Chapter Eight.
A Day of Rest

“Gaily the troubadour touched his guitar.”

On the third Sunday morning after Alvar’s arrival, Mr Lester came down as usual at the sound of the gong, and as he glanced round the dining-room missed his two elder sons.

Prayers were over and breakfast had begun before Alvar entered.

“Ah pardon,” he said, bowing to his grandmother; “I did not know it was late.”

“I make a point of being punctual on Sunday,” said Mr Lester, in a tone of incipient displeasure.

“Cheriton is late too,” said Alvar.

“No,” said Jack, “he’s gone to Church.”

“All, then we do not go to-day,” said Alvar, with an air of relief so comical that even the solemn Jack could hardly stand it.

“Oh, yes, we do,” he said, “this is extra.”

“Cheriton,” said Mr Lester, “is very attentive to his religious duties.”

“I suppose he’ll have breakfast at the Vicarage,” said Nettie, as Alvar raised his eyebrows and gave a little shrug.

It was a gesture habitual to him, and was not intended to express contempt either for religion or for Cheriton, but only a want of comprehension of the affair; but it annoyed Mr Lester and called his attention to the fact that Alvar had appeared in a black velvet coat of a peculiar foreign cut, the sight of which he disliked on a week-day, and considered intolerable when it was contrasted with the spruce neatness of the rest of the party. He could not very well attack Alvar on the subject, but he sharply reproved Bob for cutting hunches of bread when no one wanted them, and found fault with the coffee. And then, apparently à propos of nothing, he began to make a little speech about the importance of example in a country place, and the influence of trifles.

“And I can assure every one present,” he concluded emphatically, “that there is no need to look far for an example of the evil effects of neglect in these particulars.”

“Elderthwaite?” whispered Nettie to Jack.

“Ay,” said Mrs Lester, “young people should show respect to Sunday morning. It is what in my father’s house was always insisted on. Your grandfather, too, used to say that he liked his dogs even to know Sunday.”

“It is strange to me,” said Alvar coolly.

“It will be well that you should give yourself the pains to become accustomed to it,” said his father curtly.

It was the first time that the stately stranger had been addressed in such a tone, and he looked up with a flash of the eye that startled the younger ones.

“Sir, it is by your will I am a stranger here,” he said, with evident displeasure.

“Stranger or no, my regulations must be respected,” said Mr Lester, his colour rising.

Alvar rose from his seat and proved his claim at any rate to the family temper by bowing to his grandmother and marching out of the room.

“Highty tighty!” said the grandmother. “Here’s a spirt of temper for you!”

“Intolerable insolence!” exclaimed Mr Lester. “Under my roof he must submit to what I please to say to him.”

“It’s just what I told ye, Gerald; a foreigner’s ways are what we cannot do with,” said Mrs Lester.

“Of course,” blurted out Jack, with the laudable desire of mending matters; “of course he is a foreigner. How can you expect him to be anything else? And father never said it was his coat.”

“His coat?” said Mr Lester. “It is his temper to which I object. When he came I told him that I expected Sunday to be observed in my house, and he agreed.”

“But he did not understand that you thought that coat improper on Sunday,” said Jack with persevering justice.

“I am not in the habit of being obscure,” said Mr Lester, as he rose from the table, while Jack thought he would give Alvar a little good advice.

Cherry was too soft; he was equally impartial, and would be more plain spoken. But as he approached the library he heard an ominous tinkling, and entering, beheld Alvar, still in the objectionable coat, beginning to play on the still more objectionable guitar, an air which Jack did not think sounded like a hymn tune.

Jack really intended to mend matters, but his manner was unfortunate, and in the tone he would have used to a disobedient fag he remarked, as he stood bolt upright beside his brother, —

“I say, Alvar, I think you’d better not play on that thing this morning.”

“There is no reason for you to tell me what to do,” said Alvar quietly.

“It’s not, you know,” said Jack, “that I think there’s any harm in it. My views are very liberal. I only think it’s a frivolous and unmanly sort of instrument; but the governor won’t like it, and there’ll be no end of a row.”

“You have not a musical soul,” said Alvar loftily, for he had had time to cool down somewhat.

“Certainly not,” said the liberal Jack, with unnecessary energy and a tone of disgust; “but that’s not the question. It’s not the custom here to play that sort of thing on a thing like that on a Sunday morning. Ask Cherry.”

“Would it vex my brother?” asked Alvar.

“If you mean Cheriton, it certainly would. He hates a row.”

“A row?” said the puzzled Alvar, “that is a noise – my guitar?”

“Oh, hang it! no, a quarrel,” began Jack, when suddenly —

“Sir, I consider this an act of defiance; I beg I may see that instrument put away at once,” and Mr Lester’s voice took the threatening sound that made his anger always appear so much worse than it really was. “I will have the proprieties of my house observed, and no example of this kind set to your younger brothers.”

Alvar had taken Jack’s interference with cool contempt, but now he started up with a look of such passion as fairly subdued Jack into a hasty —

“Oh come, come, I say, now – don’t!” Alvar controlled himself suddenly and entirely.

“Sir, I obey my father’s commands. I will say good morning,” and taking up his guitar went up to his own room, from which he did not emerge at church time, and as no one ventured to call him they set off without him. Among themselves they might quarrel and make it up again many times a day, but Alvar’s feelings were evidently more serious.

It was occasionally Cheriton’s practice to sing in the choir, more for the popularity of his example than for his voice, which was indifferent. Alvar had been greatly puzzled at his doing so, and had then told him that “in that white robe he looked like the picture of an angel,” a remark which so discomfited Cherry that he had further perplexed his unlucky brother by saying, – “Pray don’t say such a thing to the others, I should never hear the last of it. You’d better say I look like an ass at once.”

He did not therefore see anything of his family till he met them after the service, when Jack attacked him.

“What induced you to go out this morning? Everything has gone utterly wrong, and I shouldn’t wonder if we should find Alvar gone back to Spain.”

“Why, what’s the matter?”

“Alvar came down late in that ridiculous coat and then played the guitar. And if ever you saw a fellow in a passion! He likes his own way.”

“Was father angry?”

“I should just think so, I don’t expect they’ll speak.”

This was a pleasant prospect. Cheriton saw that his father’s brow was cloudy, and as he went upstairs his grandmother called him into her room.

“Cheriton,” she said mysteriously, as she sat down and untied her bonnet, “Jack has told you of your brother’s behaviour, and it’s my belief there’s a clue to it, and I hope you’ll take warning, for I sometimes think ye’ve a hankering after that way yourself.”

“What way, grandmamma? I never play the guitar on a Sunday morning.”

“Nay, but there’s more behind. It’s well known how Sunday is profaned in Popish countries. I’ve heard they keep the shops open in France. Your brother has been brought up among Papists, and it would be a sad thing for your father’s son to give all this property into the hands of the priests.”

“Dear me, granny, what a frightful suggestion. But I’m sure Alvar has no Romish sympathies. He has no turn for anything of the kind, and I should think the Roman Church was very unattractive in Spain.”

“Ay, but they’re very deep.”

“Well,” said Cherry, “if Alvar is a Jesuit in disguise, as you say, and rather a dissipated person, as my father seems to think, and has such an appalling temper as Jack describes, we’re in a bad way. I think I’ll go and see for myself.”

When Cherry entered Alvar’s room he found this alarming compound of qualities sitting by the fire looking forlorn and lonely. “Why, Alvar, what’s all this about?”

“Ah, my brother,” said Alvar, “you were absent and all has been wrong. My father is offended with me. I know not why. He insulted me.”

“Oh, nonsense! we never talk about being insulted. My father’s a little hasty, but he means nothing by it. What did you do that annoyed him?”

“I played my guitar and Jack scolded me. No one shall do so but you.”

“I daresay Jack made an ass of himself – he often does; but he is a thorough good fellow at bottom. You know we do get up in our best clothes on Sunday.”

“I can do that,” said Alvar, “but your Sunday I do not understand. You tell me I may not play at cards or at billiards; you do not dance nor go to the theatre. What good does it do? I would go to church, though it is tiresome, and I shudder at the singing. It is a mark, doubtless, of my father’s politics; but at home – well, I can smoke, if that is better?”

Driven back to first principles, Cheriton hardly knew what to say. “Of course,” he answered. “I have often heard the matter discussed, and I don’t pretend to say that at Oxford the best of us are as particular as we might be. But in a country place like this, carelessness would do infinite harm. And, on the whole, I shouldn’t like the rule to be otherwise.”

Alvar sighed, and made no answer.

“But,” continued Cherry, “I think no one has a right to impose rules on you. I wouldn’t bring out the guitar in the morning – it looks rather odd, you know – nor wear that coat. But we’re not so very strict; there are always newspapers about, and novels, and, as you say, you can smoke or talk, or play the piano – I’m sure no one would know what the tune was – or write letters. Really, it might be worse, you know.”

Perhaps Cherry’s coaxing voice and eyes were more effectual than his arguments; any way, Alvar said, “Well, I will offer my hand to my father, if he will take it.”