"Let all be well--be well."
"So, Queenie, you see there will soon be an end of it all!"
The speaker was Miss Seyton. She stood looking down at her niece with
an odd quiver in lip and voice, even while her tone was not altogether a
sad one. Virginia sat in dismayed silence; she had been arranging a
bunch of autumn leaves and berries to brighten up the dark old
drawing-room, which bore many a trace of her presence in bits of
needlework and tokens of pleasant occupation, though the house was
duller and quieter than ever now that Mr Seyton's rapidly failing
health gave him the habits of an invalid, and that both the boys were
absent. Miss Seyton looked more faded than ever, but she was kind and
friendly with Virginia, even though she could not divest her voice of
its sarcastic tone as she continued,--
"You are a person of consequence, and you ought to understand the state
of the case."
"That Roland means to sell Elderthwaite?" said Virginia, slowly.
"Yes. We can't afford, Virginia, to make pretences to each other, and
we know that it will come before many months. Then what are we to do?"
However much it went against Virginia to discuss the results of her
father's death, she felt that there was some truth in her aunt's words,
that they ought to be prepared for so great a change; and she had also
learnt to practise great directness in dealing with Miss Seyton.
"I have sometimes supposed that you would live at the vicarage, Aunt
Julia," she said.
"Not if I have a penny to live on elsewhere," replied Miss Seyton.
"James and I were never friends, and I'll not see the place in the hands
of strangers. Besides, I've had a thirty years' imprisonment, and I'd
like my freedom. Look here--when I was a girl I was just like the
others; I loved pleasure as well as they did, and had it too. I was as
daring as ever a Seyton of them all. However, I meant to marry and live
in the south, and I was quite good enough, my dear, for the man I was
engaged to. Then he quarrelled with James, and that began the breach.
I didn't marry, as you may see, and when _my_ father died my portion
couldn't be paid off without a sale, and things were in such a mess I
had no power to claim it. So here I stayed, and, let me tell you, I've
stopped up a good many holes, and been quite as great a blessing to my
family as they deserved."
Virginia laughed in spite of herself, though her answer was grave.
"Yes, I know that, now."
"But _now_, d'ye see, Virginia, I'm tired of it. I'm only fifty, and
it'll go hard if I don't get some pickings out of the sale of the
estate. Do you know, we have some old cousins living in Bath, a Ruth
and Virginia of another generation? I'm inclined to think I should like
to go into society--to `come out,' in fact, in a smart cap, and to live
within reach of a circulating library and scandal. That's my view, and
that's what I mean to aim at when the time comes. What do you say?"
"I should like the boys to have a home somehow," said Virginia.
"Perhaps that would make some place into home for me."
"I don't wish to desert you," said Miss Seyton, "but candidly I think we
should be happier apart. We shouldn't amuse each other if we lived
together. But won't James want to keep you?"
"I don't know," said Virginia. "I am afraid it would not be a good plan
for the boys to go there for holidays--if this place is to be given up.
But oh, Aunt Julia, how _can_ we tell what will happen? I can't make
plans; I don't feel as if it mattered; and Roland seems to want to cast
us all off."
"Yes; he's a selfish fellow. But, my dear, just consider how much worse
it would be, if we had to _take him on_. Thank your stars that he means
to stay in India. And as for the place, with its paint and its fences
and its broken glass, let it go. We're better free of it. He is right,
there. The worst part of the story is poor old James who must stay."
"He can't forgive Roland."
"No--you see, Queenie, it's wits that tell.--James hasn't brains, and he
has never thought of cutting himself loose. He couldn't live away from
Elderthwaite, any more than he could live without his skin. But when he
hasn't the family dignity to keep him up, I'm afraid he'll go down."
"He is so wretched now about Cheriton Lester."
"Yes. He is the only Lester worth fretting for. As for that prig Jack,
I'd like to see him make a fool of himself. I'd like to see him `exceed
his allowance considerably.' There's a pretty way of putting it for
you!"
With which parting shot Miss Seyton went away, and Virginia sat
sorrowful and perplexed, and with something of the family bitterness in
her heart. Life was very hard to her. Her love for each one of her
relations was a triumph over difficulties, and the sweet spontaneous
passion that had promised to make her happy had been in its turn
triumphed over by the uncongeniality of her lover. The softness of
early youth and of her previous training had been replaced by something
of the strength that expects little and makes the best of a bad
business, but at a risk, the risk of the sense that evil is inevitable.
Virginia was always outwardly gentle; but she had been thrown back on
herself till she had gained a self-reliance that the Seyton blood in her
was ready to exaggerate into scorn. For even Ruth was slow in answering
her letters, and never wrote as in her girlish days.
As she sat musing a note was brought to her. It was from Mrs Lester,
containing Cheriton's imperative request that she would come and see
him. Would she come at once?
Virginia's cheeks flamed as if the missive had been from Alvar himself.
She got up and put the note in her pocket, dressed herself, and leaving
word with one of the servants that she meant to take a walk, set forth
without delay for Oakby, walking through the plantations, across the
fell, and through the fir-wood, as she had scarcely ever done alone
before. She remembered going as Alvar's betrothed to ask for Cheriton
during his first illness, and Alvar's absorption and indifference to her
presence. Now that would be natural enough. Still she could scarcely
think of Cheriton in her dread and wonder as to who might greet her, as
she rang at the bell, and asked for Mrs Lester, who came forward into
the hall to receive her.
"My dear," she said, "I do not know what Cherry wants with you; but we
can't refuse him. Will you come at once?"
Virginia was afraid to ask questions, she followed the old lady's slow
progress up the dusky staircase, and into Cheriton's room.
The daylight was now fast fading, but its last rays fell on Cheriton's
wide-opened eyes and flushed face.