“I tell you,” said Cherry, brightly, for the disclosure was a great relief to him, “that that’s the very point. I don’t think I get on amiss with any one, even with the Sevillanos, but down at the bottom of my heart, Jack, I’m not far removed—we none of us are—from ‘There’s a stranger, ’eave ’alf a brick at him,’ and when I think of any direct dealing with people, anything like clerical work, why, except to my own kith and kin, I should have nothing to say. The self-denial of missionaries seems to me incredible. I could not do as Bob means to do, I think, if health and strength were to be the reward of it. It’s a very unworthy weakness, I know, but I can’t help it.”
“You would get on very well anywhere,” said Jack; “that is all nonsense. I don’t believe Elderthwaite would agree with you, and you could overwork yourself just as well there as anywhere else.”
“Well, as to the place agreeing with me, that remains to be proved. It’s a very small church, and a small place; and I hope I might be able to do the little they are fit for—at present. But I know it may prove to be out of the question.”
Jack was silent. He could not bear to vex Cherry by opposing a scheme which seemed to offer him some pleasure in the midst of his annoyances, and if his brother had proposed to take orders with more ordinary expectations, it would have been quite in accordance with the Oakby code of what was fitting. But there was something in the consecration of what Cheriton evidently viewed as a probably short life and failing powers to an object so unselfish, and yet, as it seemed to Jack, so commonplace, it was so like Cherry, and yet showed such a conquest of himself—there was such humility in the acknowledgment that he was only just fit for the sort of imperfect work that offered itself, and yet such a complete sense that no one else could manage that particular bit of work so well—it was, as Jack said, “so odd,” that it thrilled him through and through, and he was glad that Alvar’s entrance saved him from a reply.
Chapter Forty Three.
Revenge.
”‘Now, look you,’ said my brother, ‘you may talk,
Till, weary with the talk, I answer nay.’”
Alvar, having avoided his brothers after dinner, came back into the hall, and, sitting down by the fire, lighted a cigarette. As he sat there in the great chair by himself, the flames flickering on the oak panels, and the subdued light of the lamp failing to penetrate the dark corners of the old hall, his face took an expression of melancholy, and there was an air of loneliness about his solitary figure—a loneliness which was not merely external. He was perplexed and unhappy, and the fact that his unhappiness had roused in his breast pride and jealousy and anger, did not make it less real. He had not come to the point of owning himself in the wrong, and yet he felt puzzled. He could not see how he had offended. It was a critical moment. Gentle and affectionate as Cheriton was, and happy as the relations had hitherto been between them, Alvar felt himself judged and condemned by his brother’s higher standard, now that he had at last become aware of its existence. He had never been distressed by Virginia’s way of looking at things, she was a woman, and her view’s could not affect his; and for a long time, as has been said, he had regarded Cheriton’s ideas of duty as as much an idiosyncrasy as his fair complexion, or his affection for Rolla and Buffer. Now he perceived that Cheriton himself did not so regard them, but with whatever excuses and limitations, expected them to be binding on Alvar himself; and Alvar’s whole nature kicked against the criticism. Cheriton had been clear-sighted enough to perceive this, and so judged it better to draw back; but Alvar, through clouds and darkness, had seen a glimpse of the light. He knew that Cheriton was right, and the knowledge irritated him. In a fitful, dark sort of way he tried to assert his independence and yet justify himself to Cheriton. It was doubtful whether he would gradually follow the light thus held out to him, or decidedly turn away from it, and just now his wounded pride prompted him to the latter course. He would go his own way; and when he had settled his affairs to his mind, his brothers should own that he was right. And yet—did he not owe a debt, never to be forgotten, to the kind hand that had welcomed him, the bright face that had smiled on him, long ago, on that dreary Christmas Eve? Alvar did not say to himself, as he perhaps might have done with truth, that he had repaid Cheriton’s early kindness to him tenfold; but he thought of the joyous, active youth, whose animal spirits, constant activity, and frequent laughter had been such a new experience to him.