Waynflete

Part 1, Chapter IX

“Go Back, My Lord, Across the Moor.”

“Cousin Susan,” said Guy, a few days after he had been left behind at Ingleby, “I promised Miss Vyner that she and her friends should see the mills. If it suits you, I should like to ride over to Moorhead, and ask them to come down next Thursday, and have luncheon here. Then I would take them round.”

“Yes, my dear Guy; yes, certainly. I think it would be most proper, under the circumstances; and with my being here, there can be no objection. I’m glad you’ve given me the hint, my dear Guy.”

Guy thought his very straightforward request had been something more than a hint. He had made it partly because he was extremely dull, and wanted a little variety, and partly because he did not choose to acquiesce in the idea that he was out of favour. Most of Guy’s actions at this time were marked by a certain note of defiance.

He set off on a fresh breezy afternoon, when great clouds flung great shadows over the open moor, and the dark green of the bilberry and the purple of the heather were in full glory of contrast. He rode slowly uphill, over wide roads with low grey walls on either side, behind which grew oats and turnips, past strong-looking stone villages, all white and grey and wind swept, till the land grew poorer and more open, and turf, mixed with furze and heather, began to appear, and at length he turned over the top, and came out upon the great rolling moors, here clear and sunny, there veiled in the smoke and fog of distant centres of human life.

As he drew near the end of his ride, he saw a figure sitting on some rough ground by the roadside, and looking up and away at a broken hillock of rock and heather, which, owing to the falling away of the ground behind, was relieved against the sky.

By the pose of her head and the lines of her figure he at once recognised Florella Vyner, and as he came near she saw him, and rising, answered his greeting with a smile as he dismounted beside her.

“I have ridden over,” said Guy, “with a message from Mrs Joshua Palmer, to ask if your sister still cares to show Ingleby Mills to her friends. My aunt and my brother are at Waynflete, but I have been left behind. And I hope, too, that Moorhead is satisfactory?”

“Oh yes,” said Florella, “we are delighted with it. It suits us quite. The others are all very near by. Would you like to take your horse to the farm, and then come and join us? You will see them a few steps further on.”

“There’s Bill Shipley,” said Guy, looking up the road. “I’ll ask him to take Stella.”

He came back after giving his horse to the boy, with a brighter and sweeter look on his face than it often wore. “May I look first at the drawing? What have you found out about the moor flowers?”

“Oh, they are so difficult – look at those harebells on the top of the road, swinging about in the wind – blue against blue. It is such heavenly colour. But I can’t paint them! I haven’t begun to try. I’m seeing them!”

“I see,” said Guy. “Yes, the sky seems to show through. But what do they say? Your pictures all say something. Are they moor spirits?”

“Well,” she said, “I don’t think I quite know. But what I want to say is ‘living blue,’ – you know the hymn? —

”‘Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
All dressed in living green.’

“That gives one such a feeling of spring.”

“Yes,” said Guy, “things growing. And ‘living blue’?”

“Well,” said Florella, looking up at the harebells, “I think it must mean thoughts – spirit, soul, growing and springing, perhaps. They are so very ethereal!”

Florella had much of Constancy’s self-possession. In her it showed in a calm simplicity of manner, absolutely without effort or constraint. Guy forgot himself also, for him a rare pleasure.

“I see,” he said, “I hope you’ll get them done.”

“But they shine so,” she said; “one can’t make them glisten. And the heather is very difficult, too. But that I have tried.”

She showed her sketch-book, containing more flower studies and a few landscapes.

“I should like to sketch,” said Guy, as he looked, and made a few comments.

“But you could, I think, because you can see. And it is very interesting. It is impossible to think of anything in the world but the thing you are drawing. That is all I have. My sister and all of them are just behind the harebell rock – shall we come?”

Guy followed, and in a few minutes they were looking down on a cheery group gathered in a hollow of the ground – five skirts and hats among the heather. One or two little puffs of steam showed where the sophisticated “Etnas” were boiling the water, and in the midst Constancy, in a red blouse and brown cap, was evidently concluding an argument.

“Very likely we might like it as well as they did, if we had the same opportunities.”

“Cosy! you’re a traitor. As if we want young men to come and interrupt us, like those dreadful girls in – ”

“Mr Waynflete,” said Florella, descending upon the party.

Violet Staunton, who was the last speaker, sank into the heather with a gasp, and a sensation ran through the party. Constancy stood up and held out her hand.

“Mr Waynflete, we are abusing Miss Austen’s heroines for liking visitors. But, you know, we promised to give you some tea.”

Guy coloured and smiled. He felt a little shy, but much as if he had stepped into a fairy-ring. Away from his own people and his perplexities, he was like another person, bright and gay, and was soon giving his invitation, and asking if Cuthbert Staunton had made his holiday plans, or if he could come to Ingleby for a bit, while he helped to hand round the tea and the tea-cakes, for the merits of which he had vouched in London. Thus, at his ease, he had a gentle, friendly manner and a pleasant face, as he dealt with the eccentricities of an “Etna” which refused to boil. Florella felt as if her short, childish intercourse with him had been longer and more recent.