An English Squire. Coleridge Christabel Rose

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СКАЧАТЬ ask him questions; perhaps because Alvar found himself in the presence of a standard higher than he was accustomed to. Anyway, Nettie might have heard his present revelations.

      “There was a time,” he said, sighing, “when I did not intend to come to England – when I had sworn to be for ever a Spaniard. Ah, my cousin, if you had seen my Luisa, you would not have wondered. I sang under her window; I went to mass that I might gaze on her.”

      “Did you now? Foreign customs!” interposed Rupert; while Cherry laughed, though he felt they were hardly treating Alvar fairly.

      “I knew not how to speak to her. She was never alone; and it was whispered that she was already betrothed. But one day she dropped her fan.”

      “No, no – surely?” said Cherry.

      “I seized it, I kissed it, I held it to my heart,” said Alvar, evidently enjoying the narration, “and I returned it. There were looks between us – then words. Ah, I lived in her smiles. We met, we exchanged vows, and I was happy!”

      Rupert listened to this speech with amusement, which he could hardly stifle. It was inexpressibly ludicrous to Cheriton; but the fun was lost in the wonder whether Alvar meant what he said. This was neither like the joking sentiment nor the pretended indifference of an Englishman’s reference to such passages in his life; yet the memory evidently cost Alvar no pain. Jack sat, looking totally disgusted.

      “At last,” Alvar went on, “we were discovered. Ah, and then my grandfather was enraged, and her parents, they refused their consent, since she was betrothed already. I am an Englishman, and I do not weep when I am grieved, but my heart was a stone. I despaired.”

      “She must have been a horrid little flirt not to tell you she was engaged,” said Jack.

      “She did not know it till we had met,” said Alvar.

      “What awful tyranny!”

      “Ah, and she was your only love!” sighed Rupert.

      “No,” said Alvar simply, “I have loved others; but she was the most beautiful. But I submitted, and now I forget her!”

      “Hm – the truest wisdom,” said Rupert.

      Cherry was growing angry. He did not think that Rupert had any business to make fun of Alvar, and he was in a rage with Alvar for making himself ridiculous. That Alvar should tell a true love-tale with sentimental satisfaction to an admiring audience, or sigh over a flirtation which ought to have been a good joke, was equally distasteful to him. He burst out suddenly, with all his Lester bluntness, and in a tone which Alvar had hitherto heard only from Jack, —

      “If you fellows are not all tired of talking such intolerable nonsense, I am. It’s too bad of you,” with a sharp look at Rupert. “I don’t see that it’s any affair of ours.”

      “You’re not sympathetic,” said Rupert, as he moved away; for he was quite familiar enough with his cousins for such giving and taking.

      Chapter Twelve.

      The Oakby Ball

      “She went to the ball, and she danced with the handsome prince.”

      That week of gaiety, so unusual to Oakby, was fraught with great results. The dim and beautiful dream of the future which had grown with Cheriton Lester’s growth became a definite purpose. Ruth Seyton was his first love, almost his first fancy. Whatever other sentiments and flirtations had come across him, had been as light as air; he had loved Ruth ever since he had taught her to ride, and since she had tried to teach him to dance. He had always found her ready to talk to him of the thoughts and aspirations which found no sympathy at home, and still more ready to tease him about them. She was part of the dear and sacred home affections, the long accustomed life which held so powerful a sway over him, and she was besides a wonderful and beautiful thing, peculiar to himself, and belonging to none of the others.

      He had not seen her since the season when he had met her in town with Virginia; he did not know very much really about her, but she was kind and gracious to him, and he walked about in a dream of bliss which made every commonplace duty and gaiety delightful. Ruth was mixed up in it all, it was all in her honour; and though Cheriton’s memory at this time was not to be depended on, he had spirits for any amount of the hard work of preparation, and a laugh for every disagreeable.

      He regarded his tongue as tied till after he had taken his degree in the summer – he hoped with credit; after which his prospects at the bar with Judge Cheriton’s interest, were somewhat less obscure than those of most young men. He had inherited some small fortune from his mother, and though he could not consider himself a brilliant match for Miss Seyton, he would then feel himself justified in putting his claims forward. Many spoke with admiration of the entire absence of jealousy which made him take the second place so easily; but Cheriton hardly deserved the praise, he had no room in his mind to think of himself at all.

      His cousin Rupert was a more recent acquaintance of Ruth’s, though matters had gone much further between them. His attentions had not been encouraged by her grandmother, as, though his fortune was far superior to anything Cheriton possessed, his affairs were supposed to be considerably involved, and this was so far true, that it would have been very inconvenient to him to lay them open to inquiry at present. He hoped, however, in the course of a few months to be able so to arrange them, as to make it possible to apply to Ruth Seyton’s guardians for their consent.

      Rupert was a lively, pleasant fellow, with a considerable regard for his Oakby cousins, though he had never considered it necessary to regulate his life by the Oakby standard, or concerned himself greatly with its main principles. His life in the army had of course been quite apart from Cheriton’s at school and college, and the latter did not care to realise how far the elder cousin, once a model in his eyes, had grown away from him. Nor did he regard him as a rival.

      Ruth gave smiles and dances to himself, and he little guessed that while he did his duty joyously in other directions, looking forward to his next word with her, she had given his cousin a distinct promise, and engaged to keep it secret till such time as he chose to ask for her openly. Perhaps Rupert could not be expected to scruple at such a step, when he knew how entirely Ruth had managed her affairs for herself in all her intercourse with him.

      And as for Ruth she rejoiced in the chance of making a sacrifice to prove her love; and whether the sacrifice was of other people’s feelings, her own ease and comfort, or of any little trifling scruples of conscience, ought, she considered, to be equally unimportant. “Love must still be lord of all,” but the love that loves honour more was in her eyes weak and unworthy. Faults in the hero only proved the strength of his manhood; faults in herself were all condoned by her love.

      Ruth was clever enough to put into words the inspiring principles of a great many books that she read, and a great deal of talk that she heard, and vehement enough to act up to it. Rupert, who had no desire to be at all unlike other people, had little notion of the glamour of enthusiasm with which Ruth plighted him her troth at Oakby.

      The Lesters had expended much abuse on the morning of their ball on the blackness of the oak-panels, which no amount of wax candles would overcome but what was lost in gaiety was gained in picturesqueness, and the Oakby ball, with its handsome hosts and its distinguished company, was long quoted as the prettiest in the neighbourhood. Perhaps it owed no little of its charm to the one in whose honour it was given. Alvar in society was neither silent nor languid; he was a splendid dancer, and played the host with a foreign grace that enchanted the ladies, old and young. At the dinner-party the night before he had been silent and stately, evidently fearing to commit himself before the country gentlemen and county grandees, СКАЧАТЬ