WaynfleteColeridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
General
Waynflete
Coleridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
There was a call, and they hurried away to join the others. They had
forgotten both themselves and each other. It was only afterwards that
Florella realised that she had said unusual things, or Guy that he had
heard them. But strange to each other they never could be again.
Constancy and Godfrey had thought of each other, and of the effect they
were producing on each other, all day long. Nevertheless, they parted
as "Strangers yet."
PART ONE, CHAPTER ELEVEN.
"STRIVING FOR DEAR EXISTENCE."
In the soft interrupted stillness of the summer night Godfrey Waynflete
leant out of his window, and lived over again the hours of the day. The
country stillness was constantly broken by the whirr of a bat, the
twitter of a disturbed sparrow, or by the homely sounds of cattle and
poultry in the farm and fields close by. But Godfrey neither heard nor
heeded. He was deaf to the sounds within the house, the occasional
strain and creak of the old boards and panels, the patter of rats and
mice, which constantly disturbed the slumbers of Rawdie, who slept on a
mat in his master's room. His blood was all on fire; sleep was
impossible to him. He could think of nothing but that in two days he
would meet Constancy again at Ingleby. It did not seem possible to
Godfrey that so intense a desire should fail to work its own fulfilment.
No one and nothing should stand in the way of this demand of his spirit
for the thing it craved. The whole world was widened, transformed,
glorified. Constancy--_Cosy_. How the name suited her! The memories
of that old boyish visit started into life, till the old house seemed to
thrill with her presence.
"Talk of haunting," thought Godfrey, laughing to himself. Constancy was
the presence that filled Waynflete through and through. There was no
room there for any ghosts! Then suddenly, without warning, there fell
upon him a doubt, a fear, a presentiment of disappointment, a change of
spirit so complete that it was almost as if a sudden change of
atmosphere had swept through the room, and chilled him. A moment before
his joy had had hardly a misgiving, now he suddenly felt utterly without
hope.
He started upright, and pulled the casement to, for the night-air felt
all at once chilly. He shook himself together, and began to pull off
his coat, when Rawdie sat up in the moonlight, and began to howl as if
he thought his last hour had come.
"Confound you, Rawdie, hold your tongue!" cried Godfrey, himself
reviving, when the door leading into the next room opened, and Guy stood
there, fully dressed.
"What, the deuce is the matter with Rawdie?" he said, sharply.
"It's the moon, I suppose," said Godfrey, pulling vainly at the curtain.
"He's got the nightmare this time, instead of you! I never knew him
howl at the moon before. Here Rawdie, Rawdie! Hold your noise! Shut
up!"
Rawdie jumped into his master's arms, his howls subsiding into whines
and whimpers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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