But Art is impersonal. Downy palms and snown blackthorn may be offered
to an artist as subjects for a sketch, just as well as if they would not
also serve as tokens of love and hope. As Guy, one sunny morning,
followed the path that all through Flete Dale led along by the
riverside, he suffered no bud or blossom that indicated the coming of
his tardy northern spring to escape him. As he gathered and combined
them, it struck him that the glory of them was in the relief of their
delicate tints and airy forms in the cold spring sunshine, against the
pale spring sky, and that the thing would be to show them to Florella
where they grew.
And, turning round a great tangle of rosy stems and shining brown buds,
he saw her in the brown dress that had a sort of woodland tinting, and
suited her, he thought, as well as harebell blue. She was listening to
a tall, strong-limbed girl, with the handsome features and wind-blown
complexion of the district, picturesquely set off by the yellow
handkerchief which she wore on her head, listening with a troubled face.
Her companion's face was quite impassive, though there was a melancholy
tone in her voice, as at sight of Guy, she turned off with a "Good day
t'ye, sir."
"Is that one of the girls you have been making friends with?" he said,
after he had offered his spring buds to Florella, and she had taken them
smiling, but still with wistful eyes.
"Yes. But I feel so ignorant and stupid with them. It is difficult
quite to understand." It was still more difficult, it was impossible to
keep on the surface of things, when these two were together. But
perhaps the inhabitants of Waynflete might be treated as an abstract
subject, like the spring flowers. Rawdie thought that the discussion of
their needs might occupy some time, and went off to investigate
water-rats and other objects of interest.
"They talk to you, of course," said Guy. "But no other stranger would
get a word out of our folks."
"They don't talk much," she answered. "But, one seems half to find
out--and then one comes across such real troubles, and temptations. It
seems so hard."
"But, Clifton shouldn't!" exclaimed Guy, with a sudden change. "There
are very few people here fit for _you_ to have anything to do with."
"Oh, not that," said Florella. "But, you see, I haven't known much of
any one but girls of my own sort. A friend of mine looks after a girl's
club in London, and some of us go to teach French and drawing there, or
to sing. She thinks every one ought to spread whatever good things they
may have. But it isn't French and drawing that these girls want!"
"Do tell me just what you mean?" he said entreatingly, as they walked
slowly on by the riverside.
"I mean," she said, with a glow at thus taking counsel with him, which
he little guessed, "that girls like me, tell each other their troubles,
and we try to help each other, and sometimes we can. But one finds out
much worse sorrows and trials than we ever have."
"That is what you ought to have nothing to do with!" exclaimed Guy,
imperatively.
"But," she said, "you can't help people just by being sorry for them in
a general way. You have got to _feel_ in _yourself_ just what they
feel. So one must try to understand them."
Guy was silent. He could not keep his angel to himself. The more
divine was the help she gave him, the more freely it must flow. He felt
responsible for the welfare of Waynflete; he knew that he did not fight
his battle for himself alone; but she had no obligations but the impulse
to give herself in helpful love. She touched the flowers in her hand,
and, with a sudden smile, said--
"You know, one has to `see.'"
"Yes," he said, gravely. "Well! So the world was saved!"
She had given him the thought; but to herself it was new. She could not
speak; while Guy felt for the moment as if the power to understand her
had been cheaply bought by all the agony of his own experience.
They were brought suddenly back to earth again, to the spring flowers
and the sunlight, and to the squalid cottages across the field, by wild
and frantic barks from Rawdie, who rushed into view, wet and muddy, with
a large rat in his mouth, while Jem Outhwaite, climbing up the bank
behind him, cried out triumphantly, "He've got 'im, sir; he've got 'im
hissel'!"
Rawdie went home in a state of absolute self-satisfaction. For Guy, it
had been a moment for which to live; but, such are the conditions of
this poor mortal life, that it was followed by a great reaction, by
passionate longings to take this beloved maiden to himself, by the old
disgust at all that was abnormal in his fate. He soon went back to
Ingleby, where he puzzled Godfrey by fitful spirits, intermittent
efforts to seem more like other people, and by hours of gloom and
silence. The mental fever quieted down after a time, or perhaps he
learnt to endure it.
But Florella was happier for the moment of approach. They had not
ceased to understand each other. She could not paint the sun on the
spring flowers, she could not satisfy herself with any tint with which
she tried to match them. But, if light and hue escaped her, she could
seize on their form, and she made delicate and exquisite pen-and-ink
sketches of every swelling leaf and bursting bud.
She went, also, and stood on the bridge which she had seen in vision on
that murky autumn evening, when her soul had followed Guy's through its
strange encounter. She looked at the laughing, living water, sparkling
in the spring sunshine, and at the woods, now fresh and green. It was
the fairest spot that ever was cursed by haunting memories. And yet, in
the midst of all its sweetness, she felt conscious of something that she
did not see, that eluded any insight that she might possess. And she
did make some friends, and took into her heart some troubles, and learnt
to love the weird and lovely place, because Guy loved it so much. She
did not regret the London season which she was missing; she would not go
and stay with the Stauntons to see the pictures; there were pictures
enough in the woods, such as she had never seen before.
Once Godfrey came over on business about the estate, and came to call.
He had lost his boyish manner, and had caught his brother's gravity and
reticence.
"Ah!" said Mrs Palmer, afterwards, when he had somehow extracted the
fact that Constancy was working hard at college, and thinking of nothing
but her examinations, "I've always known that boy admired Cosy. He's
too young for her, and Ingleby wouldn't suit her at all. But clever
girls often take to handsome men with nothing in them."
"But Godfrey Waynflete has a good deal in him, Aunt Con."
"Well, he hasn't much to say. I expect Guy was too clever for old Mrs
Waynflete, and wouldn't give her her own way. But what Cosy will do
when she comes home, I can't think. She'll never find enough to occupy
her talents. I wish she would marry--some one who could give her a
career."
Florella did not pass over to her aunt a letter which she had just
received from Constancy.
That Florella had powers of an unusual kind, except for painting, was an
idea that had never formulated itself in the elder girl's mind.
Nevertheless, she was always open with her, and was never quite happy
under her disapproval. She wrote--
"People ought not to have to decide on their future lives till they are
thirty at least. I feel so extremely young sometimes. It's much easier
to learn moral philosophy than to find it make any difference in one's
life. I shall go in for society, and see if that has a developing
effect. New sorts of people teach one more than hooks. I got heaps of
ideas from Mrs Waynflete. All that business life was so new to one. I
do like meeting new kinds of people. Every one here is so groovy.
University life is very narrow. It is much more original and
interesting, if you have brains, to spend them on doing than on
learning. Mrs Waynflete was far cleverer than any literary woman. I
am glad Guy is better, and that `Mr Godfra',' as old Cooper called him,
is being such a good boy, and minding his business. If you can manage a
_private_ interview with Rawdie, you might give him my love. The only
thing I regret in the events of last summer, is that that enchanting
beast's former master promised to get me a similar puppy. And now that
chance is lost to me for ever. Well, I have no more time. If I don't
come a cropper, I believe Miss --, will offer me a lectureship here.
Only in _that_ way shall I think of coming back again. But I think a
London winter would pay best. The tour with the Stauntons is the next
thing, at any rate, and I mean to enjoy that to my heart's content."
Florella mused over this letter. She thought it significant that Cosy
should find time to speculate on life, when her final examination was
imminent, and she understood the veiled allusion to the attentive
professor, whose attentions, though she did not know it, had been so
carefully brought to Godfrey's notice by Cousin Susan. She had always
thought that Cosy had liked Godfrey better than she had chosen to
confess. But she had done her best to offend him, and with her sister
he was stiff and shy. Besides, there was a general belief that he was
engaged to Jeanie. He did not look very happy, and Guy had never
dropped a hint of such an arrangement, and always managed to put Godfrey
in a favourable light, in any chance mention of his name.
But Florella had heard Cuthbert Staunton call him a "young ruffian," and
she could not think him good enough for her brilliant sister. He was
certainly on Constancy's conscience; but whether he was also on her
heart, was a different matter. On the whole, Florella hoped not.