Part 3, Chapter III
Saint Michael
Godfrey’s brief glimpse of Constancy had sent his “forgetfulness” to the winds. He had written a very proper letter to Jeanie’s trustee uncle, telling him, in confidence, the exact state of the Ingleby affairs, owning that he had made advances which just now were difficult to follow up, but by which he should consider himself bound in future. And he further made it quite plain that he considered himself only master of Waynflete Hall de facto, and not de jure. The answer was also a very carefully considered composition, and was more encouraging than it probably would have been, if Guy’s health had been considered less precarious. A year was skilfully indicated as the time that it might take Godfrey to “see his way.” Of course there was to be no engagement; still, at the end of a year, if not before, they would like to hear how Mr Godfrey was getting on.
“It’ll take a deal of bad management to upset Palmer Brothers,” said old Mr Matthew; “and like enough it’ll all come to Godfrey.”
By this arrangement Godfrey had to abide. He had tied a clog round his neck, and it was heavy to carry. He set himself with dogged resolution to master the details of business, and in the long evenings the two brothers looked over their aunt’s letters and papers, together with the relics handed over to the Stauntons by old Miss Maxwell, and which Cuthbert had given to Guy.
Godfrey, who had been at first reluctant, grew more and more interested in what he found, and Guy abstained entirely from comment on any of the facts brought to light, though these explained many things to him. He saw that his aunt had had good reason for her anger and alarm, when she had seen the brandy-bottle in his cupboard, for there were bitter letters of reproach and warning, the sort of letters that start up indeed like spectres from the other side of the grave, and in one, addressed to his father, there was an indication that his own enemy had been at work, for it consisted of a sharp and angry rebuke to the unsatisfactory nephew for “excusing his own faults by untruths and fancies like others before him.” Margaret’s own letter had evidently come back into her hands, but the corresponding one had been destroyed.
They found a few little relics of their mother and grandmother, who had belonged to the same family, small North-country gentry. They had been almost the last of their race, and there were no near cousins left. The lads had to make the most of a few bits of needlework, a stiff little note or two, and a photograph of their mother, of so much weaker a type that it had left but little impress on their strong Waynflete features. There were old likenesses, too, of father and grandfather, at which Guy looked earnestly, and then cast a stealthy glance across the room.
“The same old face,” he said, under his breath; while the hand that held the photograph shook a little.
They also pieced out the family history during its period of eclipse, realising with something of a shock, at least to Godfrey, how entirely it had sunk to the working-farmer level. They learned to know “the rock from which they were hewn,” and their sense of their old great-aunt’s energy and courage increased accordingly. Godfrey had escaped these more degrading temptations, and Guy, perhaps, was quitte pour la peur.
Godfrey went over to Waynflete, more willingly after these discoveries, to see what could be done for it, but came back late in the evening in very low spirits.
He hated the place, he said; the vicar had walked him about, and so had the bailiff. The church was tumbling down, and the farms were just worthless.
“I never saw such a God-forsaken hole,” he said. “I declare, as I came over that rickety old bridge, through that crooked old plantation, and those miserable weedy fields, pasture that wouldn’t feed a donkey, and beastly old hay so rotten that nobody had ever thought it worth leading, I – I wished Aunt Waynflete had let it alone. I never noticed it much in the summer. I didn’t notice anything much then, and I suppose it’s pretty; but it took all the heart out of me.”
“I dare say it did,” said Guy.
“I believe there’s a fate against it’s coming to good.”
“What if there is?” said Guy, sharply.
“Where should we be if Aunt Margaret had stopped to think about fate?”
Godfrey leant over the fire with his elbows on his knees.
“I don’t see that she did get the better of fate, after all. Waynflete’s a beastly hole, and there’s no money to keep it up, and it’s touch and go with the business, and you have half killed yourself.”
“But not quite,” said Guy. “Now, look here, it’s disgraceful to own a place in this condition, and it’s got to be pulled round, spite of fate or fiend either. Of course the work is not done, when the place is a sink of iniquity, and the property gone to destruction. We’ve got to finish it. Come, cheer up; get some supper. I’ve got a notion. We’ll get Clifton to come here, to dine and sleep, and talk matters over. Don’t you play devil’s advocate. He doesn’t want one.”
Godfrey looked up, half-scared, half-fascinated, into his brother’s face. There were times when he was more than half afraid of him.
Mr Clifton, a lively and energetic young man, full of plans and schemes, for which he found Waynflete hardly ripe, came over as invited, and soon suggested starting a subscription for the repairs of the church.
“The curious old Norman architecture makes it a county concern,” he said, “and Mrs Waynflete’s memory is so much respected that I am sure people would like to show it by helping us.”
“Yes,” said Guy, “I expect Mrs John Palmer, our connection, who wishes to take the house for the summer, would give us something.”
Mr Clifton looked much cheered by the notion of a tenant in the shape of a well-to-do lady.
“We might get a good deal done by Michaelmas,” he said. “I find the church is dedicated to Saint Michael.”
“Is that so?” said Guy, as if struck.
“Yes; I’ve been looking up the records – and – I believe it’s illegal; but I found some such curious matters in the old registers, that, as they concern your family, I ventured to bring them with me.”
He produced two worm-eaten old volumes, in which he had placed various marks.
It appeared that the last Waynflete parson had lived to extreme old age. His death in 1810 was set down, and had been followed by three long incumbencies of men of the illiterate and not over-reputable class, too common formerly in the north of England.
“The last was more decent,” said the vicar; “but he did nothing. The roots of evil are old and deep. Now, here’s a queer thing, noted comparatively recently by the vicar before last, in 1864.
“Buried John Outhwaite. Stated on his death-bed that, when a lad, he saw the ghost of one of the old Waynfletes, on Flete Bridge, on an autumn night. Probably a trick played on him by a comrade.”
“Is there any more?” said Guy, eagerly.
“The ghost of ‘t’ owd Guy’ is a tradition in the place,” said the vicar; “but there seems nothing recent at all authenticated.”
Next he showed them the entry of the death of the last squire, and of the luckless Guy, with Died by His own Hand, and Died in Delirium, written in crabbed, ill-spelt characters by the parson-brother, and then —
“It is not to be credited that my Unlucky Nephew saw His Ancestor’s Spirit. That is the same Idle Tale as was told by Peter Outhwaite when he came home from Rilston Market, and drowned his horse in the Flete. Albeit, there is Waynflete blood in the Outhwaites, for my Grandfather and his brother were Wild Youths. We be more Prudent now.”
“Ha!” said Guy, drawing a long breath. “I could not understand how these Outhwaites could see him. That soft lad is an Outhwaite, isn’t he? Is he the last of them?”
“Yes, except his old mother. She is a character, and very proud of her family. Her contempt for me is considerable. But poor Jem is an institution, and believes himself a pillar of the church. He is a good fellow in his way.”
“You spoke of enlarging the churchyard,” said Guy, suddenly, “if we – if my brother gave the ground. Couldn’t the wall come down, and the last squire’s grave be included? He could be forgiven now, couldn’t he?”
“Surely,” said the vicar. “If the ground were given, it could be done easily.”
“Of course,” said Godfrey, briefly. “What else ought we to do?”
Then the vicar unfolded his cherished scheme. The lease was just out of the Dragon, “that rowdy little public in Flete Dale, a curse to the place in every way, and the centre of mischief.” If Mr Waynflete would refuse to renew the lease – that was the place he should like for club, coffee-tavern, everything; several rooms – one large – the lads, unluckily, used to going there. “We should turn the devil’s flank on his own ground.”
As the young clergyman expounded the details of the newest and most up-to-date recipe for social, moral, and religious improvement, Guy moved the hand with which – it was a trick he had – he was shading his eyes, and looked him full in the face with such a gaze as brought him suddenly to a dead stop, a look of awe, inspiration, and resolute daring beyond description.
“That’s right. That shall be done!” he said. “That will turn the devil’s flank!”
Mr Clifton believed quite orthodoxly in the devil; but he had used his name at the moment more or less metaphorically. He felt as he looked at Guy, as he had never felt before, that “improving” his parish meant literally dragging it away from the power of evil.
“The place won’t answer in that depressing hole,” said Godfrey. “It gives one the shivers to think of it.”
“It’ll answer, if we’re not afraid,” said Guy.
It was not surprising, on any grounds, that he had a bad fit of palpitation and faintness that night, after the long discussion was over.
“I must lie still,” he said in the morning; “but bring Clifton here before he goes. I want to speak to him.”
“I am afraid I over-tired you last night,” said the vicar, penitently, when he obeyed this summons.
Guy was lying back on his pillows, with the winter morning sun shining through his unshaded window, full on his hair and face.
“Thanks – it couldn’t possibly be helped,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. You’re quite right about the Dragon. Don’t give the notion up. You know we have neither of us much money, but we’ll help. And you’re right about the subscription. Every one that lends a hand brings more force to help.”
“We must give a long pull and a strong pull and a pull all together,” said the vicar, cheerily.
“Yes,” said Guy, with a vivid smile. “Now I understand that. And when we have won, you could paint in Michael above the Dragon, beating him down under his feet.”
“Surely, most appropriate in Saint Michael’s parish. Oh, I felt very much out of heart before; but you have greatly encouraged me, and I hope and pray that we may make some way now.”
“Pray?” said Guy. “Yes. That’s a very hard thing to do; but it makes a great difference.”
And the young vicar, as he looked into Guy’s eyes, felt for the first time that he understood what was meant by “wrestling in prayer.” He was so much impressed that he could make no sort of obvious and natural answer. He was silent for a moment, and then said —
“You will tell me every idea that occurs to you? I shall be too grateful. And – when you are strong enough – if the Hall is occupied, or uninhabitable, do come to the Vicarage. I’ve made that weather-tight, and – you could see everything for yourself.”
“Thanks,” said Guy; “I think I could do that – I will, sometime. And Godfrey will be coming over about the repairs.”
To Godfrey it was a distinct relief when Guy called him after the visitor was gone, and dictated the letter to be written to the agent of the Australian sheep-farmers, who supplied the mill with raw wool, and who had not supplied it in the past, according to the samples offered. Palmer Brothers did not intend to be cheated in the future.
Then Guy was left alone in the wintry sunshine to think over the past night.
“The Enemy” – as he phrased it – had indeed come to him as before; but he had not been afraid, for, in the same inward region of unspeakable experience, he had felt for the first time, the presence of a Friend.
Part 3, Chapter IV
The Family Face
Mrs John Palmer replied by a handsome subscription to the letter informing her of the condition of Waynflete church. “Miss S.J. Palmer” sent fifty pounds as a tribute to her dear aunt’s memory, from the Riviera, where she had gone with her mother; and others of the family and neighbours came forward liberally enough to put Mr Clifton in very high spirits. Miss Florella Vyner offered a modest five pounds, and, finally, Constancy sent fifteen, being the entire fruit of the story that had come into being at Moorhead. She sent it to Guy, and stated that it was a token of affection for dear Mrs Waynflete; but it was, perhaps, something of a sin-offering as well.
Godfrey beheld her contribution with strange thrills. He was pleased, and yet life was harder after he had read, and secreted her little note, on the loss of which Guy did not comment.
Life could not be very easy. Apart from his own troubles, there was a strain in living with any one in such a state of nervous tension as Guy, carefully as the elder brother controlled himself. His very reticence began to have an effect on Godfrey, and though he himself felt more and more the blessing of comparative inward peace, he could not but suffer much from the outward trial, and once his carefully maintained caution gave way, and he made a great mistake.
“Look here,” he said one morning in the early spring, as he studied his letters, “I asked Clifton to get this done for me.”
“What?” said Godfrey, looking. “A photo graph? Oh, that picture. What did you want it for?”
“You don’t mind? I wanted really to see it.”
“It’s not much like you now,” said Godfrey. Guy got up, and, unlocking a drawer, he laid a row of small objects on the table, setting the photograph of the Waynflete picture beside them.
These were the old likenesses of their father and grandfather, a handsome, well-set-up photograph of himself taken at Oxford, and another more recent one.
“Oh, I say,” said Godfrey, “why did you sit when you were looking so ill? Yes, there’s a good deal of likeness; but, oh, chuck this one with the eyes into the fire – I don’t like it. Eh! What’s this? Have you been drawing yourself? You have made yourself look quite fiendish.”
Guy had laid a rough pen-and-ink outline beside the line of photographs. They certainly formed a curious study of a persistent type, but the last photograph of the living Guy seemed to blot the others out, the mournful eyes were so full of terrible suggestion, the mocking lips were set into lines of so much stronger purpose. And the drawing repeated the photograph with a difference.
“What?” said Godfrey, as Guy’s silence suddenly suggested an idea to him. “What? Do you mean that – the ghost – your bogie – looks like that?”
“Yes,” said Guy, “I think so.”
Godfrey swept the pictures together with an angry motion. He had believed in the ghost, but somehow this definite presentment struck a sudden scepticism into him.
“Oh, come,” he said, “nonsense! You never ought to look at them. It’s very bad for you. You may get to fancy anything.”
Guy gave him an odd look of comprehension.
“Never mind,” he said quietly, “I ought not to have brought them out. They won’t hurt me. Here’s quite another matter. You’ve managed those Devonshire dyers very well. They’re coming round to our terms. See.”
In the gentle steady look with which Guy spoke these encouraging words, the likeness to these wild versions of the family face was lost; but Godfrey had received a shock. In the instinctive recoil of his being from the incredible horror, he doubted Guy’s sanity, even his truth; he shrank from him, even while he loyally obeyed him, and did all he knew for his comfort. And yet as the slow days wore on, in close contact with his brother, an awful sense of comprehension began to steal into him. He too was a son of the Waynfletes; he too had been tempted, was tempted hourly to give up the hateful drudgery, to shake off the fate to which he was bound. He began to understand Guy. And though Guy controlled not only his face and words, but his very thoughts, before Godfrey, the mischief was done. Guy’s very presence filled him with weird suggestions. It struck him that that other figure must be there too, and the longing for escape became almost irresistible, a longing much intensified when he received the following letter from Mrs Joshua Palmer, one Saturday, by the second post —
“Jeanie enjoys the new places and the amusements of hotel life, and I may say, without a mother’s vanity, that she is greatly admired; but I think she loves her old friends, and has enjoyed nothing so much as her Christmas at Raby. We are most glad to hear that the Ingleby business is prosperous, and that Guy is stronger, and we look forward to seeing you on our return from abroad, my dear Godfrey, with great pleasure. Jeanie hears from a Rilston friend, who has a cousin at Constancy Vyner’s college, that there is a very learned professor there who admires her very much, and that when she has taken her degree they will be married, a very suitable arrangement; but I am an old-fashioned, ignorant person, and I don’t think that these new studies teach girls how to make home happy, and I am glad dear Jeanie has simpler tastes.”
Godfrey flung the letter down, and tore open another. It was from a college friend in Queensland, and gave a lively picture of the life of a sheep-farmer.
“Come out and join me,” it said; “let your brother manage the business. He can buy our wool, and we’ll make a good thing of it.”
If he could but go, and escape from his misery! He looked up and started violently as he saw Guy standing beside him, watching him with his intent, searching look.
“I’ve been having a turn with Rawdie,” he said, and sat down by the fire, still looking at Godfrey, under his hand.
There was a short silence, and then suddenly, without warning, Godfrey burst out.
“I see no good in all this work, nor in anything else. I believe there is a curse upon us. We’d better cut each other’s throats.”
“That’s what I want to talk about,” said Guy; “not about cutting throats, but because I know you’re in a bad way. I’ve been thinking a great deal about you. What’s the matter?”
Then Godfrey showed his two letters, and in confused words, helped out by Guy’s questions, he told that he loved Constancy to distraction, that she had failed him in his hour of need, that Jeanie was his inevitable fate, and, finally, that he wanted to run away. He hated Waynflete – no, not only because of the way he had got it, but because – well, there was something – Waynflete took the heart out of him. Guy leant forward and looked hard into his brother’s face.
“We have got to go down to the bottom of it together,” he said. “It won’t do to be afraid of one’s thoughts. There are no other ghosts so fatal. And as for cutting one’s throat, no doubt it’s simple, but how about when it’s done?”
“Guy,” said Godfrey, hurriedly, “do you – do you really see that Thing – you showed me?”
“Yes,” said Guy, gently; “but that has nothing at all to do with you. That is only a nervous affection, wholly physical. It has no existence whatever for you.”
“But you said you had seen the ghost?”
“I believe,” said Guy, choosing his words carefully, “that I have gone through experiences, not new in our family, and to which our constitutions make us liable. It’s an unusual kind of thing, but there are other cases on record. As to what agency causes these delusions and visions – I use both words advisedly – I am not prepared to say. As to the Waynflete traditions, it is my belief that there is some connection between these experiences and the place where they occur, and the people to whom they happen, somehow, where nerves and Spirit and the hidden forces of Nature meet. I know no more, and I don’t think they’ll fall to your share.”
The definite words, the composed manner steadied Godfrey’s spirit. He had felt the brush of the unseen wings, and he was able to recognise what Guy meant.
“There is something more,” said Guy. “It is under these forms of experience that I have had to resist temptation. Temptation is common to man, but some of us are made so as to know when it tears soul and spirit – yes, and body, asunder. But it’s just as hard, no doubt, for other people to keep their heads above water as for me. But,” he paused and hesitated; then went on in still quieter tones, “whatever men, in all ages and all places, have meant by spiritual experience, what they meant when they said that they were ‘tempted of the devil,’ that I have known, and I know. And I know, also, what they meant when they said that the Lord had delivered them out of his hands. And I thank God for the knowledge, even if it came by fire! Remember that! But as for you, the devil, or what he stands for, would give you just as much trouble in Queensland as here. You’re not married to Jeanie yet, nor even engaged to her. And you promised not to leave me alone with the ghosts.”
Guy’s manner was so reticent and calm that Godfrey hardly grasped at once all the force of what he had said. He leant his head on his hands, and was silent for some minutes. Then he said, not very steadily —
“If I left you now, I should be a deserter. But I nearly did. And you know what I did do – as to you – and what a fool I was at Christmas. Some day I shall knock under.”
“No, you won’t,” said Guy; “you’ll stick to your colours. You’ll stand by me.”
Godfrey nodded; he still sat with hidden face. Guy laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Poor old lad!” he said. “I’d rather fight seven devils, more wicked than the first, than have my angel fail me! But, Godfrey, stick to this. Never mind what the fate or the curse may be. We have to fight it, and, God helping us, we can. And I’ve no reason to suppose that the fight would be over, even if we had cut our throats, and been – gathered to our fathers. If it were, it would be a dirty trick to turn tail and leave the fiends – or the bailiffs – in possession at Waynflete.”
Poor Godfrey looked hardly reassured by this suggestive speech; but suddenly Guy’s face softened, and he said, pleadingly —
“Don’t make me into a bugbear, old boy; it’s rather hard, and there’s really no occasion.”
“I should be a confounded fool if I did,” said Godfrey, with some embarrassment. “No, I’ll not turn tail. I’ll stick to the shop.”
He kept his promise manfully; but it was a relief to both brothers when Easter week brought Cuthbert Staunton for a flying visit. He was going abroad, he said, to look up materials for a set of lectures on the sources of English culture. He had set his heart on getting Guy to come with him.
“We’ll take it easy,” he said; “and drop all the bogies in the Channel as we go.”
“Paradise wouldn’t be in it,” said Guy, with a long breath. “But no; first I must go to Waynflete.”
“I don’t approve of that move.”
“I’m much better, and I mean to go.”
“That’s always conclusive.”
“Well, I know best. But by-and-by – Poor Godfrey frames very well to the business. Perhaps he would be better without me. I say, is Constancy Vyner really going to marry a learned professor?”
“Not that I know of. She is going abroad with my sisters, as soon as the term is over. She is not coming to Waynflete, and that, perhaps, is best.”
“Well, I don’t know. I think the heavens will have to fall some time.”
“Florella Vyner has a sweet little drawing, which she means for the Academy. ‘Above the Stars’ – a ditch full of wide-open celandines.”
“Does she come to Waynflete?”
“I believe so – to study primroses,” said Cuthbert, sedately.
Guy pulled Rawdie’s ears, and said nothing; but Cuthbert ceased to oppose his intention of accepting Mr Clifton’s invitation, and looking after the improvements for himself.