Part 3, Chapter II.
“A Little Hint—A Mystic Flash.”
“Mill House, Ingleby,—
“December 27th.
“Dear Miss Vyner,—
“I hope you will allow me to thank you for your lovely drawing. It gave me a happy Christmas. The harebells say to me all that you would say yourself. They do indeed help me. Again thanking you, and with every good wish for the New Year,—
“I am yours most gratefully,—
“Guy Waynflete.”
This composition, which had cost Guy much pains, was brought to Florella, as she sat putting delicate finishing touches to her latest picture, a procession of snails, walking along the top of a moss-grown wall, moist with a recent shower.
“To take the air, and hear the thrushes sing,” was the motto written below, and, as Violet Staunton had said, Florella must have got inside a snail’s shell and seen the world from between its horns when she painted it. She laid her brush down now, and with throbbing heart held the letter against her cheek. Yes, she had known that he wanted the harebells. She had known it not only because, from one source and another, from Godfrey’s letter to Constancy, and from Cuthbert Staunton’s reports to his sisters, she knew something of his outward life, but from that curious inward sense that told her when a time of special trial was upon him. The inward vision was dim and faint, the very intensity of her anxiety for him blurred and confused it, and the outward intelligence seemed either to render it superfluous or to show how little it was worth. If she could but “see” more clearly!
That same evening she went to a party with her sister. The “willing game” was played, and there were thought-reading experiments and wonders performed with “Planchette.” A lady looked into Florella’s eyes as she sat apart, and told her that she would be more successful than any one in the room. She ought to “develop her faculties.”
Florella’s heart gave a great leap. Could she obtain more power to help him so?
The fear of betraying either his secret or her knowledge of it held her back. That, and an instinct that no stranger should intermeddle with the deep things which filled her with wonder and awe. She refused to try, and saved her delicate spirit from risks unknown. Constancy tried every experiment, and laughed at them all. No influence touched her spirit or shook her nerves. She got hold of “Planchette,” and manipulated it so cleverly, guessed so keenly, and invented so boldly that she took in a whole group of not very wise inquirers, who thought she had developed a surprising power of receptiveness. She laughed and held her peace; but Florella still held apart, and the more she saw, the more she felt that she must guard Guy’s experiences from such intrusion. She found that it would have been very easy to betray them.
It was not in this surface region of easy puzzles and useless surprises that her soul touched his.
In two or three days’ time she received another note from him, hastily written and much less formal in style.
“It has suddenly come upon me that I have been taking your help without one thought of what it may cost you to give it. Why did I never know before that such help, even to one so innocent as you, must cost pain and effort? Never let that be! Forgive my selfishness; the sympathy you gave me seemed divine. But even Divine help costs suffering, and I should be the worst of all cowards, the most contemptible of traitors, to let you suffer with me. You have done so much—enough to win for ever the thanks of—
“Guy Waynflete.”
So then he knew. He knew that, when she fought for him, she too must “feel” the foe. He knew what the strain of self-giving meant. But there was no doubt of the answer. Florella sat down and wrote:—
“Dear Mr Waynflete,—
“I think, if God lets the help go through one, one need not be afraid. I am not good as you think, but I am not afraid. God understands it. I wish I could help more. I am very glad you liked the harebells, and I hope that Mr Staunton will not let you work too hard in this cold weather.
“Yours truly,—
“Florella Vyner.”
Poor little inadequate human words! Florella finished and directed her letter, and then she sat down by the fire and cried very much. She was not afraid, but it was almost more than her tender soul could bear. To be good enough To let every bit of selfishness and silliness and idle vanity be burnt away by the spiritual fire! To think largely enough of so large a thing!
More outside news came through the medium of Christmas letters from the various Palmer cousins. The attraction that had kept Godfrey at Kirkton Hall was freely commented on, and it need hardly be said that it was well to the front in Constancy’s mind when, on paying a New Year’s call on the Stauntons with her aunt and sister, she beheld a tall flaxen head in dangerous proximity to the chandelier, and recognised it as Godfrey Waynflete’s.
“I have come up on business about the mill while Staunton is still able to be with my brother,” he said, after the stiffest of greetings.
“I am very glad to see you,” said Mrs Palmer, cordially. “Do you know I want to ask a question? Are you going to let Waynflete again for the summer and autumn? No air ever suited me so well, and as for the noises, one gets used to them. I found the old horseman at last quite companionable.” Suddenly Constancy broke in, in clear, deliberate tones.
“If you think of going to Waynflete, Aunt Con, I think I’ll make a confession. It entered into my wicked head, when we stayed at Waynflete before, to try the effect on my family of supernatural terrors. I did most of the ghosts that people heard in the house. It’s very easy to take people in. And as I shall probably be in the Tyrol next summer, I dare say there won’t be any mysterious noises.”
“Constancy, can I believe you?” exclaimed Mrs Palmer.
Godfrey came and stood in front of her, towering over her chair.
“I must ask you to tell me exactly what you did?” he said sternly.
“Nothing much,” interposed Florella. “I told Mr Waynflete about it last summer.”
“Guy knows?”
“Yes; he knows it was nothing of consequence. But of course it was very foolish of us.”
“And very amusing,” said Constancy, defiantly.
“I hope the inhabitants of Waynflete were frightened enough to afford you amusement. In that case, no doubt, it was worth while.”
“Oh, amusement is always worth while. I heard you had a most amusing Christmas at Kirkton. And you go back soon, I believe?”
“I should have gone back, Miss Vyner, if my brother had not been too ill to spare me. I have explained to my Rilston friends that I am tied to Ingleby for the present.”
Here the Stauntons and Florella struck up the swords of the combatants by a rush of questions as to their Yorkshire acquaintances, while Constancy could have bitten out her tongue as she recalled the commonplace feminine spite of her retort on Godfrey.
“Worse than any Miss Bennet!” she thought, as the discussions of last summer came back on her memory, and she knew that her sudden confession had been prompted by the determination to make him notice her at any cost.
“So, Florella,” she said, when the sisters were at home and alone together, “you needn’t have been so angry with me for that bit of frivol last autumn. You see he has neither broken his heart nor gone to the ends of the earth, and given up Waynflete to Guy. He has got engaged to Jeanie—and her money.”
“You heard him say that his brother wanted him,” said Florella, after a moment. “How could he go away?”
“Poor Guy!” said Cosy. “He is a nice fellow. I hope he won’t die of his heart complaint! But Flo, speak out! What would you have done if you had had such a letter? I couldn’t tell him I liked him—when—when I didn’t mean to.”
“I think you do,” said Florella, “whether you mean to or not. But you might have helped the best side of him to make amends for what he had done. You left him all to himself.”
“Well,” said Cosy, after a half-offended pause, “if I am a fool, at least I have the sense to know it.”
She threw herself into a chair by the fire, and sat staring into the blaze with her chin on her hands. She, brilliant, admired, successful, had done a small and a stupid thing, and her pride was stung by the knowledge. The sleeping soul began to stir within her. Life had been to her like the music described by hearsay—a sound without a tune. Her clever mind had dealt with words and signs, while the undeveloped and childish spirit had never realised their meaning. If Godfrey, as she had sometimes called him, had been “only a great boy,” poor Cosy herself was still but a great girl, and a selfish girl too, shrinking from the disturbance of passionate emotion.
In such a form she experienced the “conviction of sin,” and the change in her mental outlook was so great that it might well be called a conversion, as conversions come to such as she.
She got the thought of her own shortcoming quite clear in her mind, as clear as if it had been a mathematical problem, or the plot of a story. Then she got up, shook herself together, and went to get ready to recite at a “slum concert” patronised by some of her friends.