Shortly after this day at the Rabys, Mrs Joshua Palmer went up to
Waynflete ostensibly because she thought that she could be of some use
to Aunt Waynflete in getting comfortably settled in there, and in
finally arranging her household if, as seemed likely, she remained there
for the winter, but really moved by something in her daughter's letters
which excited her anxiety. It would not do at all to have "anything"
between Godfrey and Jeanie, at their age. By-and-by, if anything really
came of the fancy, things might be different.
Guy and his friend were therefore left alone at Ingleby, and two or
three weeks passed without much outward event, but of much inward
importance.
Guy, whether wisely or unwisely, plunged into the study of such
experiences as his own, and their possible explanations. He had no
difficulty in these days in finding material, and he brought to bear on
the subject an amount of acute intelligence and reasoning power for
which Staunton had hardly given him credit. He puzzled him a good deal
by his ridicule of some recorded stories, and his keen interest in
others. He mastered the point of the various theories, stating and
criticising them with much force, and the discussions were certainly so
far good for him that he lost some of his sense of unique and shameful
experience. But Cuthbert saw that he tested everything by an
incommunicable and inexplicable sense, and he never uttered any definite
conviction as regarded himself. He had no "nervous attacks" as Cuthbert
called them; but whether the terrible night at Waynflete had done him
permanent harm, or whether the strain was more continuous than appeared,
he was certainly far from strong, and suffered from any extra exertion,
so that the need of care was evident enough.
"I believe I was a fool to set you upon all this reading," said
Cuthbert, one day. "You'll wear yourself out with it when I have to
leave you."
"It would be very difficult to be alone," said Guy, thoughtfully.
"It's out of the question. You're not fit for the mill or for the hard
winter here. You ought to have a sea-voyage, or something of that sort.
Or, at any rate, come and stay on the south coast somewhere where I
could make my headquarters while I'm lecturing, and see you now and
then."
"There are a great many things I can't quite tell you," said Guy, after
a pause, "and they don't only concern myself. It's all right about the
reading, but I've got something to do to-day. It's quite simple, only
rather hard. And I know `he' doesn't want me to do it."
Guy had said nothing so personal since his first confession, and, as he
got up languidly, and prepared to return to the mill for his afternoon
work, giving his friend an odd, half-smiling look, as he moved away,
Cuthbert felt an uncomfortable thrill.
It startled him to feel that Guy's conviction lay absolutely untouched
by all his recent study. There was something inscrutable behind the
pathetic eyes, and what was it? Was the boy "mad north-north west?" or
would he at last compel belief in the incredible? Horatio, Cuthbert
thought, had a great advantage in having actually seen the ghost that
haunted Hamlet.
Then he remembered making some remark to Guy on the "objective"
character of this famous apparition, and Guy had answered, "But they
only saw it, as you see a house or a tree. I don't suppose it made much
difference to them."
Guy betook himself to the mill, and called John Cooper into the room
where the bottle of brandy was still locked up in the cupboard in the
wall. He had often been as conscious of its presence there, as he could
have been of that of the ghost; every morning he thought about it more
and more persistently, and every evening when he went away he knew that
the day's victory had left him with less strength for the morrow's
conflict.
Now, when he went up to the cupboard, and turned the key in the lock,
and, with his keen ears heard the old manager's step crossing the
court--it was to him as if another hand pushed the lock back--and
another than himself suggested a different reason for the summons. But
he stood still, leaning against the wall, till the old man came into the
room.
Then he put up his hand, and let the door swing open.
"John Cooper," he said, "take that out, and take it away with you. I'll
own you had right on your side. But you shouldn't have cackled about it
to Mrs Waynflete."
"Well now," said Cooper, in a rougher echo of the young man's slow,
musical voice, "I've thought of that myself. I'm glad you've come to a
better mind about it, Mr Guy, for I'd not be willing to see the old
missus disappointed in your future."
"She don't expect much," said Guy. "Now then," after Cooper had taken
the brandy-bottle out of the cupboard, and set it beside a file of
bills. "Now that you see I'm not going to send the business and myself
to the dogs, shut the door, I've something to say."
John Cooper obeyed, and Guy sat down by the table.
"Now then," he repeated, "we are going to the dogs, and you know it.
Let's look it in the face."
"Eh, Mr Guy, trade's fluctuating. We'll pull round without letting th'
owd lady know there's aught wrong."
"Look here," said Guy, opening a paper, "d'ye think I've no brains in my
head? Look at the number of orders for this year, and last year, and
ten years back. Look at the receipts. What's the use of spending money
on setting all those out-of-date old looms in order? Where's the sense
of manufacturing the sort of goods people don't want, instead of what
they do? Is that the way these mills were run sixty years ago, when old
Mr Thomas managed the business?"
"He got the new looms, sir."
"Exactly so; and wouldn't he have seen long ago that they were worn out.
Look here, John, we'll have to pull up, and put our shoulders to the
wheel, or we'll have Palmer Brothers down among the failures before many
months are over."
"Eh, Mr Guy, for the Lord's sake don't say so. Don't mention such a
thing. 'Tis those new mills over Rilston way--and the price of coals--
and trade being bad ever since the Government--Eh, my lad, just think of
your old auntie, seeing all her life work undone, and having to sell the
property she's so proud over."
Here Guy started slightly, as the old man's voice choked.
"But we're not going to fail," he said. "We're going to fight it out
and pull through; that is, if you back me up."
John Cooper stared at him incredulously. Besides his natural surprise
that this "laddie" was old enough to have a say in the matter, and
besides his not unjustifiable suspicions of him, Guy's delicate outlines
and look of ill-health--in fact, his whole air--was so unlike that of
the powerful old woman who had so long held the reins, that the
identical form of the lines into which his lips set, was unperceived,
and the sudden, keen glance that came through the silky black lashes,
from the usually absent eyes, was startling.
"You know well enough, sir," said Cooper shakily, "that there's nought I
wouldn't do for the old lady and the business. She's been a grand
character all her days, and if there's a curse on the Waynfletes, she
set her teeth against it when she was but a slip of a lass, with rosy
cheeks and eyes that could look the sun down."
"Ay?" said Guy. "What d'ye mean by a curse on the Waynfletes?"
"Well, sir, of course it's only a manner of speech; but there were
plenty to say that Margaret Waynflete'd bring Palmers her own ill luck.
Now, I say, Margaret never brought ill luck to any man; and Mr Thomas
had the best of good fortune when he took her with her shawl over her
head and without a penny. Bad luck'll never overtake her now in her old
age."
"It will, unless we set our teeth against it pretty hard. I'm going to
tight. Now, look here, it all depends on what money or credit can be
produced now. In a few months it will be too late. I'm going to make
my aunt attend to what I have to say; and, if I can, get her to trust
me. For she'll have to trust me with all she has, and make me the
master, or down we shall go. And what you've got to do, is to tell her
honestly, from the bottom of your soul, that _you_ trust me, and know
I've got her own grit in me. So now, I give you my solemn word of
honour that I'll never touch a drop of strong drink till `Palmer
Brothers' is itself again, and Waynflete safe; and, if I fail, may I
become part of the curse myself. So here goes!"
He took up the brandy-bottle, and threw it out of the window, down into
the shallow, dark-dyed stream below. They heard it crack against the
stony bottom.
"Now then," said Guy, "will you back me up?"
"Lord, Mr Guy! That was unnecessary behaviour," said the bewildered
Cooper; "and very strong language to use. But I'll go along with you.
You've brought me to look the Lord's will in the face--which isn't easy
at seventy-eight--for there's not a matter of four years between me and
the missus. But I'll serve you faithful, Mr Guy; and if the Almighty
means us to fail--"
"But He don't," said Guy. "It's quite another sort of person that means
it. Now sit down, and we'll talk business."
As Guy marshalled his figures and his facts, asked penetrating
questions, and prepared the statement to which Mrs Waynflete must at
all costs be made to hearken, Cooper, who had a hard enough head of his
own, silently gave in and yielded his whole allegiance. Only when the
interview was over, he said, pleadingly--
"You'll be gentle, Mr Guy? For it don't come easy to old folks to turn
their minds upside down. It is easy for a young lad like you to act."
"Think so?" said Guy, with a queer, sad look. "Well, I'll do what I
can."
He was much more tired than was good for him, as he came in to the
study, in the rapidly increasing darkness of the autumn afternoon.
Cuthbert was not there, and all his sense of courage and energy failed
him; for, the more resolutely a nervous strain is encountered, the less
power of resistance is left. He grew drowsy in the dusk, then roused up
suddenly to the agony of panic-fear, to the intolerable sense of his
enemy within him. He might cover eyes and ears, but it entered by no
such avenues--anything to drown--to bury it. There was whisky in the
cupboard. He staggered to his feet, and the next moment Cuthbert's hand
was on his shoulder.
"Steady, my boy, steady. What is it? Lie down again. I am here;
you'll be better in a minute."
Guy clung to the hand of flesh and blood as if he had been drowning. He
hid his face, not hearing one word that Cuthbert said. He was not
merely suffering terror, but struggling, fighting to free himself, to
escape, to _separate_ himself from the influence that seemed to be upon
him, resisting and opposing it with all his strength. "Oh, help--help!"
he gasped.
"Yes--yes, my dear boy. Lie still. It will pass off directly."
And very soon, in two or three minutes, as Cuthbert counted time, the
agony seemed to cease, and Guy dropped back, deadly faint, but with
closed eyes and smooth brow.
Cuthbert brought him, as soon as he let go his desperate hold, some of
the remedy provided by the doctor, and tended him with a care and
kindness altogether new to him.
"It's _much_ better with you here," said Guy, presently, as if
half-surprised.
"Of course it is. You were so tired; no wonder a bad dream upset you."
Guy lifted his heavy eyes for a moment, and looked at him.
"A _very_ bad dream," he said drily. "It's over now."
"Tell me what it was?"
"He came, that's all. No, I can't tell you. You don't understand; but
you help."
Cuthbert did not think him fit for an argument, and sat by him in
silence. He felt that the sight of Guy's agony had tried his own nerves
somewhat. It was an odd turn of fate, he thought, that brought a quiet,
everyday person like himself, to whom no great heights or depths, either
of character or of fortune, were likely to come, who held steady,
unexciting opinions, and expected no revelations about anything, to be
guide, philosopher, and friend, to this strange being, for whom the
balance swung with such frightful oscillations.
Guy was very quiet all the evening, submitting with a little surprise to
his friend's precautions, but evidently finding it comfortable to have
done with concealment.
Only, the last thing of all, he looked at Cuthbert with his mocking
smile on his lip--"What a `softy' I should be," he said, "if this was
what you think it!"