"His peaceful being slowly passes by
To some more perfect peace."
The next morning Cheriton slept late, and awoke to the consciousness
that he had caught a slight cold, "which," as he said to himself, "might
happen to any one."
"Will you ask Mr Lester to come to me before he goes to Hazelby?" he
said, not feeling quite able to satisfy himself that Alvar had all the
needful evidence clear in his head.
"Mr Lester is not going to Hazelby, sir," said the man; "he went to
Lord Milford's early this morning in the dog-cart. He left word that he
would not disturb you, sir."
The engagement at Milford flashed across Cheriton's mind, and with
dismay and indignation he perceived that Alvar had not thought it worth
while to break it on Chris Fleming's account. In a moment he recognised
the utter ruin that would fall on all chance of Alvar's success with his
tenants, still more the disgrace that he would bring on himself in the
eyes of the whole bench of magistrates, by the neglect of such an
obvious duty, while on his own part he felt that it was such an
unkindness as he hardly knew how to forgive. His first impulse was to
let the matter alone, and to leave Alvar to bear the brunt of his own
misdoings. But then the thought came of the distress to the Flemings,
of the fatal injury to the boy from the weeks of undeserved detention,
and, after all, the discredit would fall on them all alike. He forgot
all his intention of nursing his cold, forgot its very existence, as he
perceived, on looking at his watch, that he had barely time to reach
Hazelby for the meeting.
"It is all the same," he said, "my going to Hazelby will answer every
purpose. Tell them to bring Molly round at once. As Mr Lester has the
dog-cart, I will ride."
"There is a very cold wind, and it looks like rain, sir."
"That can't be helped," said Cheriton, "there is no time to lose."
He tried to make his expedition seem a matter of course; but every one
in the house believed that he went because the squire had gone off on
his own pleasure, or out of what the old cook did not hesitate to call
"nasty spite," had refused to justify little Fleming. Indeed, as
Cheriton rode hurriedly away, he could hardly divest himself of the same
opinion.
In the meanwhile, Alvar no sooner found himself well on the way to
Milford than he began to feel pangs of compunction. The cold wind and
drizzling rain beat in his face, as the conviction was borne in upon
him, that Cheriton would certainly go to Hazelby in his place. He had
not been at Milford since the day of the great rejoicing, when Cheriton,
with all his fresh honours, had met them there, had wooed, and, as he
thought, won Ruth Seyton; when he himself was Virginia's acknowledged
lover. He called her to mind, as she had walked by his side in smiling
content, as she played with the children--felt _now_, as he never had
then, the wistfulness of her eyes when they met his, and almost for the
first time he recognised that the want of devotion had been on his side.
He had not loved her enough. A sense of discouragement and despondence
seized on him, a deep melancholy softened the resentment which he had
been cherishing. As he looked back on the years of his father's
neglect, on Virginia's dismissal, on his brother's views of what his
position required, for once the sense of his shortcomings overpowered
his sense of the many excuses for them. His indifference to the chance
of Cheriton's running a great risk touched him with a self-reproach for
which his theories of life offered no palliative. He could not rest,
and with a suddenness and vehemence of action most unusual with him, he
turned to Lord Milford as they prepared to start on their day's sport,
declared that he had suddenly recollected an important engagement, and
must beg them to excuse him at once; overruled all objections on the
score of his horse wanting rest by declaring that he would only drive to
the station, and go by train to Hazelby.
"I am humiliated by my want of courtesy to your lordship, but it is
necessary that I should go," he said; but what with the delay of
starting, and the absence of a train at the last moment, the
magistrates' meeting was over long before he reached Hazelby, every one
had dispersed, and the court-house was shut.
He could not bring himself to ask any questions; but ordered a
conveyance and started on his way back to Oakby, hardly knowing whether
to reveal his change of purpose or not. On the road he passed the three
Fleming brothers, trudging home through the mud. They looked away, and
omitted to touch their hats to him. Alvar said to himself that he did
not care; but the sense of unpopularity can never be other than bitter.
He thought to himself that after all English gentlemen did not always
live on their estates. There were hundreds of his father's rank who did
not hold his father's view of their duties. He could shut Oakby up, let
it, go where he would never see it again. But where? Never as the
disinherited heir would he set foot in Seville, and he had no craving to
hunt tigers in India, or buffaloes on the prairies. He did not wish to
go yachting; did not care to travel; he hated the fogs and the
colourlessness of London. He was as little ready to cut himself loose
from all his moorings as Cheriton himself. Suddenly, as he drove on, he
saw one of the Oakby grooms riding fast towards him. The man pulled up
as he passed.
"Mr Cheriton is ill, sir; Mrs Lester is there, and she sent me for the
doctor."
Alvar felt as if he had been shot.
"Ride on," he said, breathlessly; then seized the driver of the trap by
the shoulder--"Drive fast; I will give you five pounds if you will drive
fast. My brother is ill; he will want me."
"Ay, sir--all right, sir," said the lad, lashing up his horse.
Alvar felt as if a telegraph would have been slow; but he folded his
arms, and sat like a statue till they reached the door, when he sprang
out, and at the foot of the stairs saw Jack.
"Alvar! you here!" he exclaimed.
"What is it?--where is he?--what has happened?--tell me!" cried Alvar.
"Cherry went to Hazelby, of course, to clear Chris, as you were out of
the way. He was so done up when he came back, and seems so evidently in
for just such a bad attack as he had before, that granny, who came back
here with me, sent for Mr Adamson. Yes, he is in bed; he was wet
through."
Jack's face was like thunder; but Alvar dashed past him upstairs, and
opened the door of his brother's room.
Cheriton was sitting up in bed. He had recovered a little from the
exhaustion of his hasty ride, and though suffering much pain and
oppression, was spending some of the little breath he had left, in
trying to explain matters to his grandmother.
"You always were a perverse lad, or you would not be using your voice
now, Cherry," she said. "When your brother comes back, I shall give him
a piece of my mind."
"There he is," cried Cherry. There was a look in his eyes for a moment
as if he hardly knew how they were to meet; but as Alvar advanced into
the room, all his vehemence subsided. He came up to the bed, and laid
his hand on Cheriton's with the old tender touch.
"You are ill, _mi caro_. I think you must not talk so much just now."
Cheriton looked up in his face, and read in it, steady as was the voice,
an altogether new terror and trouble.
"_This_ is my own fault," he said. "I was in such a hurry--that--I
would not wait for the carriage. After all, there would have been
time."
"Oh, my brother--my brother!" cried Alvar, losing his self-control,
"your fault! Grandmother, it is I who have let him kill himself."
"You are just crazy," said Mrs Lester, agitated and angry, as Alvar
rushed up to her, and threw himself on his knees beside her chair,
clasping her hands in his. "I don't care whose fault it is. No doubt
you are one as bad as the other. For the last half hour I have been
trying to make Cherry hold his tongue, and now you make a worse turmoil
than ever. Since my poor son went there is no one to look to."
Mrs Lester was shaken and terrified by the shock of sudden alarm, and
agitated by Alvar's extraordinary behaviour, and thus her still fresh
grief came back on her, and she burst into tears.
"Oh, granny, don't--don't!" cried Cherry, and the distress of his tone
recalled Alvar to his senses.
"Oh, I am a fool!" he said, and getting up, he applied himself to soothe
his grandmother with all the tact of which he was master, and was so
successful, that in a few minutes she went away in search of some remedy
for Cheriton, who, as he was left alone with his brother, felt, spite of
his increasing suffering, the old sense of repose in Alvar's care creep
over him.
"As violent an attack as the last, and much less strength to meet it,"
was the doctor's verdict, and the great common terror hushed for the
time all disputes and differences.
Mrs Lester remained at Oakby, Nettie had returned to London a few days
previously, and both she and Bob held themselves ready for a sudden
summons.
Mrs Lester questioned Alvar on that first evening about all that had
passed, in a dry, caustic fashion, while he answered, meekly enough.
"Why, ye'll have made yourself a laughing-stock to the whole place," was
her only comment on the story of the horsewhipping.
Alvar coloured to his temples, but said nothing; the reproach of Jack's
silent misery was much harder to bear. He who knew how all the last
weeks had been troubled by Alvar's fault, could not forgive, and felt
that if Cheriton died, he could never bear the sight of Alvar again.
Alvar himself was shaken and disturbed as he had never been before. He
had lost all the calm hopefulness and power of living in the present,
that had made him such a support in Cheriton's previous illness; and
though he was still a devoted and efficient nurse to him, there were
times when he was quite unable to control his distress. He was
frightened, and expected the worst; and poor Jack had to try to
encourage him, a process that much softened his indignation.
All this was fully apparent to Cheriton. There was no longer the daze
and confusion of that first attack of illness, the boyish astonishment
at the fact of being ill at all, the novelty of all the surroundings,
now, alas! so familiar; no longer, too, the sense that the exceeding
sweetness of life made death incredible; no longer the same instinctive
dependence on those around. Since then Cheriton had travelled a long
way on the road of life, had looked across the dark river, and grown
familiar with the thought of its other shore; he was no longer
frightened at his own suffering, or at its probable result, and, as his
senses were generally clear, except sometimes at night, or when under
the influence of the remedies, he was able to think for others--a habit
in which he had gained considerable skill.
He made Alvar write to Mr Stanforth, and beg that Gipsy might write to
Jack, knowing that the surprise and joy of such a letter, and the relief
of pouring out his heart in the answer, must lighten the heavy weight of
the poor boy's anxiety; and so, in truth, it did, though Jack could
never trust himself to thank Cherry for his kind thought. He also made
the vicar go to Edward Fleming, and tell him that Alvar had only been a
few minutes too late in coming to give evidence, and to entreat him to
lay aside any ill-feeling for the misunderstanding "which," he said,
"was partly caused by my bad management." He thought much about the
state of affairs at Elderthwaite, or rather, perhaps, recalled at
intervals much previous thinking. He was not equal to anything like a
connected conversation, and he knew that no one would let the poor
vehement old parson come near him; but he greatly astonished his
grandmother by telling her that he had an especial desire to see
Virginia Seyton.
"I cannot talk enough to tell you why," he said; "but, granny, do get
her to come."
Mrs Lester promised; for how could she refuse him? He gave a good many
directions to Mr Ellesmere, and in especial desired that a certain cup,
won many years ago at some county athletic sports in a contest with his
cousin Rupert, should be given to him as a remembrance.
From only one thing Cheriton's whole heart shrank, and that was from
forcing Jack to listen to parting words. He had several things to say
to him, but he put them off; he could not bear the sight of Jack's
grief, and in this case could not trust his own self-command. It was
the one parting that he could not yet face.
With Alvar it was different. In one way, he had with him much less
sense of self-restraint, and in another, things lay between them that
must be cleared away.
This state of things lasted for several days, and all the while the hard
struggle between the remedies and the disease went on, a hand-to-hand
fight indeed, and Cheriton's strength ebbed away, till he knew that he
dared wait no longer for what he wanted to say.
It had been raining, but the yellow, level light of an October evening
was shining through the thinly-clothed boughs of the great elms, and
lighting up the russet and amber of the woodlands; while the purple
hills beyond were still heavy with clouds--clouds receding more and more
as the clear blue spread over the sky.
As Cheriton listened to the noise of the rooks, and looked out at the
sunset, he recalled the awe and strange curiosity, the clinging to the
dear home, to the dearer love which had made life so dear; the attempted
submission, the dim trust that death, if it came, must be well for him,
with which he had first said to himself that he must die; remembered,
too, other hours, when, in weakness of body and anguish of soul, he had
found it still harder to believe that it must be well for him that he
should live. The passionate joy, the passionate sorrow, had passed
away, or rather, had been offered at last as a willing sacrifice, and
the loving kindly spirit had found sweetness in life without the first,
while much anxiety, much trying disappointment, had succeeded to the
second. Now there came over him a wonderful peace, as he summoned his
strength for what he had in his mind to say.
With a look and sign he called Alvar over to him; and Jack, who was
sitting apart in the window, watched and listened.
"Alvar," he said, taking hold of his hand, "I see it clearly." And the
intent, wide-open eyes, seemed to Jack as if they could indeed look
beyond the mists of life. "We were wrong to wish you like ourselves.
Forgive me. You--yourself--can be as good for Oakby as--I--yes--as my
father. But there is only one way for us both--to love God with all our
hearts, and our neighbour as ourself. To take pains about it for His
sake. That is the truth, Alvar--the truth as I know it!"
"Ah!" cried Alvar, "but I do not love my neighbours! that _is_ the
difference. But I love you, oh! my brother--my brother! Is it religion
that will make me what you wish? I will be religious; I will no longer
be careless; but oh, _caro--caro mio_! if I lose you, I have no heart to
change. I have grieved you. Oh! what punishment is there for me? I
would do penance like Manoel. What can I do?"
Alvar flung himself on his knees, the tears started in his eyes and
choked his voice. At last he was stirred to the depths, and instincts
deeper than teaching or training came to the surface.
"You know Who bore our sins for us," said Cheriton, "because He loved
us."
How much, or how little, Alvar knew, after his formal teaching, and
careless, unmoved youth, would be hard to say; probably Cheriton could
not conceive how little; but face, voice, and manner had moved Alvar's
soul to a great conviction, however little he realised what Cheriton had
meant to say.
He called on that name which his brothers had never heard from his lips
before, save in some careless foreign oath.
"I swear," he said--"I swear that I will be a religious man, and that I
will be a good squire to Oakby. I make it a vow if my brother
recovers--"
"Oh, hush--hush!" interposed Cheriton. "If not--we shall meet again--
and you _must_ be good to Oakby. Let me know you will!"
"I will! I will!" cried Alvar, completely carried away. He would have
thrown his arms round Cheriton, but Jack interposed--
"Alvar! Alvar! this is enough. He _must_ not have this agitation."
Alvar yielded, but, too much overcome to control himself, rushed out of
the room.
As he hurried blindly down the stairs he met Mr Ellesmere, and with a
sudden impulse caught hold of his hand.
"Mr Ellesmere, you are a priest. I have sworn to him that I will
change, that I will be religious. I give myself up to you. I will do
whatever you wish. I swear to obey you--"
"Gently, gently!" said the astonished vicar. "You are too much agitated
to know what you say. Come with me into the study; tell me what has
passed. Believe me that I desire to help you in this great sorrow."
Alvar followed him, and as Mr Ellesmere talked and listened to him, he
began to hope that, in spite of an ignorance which he had hitherto had
neither the conscientious desire nor the intellectual curiosity to
diminish, in spite of blind impulses rashly followed, the will for good
that must bring a blessing had at last been awakened, even in this
strange longing for vow and penance, an instinct that seemed inherited
without the faith from which it had sprung. Alvar was in the mood which
might have made his Spanish ancestors vow all their worldly goods away
and think to buy a blessing, and to listen to him without unduly
checking his vehemence, and yet to lead his thoughts upward, was a hard
task; since Alvar was left subdued and quieted, and yet with an inkling
of what had been really wrong with him, it may be inferred that Mr
Ellesmere succeeded better than he had hoped to do.
Meanwhile, to poor Jack, every word of Cheriton's had thrilled with a
thousand meanings. He knew that silence was imperative, and did not
mean to say another word; but Cherry felt his hand tremble as he gave
him some water, and looked up at him with a smile.
"You will have Gipsy soon," he whispered, "my own dear boy."
Jack pressed his hand. "To take pains for His sake." With his whole
heart Jack recognised this key-note. Nothing else would do. Even Gipsy
could not by herself give his life the full joy of a sufficient purpose;
but as he thought of all the currents through which he must steer, and
knew too well which way they often set, he shuddered.
"If I had not you to talk everything out with!" he said, inadequately
enough.
"Oh, Jack, if I can't help you still, it will be because the work is
done better. I don't fancy now that everything hangs on me. I am
content."
And Jack felt that the memory of that perfect contentment could never
pass away from him.