Chapter Twenty Two.
Struggling.
“And my faith is torn to a thousand scraps,
And my heart feels ice while my words breathe flame.”
It was a wild, wet morning, some days after the Oakby dinner-party. Summer weather was apt in those regions to be invaded in August by something very like autumn; bits of brown and yellow appeared here and there among the green, and fires became essential. To-day the mist was driving past the windows of the boys’ sitting-room, blotting out the view, till the wind rent it apart and showed dim sweeps of distant moor.
Bob Lester was sitting at the table, with his eyes fixed, not on the exceedingly inky copy of Virgil before him, but on the window, as he remarked dolefully,—
“Birds are wild enough already, without all this wind to make them worse.”
Jack was writing at the other end of the table; Nettie, with an old waterproof cloak on, was kneeling on the window-seat, watching the weather, with Buffer, apparently similarly occupied, by her side; and Cheriton, with considerable sharpness of manner, was endeavouring to drive the Latin lesson into Bob’s head.
For Bob was under discipline. Such a bad report of him had come from school as to idleness, troublesomeness, and general misbehaviour, that his father, after a private interview, the nature of which Bob did not disclose, had ordered a certain amount of work to be done every day, to be taken back to school, and had forbidden a gun or a fishing-rod to be touched till this was accomplished. Cherry in the early days of his convalescence, had received Bob’s growls on the subject, and had offered to help him, as Jack’s efforts as a tutor were not found to answer, and had actually coaxed a certain amount of information into him. Lately, however, the lessons had not gone off so well. Cheriton had made a great point of them, and held Bob as if in a vice by the force of his will; but he was sarcastic instead of playful, and contemptuous instead of encouraging, and now lost patience, laying down his book and speaking in a cutting, incisive tone that made Bob start—and stare.
“We have all got aims in life, I suppose; I wish we were all as likely to succeed in them as you are, Bob.”
“I haven’t got an aim in life,” said Bob, turning round as if affronted.
“No? I thought your aim was to be the greatest dunce in the county. It’s well to know one’s own line, and do a thing well while one’s about it. A low aim’s a mistake in all things.”
Jack laid down his pen, and stared hard at Cheriton. Bob waited unconscious, expecting the smile and twinkle that took the sting out of all Cherry’s mischief, but none came.
“Come now, you needn’t be down on a fellow in that way,” he said, angrily. “My line mayn’t be yours, but I’ll—I’ll stick to it one day.”
“I just observed that you were sticking to it now, heart and soul. Let all your wits lie fallow; with the skill and energy you are showing at present, you may get to the level of a ploughboy in time.”
“I say, Cherry,” said Jack, “that’s a little strong.”
Bob shut the book with a bang and stood up.
“I’m not going to stand that,” he said; and Cheriton recollected himself and coloured. “I beg your pardon, Bob,” he said. “It was too bad. I—I was only joking. Will you go on now?”
“No,” said Bob. “I won’t be made game of.”
“You tire Cherry to death,” said Jack. “No wonder he loses patience.”
“I didn’t ask him to do it,” said Bob. “Nettie, where are you going?”
“Out,” said Nettie, briefly.
“Then I’m going too,” said Bob, following her; while Cheriton wearily threw himself down on the cushions in the window-seat and in his turn stared out at the mist. Jack sat and watched him. He had never uttered a word even to Alvar, but he was full of anxiety. What was the matter with Cherry?
He was lively enough at meal-times and with his father and grandmother; he had resumed all his usual habits, except that the bad weather had prevented him from going out shooting. He had laughed at Alvar for being over-anxious about him, and had taken a great deal of unnecessary trouble about sundry village matters and affairs at home. He had talked what Alvar called “philosophy” to Jack with unusual seriousness; and yet Jack, with whom perhaps he was least on his guard, missed something. And then Mrs Ellesmere had remarked that she did not like to see Cheriton with such a pink colour and such black circles round his eyes, and had warned her husband not to let him fatigue himself on some walk they were taking. Surely Cherry coughed oftener, and was more easily tired, than he had been ten days ago.
Jack could bear it no longer, and began, severely—
“Cherry, you shouldn’t worry yourself with Bob. It’s too much for you.”
“Not generally,” said Cheriton. “I’m tired to-day.”
“What’s the matter with you, Cherry?” said Jack, coming nearer.
“The matter?” said Cherry, sitting up, and laughing more in his usual way. “What should be the matter? Are you taking a leaf out of Alvar’s book? Of course, one isn’t very strong after such an illness, and I don’t sleep always. I shall go away, I think, soon, and then I shall be right enough.”
“Where will you go to? Let me go with you. Or must it be Alvar?”
“Oh, I shall be best alone. Don’t worry, Jack. I’m no worse, really.”
Poor Cheriton! His efforts at concealment, made half in pride, and half in consideration, were not very successful.
As he lay awake through the long nights, Ruth’s woeful look and appealing eyes haunted him, and as he remembered their parting, his own bitter scorn came back on him with a pang, partly, no doubt, because she was still irresistible to him, but partly, also, because he knew that he had felt the temptation under which she had fallen. She had treated him shamefully; and she declared that her excuse was, if excuse it could be called, that she had been driven so frantic by her misjudgment of Rupert, that anything seemed legitimate that would give him pain. She had transgressed every code of womanly honour, and had cost Cheriton pain beyond expression by obeying a sudden impulse of mortified passion. Any sort of revenge on her by Cheriton was at least as incompatible with any standard of social obligation, no extra high principle was needed to condemn it; to take such a blow and be silent over it seemed a mere matter of course. Cheriton was very high-principled, he had conquered in his time strong temptations; moreover, he was more than commonly loving and tender, and yet he felt that there had been more than one moment when he might have committed this utter baseness. He forgot for a moment that he had conquered, that strength, however unconscious, had come to him from his former struggles, and had held him back; he felt that if this were possible to him, he was safe from nothing. He shuddered as he thought of his interview with Rupert, and his first prayer since the blow turned into a thanksgiving.
But any thought of his own conduct was soon swept away by the rush of regret and pain. She had failed him, however unworthy he might be to judge her; and as he remembered the many sweet and enchanting moments that had led up to his final disappointment, he could not but feel that she had deliberately deceived him. And yet—and yet—as he recalled her face at the dinner-table, he knew that he would have come back to her at a word; he felt as if life was worth nothing without her, as if father and brothers, home, interests, and ambitions had all lost their charm. Cheriton retained enough command over himself to resolve to make head against this state of mingled regret and bitterness; he could not yet bring himself to accept it with any sort of submission; his feelings of gratitude and joy at his returning strength seemed almost as if they had been sent in mockery to make disappointment more cruel. But this thought brought its own remedy. His life had been given back to him, not surely only that he might endure this fierce trial—something would come out of the furnace. And when he remembered what his well-being was to his father, the resolution of self-conquest was made in something else than pride. “God help me. I’ll learn my lesson!” he thought; and he dimly felt that that lesson meant more than putting a bold face on things, or even than a surface recovery of spirits, of the probability of which last he was of course then no judge. It meant whether this bitter trial was to leave him more or less of a man than it found him—more of a Christian if he would not be less of a man.
It must not be supposed that Cheriton at this time attained with any permanence to such convictions—he worked his way to them at intervals; but, after all, most of his sleepless hours were spent in a hopeless involuntary recall of his past happiness. Ruth haunted him as if she had been a spirit, and of course the over-fatigue produced by the effort to force his mind into its usual channels affected his health, and made him still less able to fight against his troubles.
He was very reluctant to confess himself beaten, and began to talk to Jack with would-be eagerness about going to London and beginning his reading for the bar. His name had been entered at the Temple, most of his “dinners” were eaten, and he had never intended his time of waiting for a brief to be an idle one. Presently his father called him, and he started up and went downstairs, while Jack went back to his writing with divided attention, and dim suspicions of the truth gaining ground.
Meanwhile Cheriton found himself called to a conference in the study.
All the arrangements for Alvar’s marriage had been deferred through Cheriton’s illness, and Mr Lester felt it somewhat strange that he should be the first person who saw the need of recommencing them. He told Alvar that he wished to speak to him, and made a sort of apology to him for Cheriton’s presence by saying that he wished him to hear the money arrangements which he thought fit to make.
“I am sure, Alvar,” said Mr Lester, formally, “you have shown great unselfishness in putting your own affairs so completely on one side during your brother’s illness; but now there is no longer any reason for deferring the consideration of your marriage, and I should be glad to know what plans you may have formed for the future.”
“It is your wish, sir, that I should be married—soon?” said Alvar, coolly and deferentially.
“Why—October was mentioned from the first, wasn’t it?” said Mr Lester, with a sort of taken-aback manner that made Cheriton smile.
“Yes,” said Alvar. “If that is your desire, and Mr Seyton approves, I should wish it.”
“Why—why—haven’t you settled it all with Virginia?”
“I did not think one should trouble a lady with those matters, nor did I wish to marry while my brother might need me.”
“That was very good of you; but I hope by that time to be in London,” said Cherry, decidedly, and with a look, conveying caution.
Alvar was silent for a moment, and then said, with what Cheriton called his princely air,—
“I shall then marry in October, and I will take my wife to visit my friends and my—other country.”
“Why, yes; that would be very proper, no doubt; and I think you once told me that you wished to take a house in London.”
“That would be good luck for me,” said Cherry, by way of encouragement.
“Yes,” said Alvar, “I wish it to be so.”
Mr Lester then entered into an explanation of the means which he was prepared to place at Alvar’s disposal, talked of house rent and of Virginia’s fortune, and said a few words on the amount of his own means, and what he meant to do for the younger ones. Nettie was provided for by her mother’s fortune, a smaller proportion of which would be inherited by the sons also at their father’s death. “But,” as Mr Lester concluded, “of course they all know that in the main they must look to their own exertions.”
“Of course,” said Cheriton.
Alvar looked very much surprised.
“The boys,” he said, “yes; but I thought, my father, you would wish that Cheriton should be rich.”
“Alvar,” said Mr Lester, rising and speaking with real dignity, “you misunderstand me. In such matters I can make no distinctions between my sons. Cheriton and his brothers stand exactly on the same footing. As for you, you will have to represent the old name, and keep the old place on its proper level. I shall not stint you of the means of doing so with ease and dignity.”
Alvar cast down his eyes, and a curious look as of a sort of oppression passed over his face.
“That will be an obligation to me,” he said, gravely. “You are most—honourable to me, my father.”
“Not at all,” said Mr Lester. “I should not think of acting otherwise. Well—now you had better be off to Elderthwaite and settle all your affairs.”
Alvar left the room, and Mr Lester burst out,—
“I declare, there’s something about that fellow that makes me feel as if I were a schoolboy!” Then, a little ashamed of the admission, he went on, “I like to see more ardour in a lad when his marriage is in question. Why, Rupert lived at Elderthwaite, while he was here!”
“We must make allowance for the difference of manners,” said Cherry. “Alvar is very good to me. But, father, I don’t think I shall be strong enough to shoot this month; it would be foolish to catch another cold; so I thought I should like a little trip somewhere soon—just a change before I settle down to work again.”
“Why, yes,” said Mr Lester; “of course, if you wish, though we haven’t had much good of you since you came home, my boy. Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know—to Paris, perhaps,” said Cherry, on the spur of the moment. “Huntingford and Donaldson both asked me to join them this summer; so I shouldn’t interfere with Alvar. Then, afterwards I can make all my arrangements for London.”
“Well, yes,” said Mr Lester, reluctantly; “if you can’t shoot, there’s no use, of course, in your going to Milford or Ashrigg.”
“Jack can go; it’s time he went about a little, and he will be a better shot than I am soon. And when I come back, I’ll be ready for anything.”
Cherry’s energy was quite natural enough to deceive his father, especially as he kept out of sight during this interview; but when he went away from the study, his heart suddenly failed him, and he felt as if he never should have the courage to set about carrying out the plans on which he had just been insisting.