Читать книгу Waynflete - Christabel R. Coleridge - Страница 6

Under a great copper-beech on the lawn at Ingleby one hot afternoon, Godfrey Waynflete was enjoying the “summer feeling” on which Constancy Vyner had expatiated in London, and was spending an idle hour in teaching his young Skye terrier to jump over a stick. Rawdon Crawley, a name appropriate to the creature’s hairy simplicity, was a long grey object, like a caterpillar, with huge pricked black ears, and an expression which combined guileless innocence and philosophic power. Nevertheless, when he was coaxed, he ran under the stick, and when he was threatened, he sat still and sulked, for the perverseness of his race is fathomless.

“You confounded little obstinate beggar,” cried Godfrey, shaking the stick at him; “you’ll have to learn who’s master.”

Rawdon Crawley wriggled away to some distance, like a snake, then lay with his face on his paws, looking at his owner.

“Eh, Godfrey, ye’re letting that pup get the better of ye!”

“He’d die rather than give in,” said Godfrey, as his old aunt came across the lawn towards him.

The last five years had increased Mrs. Waynflete’s wrinkles, but she was still upright, slim, and vigorous, enjoying the presence of her younger nephew, and, possibly also, the elder one’s absence. The expression is rather strong; but Guy was so uncongenial to her that his presence could not be said to add to her happiness.

“Eh, well,” she said; “I like a man that can speak up to you, and has got some grit. I’ve no opinion of limp characters.”

“Things generally settle themselves if a fellow looks them in the face,” said Godfrey, cheerfully.

“Ay, but they don’t always settle themselves to our liking. I’d like, maybe, to look myself back into a young woman; but I’m in my eighty-two, and there’s no help for it.”

“Eh, what, auntie? You’re as young as the best of us,” said Godfrey, warmly.

“Why, I’ve no cause of complaint. The Lord’s given me a long life, and I’ve kept my health and my faculties through it all. But, all the same, I’m an aged woman, and I might be struck down any day. So I’ve asked Susan Joshua, my cousin Joshua Palmer’s widow, to come here and make her home for a time, and bring Sarah Jane with her. She was poorly left, poor thing; and then, if I should have a stroke, there’ll be some one to look after the maids, and make you lads comfortable.”

Godfrey was much taken aback, but before he could interpose, she went on—

“And I’ve another reason for sending for her, Godfrey. I’ve made up my mind to spend some time at Waynflete before I die. So she can attend to the house here while I’m absent.”

“At Waynflete, auntie? But it’s not in any sort of order. Have you ever seen it?”

“Once, my lad, once,” said the old lady, face and voice softening. “I made your good uncle take me there for a honeymoon trip, and I said to him, as we stood on the bridge, and looked up and down the bonnie valley, ‘Eh, Mr. Thomas, ye’ll be wanting a bit of land, as the money comes in to ye. Ye wedded me with my shawl over my head, but ye might be Waynflete of Waynflete yet, if ye liked to try.’ And he said, ‘Margaret, if I can give ye your will, my lass, ye shall have it.’ So I educated myself for this, and I kept his house well, and was as saving as was fitting for him and me. But there, Mr. Thomas never owned but Upper Flete Farm before the Lord took him, and it was a lonesome thing for an old woman like me to set up in a fine house alone; besides that, I had the mill to attend to. But now, it’s time I took my place before I die. Guy can go and see what’s wanting.”

“Let me go, auntie. Guy does not care about Waynflete,” said Godfrey, thoughtlessly.

“Eh?” said his aunt. But here a rapturous bark from Rawdon Crawley, who had been penitently licking the blacking off his master’s boots, directed attention to Guy’s figure at the house door.

He had had a long, hot journey from London, and now threw himself into a garden-chair, exclaiming with delight at the coolness and shade.

“So you’ve seen the Miss Vyners again?” said Godfrey, referring to a note previously received from his brother.

“Yes; they and two of Staunton’s sisters are coming down to Moorhead for a reading party in their vacation.”

“A reading party,” said Mrs. Waynflete. “Young ladies?”

“That’s all quite correct, auntie,” said Godfrey. “Girls go to college nowadays, and of course they must read for their exams. They do, generally.”

“Eh, well,” said the old lady. “I see no reason against it. I never doubted that a woman’s brains were as good as a man’s. I could have taken a degree myself. I’ll ask Constance Palmer to bring them here before we go to Waynflete. They can pursue their studies afterwards.”

“Waynflete?” said Guy, with a start.

“Yes. I’ve been telling your brother,”—here she recapitulated her two proposals. “I’ll get you to go over, and see if the place is in order.”

“Oh yes, Aunt Margaret, if you wish; but I’ve been some time away from the mill, and there are one or two matters—”

“I hope you’ve brought back no new-fangled notions from town,” interrupted the old lady, sharply.

“Well, I’ve acquired a few ideas in conversation,” said Guy, slowly. “John Cooper, no doubt, will show me the fallacy of them.”

“You’ll have to live a long time before you’re wiser than John Cooper. Tea?” as the servant appeared with some for which Guy had asked as he came through the house. “I never take tea between meals myself.”

“It’s new-fangled,” said Guy, meekly, “or was once.”

“Eh, Godfrey,” said Mrs. Waynflete, “there’s a plant broken in the ribbon border. That’s Crawley, I’ll be bound. He needs a whipping.” But her tone, as she walked over to the border, had lost all its asperity. Godfrey and his dog were privileged offenders.

“Going to Waynflete is a jolly idea,” said Godfrey; “but Cousin Susan and Sarah Jane will be confounded bores, if they’re to stay here for good.”

“They will so,” said Guy. “As for Waynflete, it’s a great move for my aunt at her age.”

“Oh, she’s up to anything. I say, do you remember waking me up because you had the nightmare. You ate too many raspberries with those jolly girls in the old fruit-garden. That story would be a fortune to the fellows who go in for spooks. Do you ever see ghosts now?”

“If I do, I shall not come to you for protection. You threw too much cold water on that early effort of my subliminal self to rise into consciousness.”

“I say, I don’t go in for that jargon. Give me a good square ghost with a sheet and a turnip, not all that psychical rot.”

“If ever you do see a ghost, my boy, it will certainly be a sheet and a turnip, and by George, how it’ll frighten you!”

Godfrey was boy enough to rise to this bait; though he did not like his brother very much nor get on very smoothly with him, his growls were not much more serious than those of Rawdie at the end of a stick. He was too prosperous to be discontented with his surroundings.

When Constancy came down with her aunt to the Mill House—Florella had a previous engagement, and did not accept the invitation—she found plenty of contrasts to study, and she studied each with equal zest.

She was never tired and never bored, she was ready to play tennis from four till eight, and then, after supper, as was customary at Ingleby parties, to dance from nine to twelve. She waltzed with Godfrey as untiringly as if all her brains were in her feet. She made him coach her up in all the ways of grouse shooting, and then she roused him to fury, by wondering how long the barbaric desire to kill something would survive in the English gentleman. She made much of Rawdie, till a certain proverb occurred frequently to the mind of his master. But she also went over the mills with Guy, and learned how to tell good wool from bad, and what were the processes of conversion into broadcloth and tweed. She picked his brains about her own special subjects, or his. She had been writing an article on English musical instruments, she had worked it all up from books, but there was a bit about music itself.

“What it does for humanity,” she said; “as it does nothing for me, I have to guess it all. You are musical, have I got it right? I don’t have these experiences, you know. There are such a splendid lot of things to do and to think of, I can’t tell how people have time for feelings.”

Guy was apparently as willing to discuss music as Godfrey to defend the game laws, and it was impossible to say whether Constancy preferred his languid, satirical courtesy and soft, preoccupied eyes, or Godfrey’s overflowing vitality, and look as of a vigorous young Viking, with his exaggeration of the high, marked family features, and of the family fairness, so that his old school nickname of “Towhead” was still extremely appropriate. The rosy, round-faced Sarah Jane, who desired to be called Jeanie, and blushed whenever Guy or Godfrey spoke to her, and was always wondering how familiar she ought to be with so-called cousins, looked on in amaze. When Constancy called Godfrey a Philistine, Jeanie thought that a flippant allusion was being made to Scripture characters, and when she talked of writing an article, as simply as of making a pincushion, the allusion appeared as a social faux pas to Jeanie’s idea of propriety. If Constancy was so unlucky as to possess an unpopular taste, she had better have said nothing about it. But the young men did not appear to be repelled, and were both of them on most friendly terms with the visitor, while they regulated their conduct to Jeanie with a propriety and skill which any chaperon might have envied. They were aware of a crowded background of Palmer aunts and cousins, and, though they did not think it becoming to make objections to her introduction to the family, they were agreed on the point of their relations towards her. Jeanie was a good little girl; but she knew quite well which “cousin’s” attention to Constancy meant as she called it, “something particular;” she knew quite well which of the two was the most interesting to herself.

But Constancy took the young men much for granted. She was more struck with Mrs. Waynflete than with either of them.

Cousin Susan Joshua—it was the custom in the Palmer family to call the wives by their Christian names attached to those of their husbands—limited her intercourse with “Aunt Waynflete,” to receiving her commands; “Constance John,” as she submitted to be called with a shrug, to sympathetic and polite commonplaces, Jeanie was far too much afraid of her hostess to say anything but, “Yes, aunt,” and “Very well, aunt;” but Constancy talked and listened by the hour together. Her imagination was caught by the stately, flaxen-haired old woman whose strong personality was impressed on every detail of the life around her, whose household must breakfast at eight, and go to bed at ten, go to church on Sunday afternoon, and stay at home on Sunday evening, as by the law of the Medes and Persians. She heard, more than any one else had ever done, of old Margaret’s early struggles, of her strong purpose, and of how the only birthright of which she had been actively conscious had been won at last, since of that she was more than worthy. Constancy noted keenly how impatient she was of any change in the methods of her prime; she saw plainly how Guy’s indifferent manner irritated her, and how Godfrey was the kind of youth that pleased her. It was to Constancy’s credit that she could bridge over sixty years, and see a point of view so alien to her young modern spirit; and Mrs. Waynflete was flattered by her preference as age must be by the admiration of brilliant youth.

Godfrey looked on delighted, and drew quite false conclusions; for, if Constancy loved Rawdie, and admired Mrs. Waynflete, it was for their own sakes and not for his.

The hour and the maiden had come for the happy, prosperous youth. The vigorous inspiring companionship filled him with delight, the roses of that summer were redder and its sun warmer than he had ever known. Love came upon him with a rush of joyful hope, and, as was natural to him, his passion became a purpose, which he expected to fulfil. He would work hard for a degree, for she would scout a failure. He must win her; but Guy—He was furiously jealous when Guy obtained a monograph on the “Music of the Greeks,” and presented it to Miss Vyner, though it was given openly in the family circle. Godfrey could not dare to give her a bunch of the dark red dog roses of the north country, which he had heard her admire.

He was “over head and ears in love,”—no other expression could express his condition—and when she went to join her friends at Moorhead, and her aunt tired, as she said in private, of making talk for Mrs. Joshua, betook herself to Harrogate, only hopes of speedy meetings modified his despair.

The girls’ reading party must come over both to Ingleby and to Waynflete, and Cousin Susan and Jeanie would both want to see the spinster housekeeping at Moorhead.

But before these visits took place, the situation, already strained, between Guy and his aunt was intensified in an unexpected manner.