Waynflete

“I haven’t quite sounded them – yet.”

It had passed for a jest; but as she recalled the short, unexpected sentences with which he had answered her, she felt that he had meant it for a statement of fact, and of very remarkable fact too. It was characteristic of her that she speculated about Guy even at this moment of personal emotion.

She gave herself a little mental shake, and turned to get ready for the table-d’hôte.

She had never been really unhappy in her life before. She had never really been beset by a thought that prevented her from thinking of what she wished to think of, and claimed her for its own.

Guy disliked the fatigue of the long dinner, and rarely attended it. He was sitting in his favourite corner, when a movement made him aware that people were coming out again, and Mrs Palmer, in much smarter clothes than of old, but with an unmistakable air of Ingleby and home, came and sat down by him.

“My dear Guy,” she said, “you’re one of the family, and I want to confide in you.”

Guy was not given to consider himself as one of the Palmers, but he accepted the compliment, and said —

“Is anything the matter, Cousin Susan?”

“Well, yes, Guy. I think there’s a great deal the matter. Indeed, perhaps it’s my duty to write to Mr Matthew; but he isn’t exactly considerate at a distance.”

Guy allowed that this might be the case.

“And – my responsibilities are great with Jeanie, so much admired and an heiress. And I’m quite sure there’s nothing to be gained by going out of one’s own circle, especially among foreigners and Americans – people of no character at all.”

Guy said that this charge was rather sweeping.

“Was there any American in particular?”

“Yes; there is a Mr Van Brunt. He has been most attentive, and followed us about. I shouldn’t be surprised if he came here. He speaks of himself as a man of fortune, and says his father has a great dry-goods store in Chicago. It doesn’t sound well – a store is a shop – very different from a mill. And, besides, if there’s one thing I like it’s constancy; and poor Godfrey at home in England – such cruel treatment for him, after that week at the Rabys.”

“But, Cousin Susan, it’s quite as easy to inquire about a man in Chicago as in London. Of course he ought to give a reference. And as for constancy,” – Guy could not help a little smile as he spoke, – “of course Godfrey knows that Jeanie is perfectly free. Our affairs made that imperative.”

“Oh, my dear Guy, I’d rather trust Palmer Brothers, in difficulties, than all the dry-goods stores in America out of them. Do reason with her, my dear Guy, and plead Godfrey’s cause. Jeanie is a very good girl; but, of course, she feels her independence. Couldn’t Godfrey come out, and look after his own interests?”

Guy was capable of hearing a good deal without committing himself. He would not promise to reason with Jeanie, nor to telegraph to Godfrey; but he agreed to interview Mr Van Brunt, and in his secret heart, he hoped that that dry-goods store in Chicago might prove to be solvent, and its owner’s character and intentions clear as the day, and that his duty as “one of the family” would not be to protect Jeanie from the snares of an adventurer.

There were sounds of arrival late that night, and when he came down the next morning, Jeanie waylaid him on the stairs, looking, in spite of her smart tailor-made frock and well-dressed hair, very like the shy Jeanie of the Mill House, Ingleby.

“Oh, Guy,” she said, “mother’s been talking to you – and please – I’ve got something to say. It’s your brother’s own fault, if I’ve changed my mind. Besides, I hadn’t seen anything of society then. I’ve quite a right, it was settled I had – to choose for myself.”

“Certainly,” said Guy, leading the way out on to the verandah. “I’ve promised your mother to talk to Mr Van Brunt, if he comes.”

“He has come,” said Jeanie, meekly. “He came after we went to bed last night. Oh,” – sitting down at one of the little tables laid for breakfast, and making a pattern on the tablecloth with the rolls – “people are silly – and – and there was ever so much nonsense at Kirkton. But there – Godfrey won’t be disappointed. I’m sure, if he had wanted to come back, he never would have stopped away because you were ill. Any one may give away roses to anybody. But when you leave them behind on your dressing-table, and they come down in the vase, to be done up for the next person – well, you don’t care very much anyhow. Oh – oh – you didn’t stay long at Munich, Mr Van Brunt – good morning. This is my cousin – Mr Waynflete.”

A slender, dark-haired young man, with bright eyes behind a pair of pince-nez, made Guy a formal bow, and Jeanie vanished, while her “cousin,” considerably embarrassed, bowed much less gracefully, and remarked that it was a fine morning.

“It is so,” remarked the American; “but, Mr Waynflete, I’m very glad to make your acquaintance, understanding that you take quite the place of a brother to Miss Palmer.”

“Well – a – not exactly,” began Guy, thinking that Jeanie must have come down very early to produce this understanding.

“She assures me that, if you are satisfied, her mother’s scruples will be set at rest. Allow me to make it clear. Here is my card – Lawrence P. Van Brunt. I refer to my bankers, – and – , London, and to the American Minister in Great Britain, also the British Consul at Chicago. I – I dare say I may seem hurried, but I came over a month ago on business, and must cross again in a fortnight.”

He laid a row of papers and letters of introduction beside the rolls on the table.

“I – I don’t care what I do to post you up in my circumstances – it’s all perfectly square, I assure you. And Miss Palmer allows me to hope.”

“I see no reason why you should not apply to Miss Palmer’s uncle and trustee,” said Guy, after a little more had passed.

“Yes; but I’m told you have great influence with her mamma!” said the young American, wistfully.

“I didn’t know it,” said Guy; but he met the stranger’s eyes, and they both laughed. “Won’t you have some breakfast? Staunton, this is a friend of Mrs Palmer’s, Mr Van Brunt. Have you ordered coffee?”

Mr Van Brunt swept up his papers, and sat cheerfully down, proceeding to make himself very agreeable. The other little tables filled. Jeanie and her mother sat at one some way off. Constancy, with her friends, watched curiously, till the stranger, as soon as he politely could, edged off towards the object of his attraction.

“Eh what?” said Staunton, as the grave Guy for once went off into a hearty fit of laughter.

“Oh, I say!” he said; “it was quite outfacing. Fancy playing heavy father to Jeanie! I’d better wire to Godfrey at once.”

The energetic American produced a Continental Bradshaw, and proposed to start that afternoon to interview Mr Matthew. First, however, he went to walk with Jeanie.

And poor Cousin Susan, wiping her eyes, and with a heart full of feelings, of which the young ones took little enough heed, exclaimed, as she finally yielded the point —

“Oh, Guy, dear aunt would have thought me so weak. Chicago!”

The party soon dispersed. Jeanie and her mother followed the ardent lover home to Rilston; Constancy and her friends pursued their intended path among the heights of the Tyrol; while the good-hearted Cuthbert managed to find sources of culture wherever he fancied that Guy was most at ease.

Godfrey was evidently ashamed to express relief on paper, and simply wrote, “I shall begin again,” but there was new purpose in every line of his letters, and most affectionate promises of keeping everything straight, if Guy would only stay away, get strong, and enjoy himself.

Guy said no more about himself; but he had little ways which showed his friend that he still had something to undergo. The steady look round in a fresh place, the shading hand over his eyes, the trick he had of finding a special corner, and of keeping to it, with his face turned one way, were significant; and he was more silent and quiet than ever; but also much more gentle. Cuthbert hardly knew how, one still bright evening, when some trifle recalled his own past, he found himself telling the story long buried even from himself.

Guy listened, looking at him with his searching eyes.

“Does it all seem over?” he said.

“Ah well,” said Cuthbert, with a long sigh, “I can’t say no. For average people like me, death is parting for the present, and as to the future – I’ll leave it in the Hands that frame it. But for me, the moss has grown over her grave, I’m not unhappy, but I think the kind of business is over for me. No, Gladys was quite human, it all belonged to this good earth of ours, and it was very good – while it lasted – and worth while.”

“Love does not belong to earth,” said Guy; “it is never over.”

“Ah, my boy,” said Cuthbert, “not for you, perhaps; but I’m a blind old earthworm, and my soul doesn’t soar. Yours is a blessed conviction.”

“Yes,” said Guy; “it is. But it isn’t quite so sweet – as – as having it now.”

He moved hurriedly away. He had gained a “blessed conviction.” But it is very hard to feel as well as to know, that the soul is worth the whole world, the whole “good earth,” as Cuthbert truly called it.

He came home early in August, with much-improved physical health, to find Godfrey like another man, full of the prospects of the business, and as he shortly expressed it, “out of his hole.” Rawdie was in raptures.

“He has got along,” said Godfrey, “by worrying cats and hiding bones. But he will sleep on your bed, and sit on your slippers. Just look at the sentimental little beggar, cuddling into your waistcoat.”

Guy sat down when his brother left him, in his old corner in the study, with Rawdie on his knee, and looked round him. The sense of constant effort slipped away from him.

“I can do here,” he said to himself, in his northern idiom, “I’m used to it. One must pay the price.”

Part 3, Chapter IX

The Arch-Fear

One sunny afternoon towards the end of August, Florella was sitting on the wall of old Peggy Outhwaite’s garden, sketching a tuft of house-leek that adorned the roof of the ancient and ill-kept cottage. This little homestead, which was Peggy’s own, and had belonged to her fathers before her, was tucked into a corner of the wood above the Flete, through which the footpath led up to the Hall; the cottage was reached from that side by a little side-track.

The like of Florella had never come into Peggy’s life before, and she took to this new kind of creature very kindly, finding her a most attentive listener to Waynflete traditions.

Whether in old Peggy, inglorious, though not mute, there rested the soul of a romance writer, or whether, as she herself averred, the Outhwaites knew a deal, she told “Miss Flowra,” as she called Florella, more about “t’ owd Guy” than any one had ever heard before. She was a true reciter; and while Florella sketched, she would stand before her, and describe the passage of the Flete on that awful night when Waynflete was lost, as if she herself had been standing by. She told her the original legend of the traitor who had betrayed his friend’s life, and therefore had “walked” ever since. She mentioned his appearances, and talked about him with a kind of grotesque familiarity as if “t’ owd gen’leman” had been in the habit of taking constitutionals about the valley. But now and then her tone deepened.

“Eh, my dear,” she said, “ye mun look on’t aright. A poor lost soul does na’ coom back to tempt, but to warn – to warn us fra’ sin, Missy. He’s boun’ to coom, though happen the devil drives ’un. But ’tisna a’ can see. T’ owd Guy may walk oop till most on us, and we be noon wiser. There’s my Jem, puir lad, sees ’un, he do, and Mr Guy, he knaws ’un well.”

“Did he ever tell you so?” said Florella.

“Eh, d’ye think I need tellin’? Eh, there a be. Good day to ye, sir.”

Florella’s palette fell out of her hand before this friendly greeting revealed to her that it was not the old, but the young Guy, who stood at the garden gate.

He had not been at Waynflete since his return, and now came forward with outstretched hand, while Jem appeared behind him like his shadow.

“Godfrey has been away,” he said, “and I couldn’t get over before. I have come to the Vicarage for a week. There are a good many arrangements to make, and I want to ask Mrs John Palmer a favour. I should like – it’s an odd fancy – but I should like old Miss Maxwell, the Stauntons’ cousin, to come to the church opening. You saw her, I think. I know Mrs Palmer is going kindly to do the entertaining.”

“Oh yes,” said Florella. “I had thought of her. But she’d like you to ask her yourself.”

“So I know,” he said; “I shall ride over. Staunton says he won’t come in the character of an hereditary foe; but I shall get him somehow.”

“We asked Violet,” said Florella, “and she says that ancestors are such a novelty that she is delighted to have even a villain.”

Guy and Florella had a laugh in common as he turned and spoke to Peggy, and she gathered up her sketching things.

“Eh,” said the old woman, as they went out at the gate together, “t’ owd Guy winna mak’ an end yet o’ Waynfletes!”

When old Miss Maxwell, picking York and Lancaster roses in her little garden, looked down the bleak grey street of Ouselwell, and beheld a stranger riding up, she felt, as she said afterwards, a presentiment of something unusual, which, as strange and striking young men were not common in Ouselwell, was perhaps not surprising. But it was fulfilled when the stranger left his horse at the inn, and walking up to her gate, bowed politely, and introduced himself as Guy Waynflete, a friend of her cousin, Mr Cuthbert Staunton.

Miss Maxwell made him a formal bow and led him into her little drawing-room, and the little old maid and the tall young man sat down opposite to each other, and Guy said quite simply —

“Miss Maxwell, we have been restoring Waynflete Church. It is to be opened on Michaelmas Day, and my brother and I wish very much that you should be with us on the occasion. We have to thank you for the family papers which you allowed us to have.”

“You do me a great honour, Mr Waynflete,” said the old lady, formally. “It is long since I was so far from home; but I should, I assure you, be glad to share in the rejoicing. Although the relations between our families were not as happy as could be wished, yet somehow, sir, any connection so long ago creates an interest.”

“Yes,” said Guy; “that is just my feeling.”

Then she gave Guy bread and salt in the shape of tea and hot cakes, and lapsed into more friendly chat, shaking hands tenderly with him when he took leave, and the interview, a somewhat quaint one for the end of the nineteenth century, concluded.

“A most distinguished young man,” as she wrote to Kitty Staunton; “but I fear he has the look of a doom upon him.”

“Which only means that he looks delicate,” said Constancy, when this cheerful sentence found its way to Waynflete.

For Constancy was there, having finished her trip, and having assured herself that Godfrey was pretty well tied to Ingleby. The world was going well. The old incapable tenant of Upper Flete, the only farm on the estate of any value, died, and was succeeded by a nephew, with more education and capital, who came to terms with Godfrey as to needful improvements, and rented some more land. A purchaser was found for the copse-wood, which had not been cut for many years, who bought it standing, and undertook all the expenses of cutting and carriage. A great change would therefore soon be seen in the whole aspect of the valley, and, as for the house, Mrs John Palmer’s fancy for it continued, and she thought of taking it, as she could well afford to do, for a summer residence; in which case, she would, no doubt, prove a good friend to the village.

Godfrey came forward and made all the arrangements without any apparent reluctance; but a queer little smile, not unlike his brother’s, came over his face when he was questioned by the neighbouring squires on his views on preserving or politics, and he would not commit himself as to the future.

All this was satisfactory to Guy, and so, in another way, was his “reconciliation” with the last of the Maxwells of Ouseley. Matters seemed to be drawing towards a point of success, of which the coming gathering was a kind of symbol. As he was returning from a ride in the broad, spreading sunlight of an August afternoon, he thought of all that the past year had brought to him. It was but a year since he had shown Florella the picture in the octagon-room, and her words had roused him to make a fight for his freedom. Till she touched his spirit, he had been tossed and driven in helpless and hopeless bondage to fear, his one notion of fortitude, concealment, his one refuge, a remedy worse than the disease. That danger he recognised with critical self-knowledge, had, in his case, been born of fear, and was itself something of a spectre of his fancy. Apart from maddening terror, he would never “take to drink.” And, after this year of stern and steady conflict, it did not seem to him that any bewilderment of the senses could ever again terrify him beyond the power of self-control. While, as for that inward sense of possession, that presence, which for him lay behind all else, if that should spring into consciousness again, after its long sleep, he was prepared to face it. There was another force, deeper and stronger still, which, in dim and awful glory, had made itself felt within him.

Guy believed that his soul was saved. There are no other words for it, though these may convey a hundred other meanings. But there was “more to come.” Whether this conviction was well-founded, or whether, as Cuthbert would have told him, it sprang from the depression of exhausted nerves and spirits; from the melancholy too often associated with trials such as his, it equally proved that he was not free as other men were for the sweetness of life and love.

As other men? Were other men free? “The drink” might have been a bugbear to him, but it was an awful fact to thousands of those others. How many devils had possessed his rough ancestors, whose clutch had not closed on him, because the one great gain of old Margaret’s courage had been that he and his brother began life on a higher level? How did this poor Jem Outhwaite, who burlesqued and caricatured his own grim experiences, come to be what he was? As this thought occurred to him, Jem himself started out of a gateway beside him, and, after a grin and nod of greeting, picked up Rawdie, and carried him over a muddy piece of ground, through which he himself humbly shambled beside Guy’s horse. The royal favourite should not needlessly wet his feet.

Jem was a conversational person, and fired off short remarks at intervals.

“Owd Cowperthwaite says Waynfletes’ll tak’ t’ bread out o’s mouth.”

“Old Cowperthwaite’s a scoundrel,” said Guy.

“Ay, sir,” said Jem, cheerfully. Then, after a pause, “I see twa rabbits over Flete Edge. Mr Godfrey can shoot ’em.”

“Ay, I dare say he will.”

“I see t’ owd gen’leman by t’ brig on Friday,” said Jem, in the same contented treble.

“Nay, Jem, I don’t think you did,” said Guy, didactically.

“I see Miss Flowra,” said Jem, in the same tone of cheerful indifference.

Guy sprang from his horse, and Jem, setting Rawdie delicately down on a bit of turf, grinned, nodded, shambled away across a field towards the river, and was out of sight in a minute.

“Oh,” said Florella, as she came up, “I hope Jem will go straight home, he has been about all day. Old Peggy is really ill. She got a chill the other day waiting for him at the bridge in the rain. You know he stops at the Dragon, and the doctor says he must be found quick, or it may go hard with her.”

“I know,” said Guy, briefly. “I’ll just go and put my horse up, and then go and fetch him. He’ll come with me. He was here this minute.”

“You know,” said Florella, in a half-whisper, “that he says t’ owd Guy stops him.”

“I know,” said Guy. “But don’t listen to stories about him. You mustn’t get to fancy the place is haunted.”

“I am not afraid,” she said, and there was a touch of reproach in her voice. Guy paused a moment, then spoke in another tone.

“I think I have been wrong,” he said. “I wanted you to forget what you had done for me, for fear the least influence from which you have saved me should breathe on your spirit. But you ought to know that you have saved me. You have led me to that saving Presence of which you spoke. Whatever may come, whatever it may cost, yet the snare is broken, and I am delivered.”

She looked at him without a word.

He went on in the same steady, controlled tones. “Now you see there’s another. Will you help that poor lad through the next hour, I think he’ll be hard pressed? Good-bye, he shall come to his mother. He shan’t be too late.” He took her hands, and bent as if to kiss them. A little sob broke from her, and in a moment the kiss was on her lips.

He was gone before the blood had time to burn up in her cheek, and she broke into a passion of tears, while formless and awful, all the terror that he might be going to meet, rushed over her spirit. She felt helpless, powerless, certain of evil. Her soul was full of mist and cloud. All she could do was, like a child, to follow his behest, and pray for Jem.

Guy, thrilled with a new and high excitement, put up his horse, and with Rawdie still at his heels, pursued his way towards the Dragon, intending to call Jem away from its enticing attractions, and to escort him over the old footbridge back to his mother. A simple thing to do, but he had only crossed that bridge once before.

The hot bright sunlight had thickened into a thundery mist, and the light rapidly faded. Guy was not tired now, he walked easily enough, nor did any perplexing thoughts beset him. He saw – no more than usual. He felt no inward horror. But upon his rapturous mood there fell as strong a conviction that he was going to dare his fate as if he had gone to pick up a bomb of dynamite. He felt as if the very air was a resisting force as he pushed on through it. He went on, and a deep sadness came upon him, and all in a moment, as he came to the top of the hollow, he knew that it was the expectation of death. He stopped and looked down into the mist. He could not see across the valley, and he could not see across that expectation. He could not think of any definite danger. He stood still with his eyes on the ground; upon the mist the spectral shape that went before him, showed out sharp and clear. Words came into his mind. “Fear not him that can kill the body.” But “the body” meant life and work, and love and joy. It meant Florella. Perhaps his body was the price that had to be paid for his soul. And when the end was past? What did death mean? When the spirit was free from the flesh, would the spiritual foes be gone? Or would the last veil be withdrawn from their terrible faces? What would await him in the world where the other Guy had gone before?

Guy went on down the hill till into the misty air gleamed the paraffin lamps of the Dragon public, and into his misty thoughts came the need of sharp and prompt action.

He stepped inside the door, and called out, “Is Jem Outhwaite here? I want him.”

Two or three men were standing about, in the bar. They looked at Guy, and fell back before him with surprising readiness.

“Here a be, sir,” said one, pushing Jem’s reluctant figure forward, as he tried to slink behind them.

“Come Jem,” said Guy; “your mother’s bad, and I’m going to take you back to her across the bridge. Come along with me.”

He laid his hand on Jem’s arm, and with a short “Good evening,” pulled him out of the cheerful circle, into the foggy dusk. Jem, who followed him usually like a dog, now hung back, and dragged against his hold, trembling and reluctant; not drunk, he thought, but manifestly dazed with fear. He was tall and big, and perhaps it was the dead weight of his resistance that made Guy feel as if the very mist oppressed him, and forced him back. Against himself, against his poor companion, against uncomprehended forces he struggled on.

“Sithee, there a be. We canna get by. He’ll get me!” gasped Jem, as he struggled.

“Jem,” said Guy, “I have got past him, though I was just as much afraid as you. And I am not going to let him stop you. He can’t do it, Jem. Say your prayers your mother taught you, and come on. He can’t stop you.”