After a little while, Guy said reflectively, “It is odd that he found it so hard to obey the ghost, rather than to resist him. I don’t much think Shakespeare ever felt one himself.”
This tone of calm consideration of the psychological truth of Hamlet nearly made Cuthbert laugh, even while he was thinking of how to manage the young visionary beside him. It was years since his easy life had been invaded by so much anxiety for any one, years since he had had so lively an interest.
Guy fished out the right volume of “Shakespeare” from among the books that played propriety in a glass bookcase in the dining-room at Ingleby, when he had finished his supper at two o’clock in the morning, and took it upstairs with him.
On the next afternoon, perhaps happily to change the current of his thoughts, they were engaged to Mrs Raby’s garden party at Kirkton Hall, a big house between Ingleby and Kirk Hinton, and the source of much of the gaiety of the neighbourhood. On arriving, after the long drive, they beheld Godfrey’s flaxen head towering above the other tennis players as he prepared to play a match with Miss Raby, who was the champion lady-player of the district, against her brother and Constancy Vyner, who turned to Guy with a cordial and friendly greeting. She looked fresh and bright, and quite at her ease in Godfrey’s presence. Indeed, she had told her sister that she came on purpose to show that she could “manage the situation.” She had written Godfrey, instead of Geoffrey of Monmouth, three times in her Modern History notes that morning, and she spent much time in telling herself that she could never return his feelings.
And now, with boy and girl defiance, and yet with instincts old as the earth on which they stood, the one thing for which each of the pair longed was to conquer the other.
The play in that notable set was discussed by tennis-lovers for all the rest of the season, and the players never heeded the darkening of the sky, and the increasing weight of the air. Cosy’s hand was as steady and her aim as direct as if no inner consciousness existed, she put into her skilled play every atom of force that she possessed. As for Godfrey, he was as mad as a Berserker, and he looked like one.
The game, owing to the equality of the players, was very long, and it by-and-by became evident to Florella that Miss Raby was getting tired, and was no longer playing at her best.
They were playing the last game of the set. “Thirty all” was called as, without a moment’s warning, down fell a torrent of thunder, rain, and hail, enough to stop the most ardent players. Yet half a dozen more strokes—Miss Raby stepped back, exclaimed, “Oh, what a pity; we must declare the match drawn,” and fled to the house, while Mr Raby snatched up and held over her a lovely and useless white lace parasol.
Constancy and Godfrey stood opposite each other for a moment in the drenching rain, both at once exclaiming, “Too bad!”
Then she laughed and scudded off with lifted skirt, while Godfrey felt a sense of baffled anger which even defeat would not have brought to him.