"There is a green hill far away," stumbled through in the broadest
Westmoreland; and when it was over, remarked,--
"Very pretty verses. Lads and lasses, keep your feet still and attend
to Miss Seyton, and--_mind_--I can hear ye," a piece of information with
which Virginia at any rate could well have dispensed.
But she was getting used to her rough uncle, and was grateful to
Cheriton for the advice that he had given her, and so she told Alvar one
day when they were all walking down to the vicarage, with the ostensible
purpose of showing Nettie some enormous mastiff puppies, the pride of
the vicar's heart.
In the absence of her own brothers Nettie found Dick Seyton an amusing
companion, "soft" though he might be; she began by daring him to jump
over ditches as well as she could, and ended by finding that he roused
in her unsuspected powers of repartee. Nettie found the Miss Ellesmeres
dull companions; they were a great deal cleverer than she was, and
expected her to read story books, and care about the people in them.
Rupert and Dick found that her ignorance made her none the less amusing,
and took care to tell her so.
So everything combined to make intercourse easy; and this was not the
first walk that the six young people had taken together.
"Your brother," said Virginia to Alvar, "was very kind to me. I should
never have got on so well but for his advice."
"My brother is always kind," said Alvar, his eyes lighting up. "I
cannot tell you how well I love him."
"I am sure you do," said Virginia heartily, though unable to help
smiling.
"But in what was it that he helped you?" asked Alvar.
Virginia explained how he had persuaded her uncle to agree to her wishes
about teaching the children.
"To teach the ignorant?" said Alvar. "Ah, that is the work of a saint!"
"Oh, no! I like doing it. It is nothing but what many girls can do
much better."
"Ah, this country is strange. In Spain the young ladies remain at home.
They go nowhere but to mass. If my sister were in Spain she would not
jump over the ditches, nor run after the dogs," glancing at Nettie, who
was inciting Rolla to run for a piece of stick.
"Do you think us very shocking?" said Virginia demurely.
"Nay," said Alvar. "These are your customs, and I am happy since they
permit me the honour of walking by your side, and talking with you.
You, like my brother, are kind to the stranger."
"But you must leave off calling yourself a stranger. You too _are_
English; can you not feel yourself so?"
"Yes, I am an Englishman," said Alvar. "See, if I stay here, I have
money and honour. My father speaks to me of a `position in the county.'
That is to be a great man as I understand it. Nor are there parties
here to throw down one person, and then another. In Spain, though not
less noble, we are poor, and all things change quickly, and I shall not
stay always here in Oakby. I am going to London, and I see that I can
make for myself a life that pleases me."
"Yet you love Spain best?"
"I love Spain," said Alvar, "the sunshine and the country; but I am no
Spaniard. No, I stayed away from England because it was my belief that
my father did not love me. I was wrong. I have a right to be here; it
was my right to come here long ago, and my right I will not give up!"
He drew himself up with an indescribable air of _hauteur_ for a moment,
then with sudden softness,--
"And who was it that saw that right and longed for me to come, who
opened his heart to me? It was Cheriton, my brother. He has explained
much to me, and says if I learn to love England it will make him happy.
And I will love it for his sake."
"I hope so; soon you will not find it so dull."
"Nay, it is not now so dull. Have I not the happiness of your sympathy?
Could I be dull to-day?" said Alvar, with his winning grace.
Virginia blushed, and her great eyes drooped, unready with a reply.
"And there is your cousin," she said, shyly; "he is a companion; don't
you think him like Cheriton?"
"Yes, a little; but Cheriton is like an angel, though he will not have
me say so; but Rupert, he has the devil in his face. But I like him--he
is a nice fellow--very nice," said Alvar, the bit of English idiom
sounding oddly in his foreign tones.
Virginia laughed, spite of herself.
"Ah, I make you laugh," said Alvar. "I wish I had attended more to my
English lessons; but there was a time when it was not my intention to
come to England, and I did not study. I am not like Cheriton and Jack,
I do not love to study. It is very pleasant to smoke, and to do
nothing; but I see it is not the custom here, and it is better, I think,
to be like my brother."
"Some people are rather fond of smoking and doing nothing even in
England."
"It is a different sort of doing nothing. I hear my father or Cheriton
rebuke Bob for doing nothing; but then he is out of doors with some
little animal in a bag--his ferret, I think it is called--to catch the
rats; or he runs and gets hot; that is what he calls doing nothing."
There was a sort of _bonhommie_ in Alvar's way of describing himself and
his surroundings, and a charm in his manner which, added to a pair of
eyes full of fire and expression, and a great deal of implied admiration
for herself, produced no small effect on Virginia.
She saw that he was affectionate and ready to recognise the good in his
brothers, and she knew that he had been deprived of his due share of
home affection. She did not doubt that he was willing himself to do and
to be all that he admired; and then--he was not boyish and blunt like
his brothers, nor so full of mischief as Cheriton, nor with that
indescribable want of something that made her wonder at Rupert's charm
in the eyes of Ruth; she had never seen any one like him.
She glanced up in his face with eyes that all unconsciously expressed
her thoughts, and as he turned to her with a smile they came up to the
vicarage garden, at the gate of which stood Parson Seyton talking to Mr
Lester, who was on horseback beside him.
"Ha, squire," said the parson, "Monsieur Alvar is a dangerous fellow
among the lasses. Black eyes and foreign ways have made havoc with
hearts all the world over."
Mr Lester looked towards the approaching group. Virginia's delicate
face, shy and eager under drooping feathers, and the tall, slender
Alvar, wearing his now scrupulously English morning suit with a grace
that gave it a picturesque appropriateness, were in front. Ruth and
Rupert lingered a little, and Nettie came running up from behind, with
Rolla after her, and Dick Seyton lazily calling on her to stop. Mr
Lester looked at his son, and a new idea struck him.
"I wish Alvar to make acquaintances," he said. "Nothing but English
society can accustom him to his new life."
Here Alvar saw them, and raised his hat as he came up.
"Have you had a pleasant walk, Alvar?" said his father, less stiffly
than usual.
"It has been altogether pleasant, sir," said Alvar, "since Miss Seyton
has been my companion."
Virginia blushed, and went up to her uncle with a hasty question about
the puppies that Nettie was to see, and no one exchanged a remark on the
subject; but that night as they were smoking, Rupert rallied Alvar a
little on the impression he was making.
Alvar did not misunderstand him; he looked at him straight.
"I had thought," he said, "that it was here the custom to talk with
freedom to young ladies. I see it is your practice, my cousin."
"Yes, yes. Besides, I'm an old friend, you see. Of course it is the
custom; but consequences sometimes result from it--pity if they didn't."
"But it may be," said Alvar, "that as my father's son, it is expected
that I should marry if it should be agreeable to my father?"
"Possibly," said Rupert, unable to resist trying experiments. "Fellows
with expectations have to be careful, you know."
"I thank you," said Alvar. "But I do not mistake a lady who has been
kind to me, or I should be a coxcomb. Good-night, my cousin."
"Good-night," said Rupert, feeling somewhat baffled, and a little angry;
for, after all, he had been perfectly right.