"Once remember
You devoted soul and mind
To the welfare of your brethren
And the service of your kind,
Now what sorrow can you comfort?"
Soon after the scenes recorded in the last chapter, Alvar received a
letter from Mrs Lester, in which she thanked him, in a dignified and
cordial manner, for his proposal that the home at Oakby should go on as
usual, but said she did not consider that her residence there would be
for the happiness of any one. During her son's married life she had
lived in a house at Ashrigg, which was part of the Lester property, and
was called The Rigg. This was now again vacant, and she proposed to
take it, making it a home for Nettie, and for any of her grandsons who
chose so to consider it. The great sorrow of her dear son's death would
be more endurable to her, she said, anywhere but at Oakby. The
neighbourhood of the Hubbards would provide friends for herself and
society for Nettie, who would be very lonely at Oakby in her brothers'
constant absences. Alvar was sincerely sorry. He was accustomed to the
idea of a family home being open to all, and did not, in any way, regard
himself as trammelled by his grandmother's presence there, while
Cheriton was utterly taken by surprise, and hated the additional change
and uprooting. He did not think the step unwise, especially as regarded
Nettie, but he marvelled at his grandmother's energy in devising and
resolving on it. He had expected a great outcry from Nettie, but she
proved not to be unprepared, and said briefly, "that she liked it better
than staying at home _now_."
"But you will not desert me?" said Alvar. "Shall I drive you too away
from your home?"
"No," said Cherry. "No, I'll come home for the holidays, and the boys,
too, if you will have them; though I suppose granny will want to see us
all sometimes."
"I wish that I could take you home now," said Alvar. "I think you are
tired with London--you see too many people."
Cheriton coloured a little at the allusion, but he disclaimed any wish
to leave London then, shrinking indeed from breaking through the
externals of his profession. It ended by Alvar going down to meet his
grandmother at Oakby, and to make arrangements for the change, during
which he proved himself so kind, courteous, and helpful to her, that he
quite won her heart; and Nettie, on her return, was astonished at
hearing Alvar's judgment deferred to, and "my grandson" quoted as an
authority, on several occasions.
Jack, after a few days in London, joined a reading party for the first
weeks of the vacation; and Bob, on his return from the gentleman who was
combining for him the study of farming and of polite literature, joined
Nettie in London, and took her down to Ashrigg; so that the early part
of August found only Cheriton and Alvar at Oakby.
Cherry liked this well enough, for though the house could not but seem
forlorn and empty to him, daily life was always pleasant with Alvar, and
he would have gladly helped him through all the arrears of business that
came to hand. These were considerable, for Mr Lester's subordinates
had not been trained to go alone, and none of them had been allowed
universal superintendence. Cheriton thought that Alvar required such
assistance, and that he ought to have an agent with more authority; but
oddly enough he did not take to the proposal, and in the meantime he
made mistakes, kept decisions waiting, failed to recognise the relative
importance of different matters, and, still worse, of different people.
One afternoon, towards the end of August, Cheriton went over to
Elderthwaite. What with business at home, expeditions to Ashrigg, and a
great many calls on his attention from more immediate neighbours, he had
not seen very much of the parson, and as he neared the rectory he beheld
an unwonted sight in the field adjoining, namely, some thirty or forty
children drinking tea, under the superintendence of Virginia and one of
the Miss Ellesmeres.
"Hallo, Cherry," said the parson, advancing to meet him; "where have you
been? Seems to me we must have a grand--what d'ye call it?--rural
collation before we can get a sight of you."
"As you never invited me to the rural collation, I was not aware of its
existence," said Cherry laughing, as Virginia approached him.
"Oh, Cherry, stay and start some games," she said. "You know they are
so ignorant, they never even saw a school-feast before."
"Then, Virginia, I wonder at you for spoiling the last traces of such
refreshing simplicity. Introducing juvenile dissipation! Well, it
doesn't seem as if the natural child wanted much training to appreciate
plum-cake!"
"No; but if you could make the boys run for halfpence--"
"You think they won't know a halfpenny when they see one."
"Do have some tea!" said Lucy Ellesmere, running up to him. "Perhaps
you are tired, and Virginia has given them _beautiful_ tea, and really
they're very nice children, _considering_."
So Cherry stayed, and advanced the education of the Elderthwaite youth
by teaching them to bob for cherries, and other arts of polite society,
ending by showing them how to give three cheers for the parson, and
three times three for Miss Seyton; and while Virginia was dismissing her
flock with final hunches of gingerbread, the parson called him into the
house.
"Poor lassie!" he said; "she is fond of the children, and thinks a great
deal of doing them good; but it's little good she can do in the face of
what's coming."
"How do you mean?" said Cheriton. "Is anything specially amiss?"
"Come in and have a pipe. A glass of wine won't come amiss after so
much tea and gingerbread."
They went into the dining-room, and the parson poked up the fire into a
blaze, for even August afternoons were not too warm at Elderthwaite for
a fire to be pleasant, and as he subsided into his arm-chair, he said
gravely,--
"Eh, Cherry, we Seytons have been a bad lot--a bad lot--and the end of
it'll be we shall be kicked out of the country."
"Oh, I hope not!" said Cherry, quite sincerely. "What is the matter?"
"Well, look round about you. Is there a wall that's mended, or a
plantation preserved as it ought to be? Look at the timber--what is
there left of it? and what's felled lies rotting on the ground for want
of carting. There's acres of my brother's hay never was led till the
rain came and spoiled it. Look at the cottages. Queenie gets the
windows mended, but she can't make the roofs water-tight. Look at those
woods down by the stream, why, there's not a head of game in them, and
once they were the best preserves in the country!"
"Things are bad, certainly," said Cherry.
"And yet, Cherry, we've loved the place, and never have sold an acre of
it, spite of mortgages and everything. Well, my brother's not long for
this world. He has been failing and failing before his time, and though
he has led a decent life enough, things have gone more to the bad with
years of doing nothing, than with all the scandals of my father's time."
"Is Mr Seyton ill?" said Cheriton.
"Not ill altogether; but mark my words, he'll not last long. Well, at
last, he was so hard up that he wrote to Roland--and I know, Cheriton,
it was the bitterest pill he ever swallowed--and asked his consent to
selling Uplands Farm. What does Roland do but write back and say, with
all his heart; so soon as it came into his hands he should sell every
acre, house and lands, advowson of living and all, and pay his debts.
He hated the place, he said, and would never live there. Sell it to the
highest bidder. There were plenty of fortunes made in trade, says he,
that would give anything for land and position. So there, the old
place'll go into the hands of some purse-proud stranger. But not the
church--he shan't go restoring and improving that with his money. I'm
only fifty-nine, and a good life yet, and I'll stick in the church till
I'm put into the churchyard!"
Cherry smiled, it was impossible to help it; but the parson's story made
him very sad. He knew well enough that it was a righteous retribution,
that Roland's ownership would be a miserable thing for every soul in
Elderthwaite, and that the most purse-proud of strangers would do
something to mend matters; and yet his heart ached at the downfall, and
his quick imagination pictured vividly how completely the poor old
parson would put himself in the wrong, and what a disastrous state of
things would be sure to ensue.
"I'd try and not leave so much `restoration' for any stranger to do," he
said.
"Eh, what's the good?" said the parson. "She had better let it alone
for the `new folks.'"
"Nay," said Cherry, "you cannot tell if the `new folks,' as you call
them, will be inclined for anything of the sort, and all these changes
may not take place for years. It doesn't quite pay to do nothing
because life is rather more uncertain to oneself than to other people."
Cheriton spoke half to himself, and the parson went on with his own
train of thought.
"Ay, I'll stick to the old place, though I thought it a heavy clog round
my neck once; and if you knew all the ins and outs of that transaction,
you'd say, maybe, I ought to be kicked out of it now."
"No, I should not," said Cherry, who knew, perhaps, more of the
Elderthwaite traditions than the parson imagined. "Things are as they
are, and not as they might have been, and perhaps you could do more than
any one else to mend matters."
The parson looked into the fire, with an odd, half humble, half comical
expression, and Cherry said abruptly,--
"Do you think Mr Seyton would sell Uplands to me?"
"To you? What the dickens do you want with it?"
"Why--I don't think it would be a bad speculation, and I should like, I
think, to have it."
"What? Does your brother make Oakby too hot to hold you?"
"No, indeed. He is all that is kind to me," said Cherry indignantly.
"Every one misconstrues him. But I should like to have a bit of land
hereabouts, all the same."
"Well, you had better ask my brother yourself. He may think himself
lucky, for I don't know who would buy a bit of land like that wedged in
between the two places. Ah, here's Queenie to say good-night. Well, my
lassie, are you pleased with your sport?"
"Yes, uncle; and the children were very good."
Cheriton walked a little way with Virginia, beyond the turning where
they parted from Lucy Ellesmere. He found that she was unaware of the
facts which the parson had told him, and though somewhat uneasy about
her father, very much disposed to dwell on the good accounts of Dick and
Harry, and on the general awakening in the place that seemed to demand
improvements. Oakby offered a ready-made pattern, and other farmers had
been roused by Mr Clements to wish for changes, while some, of course,
were ready to oppose them.
"They begin to wish Uncle James would have a curate, Cherry," she said;
"but I don't think he ever will find one that he could get on with. No
one who did not know all the ins and outs of the place could get on
either with him or with the people."
"It would be difficult," said Cheriton thoughtfully; "yet I do believe
that a great deal might be done for parson as well as people."
"Ah, Cherry," said Virginia, with a smile, "if you hadn't got another
vocation, Uncle James would let _you_ do anything you liked. I wish
_you_ were a clergyman, and could come and be curate of Elderthwaite;
for you are the only person who could fit into all the corners."
Virginia spoke in jest, as of an impossible vision, but Cheriton
answered her with unexpected seriousness.
"It would be hard on Elderthwaite to put up with a failure, and an
offering would not be worth much which one had waited to make till one
had nothing left worth giving; I'm afraid, too, my angles are less
accommodating than you suppose--ask Alvar." Cherry finished his
sentence thoughtlessly, and was recalled by Virginia's blush; but she
said as they parted, "That is a safe reference for you."
Cheriton laughed; but as he walked homeward he turned and looked back on
the tumble-down, picturesque village at his feet. Loud, rough sounds of
a noisy quarrel in the little street came to his ears, and some boys
passed him manifestly the worse for drink, though they pulled themselves
up and tried to avoid his notice. It was not quite a new idea which
Virginia had put into shape; but as the steep hill forced him to slacken
his steps, he could not see that the strength which had proved
insufficient for a more selfish object was likely to be worth
consecrating to the service of his neighbours.