WaynfleteColeridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
General
Waynflete
Coleridge, Christabel R. (Christabel Rose)
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
"Well, sometimes, you know. Anyway, there are safer remedies than
brandy, if your heart gives you trouble. And mind, come to me at any
time, or send for me. Bring it into the light of day."
Guy felt soothed by the kindness, and he knew that the advice was good.
But, all the same, he knew that it was Florella who had touched the
heart of his trouble.
"You're awfully kind," he said, gratefully.
"I know the look of trouble," answered Cuthbert; "and fate hasn't left
me many anxieties. I'm quite free to worry about you."
Guy's eloquent eyes softened. The fellow-feeling was better than the
reasoning. But as he got up to go to bed, he said in his usual
self-contained voice, "You know, Rawdie saw him too, and had
palpitations."
PART TWO, CHAPTER ONE.
A BIG SITUATION.
Florella Vyner lay awake in the cool misty light of a moorland morning,
and thought, not for the first time, of her conversation with Guy
Waynflete. She had the power of intense and steady contemplation, that
was the faculty that enabled her to "see," and when she woke to the
sense of the unusualness of what had passed, she felt quite certain that
the circumstances were also unusual enough to justify the words which
she had spoken. They had surprised herself; and now, on the day when
she would see Guy again she divined that he had been speaking of
himself. It was he who suffered spiritual fear, he whose soul was in
danger, and needed prayers to help it. A sense of awe came upon her.
Guy believed that she saw; but she felt herself to have been hitherto
blind. She had entered into a spiritual conflict, and, suddenly, she
knew that it was a real one. "Pray for his soul." What a tremendous
thing she had promised! And oh! how tremendous must be the Power whom
she had invoked.
There came upon Florella a moment when "this earth we hold by seemed not
earth," a moment when she did indeed "see."
Her sister's voice startled her.
"It's not going to be a fine day. Never mind, wet mist is
characteristic of Ingleby." Constancy was sitting up in bed. Her
abundant hair fell over her shoulders in thick vigorous waves, her hands
were clasped round her knees.
"Cosy," said Florella, with sisterly straightforwardness, "I hope you're
going to behave better than you did at Waynflete."
"I haven't done any harm," said Cosy, with entire good humour. "Why
should you all grumble? I haven't read an hour the less, nor given up a
discussion, nor got a bit tired of being here. But I won't be only one
sort of girl. People who have brains can manage a situation."
"I should have thought their brains ought to tell them when a situation
was too big for them to manage."
"Really, Flo! You do say extremely clever things sometimes. Yes, so
they ought. But this isn't a big situation, though Godfrey Waynflete is
a _very_ big young man."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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