the process,” but it affected him strongly, and at last he said, gravely, —

“I am afraid all the vexation here has put this into your head.”

“Partly,” said Cherry, simply, “this actual thing. I can’t say anything of other motives of course, Jack. I know that it looks like, that in fact it is turning to this – which ought to be the offering of all one’s best – when other careers have failed me. And I know that those who sympathise the least will be the most inclined to say so. But it is not quite so. I have always wished to be of use, of service, here especially. I thought I saw how. I have the same wish still, and this seems to offer me a way. It is but a gathering up of the fragments, but I trust He will accept.”

Jack’s view rather was that the plan was not good enough for his brother, than that his brother was not good enough for it.

“You were always good enough for anything, if that is what you mean,” he said. “But I do understand, Cherry, about wanting an object; only – only it’s such an odd one.”

“I tell you,” said Cherry, brightly, for the disclosure was a great relief to him, “that that’s the very point. I don’t think I get on amiss with any one, even with the Sevillanos, but down at the bottom of my heart, Jack, I’m not far removed – we none of us are – from ‘There’s a stranger, ’eave ’alf a brick at him,’ and when I think of any direct dealing with people, anything like clerical work, why, except to my own kith and kin, I should have nothing to say. The self-denial of missionaries seems to me incredible. I could not do as Bob means to do, I think, if health and strength were to be the reward of it. It’s a very unworthy weakness, I know, but I can’t help it.”

“You would get on very well anywhere,” said Jack; “that is all nonsense. I don’t believe Elderthwaite would agree with you, and you could overwork yourself just as well there as anywhere else.”

“Well, as to the place agreeing with me, that remains to be proved. It’s a very small church, and a small place; and I hope I might be able to do the little they are fit for – at present. But I know it may prove to be out of the question.”

Jack was silent. He could not bear to vex Cherry by opposing a scheme which seemed to offer him some pleasure in the midst of his annoyances, and if his brother had proposed to take orders with more ordinary expectations, it would have been quite in accordance with the Oakby code of what was fitting. But there was something in the consecration of what Cheriton evidently viewed as a probably short life and failing powers to an object so unselfish, and yet, as it seemed to Jack, so commonplace, it was so like Cherry, and yet showed such a conquest of himself – there was such humility in the acknowledgment that he was only just fit for the sort of imperfect work that offered itself, and yet such a complete sense that no one else could manage that particular bit of work so well – it was, as Jack said, “so odd,” that it thrilled him through and through, and he was glad that Alvar’s entrance saved him from a reply.

Chapter Eight.

Revenge

”‘Now, look you,’ said my brother, ‘you may talk,Till, weary with the talk, I answer nay.’”

Alvar, having avoided his brothers after dinner, came back into the hall, and, sitting down by the fire, lighted a cigarette. As he sat there in the great chair by himself, the flames flickering on the oak panels, and the subdued light of the lamp failing to penetrate the dark corners of the old hall, his face took an expression of melancholy, and there was an air of loneliness about his solitary figure – a loneliness which was not merely external. He was perplexed and unhappy, and the fact that his unhappiness had roused in his breast pride and jealousy and anger, did not make it less real. He had not come to the point of owning himself in the wrong, and yet he felt puzzled. He could not see how he had offended. It was a critical moment. Gentle and affectionate as Cheriton was, and happy as the relations had hitherto been between them, Alvar felt himself judged and condemned by his brother’s higher standard, now that he had at last become aware of its existence. He had never been distressed by Virginia’s way of looking at things, she was a woman, and her view’s could not affect his; and for a long time, as has been said, he had regarded Cheriton’s ideas of duty as as much an idiosyncrasy as his fair complexion, or his affection for Rolla and Buffer. Now he perceived that Cheriton himself did not so regard them, but with whatever excuses and limitations, expected them to be binding on Alvar himself; and Alvar’s whole nature kicked against the criticism. Cheriton had been clear-sighted enough to perceive this, and so judged it better to draw back; but Alvar, through clouds and darkness, had seen a glimpse of the light. He knew that Cheriton was right, and the knowledge irritated him. In a fitful, dark sort of way he tried to assert his independence and yet justify himself to Cheriton. It was doubtful whether he would gradually follow the light thus held out to him, or decidedly turn away from it, and just now his wounded pride prompted him to the latter course. He would go his own way; and when he had settled his affairs to his mind, his brothers should own that he was right. And yet – did he not owe a debt, never to be forgotten, to the kind hand that had welcomed him, the bright face that had smiled on him, long ago, on that dreary Christmas Eve? Alvar did not say to himself, as he perhaps might have done with truth, that he had repaid Cheriton’s early kindness to him tenfold; but he thought of the joyous, active youth, whose animal spirits, constant activity, and frequent laughter had been such a new experience to him.

As Alvar thought how great the change had been, his softer feelings revived, and with them the instinct of caving for his brother’s comfort in a thousand trifling ways. He remembered that Cheriton had hardly eaten any dinner, and rose, intending to go to him and persuade him to have some of the chocolate for which he had never lost the liking gained in Spain. As he moved towards the library the butler came into the hall, and, with some excitement, told him that Fletcher, his farm bailiff, wanted to speak to him.

“But it is too late,” said Alvar. “He may come to-morrow.”

“Indeed, sir, I think it is of consequence. Some ill-disposed persons, sir, have set one of your ricks on fire, as I understand,” said the butler, with the air of elevation with which the news of any misdemeanour is usually communicated.

“Tell him, then, to come in,” said Alvar, coolly; and Fletcher appearing, deposed that a certain valuable hayrick, in a field about a mile from the house, on a small farm called Holywell, which had always been managed, together with the home farm, by Mr Lester himself, had been discovered by one of the men going home from work to be on fire. In spite of all their efforts, a great part had been burnt, and the rest much injured by the water used to put out the fire.

“And how did the hay catch fire?” asked Alvar, with composure.

“Well, sir, that young lad Fleming was found hanging about behind a hedge, as soon as we had eyes for anything but the flames; and after this morning’s work, and words that many have heard him drop, the constable thought it his duty to take him up on suspicion, and he is in the lock-up at Hazelby.”

Fletcher eyed his master as he spoke, to see how the intelligence would be received.

“Ah, then,” said Alvar, “he will be sent to prison.”

“The magistrates meet on Thursday, sir – day after to-morrow; but arson being a criminal offence, he’ll be committed for trial at quarter-sessions,” said Fletcher, in an instructive manner. “Wilfully setting fire to property we name arson, sir; the sentence is transportation for a term of years, sir.”

“It is the passion of revenge,” said Alvar, calmly. “It does not surprise me.”

Fletcher looked as if the squire surprised him greatly; but Alvar wished him good-night, and dismissed him.

“Why – the old squire would have been up at Holywell and counted the very sticks of hay that was left!” he thought to himself as he withdrew; while Alvar went and communicated the intelligence to his brothers.

Cheriton listened, dismayed, while Jack exclaimed, —

“I don’t believe it! No Fleming ever was such a fool.”

“But he was angry with me,” said Alvar. “He might have stabbed me out of revenge.”

“Nonsense! we don’t live in Ireland, nor in Spain either! They’ll never forgive you, of course, to their dying day, but they won’t put you in the right by breaking the law – we’re too far north for that.”

“Fletcher doesn’t belong to these parts, you know,” said Cherry; “He might take up an idea. I do think it most unlikely that a boy brought up like Chris would commit such an act. Besides, we saw him down here. When was the fire seen?”

“I do not know,” said Alvar; “but Fletcher said that he was there.”

“It can’t be,” said Cheriton; “I cannot believe it. But they’ll never get over the boy being taken up at all. Why on earth did they never let us know what was going on! I wish I had been there.”

“Yes; a fire, and for us never to know of it!” said Jack, regretfully.

“I think that Chris is a bad boy, and that he has done it,” said Alvar. “But I do not care about the hay. What does that matter?”

“Why, the rick was worth forty pounds,” said Cherry.

“I do not care for forty pounds. I care that I shall be obeyed,” said Alvar.

A great deal more discussion followed, chiefly between Alvar and Jack; the latter at last relieving his mind of much of the good advice which he had long been burning to bestow. He showed Alvar his errors at length, and in the clearest language. Alvar took it very coolly, and without much more interest than if it had been an essay. He was not, as they would have expected, enraged at the burnt rick; indeed Cheriton could not help fancying that he regarded it as a justification of his violence towards Chris. As usual, it was the sense of Cheriton’s opposing view rather than the thing itself that annoyed him.

“Don’t worry yourself, Cherry,” said Jack, as he wished him good-night. “I’ll go the first thing in the morning and find out the rights of it.”

Accordingly, before either of his brothers appeared, Jack started off through wind and rain, and investigated the story of the burnt rick.

He returned in high feather, and found them still at breakfast; for Alvar by no means held his father’s opinion as to the merits of early rising.

“Well,” said Jack, “it’s clear that Chris had nothing to do with it. He left home at half-past four, went straight to old Bill’s cottage, where Alice Fisher gave him some tea, and where no doubt they indulged in a good crack, left them at half-past five, and came straight up here with the note for Alvar, when you saw him.”

“Yes,” said Cherry, “I looked at the clock when I came over to the fire.”

“Well, then, John Kitson saw the rick on fire exactly at half-past five, he heard the church clock strike; so if you and Alvar go over to Hazelby to-morrow, and prove that Chris came here on his way from old Bill’s at that time, you can set it all to rights in a moment. And if that idiot Fletcher had sent for you – for Alvar – last night, poor Chris would never have been suspected.”