Virginia’s cheeks flamed as if the missive had been from Alvar himself. She got up and put the note in her pocket, dressed herself, and leaving word with one of the servants that she meant to take a walk, set forth without delay for Oakby, walking through the plantations, across the fell, and through the fir-wood, as she had scarcely ever done alone before. She remembered going as Alvar’s betrothed to ask for Cheriton during his first illness, and Alvar’s absorption and indifference to her presence. Now that would be natural enough. Still she could scarcely think of Cheriton in her dread and wonder as to who might greet her, as she rang at the bell, and asked for Mrs Lester, who came forward into the hall to receive her.
“My dear,” she said, “I do not know what Cherry wants with you; but we can’t refuse him. Will you come at once?”
Virginia was afraid to ask questions, she followed the old lady’s slow progress up the dusky staircase, and into Cheriton’s room.
The daylight was now fast fading, but its last rays fell on Cheriton’s wide-opened eyes and flushed face.
He took hold of her hand, and said with extreme difficulty,—
“Thank you—my love to the parson. Ask Jack what I meant to do—and then tell him. Tell him—I say—he must reform Elderthwaite for my sake. He must do it himself. I know he can. Don’t let him be one of the abuses. Don’t get into despair.” He paused for breath, and then with an accent and smile that through all the suffering had something of his old playful daring, “I mustn’t say anything else to you, but that will come right too.”
“I will tell him,” faltered Virginia, awed, bewildered, and yet with a strange sense of encouragement; she let herself be drawn away, heard Mrs Lester say that it was too dark for her to go home alone, she should send Jack with her to get a breath of air, while Cherry was suffering less. He was so fully himself it was hard to believe in the danger, but the attacks of coughing were most exhausting, and he could hardly take anything, she was very hopeless, and “my grandson”—this always meant Alvar—thought badly of him. “Come in here, my dear, and I will fetch Jack.”
As Mrs Lester put her into the library, and left her there alone in the dusk, the tears that she had hitherto restrained broke forth.
She thought that she was crying for Cheriton, but all her own sad future, all her yearnings for the lost past, mingled together, and she wept the more because, she knew not how, Cheriton had given her a sort of indefinite comfort.
She did not hear the study door open, nor see Alvar come through the room, nor did he see her in the dim light, till he heard her sobbing.