“Had you all this in your mind when you settled to buy Uplands?” said Jack suddenly. “Yes—in part I had.”
“But, you are not thinking of living there! What are you driving at, Cherry, I can’t understand you?”
“Well, Jack,” said Cherry, slowly and with rising colour, “I will tell you, but I wanted to show you the process. And you must remember that it is only an idea known to no one, and very probably may prove impossible, perhaps undesirable.”
“Tell me,” said Jack, more gently. Any scheme for the future was a relief from listening to the laying aside of hopes which he knew had been so much a part of Cheriton’s being.
“Well,” said Cherry again, “I’m afraid my motives are rather poor ones. You see, after Oakby there’s no place for me like Elderthwaite. I want the feeling, as I say, of a place and neighbours of my own. I suppose I am used to playing first fiddle, and to looking after other people’s concerns. Granny always said I was a gossip. Then I’m narrow-minded, perhaps I have had too much taken out of me to think of starting fresh. And you know the old parson will always put up with me, and so will Elderthwaite people. And I want an object in life—if you knew how dreary it is to be without one! If they had a strange curate he would set them all by the ears, and the parson would make a fool of himself! So if Mr Ellesmere thinks the bishop would consent, and approves, and if I am fit for anything, I thought that I would try.”
Jack was silent for some moments. He understood Cheriton well enough to “follow the process,” but it affected him strongly, and at last he said, gravely,—
“I am afraid all the vexation here has put this into your head.”
“Partly,” said Cherry, simply, “this actual thing. I can’t say anything of other motives of course, Jack. I know that it looks like, that in fact it is turning to this—which ought to be the offering of all one’s best—when other careers have failed me. And I know that those who sympathise the least will be the most inclined to say so. But it is not quite so. I have always wished to be of use, of service, here especially. I thought I saw how. I have the same wish still, and this seems to offer me a way. It is but a gathering up of the fragments, but I trust He will accept.”
Jack’s view rather was that the plan was not good enough for his brother, than that his brother was not good enough for it.
“You were always good enough for anything, if that is what you mean,” he said. “But I do understand, Cherry, about wanting an object; only—only it’s such an odd one.”