Part 1, Chapter X.
“The One Maid for Me.”
When old Margaret Waynflete drove up to the door of Waynflete Hall in the Rilston fly—for the old stables were not calculated for the accommodation of valuable horses—she never thought of herself in a picturesque light, nor felt, as Godfrey and even Jeanie in a measure did, for her, that this was the moment for which she had lived.
But she looked round her with the most lively curiosity. When she sat down in the low, crowded, old-fashioned drawing-room, she did not admire it, nor feel comfortable as she drank her cup of tea and looked about her. She scolded Godfrey and Jeanie for expressing anxiety as to the effect upon her of the unwonted journey; for she felt quite strong and vigorous, even while she repeated to herself that it was right for her to see Waynflete before she died. And see it she did, for she inspected the old house from attic to cellar. She went over the gardens and outbuildings, she had herself driven up and down the steep sides of the Flete Valley and through the shabby village, she attended service in the picturesque old church, where a newly arrived young vicar, himself aghast at the condition of his church and parish, only struck her as an unpleasing contrast to the old rector of Ingleby. She liked none of it very much. She was an old woman, and she could not take to new surroundings. Ingleby was home. Waynflete was for the next generation. All the neighbourhood called upon her, and paid attention to her and her nephew.
Godfrey was well aware that his position, as apparent master of the house, was an awkward one. He would also have preferred Jeanie’s absence; the new neighbourhood would draw conclusions, which his downright old aunt would never have anticipated. He meant, when the visit of the Moorhead party was safely over, to write to Guy and to offer to change places with him; but, when he found him at Moorhead before him, inviting Constancy to Ingleby, and proposing to come to Waynflete to meet her, all other thoughts were swallowed up in angry jealousy. All places were the same to him where she was not, and he could only think of keeping his chance of seeing her some time without Guy’s interference. Guy appeared early on the appointed Tuesday. He could only, he said, stay one night, as Staunton was coming to him on the next day.
“As you kindly allowed me to ask him, Aunt Margaret,” he said, punctiliously.
“I’ve no objection to Mr Staunton, you can bring him over,” said Mrs Waynflete. But whatever her own feelings as to the new home were, she watched keenly for Guy’s impressions of it.
He said no word to gratify her; but in that perfect summer day, he, in his turn, noted every detail.
The old house, with the deep and varied tinting of its lichen-covered tiles and bushy creepers, seemed to him, as he stood in the garden, and looked at it intently, to be full of character and individuality.
In his secret heart, he thought, as he had thought before, that the place had a charm altogether its own. How he should like its quaintness and its beauty if it ever was his own, and if— Nay, how he did like it now, and how oddly he felt himself to be a son of its soil—to be, somehow, akin to it. Guy was in all ways sensitive and impressionable, open to the influences that surrounded him, to every change of scene and atmosphere. He wandered round the flower-beds, and looked for the quaint “old” flowers of which Florella had spoken. Could he find any to show her? Yes; there were columbines of odd, dull, artistic tints, roses of sorts unheeded by the horticulturist, and sundry blossoms, somewhat belated in the keen northern air, of which the ignorant Guy knew nothing.
As he looked, Rawdon Crawley began to bark; the sound of wheels was heard, and a waggonette, full of straw hats and bright dresses, drove up the rough ill-kept road that led to the house. Guy, half-smiling, held a little back, as he saw his brother press forward eagerly; he was amused at the idea of Godfrey in love, not having ceased to regard him as a schoolboy. He was not in love himself; but even for him, as he came forward, it was Constancy who held the stage, looking handsome and happy, a concentration of life.
“I am perfectly convinced,” she said, looking round, after the greetings were over, “that this place breathes out a story. It quite talks with characteristicness!”
“I should like to think that you had to do with the story of it,” said Godfrey, feeling his ears hot with the sense of self-committal.
Constancy looked at him, and at that moment there entered into her a particularly charming and engaging little demon, who recommended himself to her in a form which disguised his old and well-known features, and made him come out quite new. Godfrey was betraying himself in every word and look; but to Constancy, whose even pulses had never yet beat quicker for any emotion whatever, his boyish passion did not present itself in a serious light. She might study this side of life a little, it would be amusing and instructive. It has been amusing, ever since Cleopatra angled for fishes.
The result of her study was that Godfrey spent a day of chequered but tumultuous bliss, and that the story of the old house mingled itself inextricably with her own.
For Guy the hours passed so pleasantly that he forgot his dread of the coming night. Not being in any way conscious, he asked Florella to come and look for subjects among the flowers, quite easily. And she came, remembering them much better than he did, looking for old favourites, and showing him which she had formerly tried to paint.
“I cannot do the harebells,” she said. “I have drawn them; but the colour and the light is altogether impossible, and I have had to come down to a little bunch in the rock—quite earthly—but they just recall the others. Perhaps some day, when I have practised a great deal, I may be able to paint the heavenly ones.”
“You made me see them,” said Guy.
“That’s something, isn’t it?” she said. “But that’s why drawing is so good. It teaches one to see.”
There was plenty of general chatter, and the whole party strolled about, ate fruit, and picked flowers together.
A tall fair young man was rather feebly sweeping the garden path. He touched his cap as the party passed him, and said, in a cracked, but cordial voice, “There’s rasps down yonder, sir, for t’yoong leddies.”
Guy recognised him, with a start of distaste, as the “soft” lad he had seen in the churchyard.
“Thank you, Jem,” said Godfrey, “we’ll look for them. This way, isn’t it, Jeanie?”
Jeanie was very shy, and very much afraid of these “clever girls;” she secretly disliked the thought of them. But it was pleasing to find how open they were to raspberries and Morelia cherries, and, in the afternoon she felt a pride in showing them over the house, and pointing out the pictures and other curiosities.
Guy avoided this part of the entertainment, on the excuse of making arrangements about the time of return, and as he came back from interviewing the driver of the waggonette, he found that Florella was in the garden, sketching a bit of snap-dragon on the top of the low wall that divided it from the fruit-garden. Guy made for her pretty blue dress, which reminded him of her blue harebells.
“Do you like the flowers better than the house?” he said.
“I did not much want to go over the house,” she answered; “and if you please, Mr Waynflete, I think I should like to tell you why.”
“Why, have you any reason?” said Guy, startled.
“Yes,” she answered. “Of course it is a very silly thing, and my sister never thought of it but as the merest joke; but I have always felt it was more wrong than we knew. When we were here, we used to hide and make odd noises, to see whether we could make people think it was the ghost.”
“What?” exclaimed Guy. “What did you do?”
“Why—nothing very much,” said Florella, “after all. But we rustled about when we thought the maids would hear us, and stamped along the passages to make footsteps, and hid when any one was coming, and Constancy pretended to sob and cry, and then we watched to see how people would take it; we never dressed up, you know, it was only noises. Of course there was a notion that there were noises, or no one would have noticed.”
“And didn’t—did no one find you out?”
“No. I don’t think that really we frightened any one very much. Of course, I always knew it was naughty, and that Aunt Connie would be angry if she knew. But, as we went on doing it, I got to have a feeling of what it would have been like if it had been true; perhaps I frightened myself, for we didn’t make all the noises that we heard. And I don’t know, Cosy did it quite simply; but I got to feel as if there was something profane in playing tricks with things one could not understand, and it has always been on my conscience. So, as you were here when we did it, and as you belong to the place, I thought I would confess, for really I have always felt it more wrong than many things I’ve been punished for.”
“Why do you think that?” said Guy, quickly.
“Why, I suppose taking false and silly views of great subjects is one of the chief things that prevent people from being really good. Then you can’t see.”
“If you don’t mind,” said Guy, “will you come with me and look at that picture?”
He could hardly tell what prompted the request; but he felt that he could better bear the sight of the picture with her than alone.
Florella agreed, though a little surprised, and they followed the rest of the party into the house and upstairs. They heard their voices as they made the round, but the little octagon room was empty.
“Look at him,” said Guy, “and tell me just what you see in his face. Yes,” as she glanced at him, “I know he is like me. But if you were drawing that face—like a flower—what should you try to show?”
“He looks very unhappy,” said Florella. “He wanted some one to help him.”
“He had no one. He was a victim to himself or his fate. Don’t you think he looks rather a despicable fellow?”
“No; but he looks as if he did so need to be helped. Yes; he does look like a person who might fail in a desperate crisis.”
“As he did,” said Guy. “A man with that face must, you know. Isn’t that what you see?”
“I suppose,” said Florella, suddenly and simply, “that if he had really realised the presence of God, he could have borne—even the ghost.”
“Why?” said Guy, abruptly.
“It would be a spiritual power, great enough to conquer the spiritual fear,” she answered.
“I wish I could have masses said for his soul,” said Guy. “If we were Roman Catholics, I’d ask you to pray for him.”
“Well, I will,” she answered. “He is living, somewhere, and I am sure it is right to pray for him.”
“Thank you,” said Guy, earnestly.
There was a call, and they hurried away to join the others. They had forgotten both themselves and each other. It was only afterwards that Florella realised that she had said unusual things, or Guy that he had heard them. But strange to each other they never could be again.
Constancy and Godfrey had thought of each other, and of the effect they were producing on each other, all day long. Nevertheless, they parted as “Strangers yet.”