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.