Waynflete. Coleridge Christabel Rose

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      “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

      Cuthbert Staunton was a man with a history, and rather a sad one. He had been engaged to be married to a girl who had died within a week of the wedding-day. In the first shock of his trouble, he threw up his appointment, a recorder-ship which had been obtained for him by some legal connections, and went off on an aimless wandering, which greatly exhausted his small means, and put him out of the running for the prizes of life. He quieted down in time, however, his trouble receded into the background, and he came back to the family home, settled down, as his sisters said, into a regular old bachelor, with set little tastes and set little ways, a quiet, contented face, and a very kind heart. He had much cultivation and some literary power, and felt himself more fortunate than he could have hoped in being employed by his University as an Extension lecturer on literature and modern history. In this way he obtained interesting occupation, and a sufficient addition to his income for his very moderate wants.

      Now, at two and thirty, no one would have suspected him of having had a “Wanderjahr” in his life; but perhaps it was from an under-sense of sympathy with a not very lucky person that he had taken to Guy Waynflete; when he had met him first abroad, and then at Oxford, a year or two before the present occasion.

      For Guy was a person who did not get on well with life, he experienced and caused a great many disappointments. Once or twice at important examinations some sudden illness had come in his way and spoiled his chances. Such, at least, was his own account of his ill success, when he was pressed to give one. With other engagements he was apt, his friends said, to fail to come up to the scratch. If he undertook to play cricket, sometimes he did not turn up, and sometimes he played badly. He was musical enough to be a coveted member of various clubs and societies, but his performances could never be calculated on, and were sometimes brilliant and sometimes disappointing. There were times when his friends could make nothing of him, and no one felt really to know him. Cuthbert Staunton did not know much about him, he suspected him of more uncertain health than he chose to confess, and had discovered that the home life was not smooth for him. But he did not want to bring his own past into the present, or to inquire into Guy’s. He found him congenial, in spite of the eight or nine years between them, and did not think that his various shortcomings were due to any discreditable cause.

      “You are doing your London?” he said, as they started.

      “Yes,” said Guy, “I’ve hardly ever been in town. You know we haven’t many friends who can be said to be in London society. Most of the Ingleby neighbours come up for three weeks to a good hotel, and do pictures and theatres, and visit each other a little. I am sent up now to ‘make my way’ with some of our city business connections.”

      “By the way,” said Staunton, “what Maxwells were those who seem to have been rather unpleasantly connected with your family history? My mother was a Yorkshire Maxwell.”

      “Was she?” said Guy.

      He was quite silent for a noticeable moment, then he said, with the little ring in his voice which people called satirical, “This is very interesting. Did your mother come from the Rilston neighbourhood? When we’ve settled the fact, we can consider of our future relations to each other.”

      The Stauntons were not people of pedigree; but Cuthbert produced facts enough to prove that his mother had really belonged to a family which had originally owned a small estate called Ouseley, not far from Rilston.

      “That’s the place,” said Guy.

      “But as for Waynflete,” said Cuthbert, “my forefather must have had to drop it again pretty quickly. I suppose he played cards too often. I never heard of its having been in the family. My grandfather Maxwell was a country doctor, and didn’t think family traditions consistent with hard work. I never thought about the matter, till Miss Vyner was so much excited at discovering your hereditary foe.”

      “I don’t myself care about traditions,” said Guy, in a slow, soft, argumentative tone that told of his county. “I don’t, you know, unfortunately share my aunt’s profound respect for the house of Waynflete. She is an ancestor worth having, I grant you I think, if she knew, she’d make a Christian effort to receive you kindly; but we won’t tell her. As for me, I object to feuds and obligations – and – ghosts, and heredity’s a hobby that’s overridden nowadays. We won’t part for ever.”

      He turned his soft eyes round on his friend, with a smile, but Staunton, who had spoken without a serious thought, saw with surprise that he had thought the avowal necessary.

      “Well, my dear boy,” he said, “I’m glad you don’t say, ‘Here’s Vauxhall Bridge and there’s Vauxhall Bridge Road – take the tram, I take the ’bus. Farewell.’ But we must hurry up; it’s getting late.”

      When they came into the Abbey, Guy looked all round him in a searching, attentive way. He joined in the singing with a voice full and sweet enough to do justice to his Yorkshire blood, and when it was over, and they parted, said, as if it was a thing to be thankfully noted, “I have very much enjoyed it.”

      When, on the Tuesday afternoon, the two young men appeared in Mrs Palmer’s handsome drawing-room, it was full of other visitors, and their entertainment fell at first to Florella’s share. Her figure, as she sat a little apart by a table covered with the usual knick-knacks and flowers, had a harmonious and pictorial effect which caught Guy’s fancy and remained in his memory. She was still very like Constancy, but with softened tints; hair and eyes had not the same bright chestnut hue, but were of a dim shady brown; she was paler, and though her young outlines were plump and full, they had an indescribable grace and softness. She had Constancy’s straight brows and square forehead; but the eyes beneath were of another but equally modern type, seeking, longing, as the eyes of Fiametta or of the Blessed Damozel herself, but with this difference: they were happy as if in faith that a good answer waited their questioning. Florella did not talk, or learn, or do, as much as Constancy; but she knew all about learning and doing, and, in a girlish way, lived in the face of the questions of her time. She had one gift, too, which was likely to bring her much joy, and to this, after a few commonplaces, Cuthbert turned the conversation.

      “And your painting, Miss Vyner? Has it been getting on?”

      “Yes,” said Florella, “I have been having lessons.”

      “May we see?”

      Florella, without any excuses or shyness, took a little portfolio from the table, and showed some sketches of flowers in water-colour. The execution was slight and not perfectly skilful; but each little drawing had a characteristic suggestiveness which freed it entirely from the inexpressible dulness of most fruit and flower pieces.

      A bunch of growing sweet peas labelled, “A tiptoe for a flight,” had the summer breeze blowing through them; “Pure lilies of eternal peace,” had a certain dreamy, unearthly fairness that suggested “airs of heaven,” and “A bit of green” was a cheerful, struggling plant of flowering musk, in СКАЧАТЬ