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قراءة كتاب Waynflete
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
class="narrative">“Oh, I say, Guy! I say—what is making you such an awful duffer? What is the matter with you?”
Poor Guy shivered and trembled, perhaps not finding Godfrey’s method very helpful; but he came more to himself by degrees, asked for some water to drink, and pulled the coverings round him.
“Didn’t you see—him?” he whispered at last. “See—see what? Oh, I say! Guy, you haven’t been dreaming of the ghost? Oh, I say! how can you be such a duffer! You’re as bad as when you used to climb into my crib, and Auntie Waynflete whipped you, after that nursemaid made the bogie and scared you.” What difference it might have made to Guy Waynflete if, at that moment of terrible experience he had had some comprehending friend to soothe and sustain him, it is impossible to say; as it was, his boyish pride and self-consciousness began to revive, under his brother’s rough dealing; he made an effort to pull himself together, laughed in an odd, startling way, and said—
“Dreaming! Yes, of course I was dreaming. Don’t you ever say one word about it.”
“Not I,” said Godfrey. “A nice story it would be to get about. Now, am I to go into your room, and sleep with the ghost? It’s getting chilly.”
Guy raised himself on his arm, and stared out into the moonlight.
“No,” he said, “I’ll go back myself. You’ll never hear another word about it.”
He got up, still tremulously, and went away, shutting the door behind him.
Godfrey was but a boy, with all the callous stupidity of his sixteen years. He thought that the incident had been very odd, and rather disgraceful to Guy’s manhood. He was glad it was over, and he tumbled back into bed again, and went to sleep.
Guy looked much paler than usual the next morning, but confessed to nothing amiss. As he went out with the others to join in trying the new tennis-ground, he saw Florella, standing a little apart from the others, evidently just getting over a fit of crying.
“I say—can I help you about anything?” he said, good naturedly.
“No,” said Florella, turning upon him a pair of translucent eyes, almost as steadfast as Constancy’s, and even more candid. “I—I—I’ve been helping to do something wrong—that’s all.”
She ran away before he could speak; but, surprised as he was, there remained in his mind the feeling that somehow she was a nice little girl.
Godfrey heard no more of Guy’s midnight adventure during the remaining three days of the visit. The time passed pleasantly, and the aged vicar of the parish and one or two of the neighbouring gentlemen called formally on “Mr Waynflete.” The recognition pleased Guy, or at least that part of him which was free to care about it. He had very little to say to his aunt when they came back about Waynflete, speaking of it in a satirical, rather contemptuous fashion, which annoyed her very much; while Godfrey described it fully, though he staunchly declared that he liked Ingleby best.
Shortly afterwards Guy had a sharp attack of illness. He had never been quite so strong as his brother, and he did not recover from its effects for some time. Mrs Waynflete had little patience with any ailment less definite than the measles, and thought him fanciful and self-indulgent.
She was also much put out by Mrs John Palmer’s complaints of odd and unaccountable noises at Waynflete, which upset her nerves and frightened her servants. But for these, she would have liked to take the house again next summer, as the air suited her, and she was glad to be near her husband’s family. As it was, she did not feel able to settle down comfortably.
Mrs Waynflete thought Constance Palmer would have had more sense. She let Waynflete Hall to a working farmer, with directions to look after the house carefully, and keep it dry.
Nothing more was heard of mysterious noises, and Guy and Godfrey did not see the place again for nearly five years, when the farmer’s tenancy had come to an end.
Part 1, Chapter IV.
Hereditary Foes.
“Very few people appreciate the feeling of a place. Hardly any one can feel the London atmosphere,” said Constancy Vyner, one Sunday afternoon nearly five years after the events last recorded, as she sat drinking tea on a balcony in a square on the London side of Kensington.
“I shouldn’t have thought our atmosphere so ethereal as to be imperceptible to any one,” said a young man who formed one of the party.
“That’s a most obvious remark, Mr Staunton; but I didn’t mean fogs. I don’t believe the country ever gives one just such a feel of summer as there is now. Hot air, balcony-flowers, rustling brown trees, they’re drier and more papery than country ones; sunny dust, dusty sun, and people, pavements, and omnibuses, and undergrounds—and smart fashionable clothes. It’s so summery! Nobody’s got the idea exactly,” she said. “Of course Dickens has a London feel; but that’s on another level, ghastly and squalid—or best parlour and hot-buttered toast; nor does it quite belong to the swells, though it has fashion and the season in it, too.”
“Your idea is coming?” said Mr Staunton, watching her curiously.
“I’ve got it!” said Constancy, sitting up with a broad smile of pleasure. “It’s modern—it’s democratic. It’s life’s fulness, roses, strawberries, sun, summer—got with some trouble, for the many. So there’s a little dust. You have the best of everything—music, parties; but you go by the underground!”
When Constancy was present, she always took the stage—or, rather, people gave it to her—she commanded attention. She was now at college, thinking, talking, making friends according to her wont, and though her literary ambitions were necessarily much in abeyance, she wrote, now and then, an article or short story, which had just the distinction that wins acceptance, and was not quite like every one else’s.
The youngest Miss Staunton was a college friend, and Constancy was intimate with her family, which consisted of two or three sisters, all busy with various forms of self-help and self-expression, and of the brother now present. The whole party lived harmoniously together, on a conjunction of small incomes, on terms of mutual independence, and, as Constancy epigrammatically put it, “went into society in the underground,” and into very good society too, which is no doubt a modern and democratic development.
“Don’t let us collect material for magazine articles,” said Violet Staunton; “but let us settle about the reading party. Cuthbert has heard of a jolly old-fashioned place on the moors up above Rilston, in Yorkshire, within reach of all kinds of fine scenery.”
“Rilston!” interposed Constancy. “We stayed once with Aunt Connie, at a place near there—Waynflete.”
“How odd!” said Violet. “It was from Mr Waynflete that Cuth heard of the place.”
“Guy Waynflete is a friend of mine,” said Mr Staunton. “I stayed with him once at Ingleby. We came upon Moorhead in our walks, and I should think it might suit for the preparation of future double firsts and senior-wranglers.”
“Thank you, Mr Staunton,” said Constancy, frankly rising to the bait. “I dare say you would expect to find us crocheting