Waynflete. Christabel R. Coleridge
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.
Part 1, Chapter VII.
The Cupboard in the Wall.
Guy had really returned from London with a “new-fangled idea,” or, rather, with plans for carrying out one long entertained, and with more courage than usual for putting it forward. He liked the business, and had no lack of ideas concerning it; but during the two years that he had been at work in the mill his position there had become more and more difficult. He could not feel himself a nobody, and he knew what ought to be done; but his aunt had given him no place and no authority; to use the idiom of his county, “he had no say in the work,” and Mrs. Waynflete thought so little of his powers or of his character that she never received his suggestions with favour. She distrusted him, and he knew it, and to a certain extent he knew why. But he was quite sure of his ground now, and as soon as the visitors had departed, he proceeded to unfold his mind.
He told her, with as much delicacy as he could, but with something of her own tenacity, that in his opinion the two faithful old managers were hardly up to the requirements of the day. He thought that more pains should be taken to follow the changes of fashion, and that besides producing broadcloth and plain tweed, certain classes of fancy goods should be undertaken. This would involve an outlay for machinery suited for weaving patterns, and it might also be necessary to engage an overseer who could superintend the production of this class of goods; some extension of the premises might also be required. If his aunt disliked the notion of alterations in the old mills, there was a little mill near which had been worked in a small and unsuccessful way by a man without sufficient capital to carry it on, who would gladly let it to “Palmer Brothers,” as the Ingleby firm was still called, from Mr. Thomas’s father and uncle. Guy adduced facts and figures, and made it plain that he knew what he was talking about; and, in short, showed more of the old lady’s own faculty for business than she had ever given him credit for.
But one of the principles of Palmer Brothers had always been that it was a risky and unsound way of doing business to follow the changes and chances of fashion. People would always want broadcloth and tweed, but fancy goods might lie on hand, and fail to find a market; and, in short, did not suit with Palmer’s way of doing business.
Old Mrs. Waynflete sat in her