Waynflete. Coleridge Christabel Rose

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СКАЧАТЬ that’s what I meant!” said Florella, pleased. “Do you draw, Mr Waynflete? You are fond of pictures?”

      “I can’t draw,” said Guy; “but I can write down faces in pen-and-ink outline. I can’t make pictures. I don’t think I enjoy them.”

      “Waynflete likes music,” said Cuthbert; “that is more in his line.”

      “Tunes often put drawings into my head,” said Florella, simply. “The time when I began to do flower pictures was at Waynflete,” she added. “Some of the flowers there looked so wonderfully old; and age is a very difficult sentiment to convey in a flower! I never could manage it.”

      As she spoke, there was a movement among the guests, and Mrs Palmer caught the name.

      “Ah, Waynflete!” she said. “It was such a delightful old place, and so bracing. I should have liked to stay there very much, but the noises were such a worry. I declare when I sat in that old drawing-room by myself in a summer evening, I used to feel quite creepy. Mr Waynflete, do tell me if any noises have been heard since?”

      Some of the company pricked up their ears. There are several aspects under which “ghosts” may be viewed, and there is no question that they are both fashionable and interesting. A haunted house and its owner are not often under notice at once.

      Guy did not speak very quickly, and Constancy struck in.

      “Aunt Con,” she said, “the situation would be quite spoiled if Mr Waynflete was willing to talk of his own ghost – or his own noises. Of course he will not. It would not be the thing at all.”

      “It had not struck me that a ghost was interesting,” said Guy, dryly. “As for the noises – ”

      “Oh,” interposed Florella, decidedly; “the noises were all nonsense.”

      “My dear Flo,” said Mrs Palmer, “they are not pleasant when you can’t explain them. They might be burglars or the servants’ friends, or anything. But it’s a lovely place.”

      The conversation now developed into ghost-stories, some of a scientific, others of a romantic type. Mr Staunton remarking that cock-crow would be nothing to ghosts nowadays, since they were accustomed to the searching light of science.

      Guy stood by the mantelpiece, and fingered a Dresden-china figure in a way that gave Mrs Palmer a distinct presentiment of its downfall.

      He looked up suddenly, “Did it ever occur to you to wonder,” he said, as a lady concluded a rather ghastly story, of a white lady who brushed by people on the staircase, and left a cold chill behind her, “whether contact with us makes the spooks feel hot?”

      “Ah, Mr Waynflete,” said Mrs Palmer, as there was a general laugh. “You’re very sceptical, I can see. But you’re behind the age.”

      She was rather glad to shake hands and say good-bye, as she was anxious to see whether he had damaged the Dresden shepherdess. But it was quite safe, even to the fine edges of its gilt roses.

      “He is a nice-looking fellow, but his fingers should have been rapped when he was little to cure him of fidgeting,” she said, when they were alone. “But I shouldn’t think old Mrs Waynflete knew much about children.”

      “He didn’t like to discuss his ghost,” said Constancy; “that was why he fidgeted. Family ghosts are personal.”

      “Cosy,” said Florella, as her aunt left the room, “I can’t bear to think of the tricks we played at Waynflete. We ought to tell. It’s far too serious a thing to give a place the name of being haunted.”

      “It was a very curious study,” said Cosy; “but, somehow, it did not frighten people nearly as much as we expected. And we did not make nearly all the noises that people fancied they heard.”

      “We may have set them fancying,” said Florella. “I could have fancied things myself, after you had been whispering and scuttering about those passages. And, remember, I don’t feel bound to keep up the idea.”

      “It was rather disappointing,” said Cosy, reflectively; “because the boys never took any notice. I don’t believe they heard us, the walls are so thick. But there, Flo,” she added, laughing, “it was just a bit of fun. And there are times when I feel as if I must– well – kick up a shindy. It’s the shape in which I feel the fires of youth.”

      “That’s all very well,” said Florella. “You kick up a good many shindies. But I don’t like making fun of what I don’t understand.”

      “I don’t see all the new pseudo-science,” returned Constancy. “I think it’s all a delusion.”

      “I wonder if Guy Waynflete thinks so,” said Florella, thoughtfully, as she went to dress.

      Part 1, Chapter VI

      Good Comrades

      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 СКАЧАТЬ