"Well, father, I shall be very glad to see him. It's a good time for
him to come, and I hope we shall be able to make it pleasant for him."
"Pleasant for _him_," growled Bob.
"It won't be at all pleasant for _us_," said his sister. "Fancy a
foreign fellow interfering in all our concerns. And Granny says he's
sure to set us a bad example."
"Ay," said the father, "you lads needn't be in too great a hurry to get
up an intimacy."
"There's not much fear of that," said Cheriton.
"Ah, my boy," said Mr Lester, turning to him, "you take it very well;
but it's hard on you; no one knows better than I do."
"As for me," said Cheriton, with a shade of the characteristic family
gruffness in his much pleasanter voice, "you know it has always been my
wish that he should come, and why should we set ourselves against it?"
"He ought to have come sooner," said Jack.
"That's no affair of yours, Jack," said his father sharply. "Don't be
so ready with your comments. He is coming now, and--and I'll hear no
more grumbling. I'm hanged if I know what we are all to make of him,
though," he muttered as he left the hall.
"He'd better not interfere with me," said Bob. "I shall take no notice
of him."
"Poor fellow!" said Cheriton satirically. "I won't kiss him, I
declare," cried his sister.
"Now you boys, and Nettie, look here," said Cheriton seriously. "Alvar
is our father's son and our brother. He is the eldest, and has his
rights. That's the fact; and his having lived all his life in Spain
doesn't alter it. And if his coming is strange to us, what will it be
for him? Isn't it an awful shame to set our backs up before we see him?
Is it his fault?" Cheriton's influence in the family was considerable,
and the younger ones had no answer to his arguments; but influence and
arguments are weak compared to prejudice; and no one answered till Jack
grumbled out,--
"Of course we must do our duty by him, and perhaps he'll improve."
"On acquaintance," suggested Cheriton, with half-suppressed fun.
"Suppose he's a finer fellow than any of us, and a better sort
altogether. What shall we do then?"
"Oh, but he's a foreigner, you know," said Nettie, as if this settled
the question. "Come, Bob, let's go and see the puppies fed."
"What I say is," said Jack, as the twins went away and left their elders
to a freer discussion, "that the thing has been left too late. Here is
Alvar,--twenty-five, isn't he?"
"Yes; he is only two years older than I am."
"How can he turn into an Englishman? It's all very well for you to
chaff about it, and lecture the young ones; but the squire won't stand
him with patience for a day; there'll be one continual row. Everything
will be turned topsy-turvy. He'll go back to Seville in a month."
Cheriton was silent. He was older than Jack by nearly four years, and
perhaps should not have attributed so much importance to the grumbling
of his juniors; but his wider out-look only enabled him to see that
their feelings were one-sided, it did not prevent him from sharing them;
and the gift of a more sympathetic nature did but make him more
conscious of how far these feelings were justifiable. Home life at
Oakby had its difficulties, its roughnesses, and its daily trials; but
what did this signify to the careless boys who had no dignity to lose,
and by whom a harsh word from their father, or a rough one from each
other, was forgotten and repeated twenty times a day? He himself had
hardly grown into that independent existence which would make an
unkindness from a brother an insult, an injustice from a father a thing
to be resented beyond the day. It was still all among themselves, they
knew each other, and suited each other, and stood up for each other
against the world. They were still the children of their father's
house, and that tie was much too close and real for surface quarrels and
disputes to slacken it. But this stranger, who must be the very first
among them all, yet who did not know them, and whom they did not know,
who had a right to this same identity of interest, and yet who would
assuredly neither feel nor win it!
Jack accused his father of having acted unjustly to them all; the
younger ones rebelled with a blind prejudice which they did not
themselves understand. Cheriton was vividly conscious of the stranger's
rights, yet shrank from all they claimed from him; to the father he
recalled resentment, weakness of purpose, and a youthful impulse, from
the consequences of which he could not escape. The grandmother
upstairs, no inconsiderable power in the Oakby household, formulated the
vague distaste of her descendants, and strongly expressed her belief
that a foreign heir would grieve his father, corrupt his brothers, and
ruin his inheritance.
And now who was this foreign heir, this unknown brother, and what was
the explanation of his existence?