Part 3, Chapter I.
Handicapped.
In the meantime Godfrey, stung to the very quick by Constancy’s shallow answer to the confession which he had forced from the depths of his soul, was kicking against the pricks of disappointed passion, and trying to persuade himself that they did not hurt him. He could not work, he barely scraped through his final examination; he could think of nothing but how to escape from himself. He could not face Guy till his plan of restitution was matured, and he caught at the Rabys’ invitation to go and spend a gay Christmas among a lively set of other young people at Kirkton Hall. He was very miserable, but, when people are young and strong, it is possible to be amused in spite of inward misery, and nobody guessed that Godfrey was either conscience-stricken or broken-hearted; and while he was thus keeping thought at bay, there befell him a great and unexpected temptation.
Jeanie, being now at Rilston with the Matthew Palmers, appeared on the scene in the altogether new light of a flattered and considered guest. She was talked of as a prize to be won, and in some occult and mysterious manner it was conveyed to Godfrey that this prize might be his for the asking.
Perhaps her Palmer kindred, who were people of much sense in a quiet way, knew what might be the lot of a simple and homely little girl whose great fortune bought a husband of good family and with bad debts. And Godfrey Waynflete, even if his fortune was not great, was no doubt a shrewd young fellow, or his shrewd old aunt would never have preferred him to his elder brother.
These ideas were conveyed by sober Palmer cousins to Godfrey’s mind, and they offered him the chance of a life of his own apart from Waynflete and Ingleby. Guy would have fewer scruples if Godfrey did not need the wrongfully gained inheritance. These purposes served as excuses, but it is an old story and never a very creditable one; Godfrey’s heart or, rather, his hand, was just ready to be “caught on the rebound.” Constancy’s contrast had a double charm. And Jeanie, who had always loved attention, now that she could attract it, like Miss Mercy Pecksniff, rose to the occasion. She had both sense and self-esteem, she was no longer the meek little cousin ready to make herself useful, and though she had an honest fancy for Godfrey, life had blossomed out with new possibilities. She knew very well that he had never sought her before, and she did not mean him to walk over the course. Pretended indifference was due to her ideas of propriety.
It was intoxicating to find herself made much of by a number of lively young people, all of the sort she knew, and liked, who flirted in her own style, and talked the kind of talk to which she could respond. Under such encouragement she was both pretty and lively, and the young folks at Kirkton and the neighbourhood had what Godfrey, and even Guy a year before, would have thought a very good time. One thing led to another, jokes to blushes, blushes to whispers, whispers to a half-acknowledged understanding, and almost before Godfrey knew what he was about he had practically committed himself, been laughed at and congratulated, and, by the time Christmas week was over, would have been irrevocably bound, had Jeanie ever allowed him to come quite to the point.
There had been one of those friendly dances among an intimate set of very young people, when much can pass as the jest of the moment, though the undercurrent of earnest gives the jest its charm.
Godfrey and Jeanie had waltzed and whirled through more dances than the young lady chose to count, and Godfrey’s last sight of her was as she skimmed along the polished floor of the gallery after Minnie Raby, refusing to stop and say good night. She peeped round the corner, and flung a rose right into his face, then vanished into her room and banged the door, while a sound like “To-morrow!” caught his ear. Every one was saying good night and running about. She had just refused him the rose in a cotillion, all was “jest and youthful jollity,” but Godfrey felt that “to-morrow” was big with fate. For about the tenth time that evening, he informed himself that he had completely forgotten Constancy.
Before he came downstairs the next day, two letters were brought to him. One was from the young vicar of Waynflete, stating that a thaw having taken place on the Sunday after Christmas, four umbrellas had been put up during service, and did Mr Waynflete see his way to a subscription for mending the church roof? The letter was several pages long, and gave a very unflattering picture of the condition of the Waynflete property. The vicar expressed himself with youthful energy, and begged the owner of the property to come and see for himself what had to be done.