"You mean that I must earn her? Well, I will."
There was a solemn abruptness in Jack's manner that provoked a smile;
but his self-confidence was tempered by a look of such absolute honesty
and sincerity in his bright blue eyes, he looked such a fine young
fellow in all the freshness and strength of his youth, that it would
have been difficult to doubt either his purposes or his power of
carrying them out.
"Don't you think you might have asked Mr Stanforth to take off his coat
and come into the library before entering on such an important subject?"
said Cheriton, joining them.
"I beg your pardon," said Jack. "Please come in; I was not thinking--"
"Of anything but your own affairs? No, that's very unfair, for I am
sure you have taken heed to every one else's," said Cherry, as he led
the way into the library, where on the table was a great accumulation of
papers, looking like the materials for a heavy morning's work.
Cherry sent Jack to find Alvar, and told him to order some wine to be
brought into the library, apologising to Mr Stanforth for not asking
him to lunch, as their grandmother was unequal to seeing a stranger; and
then, in Jack's absence, he listened to Mr Stanforth's ultimatum, and
owned that it was a great relief not to have to startle his relations
just now with what would seem an incongruous proposal; but praising
Jack's sense and consideration in their trouble, and speaking of him
with a kind of tender pride, unlike the tone of one so nearly on the
same level of age, and whose life also was but beginning. He said that
he should come to London at Easter, but that in the meanwhile there was
much to be done at home. English affairs were naturally puzzling to
Alvar, and a great deal of the business concerned them all.
"You must remember that you ought to be still taking holiday," said Mr
Stanforth.
"Oh, yes. At least Alvar and Jack never let me forget it. But, indeed,
I am quite well, and though I feel the cold, I don't think it means to
hurt me. It is better to have plenty to do."
Cherry's manner was not uncheerful, and though he looked pale and
delicate, there was no longer the appearance of broken health and
spirits which had marked him at their first acquaintance; but the quick,
changeable brightness was gone also. He was like one carrying a load
which took all his strength; but he carried it without staggering.
Alvar now came in with Jack, looking bright and cordial.
"My brother is teaching me how to be the Squire," he said to Mr
Stanforth, with a smile, as he put aside the papers to make room for the
tray that had been ordered; "but I am not a good scholar."
"You must go regularly to school, then," said Mr Stanforth.
"Ah," said Alvar; "I must know, it seems, about rents, and tenants, and
freeholds--so many things. But there is something that we wish to ask
of Mr Stanforth, is there not, Cherry?"
"Yes--we spoke of it."
"It is that he will try to make a drawing of our father for us, for
there is none that my brothers like."
"I will try with pleasure, but I am afraid likenesses, under the
circumstances, are rarely quite satisfactory. You have a photograph?"
Jack produced a very bad daguerreotype, and a photograph taken for
Cheriton before he left home.
"This is a good likeness," he said; "but Cherry thinks it wants fire and
spirit."
"I will take both," said Mr Stanforth, seeing that Cherry had turned
aside from the photograph, and took no part in the discussion. "I will
make a little sketch, and when you are in London you can tell me what
you wish about it. And now I think I must be getting back to Ashrigg;
to-morrow I go home."
Jack eagerly said that to-morrow he was going to London on his way to
Oxford, and received the longed-for permission to call at Kensington.
Poor boy! he could not keep himself from looking ecstatically happy even
while he told Mr Stanforth, as he walked through the park with him, how
sorry he was to leave Cheriton with so much on his hands.
Cheriton himself would gladly have kept Jack beside him. He was capable
of seeing both sides of the difficult question, and was, moreover, so
individual and independent in his modes of thought, that home matters
were less personal to him. He had, too, his own hopes, and had chalked
out his own career, so that, young as he was, he was a support to
Cherry's spirits, even while more than half the reason why his own were
less overpowered was that the brother who was all in all to him was
still left. His presence did not always conduce to peace with Bob, for
he had grown away from him, and was disposed to lecture him; but though
he departed with more good advice to his family than was necessary, he
left another gap, and Cherry, trying to rouse himself from the added
feeling of loneliness, went over to Elderthwaite to see the old parson.
He had been away so long that every familiar place brought fresh
associations, and he tried to get the first sight of each one over
quickly and alone.
He could not walk past the stables and through the farm-buildings
without the image of his father meeting him at every turn. Here they
had planned a new fence together, in this direction the very last walk
he had had strength for before leaving home had been taken. How well he
remembered _then_ sitting on that bench under the stable wall, and
watching his father with a sad wonder if he should ever sit there again.
This was the short way from the station by which he used to come home
from school. Here his father used to meet him--nay, suddenly he
recollected, with a memory that started into life after lying asleep for
years, _here_ he had parted for the last time from his mother, and the
long-past grief seemed to come back in the light of the new one. He
said to himself that he ought to rejoice in the thought that his parents
were once more together; but in the strangest way he longed for this
long-lost mother to comfort him in the new grief of his father's death.
And then he walked on through the fir plantation, across the bit of
bare, bleak fell, into the woods of Elderthwaite. And as he walked he
thought of Jack's bright hopes, and of that sweet and promising future
that was to make up to him for all that the past had taken from him.
Here, by the broken stile and ruinous wall, all hope of such a future
had been dashed away from Cheriton's heart. _This_ memory had no
sweetness to temper its pain; and he hurried on through the plantation
and down the lane that led to the vicarage. As he passed the church he
saw that some one was trimming the ivy round the windows, and it struck
him that they had been cleaned, and that the whole place had a somewhat
improved appearance. A little girl made him a curtsey; she wore a smart
red flannel hood, and had a clean face; he thought that he had never
seen an Elderthwaite child look so respectable. Nay, as he passed one
of the larger cottages, it shone upon him resplendent with whitewash,
and looking in at the open door he beheld a row of desks, and sundry
boys and girls seated thereat, and with curiosity much excited by this
evidence of reform, he hastened on towards the vicarage.