"I, George Maxwell, Attorney-at-law, feel it incumbent upon me for the
Establishment of my Character as an Honest Man, to state in writing what
passed after the Shocking and Lamentable Suicide of Guy Waynflete,
Esquire, of Waynflete Hall, which Property is legally mine by the Terms
of the Bond between Us. Since there be not wanting envious Persons to
say that! Took advantage of young Mr Waynflete's Illness, which
Prevented his Return at the Given Date. When he Arrived in the Early
Morning, he was Undoubtedly in liquor, which was his Custom, therefore
His Statement that the Spirit of his Ancestor, Guy Waynflete, Who
Betrayed his Friend, and the Father of his Future wife, and so Disgraced
his Family at the Time of the Lamentable Rebellion of the Duke of
Monmouth, stood in his Path, and Prevented Him from Crossing the River
Flete, hath no Credit with Reasonable Men. There be Some that say
Highwaymen are Plentiful, but Lies, in the mouth of this Young
Gentleman, are more Plentiful still. At the sight of His Father's
Corpse he fell into a swoon and Awoke Raving, in which Condition he Died
This Morning. The Lad Godfrey is but a Loutish Youth, but I am Willing
to Assist Parson Godfrey to put Him to some Honest Calling. I do not
Hold with Country superstitions, and I shall Instruct my Wife and
Daughters that the Gallopping of the Horse Round the House be nothing
but the Wind in the Plantations."
"Well!" said Violet, with calm emphasis, "whatever the Waynfletes were,
our ancestor was a beast, and I hope the Stauntons were more
respectable."
Florella sat quite still. She knew the sound that was called the
gallopping of a horse, and had once or twice been taken in by it, as a
child at Waynflete, and she felt as sure as if she had herself
experienced it, that whatever the evil was, inward or outward, which had
defeated this unhappy Guy Waynflete a hundred years ago, it was alive
and at work still. And she knew, too, that she had ranged herself on
the other side, and entered into definite conflict with it.
The result of this visit was that a post-card from his sister summoned
Cuthbert Staunton up to Moorhead on the day after Guy's interview with
John Cooper.
He was shown his old cousin's treasures, which she had entrusted to
Kitty for the purpose, as soon as he arrived, and studied them with a
grave face, and with a far deeper interest than his sisters guessed.
"I think," he said, "that these things ought to be given back to the
Waynfletes. I shall go and see this old lady, and see what her view
is."
"Oh yes," exclaimed Florella, suddenly, "Mr Staunton, I am sure they
ought to have them."
"In any case," said Cuthbert, "I will take them and let Waynflete see
them. And I say, I think you had better drop joking about the ghost.
It was a great tragedy, and they might not like it."
"Well, but it's all nonsense, and dead and done for," said Violet.
"It happened," said Cuthbert.
He looked so serious, that Constancy's keen eyes noticed him with
inquiry, and Florella, oh, how much she wondered what he knew.
They all walked out together to see the departing purple of the autumn
moor, now fading into russet, and as they went down the road, a boy
trotted up on a pony, and put a telegram into Cuthbert's hand.
"_From Guy Waynflete, Ingleby Station. My aunt has sent for me. I must
go, excuse me. Make yourself comfortable. Will telegraph when to
expect me back, but not to-day_."
Cuthbert uttered a dismayed exclamation which frightened the girls, and
obliged him to read the telegram aloud.
"Why, how very polite, and how very extravagant to telegraph up here!
You would have heard when you got back. He must have paid five
shillings for it!" said Kitty.
"He is rather punctilious," answered Cuthbert. "But I hope nothing is
wrong. He is not well, and I am sorry he has had to go off in this way.
He meant to go to-morrow."
The words expressed Cuthbert's anxiety very inadequately; he fell
silent, and Violet said--
"Well, he'll have a more comfortable journey than the old Guy, and there
won't be quite so much depending on his getting there by a particular
moment."
"I told you to let all that subject drop, Vi," said Cuthbert, sharply.
When the visitor was gone, Florella walked aside, and, in the late
afternoon, she went away by herself over the withering heather to the
rock where she had shown Guy the harebells.
There was no blue now, either in flowers or sky; the wind was driving a
heavy, smoky mist before it, and the air was, as Dante calls it,
"brown."
Could it be possible that Guy had meant _her_ to know what he was doing?
She knew, she saw, that the old story was not "dead and done for!"
There came upon her an awful, formless dread that Guy would never reach
Waynflete "safe." She stood quite still, with her eyes wide open, and
one hand holding by the jagged rock beside her. Her soul was alive
within her, and wrestled with the angel--whether of light or of
darkness, she did not know. She held Guy's soul with hers as with her
hand she might have held his, giving him all her strength, and her
spirit stretched and strained as the muscles might have done in a
struggle for dear life. There were at first no words within her. It
was a shapeless foe; but gradually as she pitted all the force of her
soul against it, there came into her the sense, not only of fear and
peril, but of evil--images, thoughts, words, flashed into her innocent
soul. Hitherto she had had no consciousness of prayer, only of
struggle, but now she cried out to the Presence that was with him and
her to reinforce her strength. And happily, blessedly, that Presence
within her was not without form and void, she dropped on her knees,
sobbing out over and over again the prayers of her earliest childhood.
For the form that was within her was that of the Son of God.
When Florella came back to the outer world, and felt the wet mist on her
face, and the wind blowing through her hair, and pulled at the damp
heather with her hand, there was scarcely any daylight left. She could
hardly recall at first what had passed within her, nothing remained
clear, but a picture in her mind of the Flete beck, and of the woody
hollow through which it ran, such a picture as she "saw" when she was
going to make a sketch. She felt silly and confused, as if she did not
quite know where she was, and as if she had worked herself up into an
agony that had no cause or meaning.
Then she thought of Guy Waynflete, and she knew that the unconscious
child-heart, with which she had entered that valley, had gone for ever,
and that, whatever else she had given him in that mysterious hour, her
love had gone out to him beyond recall. Interest, helpfulness,
sympathy? These he had in a manner asked for, and in giving them, she
had given how much more? She had flung herself out of herself to help
him, and behold, she had come back to herself, with yearnings and
longings and hopes and fears, that seemed full of selfish passion. The
poor angel had fallen out of the sky!
The wet wind stung her hot cheeks with its cold blast. Suddenly she
moved, and climbing up the rock, peered anxiously into the bunch of
withered harebells, which had once stood up so brave and blue in the
heavenly blue around them. There was--yes, there was one little living
bud at the tip of a withering stem.
Florella did not pick it or take it to herself. She was going away
to-morrow; she would never know if it came into flower. Perhaps she
would never know how Guy had reached Waynflete.
She kissed the little bud, and then pulled her cloak straight and went
home to supper, shutting up the new burden tight in her breast.
Constancy, meanwhile, was sitting comfortably by the fire, when there
was a crack of wheels on the wet gravel, a deep voice outside, an
opening door, and Godfrey Waynflete's tall figure and flaxen head in the
doorway.
"Why, this is a surprise!" exclaimed Cosy. "Then there is nothing amiss
at Waynflete, though your brother was sent for."
"Then Guy has been here? I knew it--"
"Not at all. But Mr Staunton has, and your brother telegraphed to him
to say that Mrs Waynflete wanted him, and he had to go over."
"Guy had to go to Waynflete? My aunt sent for him?"
"So it appeared. Did you come here to look for him--so late?"
Godfrey stood still, confused and unable to put two and two together so
as to see what had taken place. He had posted some letters for his aunt
yesterday, in his careless preoccupation, half an hour too late, and
to-day he had had a telegram from Guy.
"Constancy!" he cried, "I see, think, feel, no one but you. I was
determined that Guy should not spoil my one chance of a last word with
you."
"But what made you suppose your brother was here?" interrupted
Constancy.
"He sent a telegram about a trap--at Kirk Hinton. I tore it up. I
wasn't going to let him interfere with my last word with you. He might
get a trap for himself."
"And you didn't send it? Then you had better go after him as quick as
you can; Mrs Waynflete wanted him, and I wouldn't have her disappointed
for the world. Is she ill, dear old lady? Why did you come away? And
oh, if I was your brother, wouldn't I give it you when you got home
again!"
Cosy stood up by the mantelpiece. Her eyes glittered mischievously.
She enjoyed seeing Godfrey out of countenance.
But Godfrey, after the first moment of surprise, felt nothing but that
he was with her and alone. He came close up to her, and stood towering
over her.
"Constancy, I'd do a good deal more than that to buy this five minutes.
Won't you give me a little hope? You'll never have another fellow give
himself, heart and soul and body, to you as I do. I love you."
"And I love fifty other things and other people. I haven't got a bit of
feeling for you!" cried Cosy, desperately. "Why, I'm making a story out
of you as you stand there before me. Is that caring anything about
you?"
"I don't know, and I don't care. I only know that I want you. Give me
a chance. Without you I shall never come to good."
"I don't think you will," said Constancy, suddenly and keenly. "I have
said no, and there's an end of it. You seem to have played a very mean
sort of trick on your brother, and you can't expect to get any good out
of it. You certainly won't from me."
"Constancy--"
"If you were a little older and wiser, you would know what an impossible
sort of way you have behaved in. But I suppose you must be excused,
because you are a boy, and know no better."
He turned white with anger.
"I don't know if I love you, or hate you," he said. "But you shall
never say that to me again."
He was gone in a moment, leaving Constancy stirred, upset, and
frightened, so strong was the contest between his boyish and foolish
behaviour, and the impression of strength and passion made upon her by
himself. She was quite sure that she hated him.
Godfrey sprang into his dog-cart, and drove down the rough, stony
hillside, at a break-neck pace. He was mad with anger at Constancy and
at himself, while stings of conscience and vague alarm pierced the
tumult of wrath, and added to its heat. He thought neither of ghost nor
ancestor, as he drove madly along the stony lanes that led through the
valley of the Flete; but he pressed on, as though driven by furies, fear
of what he might find gradually forcing itself upon him, till, as he
reached the bridge, and looked towards the house, he saw that the
windows of the octagon room were full of light. In sudden alarm, he
dashed on up the old avenue to the stable door.