Part 2, Chapter XI.
Helping and Hindering.
After Godfrey’s wild visit to Moorhead, the first news that came to Constancy and Florella from Waynflete, was the announcement to their aunt from Mrs Joshua Palmer of the death in the family. It came after they had joined her at Harrowgate, and was quite short and formal, without any mention of the two young men.
Constancy was honestly shocked and grieved. The high-spirited, vigorous old lady had struck her fancy, and the wreath she sent was a genuine expression of feeling.
The next thing was a polite visit from old Mr Matthew, as it was the custom to call him, with his report of the funeral, and of the contents of the will, together with his comments thereon.
“Neither of the lads looks as if he’d make a hand of the business. The eldest is but a poor, weakly fellow, and of course the old lady must have had very good reasons for passing him over and preferring his brother. Eh! they’re a queer lot, are the Waynfletes, a bad stock—a bad stock—and that’s a thing there’s no getting over.”
Mrs John Palmer replied with polite hopes that their bringing up might have partly got over it; but though she was not very fond of her husband’s family, on family occasions she remembered Palmer prejudices, and felt for the moment that the two Waynfletes were interlopers.
Constancy heard of Godfrey’s inheritance with a great throb of surprise. How would he take it? How had it come about? She remembered how Guy had been sent for at the last, and she wondered, being keen enough to guess how much there was to wonder at. Just before she left Yorkshire she received a letter. It began abruptly—
“I am writing to you because, little as you may care to hear, I could never look in your face again, unless you knew the worst of me. Probably face to face I never shall see you, but let me at least have the right to think of you with less utter shame. My aunt intended, if my brother had obeyed her summons at once, to have talked over business matters with him, and to have destroyed the will in my favour, under which I have the misfortune to inherit. I first of all forgot, in my preoccupation, to post her letter to Guy, so that he could not come till the later train, and then, as you know, in my mad desire to see you once more, and alone, I failed to send to meet him at Kirk Hinton. If he had come in the morning, as but for me he would, probably my aunt’s accident would never have happened, and he could have satisfied her mind on the points between them. As it was, he only came just before the end, when, though she knew him, she could not speak to him. Moreover, the long walk and the hurry and shock, all through my act, so injured him, that I thought his death, as well as all the rest, would lie at my door. I see Staunton thinks it may be so even yet. Guy has been most generous to me, but that only increases the dreadful weight of remorse that lies on me. You will see how impossible it is that I should profit by the results of my own wicked jealousy. I have pledged myself never to do so. I have now no right to tell you that I love you, or to come forward for your favour any more. I have often been stung by your contempt; but you see it was quite justifiable. I have but one purpose now, to free myself from the responsibilities I have brought on myself. Guy insists on my taking my degree, and by the time that is done, I hope my course may be clear to me. I mean this letter for a farewell. Don’t think I hope that you will answer it. Even now, I can’t be sorry that I love you. In the very ends of the earth I shall remember you. I have often said that nothing should come between me and my longing for you, but my own violence has put me off from you. I have loved you a great deal better than my honour, and you were right to turn away. But, oh, Constancy, you are the one thing in the universe to me, and no one else will ever love you half so much. I feel as if I must some day wake from a dream, and find myself fit and free once more to move Heaven and earth in my cause, and to win you yet. Say what you will, I believe that I could. But now I can only sign myself in the fullest meaning of the word, unworthy as I am to use it,—
“Yours faithfully,—
“Godfrey Waynflete.”
Constancy read this letter through with burning cheeks, and feelings in her heart that showed themselves as impatient anger. She quite understood it, and Godfrey stood out before her mental vision, vivid and picturesque with his single aim, and his single heart. But her soul rebelled against the demand on her sympathy. Like all people of strong imagination, she was a moral coward; to enter into the depths of such passionate remorse—such devotion of purpose, was too serious, too absorbing a thing. To realise it, so as to say anything real about it, demanded too much, and she scorned such unreality as she recognised. She knew that an appeal had been made to her, not so much for her love, as for the support of her comprehension. She could not say soft, unmeaning words; she knew what was asked of her much too well. She could have comprehended him and helped him through, but, “I don’t believe in the need of it all!” she said to herself. “He had much better forget all about it, and turn away to something fresh. I don’t want to go down into the depths with him. I want my own soul to myself.”
So she got a little sheet of rough, square paper, and wrote upon it a little note in the individual characteristic hand which was like nobody else’s.
“Dear Mr Waynflete,—
“I was extremely sorry to hear of dear Mrs Waynflete’s death. I never knew any one like her, and she was very kind to me. I can’t think that she would have altered her intentions at the last moment, though I am sure you must be very sorry to have prevented your brother from coming to her sooner. I hope he will soon be quite well again. I never think there is much good in dwelling on things that are over and done with. Do you think anything ever matters quite as much as one thinks it does? I cannot pretend to be so constant to the past. And blaming one’s self only makes one stupid and spoils one’s future chances. All sorts of new things will be sure to happen, and whatever is, is likely to be just as right as anything else.
“Yours truly,—
“Constancy Vyner.”
“There! It would be rather horrid of me not to write,” she thought, as she directed the rough square envelope, “but I couldn’t enter into all those desperate heroics.” Yet all the while she was preaching new things, the image of such a desperate hero was forcing itself on her imagination, a story built itself up in her mind, in which the nobleness of such a single aim, the grandeur of such depth of feeling was shown in clear, strong outline. But in real life the type was too inconvenient.
Perhaps it was in defiance of an uneasy conscience, to prove to herself her own self-satisfaction, that she showed Florella the letter, and described her answer to it.
“Why don’t you speak, Flo?” she said impatiently. “You make my soul wriggle before you. What have I done?”
“Nothing, it seems,” answered Florella, in sombre tones.
“Well, what could I do? I should be very wrong to encourage him, and he would take it as encouragement if I went down with him into such a Slough of Despond!”
“Did you really want him to think that what he did was of no consequence? I wonder if you have succeeded.”
“I don’t mean to have anything to do with him,” said Constancy, resolutely.
But she knew in her secret soul that she had been a coward.
She went back to college, to all the engrossing interests of college life, and Florella returned with her aunt to London, for a winter to be spent partly in the ordinary duties and pleasures of a young lady at home, and partly in the steady and careful study of her art.
For what was she to Guy Waynflete but a blight acquaintance, a girl who had met him a few times, and with whom his intercourse had been so slight as hardly to raise a remark.
That was strange, when all the force her spirit could transmit went into her promised prayers for him, and, when to such entire ignorance of what had outwardly happened, she united that inner sense of living with him through all. The contrast made her shy of mentioning his name; but when some few days after her return to town, she went over one afternoon to the Stauntons, it was with the hope of hearing something about him. She was told that Miss Staunton would be in directly, if she liked to go upstairs and wait for her, and she went up into the pleasant shabby drawing-room. Some one was lying back in a low easy-chair by the fire, and Florella knew in a moment that it was Guy himself.
He sat up and looked at her with an eager, half-doubtful, half-delighted look, but though her heart gave a great throb, she came forward holding out her hand, and speaking in her soft, composed voice.
“Mr Waynflete! Please don’t get up. I hope you are better.”
“Oh yes! But Staunton has made me come up with him to see the doctor again. We came yesterday; I was tired to-day, so I have only just come downstairs. But I am a great deal better.”
After this Florella sat down on a low chair in front of the fire, and there was a silence. She could speak no more commonplaces.
“You know,” said Guy, after a minute, “that I was not beaten. I was not quite too late.”
“Yes, I know.”
“It was very hard.”
“Very.”
“You helped me.”
“I tried.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“No.”
“That doesn’t matter. You mustn’t know, you mustn’t see. But enough strength came.”
“Yes.”
“I shall hold on, and you will—help.”
“I will; I do.”
“Pray for my soul.”
“Yes.”
They had spoken in low, quiet tones—the words seemed to drop out; but now the spell broke, and Florella looked away and spoke with a falter.
“But it has been very bad for you; you are ill—and things went wrong.”
“Oh,” said Guy, “I shall be able, I hope, to set things pretty right. I can get along—”
As he spoke there was a step, and Cuthbert came in, followed by his sister.
“Ah, Guy—here you are,” he said. “Getting rested? I should think you wanted some tea.”
There was a little bustle, and the tea-things were brought with a lamp, and in the talk that followed, Florella learned more of how things were going at Ingleby. Godfrey had returned to Oxford; Mrs Joshua Palmer and Jeanie were to stay on at the Mill House for the present; and Guy meant to go back there as soon as he had seen the doctor, and Cuthbert was claimed by his work.
“He has much business on hand,” Staunton told her aside; “but I cannot think how he will get on in that dull house. I wish the doctor would insist on sending him abroad. But he wouldn’t go; his heart is set on his work.”
“Then I think the work is best for him,” said Florella.
“Yes, one can’t interfere. But it is a frightful risk. I believe he’ll kill himself over it.”
Cuthbert spoke with some irritation. He was very anxious, and his wise resolve was hard to keep. Florella’s heart sank. She might lend Guy her strength for the battle, but she could not save him from a single blow.
They asked her to dim with them quietly on the next night, and she gladly promised to come. She would hear a little more.
When she came, Guy seemed better. He sat by her at dinner, and joined in the cheerful trivial talk, with a look of ease and pleasure. They said nothing special to each other, there was hardly the ordinary consciousness of mutual attraction between them, yet she was happy, and he for once at rest.
After dinner there was music, and as Kitty Staunton played softly, and they listened to it together, Guy watched her gracious harmonious outlines, and felt glad that her dress, though long and ruffed, with a broad silk sash, quite unlike the linen frock she had worn at Moorhead, was still of a soft tender blue. It still suggested the harebells. He said nothing more about himself; indeed he forgot himself and thought of her.
He wished her good night with a smile, and a long, steady look, as if he was drinking in the comfort of her presence. It never occurred to him for a moment that the help she gave him was at the cost of suffering to herself. He did not understand that a star must burn before it can shine.
But when he went upstairs, and looked steadily round to face his enemy in a new place, he woke to the sense that, through all the evening he had never seen or dreaded him. The fear had been forgotten. With the first thought the strange thing was before him; but just then, he looked with indifferent curiosity. He had told his own story to the doctor, and had heard in return that he would risk his life by over-exertion, or by any mental shock or strain; and that rest, change, and amusement were by far the most likely cure for the nervous affection that troubled him, and for every other tendency that he had cause to dread.
“Still,” said Guy, “there is no chance for me, but going back and doing what I can.”
And to Cuthbert’s surprise, the doctor gave in and admitted that a strong interest in his work was good, and perhaps with due care, he had better try, for a time. Guy promised prudence, and gained his point.
He parted from his friend in the same determined fashion, though he did not try to hide that the parting was hard. Cuthbert wondered, as he had often wondered before, how any one could be at once so dependent and so self-reliant.
In the same breath he said, with wistful eyes, “You’ll write to me often, won’t you? Even a card; or if you just wire, it will be something;” and, “I can’t help it, you know, if it does kill me; I’ve got to do it.”
And the grounds of this conviction were quite incommunicable. As for Florella, she felt as if all power of “help” had deserted her, and that nothing was left but anxiety.
What had he known of her strange experience? When she had gone down into the depths with him, how had he known it? He had taken her knowledge for granted, and claimed her continual help. But what did she know, and what had she done? Florella’s spirit dealt with strange things, and she paid the penalty of trouble and disturbance of soul. Thoughts and questionings which her young spirit could hardly bear, came to her, and since she had so thrown herself out of herself to aid him, the delicate balance of her nature was risked as well as his.
The minute and exceeding care with which she practised her flower-painting was her refuge and safeguard through these difficult months.
And she was not left alone, with only herself and Guy to think of. She had a great many acquaintances, old school-fellows, and others; some of whom were struggling to find a place among the workers of the day, others who were in the swing of the London circle to which Mrs Palmer belonged.
Florella had always obtained confidences. Her reposeful manner, her good sense, and her kindliness brought them. But now she heard story after story of trouble and temptation, perplexity, or discontent. “I always feel as if you could see my soul!” one girl said to her. She listened, and said such words as came to her. She felt sometimes as if she was in the very whirl and rush of life’s battle, while outwardly nothing happened to her at all. She painted flowers, and went out to parties with her aunt.