Chapter Forty.
A New Suggestion.
“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.