Part 1, Chapter XI.
“Striving for Dear Existence.”
In the soft interrupted stillness of the summer night Godfrey Waynflete leant out of his window, and lived over again the hours of the day. The country stillness was constantly broken by the whirr of a bat, the twitter of a disturbed sparrow, or by the homely sounds of cattle and poultry in the farm and fields close by. But Godfrey neither heard nor heeded. He was deaf to the sounds within the house, the occasional strain and creak of the old boards and panels, the patter of rats and mice, which constantly disturbed the slumbers of Rawdie, who slept on a mat in his master’s room. His blood was all on fire; sleep was impossible to him. He could think of nothing but that in two days he would meet Constancy again at Ingleby. It did not seem possible to Godfrey that so intense a desire should fail to work its own fulfilment. No one and nothing should stand in the way of this demand of his spirit for the thing it craved. The whole world was widened, transformed, glorified. Constancy—Cosy. How the name suited her! The memories of that old boyish visit started into life, till the old house seemed to thrill with her presence.
“Talk of haunting,” thought Godfrey, laughing to himself. Constancy was the presence that filled Waynflete through and through. There was no room there for any ghosts! Then suddenly, without warning, there fell upon him a doubt, a fear, a presentiment of disappointment, a change of spirit so complete that it was almost as if a sudden change of atmosphere had swept through the room, and chilled him. A moment before his joy had had hardly a misgiving, now he suddenly felt utterly without hope.
He started upright, and pulled the casement to, for the night-air felt all at once chilly. He shook himself together, and began to pull off his coat, when Rawdie sat up in the moonlight, and began to howl as if he thought his last hour had come.
“Confound you, Rawdie, hold your tongue!” cried Godfrey, himself reviving, when the door leading into the next room opened, and Guy stood there, fully dressed.
“What, the deuce is the matter with Rawdie?” he said, sharply.
“It’s the moon, I suppose,” said Godfrey, pulling vainly at the curtain. “He’s got the nightmare this time, instead of you! I never knew him howl at the moon before. Here Rawdie, Rawdie! Hold your noise! Shut up!”
Rawdie jumped into his master’s arms, his howls subsiding into whines and whimpers.
Guy stood leaning against the door, watching them. He set his teeth hard, as, in the broad white streak of moonlight, the Presence which he feared took, as it seemed to him, visible shape. It was not now a face flashing into his own, but a shadowy figure, with averted head, moving across the room, as if in hurried, timorous flight. Guy’s pulses stood still, but this time his nerves held their own. He waited, and the figure, the impression, passed him quickly by, through the doorway, into the room he had just left. Guy shut the door suddenly upon Godfrey and Rawdie, and stood with his back against it—looking. Then the figure turned the never-to-be-forgotten face full upon him, and it was to him as if his own eyes looked back on him, with malicious scorn of himself; as if this scared and hunted creature were an aspect of himself. He crouched and cowered against the wall, and gazed back at the spectre, but he felt that the sight, if sight it were, was as nothing to the inward experience of the soul of which it was the expression, the despair, the degradation of irresistible fear.
Whether it was a second or an hour before the moonlight had gone from the room, and with it the impression, Guy could not tell; but he knew at once when it was gone, and stumbling towards the bed, threw himself down on it.
There was a candle burning, but the room swam and darkened before his eyes, he was deadly faint, and as the life came back to him a little, the panic which was wont to come upon him, overwhelmed him, and he trembled and hid his face. It passed sooner than usual, much sooner than usual self-command came back, though the throbbing of his heart forced him to be quite still, and took all his strength away. As the power of thought slowly came back to him, the memory of Florella’s words came back also. The Presence of the Divine Spirit! Could that become real to the soul?
Guy knew what one spiritual experience was, and he did not deceive himself into thinking that he had ever known this other. If the door of his soul was open to the unseen, no such messenger had ever sought entrance; indeed, he had done his best to bar the way.
But now, over his bewildered spirit there swept another vision, new and fair, the vision of a human sympathy that might make the weak strong. If this wise girl could know—could see? Before the hope of her helpfulness, his foolish pride would give way. He could nerve himself to confession. The next moment he knew that to lay his burden on the innocent soul of another, to seek a love which must suffer in his suffering, would be of all cowardly methods of escape the most contemptible. He must try to think more clearly. He managed to stand up, and to find the brandy, which, with most pitiful foresight, he had brought with him. He had drunk it before he suddenly felt how significant was the eagerness with which he took it. It was another terror, indeed, and he threw himself down again on the bed and lay half dozing, till with the daylight and the singing of the birds, he started awake, with his nerves all ajar, and without energy enough to undress and go to bed properly.
He managed, however, to make his appearance downstairs, where Rawdie’s cheerful bark recalled the poor little dog’s terror of the night before. Guy picked him up, and looked into his cairn-gorm coloured eyes, but no change had come into them. Godfrey, too, was eating his breakfast, and making Jeanie talk about Constancy.
Guy played with his tea-cup, and made critical remarks on the young ladies, till the trap that he had ordered to take him to the station appeared, when he cut short his farewells, and went off hastily, without giving his aunt time to say that she wished him to come back again shortly.
As he grew calmer with the increasing distance, he took a resolution, which was the first beginning of a struggle against his fate.
Cuthbert Staunton arrived in due time, in a holiday humour, and having plenty of conversation, he occupied Mrs Palmer’s attention until the hour came for the two young men to wish her good night, and betake themselves to a room devoted to the use of Guy and Godfrey, where they could talk and smoke at their leisure.
“Yours is a charming climate,” said the visitor, “where any one may light a fire in August with a clear conscience. Short of southern moonlight, etc, there is nothing so delightful.”
“Sit down in front of it,” said Guy; “we’re generally glad of one here, and it looks cheerful. Now, I’m expecting you to put me up to all the newest lights—one gets rusty down here. About the spooks, for instance, the Miss Vyners were talking of in London. I want to examine into them a bit. Did you ever come across a fellow who had seen one—by any chance?”
“No,” said Staunton. “I should like to come across a first-hand one, very much.”
“Well, here’s your chance, then. I have—twice.”
“Seen a man who has seen one?”
“No, better than that, seen the genuine article, myself. I—I want to know how to manage him. It seems the correct thing, nowadays, to entertain ghosts and imps of all kinds.”
“I don’t know any, personally,” said Cuthbert, purposely echoing Guy’s bantering tone, though he noticed the matches he struck in vain, and the suppressed excitement of his manner. “But I should like to hear your experiences very much.”
“He paid me a visit last night,” said Guy.
“And what is he like?”
Guy left off trying to light his pipe, and leant back in a corner of the big chair in which he was lounging. The plunge was made. He was shaken to pieces with the effort, but he still endeavoured to maintain a tone of indifference.
“I think I’ll have to tell you a little family history,” he said; “if it won’t bore you.”
“Not at all. Tell me just as you can—as you like.”
“Well, but you know, I believe, about the old traitor who drank himself to death from remorse, and naturally, haunted his descendants. Some of them drank, and, in fact, there was always an inclination to an occasional good-for-nought. Well, then came the Guy who was too late—my namesake—so, by the way, was the traitor—that story you know, too. I don’t believe my father, or grandfather, were quite all my aunt could have wished. They died young, you know; but I’m not aware that they ever saw the ghost. But, five years ago, when we went to Waynflete, to see Mrs John Palmer, I did.”
“You saw the ghost of your ancestor?”
“Well! I had seen Guy’s picture; I was full of it, and full of seeing the place for the first time, and the face flashed upon me just like the picture. The picture’s like me, you know; absurdly so. I saw him—plain as I see you. Well, that once wouldn’t have mattered, it would only have been a queer thing. But—”
“But that was not the only time?” said Cuthbert.
“I never saw him again till last night, but—I—feel him. I wake up half mad with fear. I have dreamed of him. I don’t know what it is, the fit seizes me, and when I’ve scourged the folly out of me, I faint, or my heart gets bad. I haven’t quite been able to hide that; but no one knows why. No one knows that I am afraid of my own shadow!”
“Gently, my dear boy,” said Staunton, kindly. “Keep quiet for a minute. It’s hard work telling me; makes your heart beat now, doesn’t it?”
“Let me get through it. These fits have come and knocked me up, over and over—muffed my exam—for my degree—made a fool of me, times out of number. But, last night—he was there—the whole of him, myself in that queer old dress, as one might look when one’s chance was over, and one wanted others to share one’s disgrace. I saw him; but, oh, my God, Cuthbert! It’s not the seeing; but no other Presence is ever so real—so close! So, I’m catching at a rope. He’ll have me; I shall have to follow him—but—I’m trying to fight.”
Guy had dropped all his pretence at indifference; he spoke in short, stifled whispers, his eyes dilated with fear.
Cuthbert laid his hand on the fingers that were clutching the arm of the chair, and said gently, “I am very glad you have told me. You’ll feel better soon. It is very bad for you to suffer without any help.”
Guy clung to the warm, human clasp, it was unexpectedly comforting. Then he whispered, “I don’t drink, you know, yet. But he’ll drive me to it. He’s ruining my life!”
Cuthbert did not speak for some moments. Then he said, “Of course, there is more than one view to be taken of these things.”
“Oh yes, I might be mad—or lying.”
“Well, I don’t feel driven to those conclusions. Do you mind being questioned a little?”
“No; I think I should like it. I’ve felt so much alone.”
“Yes. You feel more afraid of the terror that seizes on you unexpectedly, than of the—thing itself?”
“Yes,” said Guy, hesitating; “at least, I mind feeling he is there, more than seeing him. That’s a detail.”
“Try to tell me what you mean by feeling.”
“I can’t. It’s another sense.”
“And do you feel nothing else with this sense?”
“No,” said Guy, decidedly. “Nothing. And, many things that I could like—”
“Yes. Try and tell me. I think I shall understand.”
“Yes; oh, you’re so kind. I’ve always felt he never would come where you were. Some people fret me, even in the next room. But, music now—that might lift one away from him, but he stops it; he always stops what I care most for. I could bear it, but my body won’t; that betrays me.”
“Yes, that wants careful looking to. Now, my boy, try and tell me what your own view of the matter is. What you think most likely to be true about it.”
Guy looked up with pitiful puzzled eyes.
“Ask me more questions,” he said.
“Ever read up the subject?”
“No, I began; but I daren’t—”
“You feel sure it is something besides your own nerves?”
“Yes.”
“Something or somebody outside yourself?”
“Outside myself? I don’t know that.”
Guy suddenly caught Cuthbert’s hand again and pressed it hard against his forehead, as if to steady his brain. Then he spoke more clearly.
“I don’t know if what comes over me is my ancestor himself, or the fiend that tempted him, or my own worst self. As for the vision, I’m not so much afraid of that.”
“Then what you want is to be able to resist this influence?”
“Yes, before it ruins me, body and soul.”
“Well, you must let me think it over. Depend upon it, I’ll not leave you alone to fight the battle. Now, you’ll sleep to-night?”
“Oh yes, I am not frightened now,” said Guy, simply.
“Well then, we’ll go to bed, and talk it over again to-morrow. But you must come up to town with me and see a doctor, you need only tell him that your nerves have had a shock. But I wouldn’t avoid the general subject. Such experiences are not altogether exceptional.”
“Nervous affections, in fact,” said Guy, dryly.
“Well, sometimes, you know. Anyway, there are safer remedies than brandy, if your heart gives you trouble. And mind, come to me at any time, or send for me. Bring it into the light of day.”
Guy felt soothed by the kindness, and he knew that the advice was good. But, all the same, he knew that it was Florella who had touched the heart of his trouble.
“You’re awfully kind,” he said, gratefully.
“I know the look of trouble,” answered Cuthbert; “and fate hasn’t left me many anxieties. I’m quite free to worry about you.”
Guy’s eloquent eyes softened. The fellow-feeling was better than the reasoning. But as he got up to go to bed, he said in his usual self-contained voice, “You know, Rawdie saw him too, and had palpitations.”