An English Squire

Then he thought of the way Cheriton had proposed such a step to himself, and, without entering into any of those higher feelings which might have repelled rather than attracted him, he contrasted with his his own the unselfishness of the motive that prompted Cheriton.

He made no resolutions, drew no conclusions, but unconsciously he was looking at life from a new standpoint.

Virginia did not see Alvar, nor hear directly from him all that day; and but for the letter in her possession, her interview with him would have seemed like a dream.

The next morning was sunny and still. She stood on the steps at the garden door, looking over the lawn, now glistening with thick autumn dew. The sky was clear and blue, the wild overgrown shrubberies that shut out the landscape were tinted with brown and gold, an “autumn blackbird” sang low and sweet. All was so peaceful that it seemed as if ill news could not break in upon it; yet, as the old church clock chimed the hour, and through the still air that of Oakby sounded in the distance, Virginia started lest it should be the beginning of the knell. As the sound of the clock died away, the gate in the shrubbery clicked, a quick step sounded, and Alvar came up the path.

Virginia could wait no longer. She ran to meet him, gathering hope from his face as she approached.

“Yes, he is better. There is hope now; but all yesterday he grew weaker every moment. I thought he would die.”

Alvar’s voice trembled, and he spoke with more abandonment than was usual with him; he looked very pale, and had evidently gone through much. He added details of their suspense, and of Cherry’s condition, “as if,” Virginia thought, “he wanted to talk to me.”

“You are very tired,” she said. “Come in and have some breakfast. Auntie and I always have it here.”

She took him into the drawing-room, where there was a little table near the fire, and made him sit down, while she waited on him, and poured out the tea. She did not feel a bit afraid of him now, and, spite of his punctilious gallantry, he submitted to her attentions without any of the forms and ceremonies with which he had previously made a distance between them.

“You have been up all night. I think you ought to have gone to bed, instead of coming here,” she said, sure of a contradiction.

“It is a great deal better than going to sleep to see you, my dear!” said Alvar, quaintly; and Virginia thought she liked the homely English better than the magnificent Spanish in which he had been wont to term her his lady and his queen.

“I am getting very hungry, Virginia,” said Miss Seyton, opening the door. “May I come in to breakfast?”

“Oh, but that is shocking!” cried Alvar, springing up and advancing to meet her. “Miss Seyton, I have brought good news of my brother. But I must go home now, he may want me. Perhaps if he is still better I can come again by-and-by.”

“Only think,” said Virginia, as she went with him through the garden on her way to the vicarage to tell the good news to her uncle, “only think, when the clock struck just before you came, I was afraid it was the beginning of the knell!”

“Ah, I trust we shall not hear that terrible sound now!” said Alvar, gravely.

And yet before that day closed the old bell of Elderthwaite church was tolling, startling every one with the sudden conviction that that morning’s hope had proved delusory. It frightened Mr Ellesmere as he came home from a distant part of his parish, though a moment’s reflection showed him that his own church tower was silent. What could be the matter elsewhere?

There was a rush of people to the lodge gates at Oakby, to be met there by eager questions as to what was the matter at Elderthwaite?

“It must be old Mr Seyton, took off on a sudden,” they said. “Well, so long as Mr Cherry was getting better – ”

But before curiosity could take any one down the lane to verify this opinion, up came the parson’s man from Elderthwaite with a letter for Mr Lester, and the news that a telegram had been received two hours before at the hall, to say that Mr Roland had been killed out tiger-hunting in India.

There was more consternation than grief. Roland had not felt nor inspired affection in his own family; in the neighbourhood his character was regarded with disapproval, and his sarcastic tongue remembered with dislike. He had intensified all the worst characteristics of the family.

Virginia had scarcely ever seen him; his father and uncle had so resented his determination to sell the estate, though it had perhaps been the wisest resolve he had ever come to, that he had been to them as an enemy.

But still the chief sense in all their minds was that the definite, if distasteful, prospect, to which they had been beginning to look forward, had melted away, and that all the future was chaos.

Dick, suddenly became a person of importance, and now within a month or two of coming of age, was sent for from London. He had improved in looks and manner, and seemed duly impressed with the gravity of the situation. He was told what Roland’s intentions had been, and that his father’s life could not be prolonged for many months; listened to Mr Seyton’s faltering and confused explanations of the state of affairs, and to his uncle’s more vigorous, but not much more lucid, denunciation of it. Dick said not a word in reply, he asked a few questions, and at last went down into the drawing-room where his sister was sitting alone. He walked over to the window and stood looking out of it.

“Virginia,” he said, “I don’t wish to sell Elderthwaite.”

“Do you think it can be helped, Dick?” she said, eagerly.

“I don’t know. I’m not in debt like Roland – that is, anything to speak of. I don’t want to wipe the family out of the county for good and all. Why couldn’t the place be let for a term of years?”

“But – it is so much out of repair!”

“Yes,” said Dick, shrewdly, “but it’s an awfully gentlemanly-looking place yet. Fellows who have made a fortune in trade want to get their position settled before they buy an estate, or to make a little more money first. I heard Mr Stanforth talking about some old place in the south where there were fine pictures, which had been let in that way. Well then, of course, some sacrifices must be made; something was done with the money Cheriton Lester paid for Uplands. Then there’s all that part out Ashrigg way – Cuddiwell, you know, and High Ashrigg. Those two farms have always paid rent. If they were sold – they’re handy either for the Lesters or the Hubbards – we might put things to rights a little in that way.”

“I am glad you care about Elderthwaite, Dick,” said Virginia, impetuously.

“Oh, as to that,” returned Dick, “I don’t know that I go in for any sentiment about it. Of course, I couldn’t live here for years to come. I’m not quite such a fool as I was once, Virginia, thanks to you and some others I could name; and I should go on as I am for the present. But it makes a difference in a man’s position to have a place like this in the background, even if it is tumbling to pieces. A girl with money might think twice whether she wouldn’t be Mrs Seyton of Elderthwaite.”

“Oh, Dick! don’t marry a girl for her money,” said Virginia, half laughing; but she could never have imagined herself listening with so much respect to Dick’s sentiments.

In truth, want of sense and insight had never been the cause of the Seytons’ errors; but just as in some men a warm heart and tender conscience fail to make head against violent passion, so that they feel their sins while they commit them, so in the Seytons a shrewd mental sense of their own folly had always co-existed with the headstrong self-will which had overridden it. Dick had a less passionate nature, and was, moreover, less at the mercy of circumstances than if he had been brought up as the heir, and his friends in London were sensible people.

“Perhaps,” said his sister, “you might ask Alvar what he thinks of it.”

“Alvar? Oh, ho! is that come to pass again? So, you’ve made it up. Well, it is a good thing that you have some one to take care of you,” said Dick, sententiously.

Alvar was taken into counsel, and the results of much discussion and consideration may be briefly told.

Dick’s plans were hailed by his father and uncle as an escape from a prospect, which had made death doubly bitter to the one, and the rest of life distasteful to the other. And an unexpected purchaser of the two farms was found in Judge Cheriton, who had been talking for some time of buying a small property which might be a home for him when his public career was over, and a holiday retreat for the present. There was a farm-house at High Ashrigg which might be improved into a modern antique of the style at present admired. The two farms were therefore purchased at once of Mr Seyton himself, and with his full consent and approval.

The rest of Dick’s plan could not be carried out in his father’s lifetime, but it was agreed to by Mr Seyton as the best thing his heir could do.

All this time Cheriton was mending slowly, but with much uncertainty as to how far his recovery would be complete. He very soon detected the turn that Alvar’s affairs had taken, much to his satisfaction; but Jack, guessing that the news of Roland’s death would be a shock to him, it was not till he had begun to insist that his own state must not again delay Alvar’s marriage, that he heard the story of which it might have been said “that nothing in Roland Seyton’s life became him like the leaving of it;” for it proved that he had met his death by an act of considerable bravery, which had saved the lives of others of the party. Perhaps Cheriton, unable to be untender to the memory of his boyish ideal, gave him a truer regret than any of his own family.

He listened with great interest to all the future arrangements, and was the first to suggest that his old acquaintance, Mr Wilson’s son, was to be married to a young lady of fortune, and might form a possible future tenant for Elderthwaite.

As for the rest, even setting her deep mourning aside, Virginia would not hear of marrying while her father grew daily weaker; nor was Cheriton at all equal to the inevitable excitement and difficulty of arranging plans for the winter which must have ensued.

It ended, as soon as he was able to bear the journey, in his going to Torquay with Alvar, to stay for the present. Mrs Lester went back to Ashrigg, and Oakby was once more left solitary.

Chapter Twelve.

The Yeomanry Meeting

“All’s right with the world.”

It was a bright morning just before Whitsuntide in the ensuing year, when the bluebells were still adorning the Elderthwaite plantations, and the ivy on the church was fresh with young green shoots. Once more Parson Seyton sat on the churchyard wall watching his nettles, which now, however, were falling beneath the scythe, while a space had previously been carefully cleared and trimmed round a handsome cross-marked stone of grey granite, which showed the spot where Mr Seyton had rested, now for nearly three months. Suddenly a step came up the lane and through the gate, and the parson sprang up joyfully as Cheriton Lester came towards him.

“Well, my boy – well? So here you are, back at last. And how are you?”

“Oh, I am very well – quite well now,” said Cheriton.

And indeed, though the figure was still very slight, the hand he held eagerly out still over-white and thin, the colour too bright and variable for perfect health and strength, he looked full of life and spirits, overjoyed, as he said, to find himself at home again.

“Oh, yes, Alvar is here, of course, and we started together; but we met Virginia in the lane, and then – I thought I would come and find you. How lovely it all looks!”

“Ah, more to your taste than Mentone?”

Cherry laughed. “My taste was always a prejudiced one,” he said; “but Mr Stanforth and I were very jolly at Mentone, especially when Jack joined us. How did Alvar get on up here by himself at Christmas?”

“He got on very well here– if by here you mean Elderthwaite. As for Oakby, he attended all the dinners and suppers and meetings and institutions like a hero. But I suspect he and his tenants still look on one another from a respectful distance.”

“All, they won’t be able to resist him next week, he’ll look so picturesque in his yeomanry uniform. We shall have a grand meeting.”

“The volunteers keep the ground, I understand?” said the parson.

“Yes, myself included. There doesn’t seem to be much for them to do, and they wished me to come very much. Then, you know, we have had a grand explanation about Jack’s affairs, and granny and Nettie have got Gipsy with them; so Sir John found out that the pictures wanted Mr Stanforth, and he is coming down. Then Jack couldn’t resist, and managed to get a couple of days’ leave. So the only thing to wish for is fine weather. But I am not forgetting,” continued Cherry, in a different tone, “that here you have all had a good deal of trouble.”

“Well,” said the parson, “it was a great break up and turn out; and I’m bound to own your brother was a great help in getting through it. Julia, she is gone off to Bath, and writes as if she liked it; and I was very glad that Virginia should stay here with me for the present. Mr Wilson has taken the place for his son, and it is being put in order. But all in the old style, you know, Cherry,” said the parson, with a wink, “no vulgar modernisms.”

“Fred Wilson’s a very nice fellow,” said Cherry.

He had sat down on the wall by the parson, and now, after a pause, began abruptly, —

“I saw Dr A – again as we came through London. He says that I am much better; indeed, there is nothing absolutely the matter with me. I haven’t got disease of the lungs, though of course there is a tendency to it, and I shall always be liable to bad attacks of cold. He says I should be better for some definite occupation, partly out of doors. He does not think London would suit me, but this sort of bracing air might do better than a softer one, as I was born here, except perhaps for a month or two in the winter. I may get much stronger, he thinks, or – But it was a very good account to get, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, my lad, I’m glad to hear it – as far as it goes,” said the parson, looking intently at him. Cheriton looked away with deepening colour, and said, rather formally, —

“I thought that I ought to tell you all this, sir, because I have never yet felt justified in referring to what I asked Virginia to tell you last year. But my wishes remain the same, and if you think with such doubtful health I could be of any service to you or to the place – I – I should like to try it.”

“Why, if you have your health, you might do better than be my curate,” said the parson.

“But I won’t exemplify a certain proverb! In short,” said Cherry, looking up and speaking in a more natural manner, “if you’ll have me, parson, I’ll come.”

“And suppose I say I won’t have you?”

“Then I should have to ask the bishop to find me another curacy,” said Cheriton. “I have quite made up my mind; even if I could follow the career I once looked forward to, which is impossible, I should not wish it. I’ve had some trouble, only one thing has made it bearable. I should, like to help others to find that out. But I want to help my old neighbours most. I made up my mind with this place chiefly in my thoughts. I care for it, for many reasons. But nothing now would induce me to change my intention of taking orders if I have the health to carry it out.”

An odd sort of struggle was evident in the old parson’s weather-beaten face.

“They’d work him to death in some fine church at a watering-place, with music and sermons, and all sorts of services,” he muttered to himself.

“Yes; I don’t think that that would suit me as well as Elderthwaite.”

“Then, my lad,” said the parson, with some dignity, “I will have you. And, Cherry, I – I understand you. I know that you have stood by me, ever since you dusted out the old church for the bishop.”

“That’s just what I want to do now!” said Cherry. “Thank you; you have made me very happy. There are Alvar and Queenie,” and with a hearty squeeze of the hand he started up and went to meet them. The parson remained behind, and as Cheriton moved away from him he lifted his rusty old felt hat for a moment, and said emphatically, —

“I’m an old sinner!”

The morning of the Yeomanry Review dawned fair and bright, and brought crowds together to the wide stretch of moorland above Ashrigg, where the review was to take place. Whitsuntide was a time to make holiday, and half Oakby and Elderthwaite was there to see. The only drawback was that Virginia’s mourning was still too deep to admit of her sharing in so large a county gathering, for which she cared the less, as Alvar, in his blue and silver, mounted on the best horse in the Oakby stables, and looking as splendid as a knight of romance, rode round by the vicarage to show himself to her.

But Parson Seyton was present in a new black coat and a very conspicuous white tie, mounted, he assured Cheriton, to do credit to his future curate.

Cheriton himself appeared in the grey and green to which he had once been enthusiastically devoted, and which was now worn for the last time before he began his preparation for the autumn ordination. In the meantime he could stay at Oakby, while Uplands was being made habitable, and could begin to feel his way among the Elderthwaite people, while Virginia was still there to help him, for she and Alvar meant to be married quietly in the summer.

But the happiest of all happy creatures on that bright morning, was perhaps Gipsy Stanforth, as she sat with Nettie and Sir John and Lady Hubbard, while Jack was on horseback near at hand. The two young ladies excited much interest, for it was Miss Lester’s first appearance on leaving school, and people had begun to say that she was a great beauty, as she sat perfectly dressed and perfectly behaved, her handsome face with its pure colouring and fine outline as impassive “as if,” thought Dick Seyton, “she had never seen a hay-loft in her life.”

Gipsy, on the other hand, could not help sparkling and beaming at every pleasant sight and sound. This was Jack’s world, and it was such a splendid one, and every one was so kind to her; for Nettie, though she secretly thought Gipsy rather too clever, knew how to behave to her brother’s betrothed. Gipsy could not keep her tongue still in her happy exultation, and very amusing were her remarks and comments, till, if people came up to the carriage to look at Miss Lester, they frequently remained to talk to Miss Stanforth.

Her father was in another carriage with the rest of the Hubbard party, enjoying the brilliant scene perhaps more than any one present, since no quaint incident, and no picturesque combination escaped his keen and kindly notice.

“Nettie looks like coming out sheep-farming in Australia in that swell get-up, doesn’t she?” said Bob to Jack, as they had drawn off to a little distance together.

“She doesn’t look like it,” said Jack; “but if she set her mind to that or to anything else, she would do it.”

“Oh,” said Bob, “it’s all nonsense. I sha’n’t marry out there. I shouldn’t like a colonial girl; but I shall come home in a few years’ time, and look about me. Nettie will be married before then, I hope, in a proper way. I hope you’ll all be very careful about her acquaintances.”

“Well, we’ll try,” said Jack, smiling. “She will have Virginia to go about with.”

“Yes, I like Virginia. She’ll do Alvar good,” said Bob, condescendingly. “And I like Gipsy too, Jack; she’s very jolly.”

“Thank you,” said Jack, “she is.”

“I suppose you’ll be a master in a school somewhere when I get back, and Cherry will be a parson. Well, he’ll make a very good one.”

“Yes,” said Jack, shortly. He did not like discussions as to Cherry’s future; it hung, in his eyes, by too slender a thread.

“Good heavens!” cried Bob, suddenly, “look there!”

Sir John Hubbard had left his carriage, and his young horses, which had been already excited by the numbers and the noise; frightened by some sudden chance movement among the crowd, no one could tell what – the bark of a dog, the sudden crossing of an old woman with a tray of ginger-beer – shied so violently that the coachman, who was holding the reins loosely, was thrown off the box, the horses dashed forward down the hillside, towards an abrupt descent and break in the ground, at the bottom of which ran a little stony brook.

Jack and Bob were far behind, and even as they spurred forward they felt it would be all in vain; while Nettie, springing on to the front seat, tried to climb up and reach the reins; but they swung far beyond her reach. She looked on and saw all the danger, saw the rough descent ahead, heard the cries of horror on all sides, saw too, one of the yeomanry officers gallop at headlong speed towards them, dash in between them and the bank, and seize the reins. A violent jolt and jerk, as the horses were thrown back on their haunches, and she recognised Alvar, as he was flung off his own horse and down the bank by the shock and the struggle, as other hands forced the carriage back from its deadly peril, and Jack, dashing up, his face white as marble, dismounted and caught the trembling Gipsy in his arms.

Nettie heeded none of them; she sprang out and down the bank, and in a moment was kneeling by Alvar’s side, who lay senseless. She had lifted his head and unfastened his collar, before her brothers were beside her.

“No, no; I’ll do it,” she cried, pushing Jack’s hand aside.

“Hush, Nettie, nonsense; let us lift him up. Get some water.”

There were a few moments of exceeding terror, how few they never could believe, as they carried Alvar to smooth ground, and tried to revive him, before he opened his eyes, looked round, and after a minute or two, said faintly, —

“What has happened? Ah – I remember,” trying to sit up. “Are they safe?”

“Yes – yes – but you? Oh, Alvar, are you killed?” cried Nettie.

“No, no,” said Alvar, “my arm is hurt a little. I think it is sprained – it is nothing. Do not let Cherry be frightened.”

“I never thought of him!” said Jack. “Oh, he won’t know anything of it – he is not here. You are sure your arm is not broken?”

“No. Ah, there he is! Help me up, Jack! Cherry, it is nothing.”

Cheriton, who had been considerately summoned with the news of a dreadful accident, but they hoped Mr Lester was not killed, was speechless with mingled terror and relief. He knelt down by Alvar’s side, and took his hand, hardly caring to ask a question as to how the accident had come about; but now Sir John Hubbard’s voice broke in, —

“I never saw such a splendid thing in my life, never – the greatest gallantry and presence of mind! A moment later and they would have been over! My dear fellow, I owe you more than I can say – Lady Hubbard, and your own sister, and Jack’s pretty little Gipsy – my horses starting off in that way. I can never thank you – never. I couldn’t have believed it. And I thought it was all over with you!”

“I am not seriously hurt, sir,” said Alvar, sitting up, “and there was nothing else to be done; it is not worth your thanks.”

“Is not it?” cried Mr Stanforth, unable to restrain himself. “More thanks than can be spoken.”

“I’ll accept them all for him,” said Cheriton, looking up, his face full of triumph; while Nettie, hitherto steady, broke down, to her own disgust, into sobs.

“I’m not frightened – no!” she said, as Gipsy tried to soothe her. “But I thought he wasn’t worth anything – and he is!”

“Come,” said Sir John, “we must not have any more heroics, and the hero must go home and rest – to Ashrigg, I mean. And you too, Cherry, go and look after him; here’s your grandmother’s carriage, while I see if my horses are fit to be trusted with the ladies.”

Alvar was still dizzy and shaken, though he said that the hurt to his arm was a trifle, and now stood up and inquired after his horse, which had been caught by a bystander, and was unhurt. Sir John’s coachman had also escaped with some severe bruises; and there was a general move. Jack, seeing Gipsy with her father, followed his brothers, anxious about them both, and overflowing with gratitude towards Alvar for his darling’s safety.

But as they turned to drive away they were obliged to cross the ground, and there rose from all sides such a thundering shout as threatened a repetition of the former danger; yeomanry, volunteers, and spectators, all joining in such an outburst of enthusiasm as had never echoed over Ashrigg Moors before. Their driver pulled up in the centre of the field with the obvious information, —