Chapter Thirty.
Nettie at Bay.
“A child, and vain.”
After the departure of the travellers, a period of exceeding flatness and dulness settled down on Oakby and its neighbourhood. The weather was dismal, one or two other neighbouring families were away, and no one thought it worth while to do anything. Jack had refused a congenial invitation, and conscientiously stayed at home “to make it cheerful,” until he went up to Oxford; but, though he was too well conducted and successful not to be a satisfactory son, he and his father were not congenial, and never could think of anything to say to each other. He had outgrown companionship with Bob, and did not now get on very well with him; while Nettie was never sociable with any one but her twin. Mrs Lester, though very attentive to her son’s dinners and other comforts, did not trouble herself much about the boys, and moreover did not possess the comfortable characteristic common to most elderly ladies—of being often to be found in one place. As Jack expressed it to himself, “no one was ever anywhere;” and prone as he was to look on the dark side of things, the thought that this was what home would be without Cherry, was perpetually before his mind. He did not like to go to Elderthwaite, and saw nothing of its inhabitants till one misty day early in October, as he was walking through the lanes with Rolla and Buffer at his heels, he came suddenly upon Virginia, leaning over a stile, and looking, not at the view, for there was none, but at the mist and the distant rain. Her figure, in its long waterproof cloak, under an arch of brown and yellow hazel boughs, had an indescribably forlorn aspect; but Jack, awkward fellow, was conscious of nothing but a sense of embarrassment and doubt what to say. She started and coloured up, but with greater self-possession spoke to him, and held out her hand.
“How d’ye do?” said Jack. “Down, Buffer, you’re all over mud.”
“Oh, never mind, I don’t care, dear little fellow!” exclaimed Virginia, who would have hugged Buffer, mud and all, but for very shame. “I did not know you were at home, Jack.”
“Yes, but I’m going to Oxford next week.”
“And—and you have good accounts of Cherry?”
“Yes, pretty good, better than at first. He says that he looks better, and does not cough so much, and he likes it,—so he says, at least,” replied Jack, who, conceiving that propriety precluded the mention of Alvar’s name, found his personal pronouns puzzling.
“I am very glad,” said Virginia softly.
“Yes, I suppose they are at Seville by this time; they stayed at San José till Cherry was stronger. Al—he—they thought it best.”
“Your eldest brother would be very careful of him, I am sure,” said Virginia, with a gentle dignity that reassured Jack, though she blushed deeply.
“Yes,” he said more freely, “and they have made some friends; Mr Stanforth, the artist, you know, and his daughter; they’re very nice people, and they have been learning Spanish together. He writes in very good spirits,” concluded Jack viciously, and referring to Cherry, though poor Virginia’s imagination supplied another antecedent.
“I am glad to hear it,” she said. “I met that Miss Stanforth once. She was a pretty, dark-eyed child then. Good-bye, Jack, I am going soon to stay with my cousin Ruth.”
“Good-bye,” said Jack, with a scowl which she could not account for. “I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.”
“Good-bye; good-bye, Buffer.”
Jack took his way home through the wet shrubberies. He felt sorry for Virginia, whom he regarded as injured by Alvar, but he thought that she ought to be angry with Ruth, never supposing that the latter’s delinquencies were unknown to her.
As he walked on he passed by a cart shed belonging to a small farm of his father’s above which was a hay loft, reached by a step ladder, to the foot of which Buffer and Rolla both rushed, barking rapturously, and trying to get up the ladder.
“Hullo! what’s up?—rats, I suppose,” thought Jack; and mounting two or three steps of the very rickety ladder, he looked into the loft, his chin on a level with the floor. Suddenly a blinding heap of hay was flung over his head; there was a scuffle and a rush, and Jack freed himself from the hay to find his head in Nettie’s very vigorous embrace; and to see Dick Seyton swing himself down from the window of the loft and run away.
“Stop, I say. Nettie, let go, what are you doing here? Dick, stop, I say,” cried Jack, scrambling up the ladder and rushing to the window; but Dick had vanished.
“Don’t stamp, Jack, you’ll come through; you should have run after him,” said Nettie saucily.
Jack turned, but caught his foot in a hole and fell headlong into the hay, while Nettie sat and laughed at him, and the dogs howled at the foot of the ladder.
Jack picked himself up cautiously, and sitting down on the hay, for there was hardly room for him to stand upright, said severely,—
“Now, Nettie, what is the meaning of this?”
“The meaning of what?”
“Of your being here with Dick. I told you in the summer that I didn’t approve of your being so friendly with him, and now I insist on knowing at once what you were doing with him.”
“Well, then, I shan’t tell you,” said Nettie coolly.
“I say you shall. I couldn’t have believed that my sister would be so unladylike. Just tell me how often you have met him, and what you were doing here?”
“It’s no business of yours,” said Nettie, making a sudden rush at the ladder; but Jack caught her, and a struggle ensued, in which of course he had the upper hand, though she was strong enough to make a considerable resistance; and he felt the absurdity of fighting with her as if she were a naughty child, when her offence was of such a nature.
“Now, Nettie,” he said, in a tone that she could not resist. “Stop this nonsense. I mean to have an answer. What has induced you to meet Dick Seyton in secret, and how often have you done so? You can’t deny that you have.”
“No,” said Nettie, “I have, often, and I shall ever so many times more.”
“I couldn’t have believed it of you, Nettie,” said Jack, so seriously and so mildly that Nettie looked quite frightened, and then exclaimed,—
“Jack, if you dare to venture to think that I meet Dick that we may make love to each other, or any nonsense of that kind, I’ll—I’ll kill you—I’ll never speak to you again, never!”
“Why—why what else can I think?” said Jack, blushing, and by far the more shamefaced of the two.
“Well, then, it’s abominable and shameful of you. Do you think I would be so horrid? As if I ever meant to marry any one. I shall live with Bob.”
“Don’t be so violent, Nettie. You have acted very deceitfully.”
“Deceitfully! Do you think I’d tell you a story?”
As Nettie had never been known to “tell a story” in her life, Jack could not say that he thought she would; but he replied,—
“You have acted deceitfully. You have run after Dick when we all thought you were somewhere else, and—there’s no use in being in a passion—but what do you suppose any one would think of a girl who behaved in such a manner?”
Nettie blushed, but answered,—
“I can’t help what any one thinks, Jack. I know I’m right, and I must go on doing it.”
“Indeed you won’t,” said Jack angrily; “for unless you promise never to meet him any more, I shall tell father at once that I found you here. What do you think Cherry would say to you?”
“Cherry would say I was perfectly right, and would do exactly the same thing himself,” said Nettie, triumphantly. “I am not doing any harm; and I must go on. I can’t tell you why I am doing it, because I promised not, and I’ll do it nearer home if you like it better. Bob and I quarrelled about it many a time, he knows.”
“Oh, he knows, does he? What a fool he must have been to let you do it.”
“He won’t tell of me,” said Nettie, “and he never did let me when he was at home. But I am not a silly, horrid girl, Jack, whatever you think; and I’m not flirting with Dick, nor—nor—engaged to him; and when—when—it’s right, I don’t mind people thinking so!”
But this speech ended in a flood of tears, as poor Nettie’s latent maidenliness began to assert itself.
“And pray,” said Jack, “does Dick come after you because it’s right?”
“No—no,” sobbed Nettie; “because I make him.”
“And how can you make him, I should like to know?”
Nettie made no answer but renewed tears. At last she sobbed out, “Oh, Jack, Jack, I wish you were Cherry!”
“I wish I were with all my heart,” said Jack. “Would you tell me if I were Cherry?”
“No; but I know he would be kind, and not think me horrid.”
“Well, Nettie, I’ll try to be kind; but you frighten me by all this. Now just listen. I believe I ought to tell father directly.”
“Oh, Jack! dear Jack! Don’t, don’t—it would be dreadful! Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes,” said Jack, “I believe you; but how do I know about a young scamp like Dick? You tell me the whole truth, and then I can judge, or I shall tell my father this moment. You’re my sister, and I shall take care of you. You’ve done a thing that may be told against you all your life, and nothing can make it right, say what you will.”
“But I can’t tell you, Jack; I’ve promised.”
“Well, then, I shall have it out first with Dick.”
“Oh, Jack, everything will be undone then!”
“And pray, if you don’t care about him, why does it matter to you so much about him?”
“Indeed—indeed, Jack, I’m not in love with him in the least. I never was with anybody, and I never mean to be,” said Nettie, fixing her great blue eyes full on Jack, and speaking with convincing eagerness.
“And how about him?” said Jack crossly.
“No, it’s nothing to do with it,” said Nettie; but the tone of her voice altered a little, and Jack had a sort of feeling that there was more in the matter than she herself knew, for he never thought of disbelieving her.
“Will you tell, and will you promise?” he said.
“No, I won’t,” said Nettie.
“Then you are a very naughty, disobedient girl, and you shall come home with me this minute.”
“I hate you, Jack. I’ll never forgive you,” said Nettie passionately, as she followed him; and all the way home she sobbed and pouted, with an intolerable sense of shame, while Jack, utterly puzzled, walked by her side, a desire to horsewhip Dick Seyton contending in his mind with a dread of making a row.
They came in by the back-door, and Nettie rushed upstairs at once; while Jack, virtuous and resolute, went into the study.
Resolute as the girl was, she listened trembling, till her father’s loud call of “Nettie, Nettie, come here this moment!” brought her down to the study, where were her father, her grandmother, and Jack.
“Eh, what’s all this, Nettie?” said Mr Lester. “I can’t have you running about the country with young Seyton. What’s the meaning of it?”
“Papa,” said Nettie, “I haven’t run about the country. Dick and I have got a secret; it’s a very good secret.”
“Well, what is it, then?” said her father.
“I don’t mean to tell. I never tell secrets,” said Nettie, with determination. “We have had it a long time.”
“My dear,” said Mr Lester, much more mildly than he would have spoken to any of his boys, “I must put an end to it. You have been running wild with your brothers till you forget how big a girl you are getting. Never go out with Dick again by yourself—do you hear?”
Nettie made no answer, and her father continued, more sternly,—
“I am sorry, Nettie, that you did not know better how to behave. Never let me hear of such a thing again.”
Still silence; and Jack said,—
“She won’t promise. I shall see what Dick says about it.”
“Then you’ll just do nothing of the sort, Jack,” said his grandmother, “making mountains out of mole-hills. Nettie is going to London to stay with her aunt Cheriton, and have some music and French lessons with Dolly and Kate. I’d settled it all this morning. She doesn’t attend enough to her studies here. You’ll take her up when you go to Oxford, and there’ll be an end of the matter.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr Lester. “Grandmamma and I were talking it over just now.”
“Not that it is on account of your remarks, Jack,” said Mrs Lester. “That would be making far too much of her foolish behaviour; but in London she’ll learn better.”
“To be sure,” said Mr Lester, who had been stopped on his way out riding by Jack’s appeal, and was now glad to escape from an unpleasant discussion. “Nettie will come back at Christmas, and we shall hear no more of such childish tricks.”
Nettie looked like a statue, and never spoke a word; but there was a look of fright through all her sullenness. Jack was not accustomed to think much of her appearance, but he knew as a matter of fact that she was handsome, and it struck him forcibly that she looked “grown-up.”
“You’ve done more harm than you know,” she said; “but I will not tell, and I will not promise.” And with a sort of dignity in her air, she walked out of the room.
“What does she mean?” said Jack.
“Never you mind,” said his grandmother, “and don’t you raise the countryside on her by saying a word to Dick or any one. Hold your tongue, and be thankful. The Seytons are the plague of the place, and we’ll ask them all to dinner before Nettie goes, Dick included.”
“Ask them to dinner?” said Jack.
“Yes; we’ll have no talk of a quarrel. And besides, your father finds that people are apt to think that it was Virginia’s fault that your half-brother left her in the lurch; and that’s not so, though she is a Seyton.”
“No, indeed!”
“So my son means to have a dinner-party, and to show that we are all good friends, and pay them proper attention. A bad lot they are; there’s not one of them to be trusted.”
“But, Granny,” said Jack anxiously, “what do you think about Nettie? What secret can she have?”
“Eh, I can’t tell. He may be getting her a puppy or a creature of some kind; but Nettie’s secret may be one and Dick’s another. I always blamed Cherry for encouraging the Seytons about the place.”
“Poor Cherry!” muttered Jack to himself, with a great longing to throw the burden of his difficulty on to Cherry’s shoulders.
Nettie remained sullen and impenetrable. She treated Jack with an intense resentment that vexed him more than he could have supposed. Neither her father nor her grandmother asked her any questions; but she was watched, though not palpably in disgrace, and she suffered from an agony of shame and of self-reproach which contended strangely with the motive that in her view justified the stolen meetings. Whether her womanly instincts, roughly awakened, justified the warnings given her, or whether, she merely resented the unjust suspicion, she herself scarcely knew, and not for worlds would she have explained her feelings. The dread of giving an advantage, the intense sulky self-respect that leads to an exaggeration of reserve and false shame, was in her nature as in that of all the Lesters, and if Cheriton had been present she could not probably have uttered a word to him. Being absent, she could venture to soften at the thought of him, and cried for him many a time in secret.