WaynfleteColeridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
General
Waynflete
Coleridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Guy, still looking slightly amused, got up and said that he had the
longer ride, and must get back, and would expect to see them all on
Thursday at Ingleby.
"Tell my aunt I'll come over to Waynflete on Tuesday by the first train
in the morning," he said as he made his farewells, and went to get his
horse.
Godfrey was desperate. He hated all the other ladies who surrounded
Cosy. He hated Guy, who had, he thought, come with the same object as
himself. He could hardly bring himself to refer to the basket which he
had filled that morning with all the fruits and flowers which he had
thought Constancy might recollect seeing at Waynflete. When he did
bring it forward, he muttered, that his aunt had sent it, which was not
true.
Cosy dived into it.
"White raspberries!" she exclaimed. "Now, didn't they grow just by the
gate into the stables? I hope that lovely garden is as untidy as ever."
"It's worse, I think," said Godfrey, more amiably; "but there are plenty
of raspberries ready for you to pick."
"Delightful!" said Cosy, and Godfrey's brows smoothed till he looked as
friendly as Rawdie.
Presently they all walked back to the house together, and Constancy
showed him the long, low sitting-room, full of their books and
writing-materials. She took his visit to herself, and entertained him
in the most cheerful fashion. But she expressed great pleasure at Guy's
invitation to Ingleby, and finally sent Godfrey away when his cart was
ready, with a perplexed and appealing look in his grey eyes, and a
puzzled wrinkle on his brows, even while she lifted Rawdie into the cart
and kissed his nose tenderly, telling him to look out for her on Tuesday
morning at Waynflete.
"Constancy," cried Violet, "you abominable girl! You behaved worse than
any of the Miss Bennets, or Emma Woodhouse either. I'm sure those young
men must have thought you were delighted to see them."
"Well, I didn't mind them. I could not summon the daughters of the
plough and bind them in chains, could I? You are all so narrow minded."
"Narrow minded?"
"Yes; you should take everything as it comes. The Miss Bennets couldn't
exist without morning callers; but if we can't stand half an hour of
them, we make them of equal importance. And besides, you know, they
represent a side of life which exists. We must ignore nothing."
"It's a most contemptible side," said Violet. "And besides, if Cuthbert
knows, he _will_ laugh at us. I do want him to see we mean business."
"I mean business," said Cosy; "if by business you mean reading; but I
like to study life all round."
"Yes," said the elder Miss Staunton, "just as you like to study opinions
all round, and consider smiling, views which, if they were true, would
send one out into a moral and spiritual wilderness. You see the force
of nothing."
"If so, there must be an awfully stupid piece in me," said Constancy, as
if rather struck.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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