"As I went down to the water-side,
None but my foe to be my guide,
None but my foe to be my guide."
Mrs Waynflete said nothing about the effects of her fall on the bridge,
but she did not quite recover from the shock of it; and, accidental as
it had been, she knew quite well that it would not have happened if her
tread had been as steady and her sight as clear as had been the case six
months before. She had one or two other little slips and escapes, and
she said to herself that they were "warnings."
People often know their own condition much better than is supposed, or,
than others do, and Mrs Waynflete knew as well as any doctor could have
told her that her hour was coming. She was very glad that no one else
appeared to suspect the fact. She did not like sympathy, and even yet
she did not feel herself to require support. But she thought much
within herself. Those two wills lay heavy on her mind, and so did Guy's
criticisms on the management of the mills. She hated to acknowledge as
much; but she was really too clever and too experienced a woman not to
know that there was more than a possibility of his being right. She had
known too much of the books and accounts in past days not to know that
of late she had not known them so well. Moreover, her first distaste to
Waynflete continued. She did not get accustomed to the bed that she had
to sleep in, nor to the chair she had to sit on. She scorned the young
vicar, Mr Clifton. She even felt that she would have liked to have a
talk with old Mr Whitman of Ingleby, and perhaps let him read her a
chapter, though she never had consulted him in her life on any matter,
spiritual or temporal. And on one point, in these autumn days, spent in
this unfamiliar ancestral home, she changed her mind. She had always
meant to be buried at Waynflete, though she had never chosen to live
there; but, now, she resolved that she would lie by her husband's side,
in Ingleby churchyard. All her life had been spent at Ingleby; she had
been born there, in the poor farmhouse which she had so despised. "The
lads," the male heirs, her brother's descendants, might make their
graves among the old Waynfletes if they liked. As she had dimly felt at
first, the object of a life's labour is not so dear as the labour
itself; and whenever the charms of Waynflete were discussed, Margaret
felt that she was an Ingleby woman. She was as constant to the facts of
her life as she had been to the idea that had dominated it.
Under the influence of these feelings, she one day sat down, and wrote
to Guy a note in which she told more of the truth than she had admitted
to those living in the house with her.
"Waynflete Hall.
"My dear Guy,--
"I took your remarks as to the management of the business very much
amiss, as it has always been my way to follow my own judgment, not
finding that of other people any improvement on it. But I perceive
that it is your right to have your say, and I wish to hear it. I am
an old woman, and I shall not have my hand on things much longer. I
feel my time is coming, and I would not wish to leave injustice behind
me. So I desire that you come over here at once without delay, and
put before me what you have got to say, and satisfy my mind on the
points that lie between us. Besides, my dear, I wish to have you both
here with me.
"Your loving aunt,--
"Margaret Waynflete."
When Guy received this letter by the second post, on the day that
Staunton went to Moorhead, the last sentence more than all the rest made
him feel that he must start at once for Waynflete; manifestly the note
had been delayed, or he would have got it in the morning. As it was, he
could not reach Kirk Hinton till four o'clock.
He was touched and a good deal alarmed, not so much at the summons as at
the inclination to listen to him, and hurriedly putting his papers
together, set off, and at Ingleby station sent a telegram to Godfrey,
since his old aunt disliked receiving them, saying briefly--
"_Send trap without fail to meet the four train at Kirk Hinton_."
And then, moved partly by a desire to explain himself to Cuthbert, and
partly by a sudden strange impulse to tell Florella what he was doing,
he despatched the other to Moorhead. Spite of this impulse, he thought
little of his dread of Waynflete, as he pursued his journey by train,
and waited at the junction for that which was to take him to Kirk
Hinton. He was very full of what he had to say to his aunt, and much
moved at the tone of her summons.
As the train stopped at Kirk Hinton, the station-master hurried up.
"Mr Waynflete! Have you had a telegram from Waynflete Hall?"
"No; what's the matter?"
"We despatched one, sir, an hour ago, to say that Mrs Waynflete had had
an accident this morning. Here's a copy, sir."
"A telegram? What was it?"
"Aunt Waynflete has had a bad fall. Come. From Mrs Palmer to Guy
Waynflete."
Guy stood still for a moment, and caught his breath.
"They expect me," he said. "Is the trap here?"
"No, sir; nothing's here. We sent on your telegram this morning. The
lad that brought this one said he gave it to Mr Godfrey."
"I must go on," said Guy. "Send my things as soon as you can. I
suppose the field way is the quickest?"
"Yes, sir, by a matter of two miles. The evening's very soft--we'll be
having a wet night. Good evening, sir. Keep on by the stiles. And I
hope ye'll not get there too late."
The words struck on Guy's ears, as he hurried down the hill in the
dismal light of the October afternoon. When Godfrey, also troubled in
spirit, had been forced to take this rough and dreary walk, its
discomforts had added to his sense of anger and injury, but Guy hardly
heeded them, though he knew that the six miles up and down the sharp
edges of Flete Dale was almost more than he could manage without
breaking down, especially as the sudden summons and alarming news had
been a bad preparation for extra exertion.
"Too late!" If he did not reach his old aunt in time to satisfy her, if
not about his view of the business, at least about himself, it would be
a bitter hour for him indeed. If it was possible--if he could be
satisfactory? Thoughts, hitherto latent, rose up so strong and full
within him that he felt as if he had received a sudden increase of
reasoning power, in spite of the fatigue against which he could hardly
struggle.
There was his bad health to begin with. How could he ever satisfy any
one, any more than that Guy Waynflete whose face, whose constitution,
and doubtless whose soul he inherited? That Guy who _drank_? Who ever
overcame that impulse, which seemed no more moral or immoral than the
palpitation of his heart?
Probably, after all, the cynical common-sense view of that Guy's
miserable failure was the true one. The Dragon, the little public-house
which must be passed close by the river might account for it better than
highwayman or ghost. Perhaps he, too, had been tired and ill, and had
stopped there to get strength to go on--and had not gone on in time.
And the Dragon was there still in the same place. The turn to it must
still be passed on the way to the bridge.
And as for the ghost? Was that, too, an hereditary affection of the
nerves, a monomania; in fact, just that dislocation of the brain which
made both him and his ancestor irresponsible for their actions, a sign
that showed that they were not free agents, that the dreadful and
degrading fate that had overtaken his namesake was equally inevitable
for himself? Yes. The Being that haunted him and controlled him was
nothing but Himself, and his "objectivity" only the chimera of an
abnormal brain. He looked, and behold there was nothing, no voice, nor
any to answer.
This awful conviction was more terrible to Guy than any haunting
ancestral spirit, than any tempting fiend. It was possible to fight
with "principalities and powers, rulers of darkness;" but to wait
helpless for the inevitable outcome of his _Self_, to see drunkenness,
degradation and madness unroll before him--to know, not that he would
lose his soul, but that he had no soul to lose; no foe to fight with--no
friend to help.
For, if this dreadful sense of an evil presence within him which grew
and darkened as he came down the rough field to the river's side, was
only a bogie of his imagination, then no heavenly presence could be real
either, if the only spiritual experience that he had ever, as he called
it, "felt," was a delusion, he could not believe that any other could be
real.
But, in the horror of these thoughts, he passed the turn that would have
led him to the respite and relief of the Dragon public, and never knew
the moment when he did so. He came to the riverside. The water was
deep enough here for drowning, for making an end both of the past and of
the future, a fit end for the fool who lived in dread of his own fancy,
and feared--_himself_. Well, he was not frightened now, only desperate,
which was a worse thing.
What was this, that mingled with, that almost lightened his formless
horror? It was the old familiar panic that he knew so well; the
physical terror that was wont to seize upon him unawares. It did not
surprise him that there, on the centre of the crazy bridge, stood,
visible to his eye, the "counterfeit presentment" of the terror that he
felt within, the ghostly image of his ancestor and of himself. He sank
down on his knees, he could not stand, or he must have turned and fled.
The form was shadowy, but the awful, hopeless, evil eyes were clear as
if they looked close into his own, much clearer, as he knew, than mortal
eyes could have been, so far off, in so dim a light. He and his Double
looked at each other. Guy was perfectly conscious, wide awake, alive
all through. He fell forward on the grass, and hid his face, but the
companion Presence was not to be so shut out. "Feeling," as he had
said, was worse than seeing. He looked up again.
"Will he come here, if I don't go there?"
And, suddenly, he knew that _he had a choice_. Through his agony of
nerve and bewilderment of brain this conviction shot like an arrow.
"I shall fall, or he'll drown me. I can never pass him; but _I can
try_."
He staggered up on to his feet. His soul was set on edge by the jarring
contact of this thing of evil, to draw near, instead of to fly, was more
than flesh and blood could bear. He broke into a wild, mad fit of
laughter--laughter that echoed, till he did not know which laughed,
himself or his Double. They seemed to mock and to defy each other.
"Myself or my devil!" shouted the living Guy. "If you kill me, or damn
me, you shall not stop me! Here or there--within or without. Come with
me if you choose, I'll not be too late!"
He staggered forward, his head swam, his eyes grew dizzy, his Double
swayed before him, he knew not which was plank and which whirling,
rushing water. Then, in the murky, swinging mist, there was a sense of
something still and blue, and, for an instant, Florella's face.
He sprang at it, and knew no more, till he found himself lying on the
stones, half in and half out of the shallow water. The bridge was
behind him, and, as he looked fearfully round, the haunting figure still
before. Yes, before him on the hillside. It had _come with him_, while
the angel face that had saved him was gone.
He came to himself, as usual, with the sense of deathlike fainting and
sinking, which he knew too well. It was almost dark, he had no idea of
the time, or whether he had been moments or hours in crossing the
bridge. He had no longer any thoughts, hardly any fears. No words of
prayer had come through to him in the awful conflict; but now, as he
tried to move and lift himself up, he instinctively murmured, over and
over, like a lost child, "Oh God, help me to get up the hill."
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End of Volume One.