Chapter Twenty Five.
Farewell.
“O near ones, dear ones! you in whose right hands
Our own rests calm, whose faithful hearts all day,
Wide open, wait till back from distant lands
Thought, the tired traveller, wends his homeward way.”
“Of course, since Miss Seyton insists, and you say you wish it, I come home for my marriage in October,” said Alvar.
“You don’t understand,” replied Cheriton vehemently, “and you are unfair to Virginia. She is as kind as she can be. Go and show her that you really care for her as she deserves, and it will all come right. If anything could make matters worse for me, it would be to think I had been the excuse for a break between you!”
Alvar was standing in the library window, leaning back against the shutter. He looked perfectly unmoved and impervious to argument, his mouth shut firm and his eyebrows a little contracted. Cheriton, on the other hand, half lying on the window-seat, was flushed and eager as if he had been pleading for himself, not for another.
“No,” said Alvar obstinately. “Miss Seyton has dismissed me. She tells me that I do not content her. Well, then, I will go.”
“Why make yourself wretched for a mere misunderstanding?”
“I? I shall not be wretched. I hope I can take my dismissal from a lady. She finds that I do not suit her, so I withdraw,” said Alvar in a tone of indescribable haughtiness.
“Perhaps she knows best,” said Cherry, “and is right in thinking you indifferent to her.”
“No—but I will be so soon,” said Alvar coolly.
“It is no good to say so,” said Cherry; then, starting up, he came and put his hand on Alvar’s arm. “Don’t do this thing,” he said imploringly, “you don’t know what it will cost you.”
The two faces clear against the sky were a contrast for a painter; Alvar’s with its rich dark colouring, and calm impassive look just a little sullen, and Cheriton’s delicate, sharpened outlines, the eyes all on fire and the colour varying with excitement.
Perhaps the two natures sympathised as little as the faces. Alvar’s look softened, however, as he put Cherry back on the cushions.
“Lie still,” he said; “why do you care so much? You will be as ill as you were yesterday. If I had known it, you should not have gone to Elderthwaite.”
“But,” said Cherry, more quietly, “I felt sure that there had been a misunderstanding. It was my fault. Of course I like best to have you with me; but I could not consent to any indefinite putting off of your marriage. My father would not agree to it either. And that is not quite the point. Show Virginia that she is your first thought, and everything can be put right.”
Alvar stood silent for a minute, then said suddenly and emphatically,—
“No. I have not the honour of pleasing her as I am. I can change for no one. Do not grieve, Cherito mio, I shall forget all when I show you Seville, and I will teach you to forget too. I take the best of my English home with me when I take my brother.”
He took Cheriton’s hands in his as he spoke, with a gesture, half playful, half tender. The response was cruelly disappointing. Cherry withdrew a little and said, in a tone of extreme coldness,—
“In that case Virginia is perfectly right. I quite understand her meaning. But it will be a great vexation to my father that your engagement should be broken for such a cause.”
“My father cannot complain. I have obeyed him,” said Alvar. “But I shall go and tell him that the proposals he so honourably made me will be unnecessary.” He went away as he spoke, and Jack, who had been listening silently, exclaimed,—
“By Jove! he doesn’t know what he’s in for now?”
“Oh,” cried Cherry, “it is intolerable! If they had married, she would never have found out his coolness! It is most unlucky.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I don’t know. Alvar worships you, and has ways that suit you, yet you can’t understand each other. Alvar is altogether different from us. He is outside our planetary system, and always will be. I’d like my wife to belong to the same species as myself.”
“But the occasion is so annoying,” said Cherry. “Why must they order me off in this way—or why couldn’t I have held my tongue about it? Oh, Alvar is the wise man after all.”
“You’ll get well,” said Jack gruffly.
“Well, I’ll try. But—” he paused; but the thought in his mind was that the home ties had regained their power now that he believed himself likely to leave them for ever.
“Cherry,” said Jack, turning his back, and hunting in a bookshelf, “I know all about it.”
“Do you, Jack?”
“Yes. You ought to go away; but do you mind going alone with Alvar? Let me come.”
“Well, Jack,” said Cheriton, after a pause, “if you know, I can tell you how it is. I’ve had a hard time, and I think I should like to be quiet. But it is right to give oneself a chance, and as for Alvar, I am not at all afraid of going alone with him. You know what a good nurse he is. If I want you, you will come to me.”
“Yes,” muttered Jack.
“But I don’t want father to guess at what the doctors call ‘mental anxiety,’ nor to talk hopelessly to him. You must comfort him. I’m afraid a great deal will be thrown on you, my boy.”
Jack did not answer; and Cheriton, divining his feelings, made an effort, and said cheerfully,—
“Of course, one is no judge oneself in such cases. I am quite willing to go now, and I shall look forward to seeing you at Christmas. You must write and give me your impressions of Oxford.”
“Oh yes,” said Jack, consoled; “and perhaps Alvar will pick up a Spanish lady, and then we should be all right again.” Cherry smiled and shook his head, feeling that he could not wish to dispose of Alvar in so unceremonious a fashion. He was angry with him now, and felt how wide a gulf lay between their points of view; yet he had grown to be very dependent on him, and was keenly conscious of all his unselfish devotion. He saw, too, that it would not do to talk freely even to Jack, since it frightened him and made him miserable, and resolved to keep all his confusing feelings to himself—feelings that seemed to tear him to pieces while he was utterly weary of them all.
He was afraid that he had been hard on Alvar, and still more afraid of how his father would take the revelation; but he had long to wait before the study door was flung open, and Alvar walked in, with his head up, and his face crimson. He was passing through without heeding his brothers, but Cherry’s call checked him, and he came up to the window.
“Mi querido, this will do you harm,” he said gently; “you excite yourself too much.”
“But tell me—”
“Yes, I will tell you. But we will go upstairs; you must rest.”
But as he spoke, his father came out of the study, and coming up to them, said, in a tone of strong indignation,—
“I wish to know, Cheriton, how long you have been aware of a state of feeling on your brother’s part which places me in a situation of which I am thoroughly ashamed; whether you were aware that, as appears from his own confession, my son has done Miss Seyton the disrespect of engaging himself to her as a matter of expediency, and not of affection.”
“Sir,” said Alvar firmly, “your displeasure is for me alone. I will not allow my brother to be questioned; he is not strong enough to bear it.”
“No, Alvar, it won’t hurt me. Father, I don’t think you understand. If they find that they cannot satisfy each other, it is better to part. Neither would act dishonourably by the other.”
“There is no use in talking,” said Alvar hotly. “At my father’s wish I gave myself to Miss Seyton as I am. Well, she rejects me; there is an end of it. I can change for no one. I am myself. Well, I do not please any of you, but I do not ask you to change yourselves, nor will I.” His words sounded like a mere defiance to his father, but as Cheriton heard them, he felt their force. Why should they all expect Alvar to conform to their standard instead of trying to understand his?
“Be that as it may,” said Mr Lester, “you have found an unworthy pretext. I am far from ungrateful for all your kindness to Cheriton, but it was fair on none of us to take the opportunity of his going abroad to put off your marriage. If you had had the manliness to say at once that your engagement was distasteful to you, we should have known how to act.”
“I will not stay—I will not hear myself so insulted!” cried Alvar, with a sudden fury of passion, that flared high above his father’s angry displeasure, startling both the brothers into an attempt to interfere.
“Father is mistaken,” cried Jack; while Cheriton began to say,—
“Come into the study, father; I think I can explain—” when his words were stopped by a violent fit of coughing. Agitated and over-fatigued as he was, he could not check it, and the alarm was more effectual than any explanations could have been in silencing the quarrel.
Alvar sprang to his side in a moment, and sent Jack for remedies; while Mr Lester forgot everything but the one great anxiety and distress. The doctors had given a strong enough warning against the possible consequences of such excitement to make them all feel self-reproachful at having caused it; and the next words exchanged between the disputants were an entreaty from Mr Lester to know if Alvar was alarmed, a gentle reassurance on Alvar’s part, and a request, at once complied with, that his father would move out of sight, lest Cherry should attempt to renew the discussion.
It never was renewed. When Cherry recovered, he was too much exhausted to try to speak, or to think of Alvar in any light but of the one who knew best what was comfortable to him, and once more everything seemed indifferent to Mr Lester beside the approaching parting. But though a quarrel was averted, there was much discomfort. Mrs Lester took her son’s view decidedly, and treated Alvar like a culprit, the only voice raised in his favour being Bob’s, who observed unexpectedly “that he thought Alvar was quite right to do as he chose.” Mr Lester had an interview with Mr Seyton, and probably made more than the amende expected from him, for the next day he received a note from Virginia:—
“Dear Mr Lester,—As I find from my father that you do not entirely understand the circumstances which have led to the breach of my engagement, I think it is due to your son to tell you that it was entirely my own doing, and that I have no cause of complaint against him. We parted, because I believe we are unsuited to each other, not because he in any way displeased me; certainly not because he very rightly wished to go abroad with Cheriton. I hope you will forgive me for saying this, and believe me,—
“Yours very sincerely,—
“Virginia Seyton.”
Well meant as poor Virginia’s letter was, it may be doubted whether it much enlightened Mr Lester as to the point in question; but he showed it to Alvar, who read it with a deep blush, and said,—
“She is, as ever, generous—but—I am a stranger to her still.”
Meanwhile, all the arrangements for the journey were being made. Cheriton received a warm invitation from Seville, and it was agreed, at his earnest request, that his father should remain behind at Oakby, but that Jack should go with him to Southampton, whence they were to go to Gibraltar by P and O steamer, the easiest way, it was thought, of making the journey. In London, Cheriton was to see a celebrated physician.
He went bravely and considerately through all the trying leave-takings and arrangements, taxing his strength to the uttermost, in the desire to leave nothing undone for any one. He put aside with a strong hand, that inner self which yet he could not conquer, with its passionate yearning, its bitter disappointment, its abiding sense of wrong; but it was there still, and gave at times the strangest sense of unreality, even to the pain of the partings, which was true pain nevertheless though he seemed to feel it through the others, rather than through himself. Perhaps the vehement Lester temperament was not a very sanguine one, for though they were told to be hopeful, they were all full of fear, and Cheriton himself hardly looked forward to a return, or, indeed, to anything but possible rest from the strain of making the best of himself, for he suffered very much, while all the vivid and appropriate sensations with which he had once looked out on life and death had died away.
He could hardly have borne it all but for Alvar’s constant care and watchfulness, and for the ease given by his apparent absence of feeling, and for the soothing of his tender gentle ways, and yet though he clung to him with ever-increasing gratitude and affection, there was a curious sense of being apart from him.
Alvar, though he had too much tact to fret Cherry by opposition, had no sympathy with the innumerable interests, for each one of which he wished to provide, and thought his parting interviews with the young Flemings and with many another waste of strength and spirits. Cherry had also to go through a trying conversation with old Parson Seyton, who, between anger on Virginia’s account and grief on Cheriton’s, was difficult to deal with, entirely refusing to see Alvar, and more than disposed to quarrel with Cherry for going abroad with him. Even Mr Ellesmere regarded Alvar’s conduct with considerable disapproval, though he would not mar his relations with Cherry by a word.
Alvar said nothing and made no explanations, but he was exceedingly impatient of the strain on Cherry’s fortitude and cheerfulness, not seeing what the memory of this sad time might one day be to them all, and least of all appreciating the value of that last Sunday’s church-going and Communion, which, much as it tried both their feelings and their shy reserve, not one of the others, even Bob, would for worlds have omitted. Yet, when many an old servant and neighbour made a point that day of following the example of the squire and his children, Mr Ellesmere thought the scene no small testimony to the value of the lives, which, however faulty and imperfect, had been led, though at different levels, with a constant sense of responsibility towards man and of looking upwards to God. Yes, and as something to give thanks for, even while his heart swelled at the thought that the best-loved of those tall fair-faced youths might never kneel in Oakby Church again.
That same Sunday evening, Mr Lester was sitting alone in the library in the dusk, sad enough at heart, when Cherry came slowly in behind him, and leaned over the back of his chair.
“Father,” he said, “I’ve been thinking, and I want to tell you something before I go.”
“What is it, my boy?—don’t stand—here, sit here.”
He pulled another chair towards his own as he spoke, and Cherry sat down, and said,—
“Father, I think I had rather you knew as much as I ought to tell you; I don’t want to have any secret between us.”
“Well, my boy?”
“And, besides, I heard you say that, if you could have found any reason for my being worse, you would be less anxious about me. Well, it is not a reason exactly, but I suppose it made me careless. I—I’ve had a great trouble lately—a—a disappointment. It’s over now—but it cost me a good deal at the time. I can’t tell you any more about it; but I thought—after all—I had rather you knew—now!”
Mr Lester did not ask a single question.
“I never guessed this,” he said, in a tone of surprise; then, after a pause, “Well, my dear boy, it’s a great relief to my mind.”
Cherry nearly laughed, though his heart was full enough.
“You need never imagine that it will turn up again,” he said, decidedly.
“Ah, well, Cherry, we’ve all had disappointments,” said Mr Lester, more cheerfully than he had spoken for some time; “and I’m glad there’s something to account for your looks lately. You weren’t strong enough for vexations. You’ll shake them off with the change of scene. But, my lad, don’t go and make a fool of yourself in the reaction.”
Cherry was sufficiently acquainted with his father’s history to guess at the drift of this warning; but he only shook his head and smiled, and then there was a long silence. Cherry leaned against the arm of his father’s chair, and, after a long-forgotten childish fashion, began to finger the seals on his watch-chain.
“These are the first things I remember,” he said.
Mr Lester passed his arm round him, as when he had been a slim boy, standing by his side; and though no other word was spoken, and in the darkness there were tears on both their faces, Cherry felt that after such a drawing together, this worst of all the partings was easier to bear.
Seville.
“Wo die Citronen blühn.”