WaynfleteColeridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
General
Waynflete
Coleridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
"You know, one has to `see.'"
"Yes," he said, gravely. "Well! So the world was saved!"
She had given him the thought; but to herself it was new. She could not
speak; while Guy felt for the moment as if the power to understand her
had been cheaply bought by all the agony of his own experience.
They were brought suddenly back to earth again, to the spring flowers
and the sunlight, and to the squalid cottages across the field, by wild
and frantic barks from Rawdie, who rushed into view, wet and muddy, with
a large rat in his mouth, while Jem Outhwaite, climbing up the bank
behind him, cried out triumphantly, "He've got 'im, sir; he've got 'im
hissel'!"
Rawdie went home in a state of absolute self-satisfaction. For Guy, it
had been a moment for which to live; but, such are the conditions of
this poor mortal life, that it was followed by a great reaction, by
passionate longings to take this beloved maiden to himself, by the old
disgust at all that was abnormal in his fate. He soon went back to
Ingleby, where he puzzled Godfrey by fitful spirits, intermittent
efforts to seem more like other people, and by hours of gloom and
silence. The mental fever quieted down after a time, or perhaps he
learnt to endure it.
But Florella was happier for the moment of approach. They had not
ceased to understand each other. She could not paint the sun on the
spring flowers, she could not satisfy herself with any tint with which
she tried to match them. But, if light and hue escaped her, she could
seize on their form, and she made delicate and exquisite pen-and-ink
sketches of every swelling leaf and bursting bud.
She went, also, and stood on the bridge which she had seen in vision on
that murky autumn evening, when her soul had followed Guy's through its
strange encounter. She looked at the laughing, living water, sparkling
in the spring sunshine, and at the woods, now fresh and green. It was
the fairest spot that ever was cursed by haunting memories. And yet, in
the midst of all its sweetness, she felt conscious of something that she
did not see, that eluded any insight that she might possess. And she
did make some friends, and took into her heart some troubles, and learnt
to love the weird and lovely place, because Guy loved it so much. She
did not regret the London season which she was missing; she would not go
and stay with the Stauntons to see the pictures; there were pictures
enough in the woods, such as she had never seen before.
Once Godfrey came over on business about the estate, and came to call.
He had lost his boyish manner, and had caught his brother's gravity and
reticence.
"Ah!" said Mrs Palmer, afterwards, when he had somehow extracted the
fact that Constancy was working hard at college, and thinking of nothing
but her examinations, "I've always known that boy admired Cosy. He's
too young for her, and Ingleby wouldn't suit her at all. But clever
girls often take to handsome men with nothing in them."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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