Waynflete

Poor Guy shivered and trembled, perhaps not finding Godfrey’s method very helpful; but he came more to himself by degrees, asked for some water to drink, and pulled the coverings round him.

“Didn’t you see – him?” he whispered at last. “See – see what? Oh, I say! Guy, you haven’t been dreaming of the ghost? Oh, I say! how can you be such a duffer! You’re as bad as when you used to climb into my crib, and Auntie Waynflete whipped you, after that nursemaid made the bogie and scared you.” What difference it might have made to Guy Waynflete if, at that moment of terrible experience he had had some comprehending friend to soothe and sustain him, it is impossible to say; as it was, his boyish pride and self-consciousness began to revive, under his brother’s rough dealing; he made an effort to pull himself together, laughed in an odd, startling way, and said —

“Dreaming! Yes, of course I was dreaming. Don’t you ever say one word about it.”

“Not I,” said Godfrey. “A nice story it would be to get about. Now, am I to go into your room, and sleep with the ghost? It’s getting chilly.”

Guy raised himself on his arm, and stared out into the moonlight.

“No,” he said, “I’ll go back myself. You’ll never hear another word about it.”

He got up, still tremulously, and went away, shutting the door behind him.

Godfrey was but a boy, with all the callous stupidity of his sixteen years. He thought that the incident had been very odd, and rather disgraceful to Guy’s manhood. He was glad it was over, and he tumbled back into bed again, and went to sleep.

Guy looked much paler than usual the next morning, but confessed to nothing amiss. As he went out with the others to join in trying the new tennis-ground, he saw Florella, standing a little apart from the others, evidently just getting over a fit of crying.

“I say – can I help you about anything?” he said, good naturedly.

“No,” said Florella, turning upon him a pair of translucent eyes, almost as steadfast as Constancy’s, and even more candid. “I – I – I’ve been helping to do something wrong – that’s all.”

She ran away before he could speak; but, surprised as he was, there remained in his mind the feeling that somehow she was a nice little girl.

Godfrey heard no more of Guy’s midnight adventure during the remaining three days of the visit. The time passed pleasantly, and the aged vicar of the parish and one or two of the neighbouring gentlemen called formally on “Mr Waynflete.” The recognition pleased Guy, or at least that part of him which was free to care about it. He had very little to say to his aunt when they came back about Waynflete, speaking of it in a satirical, rather contemptuous fashion, which annoyed her very much; while Godfrey described it fully, though he staunchly declared that he liked Ingleby best.

Shortly afterwards Guy had a sharp attack of illness. He had never been quite so strong as his brother, and he did not recover from its effects for some time. Mrs Waynflete had little patience with any ailment less definite than the measles, and thought him fanciful and self-indulgent.

She was also much put out by Mrs John Palmer’s complaints of odd and unaccountable noises at Waynflete, which upset her nerves and frightened her servants. But for these, she would have liked to take the house again next summer, as the air suited her, and she was glad to be near her husband’s family. As it was, she did not feel able to settle down comfortably.

Mrs Waynflete thought Constance Palmer would have had more sense. She let Waynflete Hall to a working farmer, with directions to look after the house carefully, and keep it dry.

Nothing more was heard of mysterious noises, and Guy and Godfrey did not see the place again for nearly five years, when the farmer’s tenancy had come to an end.

Part 1, Chapter IV

Hereditary Foes

“Very few people appreciate the feeling of a place. Hardly any one can feel the London atmosphere,” said Constancy Vyner, one Sunday afternoon nearly five years after the events last recorded, as she sat drinking tea on a balcony in a square on the London side of Kensington.

“I shouldn’t have thought our atmosphere so ethereal as to be imperceptible to any one,” said a young man who formed one of the party.

“That’s a most obvious remark, Mr Staunton; but I didn’t mean fogs. I don’t believe the country ever gives one just such a feel of summer as there is now. Hot air, balcony-flowers, rustling brown trees, they’re drier and more papery than country ones; sunny dust, dusty sun, and people, pavements, and omnibuses, and undergrounds – and smart fashionable clothes. It’s so summery! Nobody’s got the idea exactly,” she said. “Of course Dickens has a London feel; but that’s on another level, ghastly and squalid – or best parlour and hot-buttered toast; nor does it quite belong to the swells, though it has fashion and the season in it, too.”

“Your idea is coming?” said Mr Staunton, watching her curiously.

“I’ve got it!” said Constancy, sitting up with a broad smile of pleasure. “It’s modern – it’s democratic. It’s life’s fulness, roses, strawberries, sun, summer – got with some trouble, for the many. So there’s a little dust. You have the best of everything – music, parties; but you go by the underground!”

When Constancy was present, she always took the stage – or, rather, people gave it to her – she commanded attention. She was now at college, thinking, talking, making friends according to her wont, and though her literary ambitions were necessarily much in abeyance, she wrote, now and then, an article or short story, which had just the distinction that wins acceptance, and was not quite like every one else’s.

The youngest Miss Staunton was a college friend, and Constancy was intimate with her family, which consisted of two or three sisters, all busy with various forms of self-help and self-expression, and of the brother now present. The whole party lived harmoniously together, on a conjunction of small incomes, on terms of mutual independence, and, as Constancy epigrammatically put it, “went into society in the underground,” and into very good society too, which is no doubt a modern and democratic development.

“Don’t let us collect material for magazine articles,” said Violet Staunton; “but let us settle about the reading party. Cuthbert has heard of a jolly old-fashioned place on the moors up above Rilston, in Yorkshire, within reach of all kinds of fine scenery.”

“Rilston!” interposed Constancy. “We stayed once with Aunt Connie, at a place near there – Waynflete.”

“How odd!” said Violet. “It was from Mr Waynflete that Cuth heard of the place.”

“Guy Waynflete is a friend of mine,” said Mr Staunton. “I stayed with him once at Ingleby. We came upon Moorhead in our walks, and I should think it might suit for the preparation of future double firsts and senior-wranglers.”

“Thank you, Mr Staunton,” said Constancy, frankly rising to the bait. “I dare say you would expect to find us crocheting antimacassars!”

A little more discussion followed as to ways and means, and as to the number of the party, which was to consist of Constancy and her sister, of the eldest and youngest Miss Stauntons, and of two other college students.

“I should like to see Waynflete again,” said Constancy; “it was a lovely old place – haunted, too. The family lost it to a villain called Maxwell, and the old lady who has it now bought it back again.”

“I never heard anything of the family history from Waynflete,” said Cuthbert Staunton, “beyond the fact that the old place had been recovered. But I believe we are connected with some Yorkshire Maxwells. Do you know any particulars of the ‘villain,’ Miss Vyner?”

“You, descended from the hereditary foe, and friends with Guy Waynflete, without knowing it? How splendid!” said Constancy, sitting upright. “This is the story.”

And with exact memory and considerable force she related the legend of the loss of Waynflete as she had heard it five years ago from Godfrey; putting in a vivid description of the eerie old house, and the still more eerie picture of the unhappy heir, concluding with —

“The eldest one was so like the picture. He is in the business now, isn’t he? I heard he didn’t take a good degree. And Godfrey was such a big boy.”

“Well, he is a very big boy still,” said Cuthbert Staunton, who had listened with much interest. “He is a fine fellow, still at Oxford. Guy is made of rather complex stuff. Perhaps you may see him – he is in London, and I asked him to look in to tell my sisters about this moorland paradise.”

As he spoke there was a movement, and a fair, slight young man came in, whom Cuthbert greeted cordially, and introduced as Mr Waynflete.

The five years had not greatly changed him. He had the same slightly supercilious manner and the same “pretty” wistful eyes, into which, at the sight of Constancy, there came a startled look.

“I remember Waynflete so well,” she said, after the greeting. “Is it as delightful as ever?”

“I have never seen it since,” said Guy; “but the lease is out this year, and I believe some of us are to go and inspect it. Moorhead is eight or ten miles off – up on the moors.”

“Will you tell us about it, Mr Waynflete,” said the elder Miss Staunton. “We want to go in August. Is it a place where we are likely to be shot, or glared at by indignant keepers, if we walk about? We shouldn’t like to be a grievance – or to be treated as one.”

“No,” said Guy, with a smile. “It’s only the fringe of the moor, and there are very few grouse there. I think you’d be tolerated, even if you picked bilberries and had picnics.”

“That’s just what we want to do,” said Constancy, “picnics on improved principles. But we shall each have an etna, we shan’t trust to sticks and a gipsy-kettle.”

“I don’t know how young ladies amuse themselves when they’re not reading,” said Guy. “But there’s nothing to do at Moorhead. It’s two miles from High Hinton, and four from Kirk Hinton, and nine from Rilston – and it mostly rains up there. But Mrs Shipley’s very good at scones and tea-cakes, and the view is first-class of its kind.”

“Then, when it rains, we can put on our mackintoshes, and walk two – or four – miles to buy postage stamps,” said Constancy, rising. “Good-bye, Kitty, I must be going. Mind you look up your duties as chaperon and eldest of the party. Mr Waynflete, I’m sure my aunt will be delighted to see you if you like to call. We are at home on Tuesdays – 12, Sumner Square. Mr Staunton, perhaps we shall see you too?”

The young men made proper acknowledgments, and when Constancy, with no ladies’ last words, had taken her departure, Guy stated that he wished to hear the evening service at Westminster, and asked his friend to walk there with him by way of the Thames Embankment.

Part 1, Chapter V

Interesting