"I will take a year out of my life and story."
One chilly morning, a week or so after these events, Virginia was
sitting in the drawing-room, with a heap of patterns in her lap. She
was choosing her wedding gown, and as she laid the glistening bits of
silk and satin on the table before her, she sighed at the thought that
there was no one to help her, no one to take an interest in her choice.
Ruth was gone, and Virginia missed her sorely, feeling as if the
loneliness, the uncongeniality of her home would be intolerable but for
the thought of the release so soon coming. She felt that, though her
little efforts in the village had had some reward, within doors she had
never felt naturalised, never been able to produce any impression. Her
father never showed her nearly as much affection as her uncle did, and
she could not know how much this was owing to a sense of his own
deficiencies towards her. He was exceedingly irritable, too, and
difficult to deal with, discontented wholly with life; while Miss
Seyton's sarcastic tongue always seemed to pierce the weak places in
Virginia's armour, and when she was inclined to be cheerful, her talk
implied such alien views of life and duty that she made Virginia
wretched.
Dick had been offered some appointment in London, provided that he could
pass a decent examination next spring, but his sister could not perceive
that he made much preparation for it. She also began to suspect that he
and Nettie Lester were more together than was good, and to wish for an
opportunity of hinting as much to Cheriton, whom she instinctively felt
to be the best depositary of such a vague suspicion.
But Cheriton was much less well again; he had been obliged to give up
going to Paris, and the whole family were suffering anxiety on his
account, more trying, perhaps, though less openly acknowledged, than
that caused by his actual illness. Virginia was not quite the girl to
deal successfully with her home troubles. Ruth, who did not care a bit
whether she could respect her relations or not, had made herself more
agreeable to them; while Virginia was timid and miserable, afraid of
being unfilial, and yet perpetually conscious of defects. Of course, if
she could have felt that Alvar had really comprehended her troubles,
they would have weighed more lightly; but though his tenderness always
made her forget them for a time, she never had the sense of taking
counsel with him.
Now, as she turned over her patterns, her first thought was which he
would prefer, and as her aunt came in and with irresistible feminine
attraction began to examine them, Virginia said,--
"I shall wait till Alvar comes, and ask him whether he would like me to
have silk or satin."
"He will tell you that you look enchanting in either. That will be a
pretty compliment, and save the trouble of a choice."
"Oh, no," said Virginia, "Alvar has a great deal of taste, and he likes
some of my dresses much better than others. I wonder if Cherry is
better to-day."
"Probably, as I see his most devoted brother coming up the garden."
Virginia's face flushed into ecstasy in a moment. She sprang to the
garden-door, scattering her patterns on the floor; while her aunt looked
after her, and muttered more softly than usual as she left the room,
"Poor little thing!"
Alvar looked very grave as he came towards her, as if he hardly saw the
slender figure in its fluttering delicate dress, or noticed the eager
eyes and smiling lips; but, as usual, he smiled when he came up the
steps, and seemed to put aside his previous thoughts, and to adopt the
courteous manner which made Virginia feel herself held at a distance.
For once, she was more full of her own affairs than of his. "Look," she
said, picking up her silks, "do you see these? Which do you like best?"
Alvar twisted the patterns over his fingers as he stood in the window
and did not at once answer.
"How is Cherry?" she said. "Is he better to-day?"
"Perhaps--a little," said Alvar. "But the doctors have seen him again,
and they say that he must not stay here--that he must go abroad for all
the winter."
"Do they?" said Virginia; "that looks very serious."
"Ah yes," said Alvar a little impatiently, "but my father--they all talk
as if it would kill him to go; he will get well away from these bitter
winds--and--and the businesses that are too much for him."
"Yes," said Virginia slowly, perceiving that Alvar did not quite
understand how startling a sound being ordered abroad had to English
ears after such an illness as Cheriton's. "What does he say himself
about it?"
"He dreads it very much; but we will go to Seville, and then he _must_
find it pleasant."
Virginia started; she changed colour, and her heart began to beat very
fast.
"_Mi querida_!" said Alvar, taking her hand. "I feel that I--affront
you--I do not know how to ask you to let me go; but how can I send my
brother away without me? For his sake I expose myself perhaps to blame
from your father--"
"I don't quite understand," said Virginia, withdrawing a little, and
speaking with unusual clearness. "Did Cherry ask you to go with him?"
"Ah, no. He refused and said it must not be. But he told Jack that he
hated the thought of going to Mentone or any such place alone. My
father is too unhappy about him to be his companion, and Jack must go to
Oxford. So, when I told him how the wish of my heart was to show him my
Spanish home, he owned that he should like to see it. The climate will
not cure him if he is dull and miserable."
"Certainly you must _go_ with him," said Virginia steadily, though she
felt half suffocated.
"Ah, _mi reyna_!" cried Alvar, his brow clearing; "you see my trouble.
Without your approval I could not _go_!"
Virginia turned round and fixed her eyes on Alvar with a look never seen
before under their soft fringes. The sharp agony of personal loss and
disappointment, the feeling, horrible to the gentle modest girl, that
the loss and the disappointment reserved all their sting for _her_, the
outward necessity of the proposal, and the inward knowledge that Alvar
wronged her by his feeling, though not by his act, drove her to bay at
last. She would have _shared_ in any sacrifice, but she instinctively
knew that Alvar was making none. The vague dissatisfactions, the dim
misunderstandings, the unacknowledged jealousies of many months, all
rushed at once into the light. Her love was too passionate to be
patient, and her self-control broke down at last.
"Yes," she said, "of course you must go with your brother. I see that.
I admit it quite. But--Alvar--that's not all. I have seen for a long
time that our engagement was a tie to you--it was a mistake. I don't
blame you--you did not understand--but it is better to end it. I
release you--you are free!"
"_Senorita_!" cried Alvar, flashing up, "I have given no one the right
to doubt my honour. You mistake me."
"No," said Virginia, "I do not mistake. I know--I know you mean
rightly--I ought not to wonder if you don't--if you don't--" she broke
off faltering and trembling, humiliated by the sense that she had not
been able to win him.
But Alvar's pride had taken fire. "I am at your service," he said
proudly, "since you mistake my request."
"I will not hold you back one day," she answered. "Nor do I blame you.
Don't mistake _me_. You have done all for me that you could; but our
ideas are different, and I feel convinced we should only go on making
each other unhappy. It is better to part."
"Since it is your wish to have it so," said Alvar in a tone of deep
offence, but with a curious pang at his heart. "I was your true lover,
and I would never have caused you grief. But since I did not satisfy
you, I withdraw. I force myself on no lady."
"Indeed--indeed," faltered Virginia, "I do not blame you; it is perhaps
my fault, that--that we have so often mistaken each other."
"It is that to you--as to my father I am a stranger," said Alvar. "I
will go--it is as you wish."
He took up his hat, paused, made her a formal bow, and went out.
Virginia sprang after him; but he did not look back. She felt herself
cruel, exacting, selfish, and yet she _knew_ that her causes of
complaint were just. She had sent him away from her, and she would
never see him again. As he passed out of sight, she ran down the steps,
whether after him or away from the house, she hardly knew. The trailing
overgrown roses caught in her dress and held her back. She turned, and
all the desolation of the untrimmed garden and unpainted house seemed to
overwhelm her spirit. The wind came up in long, dismal rustles, the sky
was grey and cold. As she paused, she saw her aunt's still graceful
figure in its shabby dress cross the lawn, her face with its fair
outline and hard, bitter look turned towards her.
"_She_ lost _her_ lover!" thought Virginia, and her own future flashed
upon her like a dreadful vision. She turned and fled up to her own
room, where every other thought was destroyed by the sense of loss and
misery. It was in the middle of the afternoon that she was startled out
of her trance of wretchedness by a call in her aunt's voice, "Virginia,
Virginia! Come here, I want you particularly."
Virginia obeyed passively. She might as well tell her aunt of the
morning's interview then as put it off longer. As she came into the
drawing-room, Miss Seyton left it by another door, and she found herself
alone with Cheriton Lester.
"Thank you for coming down," he said, eagerly. "I want to explain; I
think there has been a great mistake."
"No, I think not," said Virginia, rather faintly.
"But let me tell you. It is all my fault indeed. Alvar must not be
punished for my selfishness. You know, I got a fresh cold somehow, and
my cough was bad again, so my father was frightened and sent for the
doctors, and they ordered me away for the winter. I must not go to
London now, they say--"
"Indeed, Cherry, I am _very_ sorry," faltered Virginia, as the cough
stopped him.
"No, but let me tell you. This was a great shock to me. I want to get
to work--and then--my poor father! It seemed to knock me down
altogether, and foolishly, I let Jack see it, and said that I hated the
notion of any of those regular invalid places, and that going there
would do me no good. And then Alvar came and asked me if I should not
like to see his friends and Seville, and I said, `Yes, if I must go
anywhere,' and he tried in his kind way to make the idea seem pleasant
to me, and my father caught at it because he thought I might like it. I
shall never forgive myself for making such a fuss! But of course
to-day--now I am in my right senses--I should not think of such a thing.
If Alvar goes with me, even to Seville, and stays for a few weeks,
then, if I am better, he can come home, and I shall not mind staying
there alone, and at Christmas Jack might come to me, or my father--it
can easily be managed. In short, Virginia," he added, with an attempt
at his usual playfulness, "I want you to understand that I made a
complete fool of myself yesterday, and that that's the whole of it."
"Did Alvar ask you to come and tell me this?"
"No," said Cheriton, "he was hurt by your misunderstanding him, he does
not know I am here. Jack drove me over. But I shall not agree to any
other arrangement than what I have told you, unless," he added slowly,
"things should go badly, and then I _know_ you would have patience."
"Oh, Cherry," said Virginia, struggling with her tears, "I hope you
don't think me so selfish as to wish to prevent Alvar from going with
you. It is not _that_."
"But what is it, then? Can you tell me?" said Cherry gently, and
sitting down by her side.
"I have no one to ask," she said; "but you will think me wrong, and
yet--"
"I know too well how difficult it is to be right in matters of feeling,
if you once begin to analyse them," said Cherry sadly.
The gentleness of his voice and the kind look of his eyes gave her
courage, and she said, very low,--
"I think I should not make Alvar happy, because he does not care for me.
Please understand that he has done all he could; he is very _kind_ to
me, but he does not care for me."
"You know, Virginia," said Cherry eagerly, "Alvar has different ways
from ours. Indeed, he _is_ loving--"
"He loves _you_," said Virginia quickly; then, blushing scarlet, she
added, "oh, Cherry, I think it is beautiful the way he is grateful to
you, and thinks so much of you. Please, please, don't think I would
have it otherwise."
"I have far more cause to be grateful to him."
"Yes! I like to think that. But Cherry, when you were ill, he didn't
care for me to comfort him, it was no rest to him to come and see me.
He never tells me his troubles. It isn't as Ruth and Rupert love each
other. If I say anything, he turns it aside. It will not make him
unhappy to give me up."
"It made him exceedingly angry," said. Cheriton, too clear-sighted not
to acquiesce in the truth of Virginia's words, though he was unwilling
to own as much.
"I don't think," said Virginia, "that I should bear that feeling
patiently. Things are very miserable any way, but I think Alvar will be
happier without me. It has not turned out well."
She spoke in a low tone of complete depression, evidently uttering
convictions that had been long formed, gently and humbly, but with an
undercurrent of firmness.
"I will tell Alvar what you say," he said. "I quite see what you mean,
but perhaps he will be able to show you that you have misinterpreted
him."
"No," said Virginia, with decision, "do not let him try."
As she spoke, there was a tap at the door, and Jack opened it.
"Cherry," he said, "it is so late; are you ready?"
"One minute, Jack," said Cheriton, "I am coming. Virginia," he added,
taking her hands in his with sudden earnestness, "Alvar will love you
enough some day. I am sure of it."
Cheriton hardly knew what put the words into his mouth; but they chimed
in Virginia's heart for many a weary day, lighted up by the bright,
brave smile which had accompanied them.