Cheriton

“ Lord Cheriton remembered all these things as the cab rattled along the Walworth Road. Our waking thoughts have sometimes almost the rapidity of our dreams. He surveyed the panorama of the past; recalled the final bitterness of that meeting at Boulogne, when he went over to see Mrs. Darcy, and when he had to tell her that he was master of Cheriton Chase, by the help of his wife’s dowry, and that he had begun life there on a far more dignified footing than they two had contemplated. ”

“ The eyes glittered as fiercely and as shrewdly as of yore; the curve of the nose was just as grim and hawklike as ever; while as for the resolute jaw and the thin-lipped, tightly drawn mouth, enough hard sarcasm and unflinching force of character lurked about it to quell the vast majority of human kind.
Cheriton was a fop and fribble, as all the world knew. Nevertheless, he belonged to that honorable company that is not abashed easily. He greeted the formidable occupant of the four-poster with a robustness of demeanor that served him well. ”

“ If old Lady Crewkerne derived a grim satisfaction from the absolute possession of the nine days’ wonder, Cheriton was one of the proudest and happiest men in London. He took to himself the whole merit of the discovery.
“I assure you,” he declared to a circle of the elect, “that blind old woman would never have seen the likeness. It was quite providential that I happened to look in and point it out.”
In matters of art Cheriton’s taste was really fastidious. And in addition to his other foibles no man was more susceptible to beauty. ”

“ Lascelles.
“Capital,” said Cheriton, “and, as I am afraid our presence here interferes with the nice conduct of a masterpiece, do you mind showing me how to walk upon them? It is reckoned a good thing, I believe, for one to be able to say one has walked upon the mountains.”
Accompanied by the French novel and the red umbrella, Cheriton picked his way along the margin of Lake Dwygy in patent leathers with box-cloth uppers. It was a beauteous evening, calm and free. Not a sound was to be heard except the muffled murmur of the tiny wavelets washing the pebbles upon which they walked. ”

“ Cheriton evidently did not see his way to a reply. His face fell. The vivid, vigorous nature, checked at every turn, was ever striving after a fresh outlet. The instinct to be up and doing, to put his hand to everything that came to it, could not be stifled by loss and disappointment, or even by want of physical health and strength. ”

“ Lord Cheriton is marvelously clever. Some of the words he uses are longer than Dearest Papa’s. He says I am a Throwback. He won’t tell me what it means. He says it is a dictionary word, yet I can’t find it in Aunt Caroline’s dictionary. Aunt Caroline says I am too inquisitive. Please ask Dearest Papa. He will certainly know.
Lord Cheriton is very good at poetry. He says it is because he went to the same school as Lord Byron. He has written what he calls an Ode to a Lilac Frock. It begins like this:—
Youth is so fair that the Morning’s smile,
Is touched with the glamor of a pure delight. ”

“ Whatever Cheriton was or whatever he was not, emphatically he was not a fool. Had he been in any sort oppressed by that not unamiable form of human weakness the redoubtable Caroline would have been very quick to expose it. In a matter of that kind no one could have had a keener or more uncompromising instinct. They knew each other so well, they had crossed swords so often, each derived so much zest from the display of the other’s dexterity, that while interpreting one another with a frankness that less robust persons might have found almost brutal, it had respect for a mutual basis. ”

“ Miss Perry looked ready to shed tears. Cream buns apart, she was very fond of Jim.
“An incomprehensibly foolish thing to have done,” said Cheriton.
“A deplorable exhibition of impudence,” said Caroline Crewkerne. “I have the greatest mind not to give up that canvas. I should be within my rights if I destroyed it.”
“I have grave doubts whether you could do it legally,” said Cheriton.
For a man of his vaunted wisdom and experience it was a sadly injudicious thing to have said.
“You think so?” said the redoubtable Caroline. “That decides me. That man must be taught a lesson. ”

“ If he wanted Miss Perry, one thing was clear. He must prove himself the superior parti.
[283] On the surface, Cheriton was as vain a man as any to be found in London. But his coxcombry was a superficial growth, assiduously cultivated, to hide the uncommonly shrewd and cool calculator who lurked beneath. Not everybody knew that, but Caroline Crewkerne did. Her dictum of “Cheriton is no fool” was her way of expressing that he was really very much the contrary. And in her heart she respected him accordingly. No one despised a fool more heartily than she did. ”

“ The discovery shocked Cheriton unspeakably; all the parties concerned were well known to him, and he felt that of such sins he could never think or speak lightly. But he would not join in loud or careless blame of his friend, who perhaps felt his truest pang of repentance at the boy’s confused miserable face in the one parting interview allowed by Mr Lester before Roland joined his regiment, about to sail for India. ”

“ By one of those coincidences in which real life indulges so recklessly, Miss Perry had not reached the bottom of the stairs when Cheriton, duly admitted by John, and himself armed cap-à-pie for Divine worship in a brand-new wig, with freshly dyed mustache, light-gray trousers, lilac gloves, white gaiters, and a gardenia in his buttonhole, was enabled to take up a strategical position in the entrance-hall. ”

“ Perhaps it was characteristic of Cheriton that he felt more than ever resolved to attain success, and he answered,—
“You ought to think less of me if I did not do my best to avoid mistakes.”
“Now that is worthy of Jack, of whom I am becoming quite afraid. I care for my friends because—well, because I care for them, and what they do makes no difference.”
“That,” said Cherry, “is the sort of backing up that would make a man able to endure failure till success came. But still one must wish to bring home the spoils!” ”

“ I will,” said Cheriton, with his mouth set, while his hands still trembled.
“Why? You have done no wrong,” said Alvar. “Are you the first who has been deceived by a faithless woman? She is but a woman, my brother; there are others. You feel now that you could stab your rival to revenge yourself. Ah, that will pass; she’s only a woman. Heavens! I tore my hair. I wept. I told all my friends of my despair; it was the sooner over. You will find others.”
“We usually keep our disappointments to ourselves,” said Cheriton coldly. ”

“ The Priory was by no means so fine a place as Cheriton, but it was old, and not without interest, and Lady Jane was justified in the assertion that it was too large for her. It would be too small perhaps for Sir Godfrey and his wife in the days to come, when in the natural course of events James Dalbrook would be at rest after his life labour, and Cheriton would belong to Juanita.
“No doubt they will like Cheriton better than the Priory when we are all dead and gone,” said Lady Jane, with her plaintive air. “I only hope they will have a family. Big houses are so dismal without little people.” ”

“ Surely there is to be found in the world some youngish person of modest attractions—do not delude yourself, Cheriton, that you can ask for more—to whom you can offer a vocation.”
“There is a little actress at the Gayety,” said Cheriton, thoughtfully. “She seems a healthy creature. I dare say she——”
“Burden, quit the room,” said the old lady. ”

“ Lord Cheriton flung the Quarterly from him with a passionate gesture, as he started to his feet and began to walk up and down the long clear space in front of the windows.
“Theodore,” he said suddenly, “you have not yet come face to face with all the problems of life. Perhaps you have not yet found out how hard it is to help people. I would have given much to be able to help that girl—to assure her an easy and reputable existence—the refinements of life amidst pleasant surroundings. ”

“ Cheriton also contrived that the Seytons, with the vicar of Oakby, Mr Ellesmere and his wife, should be asked to dinner; and as the vicar had some general conversation, some information about Spain was elicited from Alvar, who, moreover, was pleased to find himself in ladies’ society, and was evidently at ease in it; while Virginia, in exchange for the pleasant talk that seemed to come out of her old life, could tell Cheriton that her cousin Ruth was coming to stay with her, and could confide in him that home was still a little strange.
“Well, strangers are strange,” said Cherry. ”

“ One atom of pretence or of priggishness in a well-conducted correct young man would have been of all things odious to him, but the shrewd old man believed in Cheriton to the backbone, and of all the admiration and affection that the popular young man had won perhaps none did him so much credit as the love that made him a sort of good angel to rough Parson Seyton. ”

“ Farewell.
“O near ones, dear ones! you in whose right hands
Our own rests calm, whose faithful hearts all day,
Wide open, wait till back from distant lands
Thought, the tired traveller, wends his homeward way.”
“Of course, since Miss Seyton insists, and you say you wish it, I come home for my marriage in October,” said Alvar.
“You don’t understand,” replied Cheriton vehemently, “and you are unfair to Virginia. She is as kind as she can be. Go and show her that you really care for her as she deserves, and it will all come right. ”

“ What d’ye mean, Cheriton?”
“Caroline Crewkerne seems to think,” said Cheriton, coolly, “that I shall serve the best interests of a lonely and unprotected and extraordinarily prepossessing [216] girlhood if I act, as it were, in loco parentis during Miss Perry’s sojourn in the vast metropolis.”
George began to gobble furiously. It was a sign, however, that his mind was working. That heavy and rusty mechanism was very difficult to set in motion.
“If it comes to that,” said he, “I should say I am quite as capable of looking after the gal as you are.” ”

“ The manner in which Cheriton enclosed the ample paw of Miss Perry, which nevertheless, speaking relatively, contrived to appear long and slender, in his own delicately manicured fingers was almost epic.
“Miss Perry,” said he, “this is a great moment in my life.”
[87] “Don’t be a coxcomb, Cheriton,” said Caroline Crewkerne with great energy.
No one made fuller use than that old woman of the privilege accorded to age of being as rude as it pleases. But it was so necessary that the wearer of the vegetable basket should not get notions under it before she had been in Hill Street an hour. ”

“ A man might have understood as much only to see him lean over the cob’s neck, and pat him, as he did to-night, riding slowly up the hill that leads from Cheriton to the wild ridge of heath above Branksea Island.
Theodore Dalbrook, junior partner in the firm of Dalbrook & Son, Cornhill, Dorchester, was a more distant relative of Juanita’s than the sandy first-cousin in the auctioneer’s office whom Lord Cheriton had once hated as the only alternative to a charitable endowment. The sandy youth was the only son of Lord Cheriton’s elder brother, long since dead. ”

“ He took her hand with pleasure, and a touch of excitement that did not concord with his countenance, which was formal and impassive.
"I am glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Cheriton."
"Won't you sit down?" she said. "He will be here in a minute."
Heriot took a seat, and decided that her eyes were even lovelier than he had known. ”

“ DIPLOMACY IS CALLED FOR CHERITON’S gravity was of a kind he seldom displayed.
“Caroline,” said he, firmly, “if you behaved in that way no right-minded person could possibly forgive you. The lad is very poor, and his history is a sad one. He is the son of Lascelles, V.C., as rash yet generous-hearted a fellow as ever lived. Had it not been for a dishonest broker the young chap would be a man of wealth and position.” ”

“ Cheriton had never seen her display so much color as when he made her a little bow to attest his bona fides. It was rather a pity that his smile unconsciously resembled that of a satyr; not, however, that it really mattered, for although the ever-observant Caroline duly noted it Miss Burden did not.
“It is twenty-five minutes past two, Lord Cheriton,” said Miss Perry, putting a sugar-plum in her mouth, “and you have promised to take me to the circus.”
“Cheriton,” said the old lady, “I forbid you to do anything of the kind. To spend three afternoons a week at a circus is outrageous.” ”

“ In one of these he took a great fancy to Cheriton Lester during an interval between the latter’s school and college life, and Cheriton being warned against him as a bad companion, stuck to him with equal perverseness and generosity. Roland was much the elder of the two, but Cherry’s vigorous youth took the lead in the friendship, and gave it his own impress. It was ended by such a scandal in Elderthwaite village as those which had made the name of Roland Seyton’s grandfather hated by all the country round, as one by whom no man’s hearth was respected, and with whom no man’s daughter was safe. ”

“ Cheriton turned round. “I won’t have a fuss made,” he said. “Take Buffer upstairs to my room, and don’t say a word to any one. It can’t be helped.”
“I know who I shall never say a word to,” said Nettie; but she obeyed, followed by Jack and Bob. Alvar detained Cheriton.
“Oh, my brother, forgive me. I would have broken my own arm sooner than see your eyes look at me thus. It is with us a word and a blow. I will never strike any little beast again—never.” ”