Godfrey paid but scant attention to poor old Cooper's feelings when he
reached the mill. He hardly took the trouble to glance round him, and
never realised that he was, in part, owner of the great concern, and a
person on whom its future depended. He gave Guy's message, and asked
indifferently if there was any in return. Cooper looked up the whole
length of the young man's tall figure, ending with the gloomy,
indifferent face.
"Nay," he said, "I've no message to send by you, Mr Godfrey."
"All right, then," said Godfrey, going, still thinking of nothing but
his own purpose.
He found Guy on the sofa in the study, with some papers in his hands.
Godfrey sat down opposite, and stared straight before him. Guy lay,
looking down, very quiet but with a curious air of something held under
and suppressed.
"I'm not up to long explanations," he said; "but you ought to know at
once that matters are in a bad way at the mill. It will take every
penny we both possess, and all the energy and sense too, to pull through
and turn the corner. Things have been going downhill for some time.
Look here--"
Here he showed the statement which he had partly prepared to lay before
his aunt, adding a few explanations and comments.
"Then--is the mill going to fail?" said Godfrey, confusedly.
"Not if I can help it," answered Guy. "No! But we've got our work cut
out for us."
"But we couldn't take out--realise--any part of the capital."
"Rather not," said Guy, with a shrug. "But what I want to say is this.
You can't do anything till you have taken your degree--except give your
consent to certain measures. I'll explain by-and-by. But, then, if you
come back, and give your mind to it and work, as the old folks did,
we'll get on our legs again. I--of course Aunt Margaret thought you
would be able to live at Waynflete."
"Nothing would induce me to live at Waynflete, apart from the horrible
injustice of it--I hate it. I should never endure it!"
"Shouldn't you?" said Guy, and paused for a minute. "Then, I think you
should use some of the investments to put it properly to rights, and let
it again. Don't sell it."
"I don't regard it as mine to sell," said Godfrey; "and no--that would
be undoing all she lived for."
"Just so. And remember this. We owe it to her strong purpose that
we're not driving some one else's plough, or working at some one else's
looms; that we are as we are, such as it is. That work can't be undone.
I don't mean to give up. But, I can't depend on my own health, or
powers; I mayn't live long, or be able to work constantly. But if you
co-operate, we'll pull through. Aunt Margaret trusted you, and you're
bound not to disappoint her. Her memory _shall_ not be dishonoured."
Guy was moved to speak more warmly from the kind of stupefaction with
which Godfrey heard him. He thought that he had been too abrupt.
"You're surprised," he said more gently. "I've known how it was for a
long time. It's not at all a hopeless case."
"I can't take it in," said Godfrey. How could he propose to "cut the
whole concern," and go away in the face of this news. Even if he went
without a penny, how could he leave his sick brother with such a weight
on his shoulders? Did dropping Waynflete out of his hands merely mean
shirking a hard struggle? At any rate, he could not tell Guy his
intention at that minute.
"You know," said Guy, "after all the legacies are paid, and Waynflete is
put to rights, I'm afraid you'll have very little ready money. The work
of restoring the family isn't complete. You've got it to finish."
"If--if the will had been burned, you wouldn't have sold Waynflete, and
put the money into the business?"
"_No_!" said Guy. He stopped to rest a minute, and then said, "If the
business really failed, neither of us could honourably keep Waynflete.
It would have to be sold to pay the creditors. And it is possible that,
to save the business--But no, Godfrey--no--it won't come to that. It
shall not. Aunt Margaret shan't be defeated."
"I'll think it over," said Godfrey, after a moment. "Ought I to take my
degree?"
"Of course, what's the use of leaving a thing half-finished? But you'll
have to understand a little what has to be done at once, and give your
consent to it. I'll tell you about it another time. Take these papers,
and read them."
"Yes," said Godfrey, escaping; "anything. I consent to whatever you
wish. That is the least I can do!"
So then, there was no such easy way of escape as he had hoped. It was a
burden, not an honour, that he had unduly won. For the momentary act
there was no momentary atonement; but years of uncongenial labour. He
hated the mills. Surely, if he dropped all claim on the profits, and
gave his brother an entirely free hand, it would be enough? He would
willingly sell Waynflete, and throw the price into the business, if Guy
had not objected so vehemently. He had thought that his mind was
settled, and behold! it was more unsettled than ever before. To give
Waynflete to Guy, he could have worked tooth and nail; without a settled
purpose, he was all at sea.
Guy felt a little baffled and disappointed. He had expected to find, as
he put it, more grit in Godfrey.
"I suppose you will have to go away soon," he said to Cuthbert
afterwards.
"Yes--on the 18th, I fear--but I want you to come with me. There's no
one here to look after you even as clumsily as I can. I suppose Mrs
Palmer stays; but her notions are limited to good beef-tea."
"It's not a bad notion. Cuthbert, don't you want to know what happened
to me?"
"Yes--when you can tell me."
"I'm going to tell you now. Come here--quite close--lock the door
first."
Cuthbert did as he was told, and sat down quietly.
"Well," he said, "how was it?"
"Well, that night when I was walking from Kirk Hinton, I got on very
slowly, and it was a long--long time."
"Yes--you got very tired."
"Yes, but I thought hard. I almost made up my mind that the whole thing
was a craze inherited from the other Guy, or at least shared with him.
I thought nothing existed outside my own brain; that the old Guy had
probably got drunk at the old public in the valley, and that I should
too. That the cause of the whole horror was in _me_, because my brain
was made wrong or crooked."