“The traitor’s ghost – or the devil in his shape – stood in my way – I was coming – ” he stuttered in thick, shaking tones.
“To the devil with your ghost! You’re drunk!” shouted the old parson, and lifted his hand.
The boy cowered, stumbled and fell on the threshold. He was indeed too late.
That was what happened at Waynflete Hall, in October, 1785.
Part 1, Chapter I
The Family
The splendid sunset of a late August day in the year 1885 was staining the smoky atmosphere which enveloped the manufacturing district of Ingleby with rich and subtle tints.
Margaret Waynflete sat at an upstairs window of a large square stone house, looking across a garden, filled with brilliant flowers and smoke-dulled shrubs, over lovely undulations of wood and field, and unlovely forms of mill and chimney half veiled in tawny, luminous mist, Beyond, hill behind hill, and moor above moor, in endless succession, were lost in grey-gold smoke and fog. She was an old woman, with a line strong face of marked outline, and a tall, strong frame, dressed handsomely in sober and dignified garments suitable to her years and position. Her face was wrinkled and weather-beaten, with the look that comes of facing hard weather through a long life; but it told of perfect health, of unimpaired strength of mind and body.
Nevertheless Margaret Waynflete was engaged in the religious duty of “considering her latter end.” So probably she would have expressed herself, for she was a person who always endeavoured to fulfil any duty that she recognised, and such consideration was becoming to a woman of seventy-six. But what she was really considering was her former life, and that, not so much with a view to repenting her sins, or regretting her shortcomings – though if she had such she was truly desirous of repenting and regretting them – as of shaping the future in such a way that her past work should not be undone by those who would come after her.
She had had a life work. She had attempted something and had done it. She had lifted her good old name out of the dust, and had restored her fallen family to its natural station. And she was intensely proud both of her family name, of her own success, and of the means by which the success had been obtained. When she thought of the day when she should be laid in the old churchyard at Waynflete, she desired as much that the business, to which the restored fortunes of the family were owing, should be honourably and skilfully managed, as that the family name should be borne with grace and dignity.
“We owe the old place to the business,” she said once to her two great-nephews; “and it’s a poor thing to forget the bridge that carries you over.”
Sixty years before Margaret Waynflete had been a fine, strong girl, intensely conscious of her good blood, though her father was but a working farmer, and she herself had had a humble education, and spoke with the strongest accent of her native county. The family had fallen so completely that every one but Margaret had forgotten the fact, and it hardly appeared extraordinary, though it might be sad, when her father’s death left her with the choice of going to service or of working in the mills with her little brother.
Margaret put her shawl over her head and went to her work every day; a fair, rosy girl with abundant flaxen hair, and large, finely cut features. Her beauty attracted the attention of the mill-owner, Thomas Palmer, a man no longer young, of humbler origin, and not much better education than her own, but of rapidly increasing wealth.
He courted Margaret honourably, and she married him on condition that he would send her little brother Godfrey to school. Years passed, of rising fortune which no children came to inherit. Thomas Palmer’s relations were all well established in businesses of their own, and when he died he left everything he possessed to his wife, and Godfrey Waynflete was her natural heir. Already, a little bit of the old Waynflete property, which lay in a moorland valley twenty miles away from Ingleby, had been bought by the wealthy mill-owner, and as time went on, Margaret, in whose hands the mills prospered, recovered it all, and when the house itself came into her possession she took her own name again. Her brother had married well; but he died young, leaving a son who bore the other family name of Guy. He should be the future Waynflete of Waynflete; but again disappointment came, for Guy was killed by an accident three years after his marriage. His young wife died in giving birth to a second son, and the old great-aunt was left with two babies, Guy and Godfrey, on whom to fix her long-deferred hopes.
Sixteen years had passed since that day, during which the business had been the duty, and the family name the romance of her life. She loved both now, as people do love the objects of a life’s devotion, with an imperious demand that those who came after her should love them also; and now, as she sat in her armchair, and thought of her age, and of preparing for death, she was really thinking about the two young lads, whose future fate lay in her power.
The eldest ought to have Waynflete; but it did not suit with her ideas to make him the squire and his brother the mill-owner, as might have seemed natural. The money that had been made in Ingleby Mills ought not to be diverted from their interests for the support of the Squire of Waynflete. He must be a partner in the business, even if the chief management of it fell to his brother. And the Squire of Waynflete ought to be the eldest son.
Such was the view of life maintained by this hard-working old lady, who had never known an idle day, nor a doubt as to the value of her day’s work.
But she liked the youngest boy the best, and believed that he was the most likely to follow in her footsteps. Old people do not always regard young ones with blind admiration, and Mrs Waynflete appraised her great-nephews exactly according to her own measure. She did not know that there were other scales in the universe differently weighted.
So, as she reviewed her past life, she questioned herself whether all her payments had been fair, whether she had exacted enough, and not too much, work from her subordinates; whether she had spent enough money on improvements, or too much on buying back the last piece of unprofitable moor that had belonged to the old Waynfletes; whether, on the other hand, she had ever sacrificed honesty to gain, or failed honourably to fulfil an obligation. And in all these respects her conscience was clear.
And when she thought of the future – she took heaven for granted, as her well-earned portion; but she could picture nothing but Guy and Godfrey in her place, and herself somehow cognisant of their actions. Their young voices, through the open window, disturbed her meditations, as they came across the lawn together.
She rapped on the window, and called to them to come up, and in a minute or two, they were in the handsome, heavily furnished drawing-room, in which their white tennis-suits hardly looked at home. They were tall lads of eighteen and sixteen, like each other, and like their great-aunt; Godfrey the younger, remarkably so. He was the taller of the two, with high cheek-bones and prominent features, light flaxen hair and large grey eyes, with a certain direct honesty of expression. He was still only a big boy, while his brother was slighter, and of more finished appearance, and more delicate outlines. His eyes were also of a light grey, but they were softened by dark eyelashes set thickly on the lower lids as well as on the upper, which gave them a wistful, pleading look, quite independent of their owner’s intentions, and inconsistent with his slightly critical smile and reticent manner.
“Did you want us, Auntie Waynflete?” said Godfrey, in blunt, boyish tones, and using the old-fashioned form of address, in which he had been trained.
“Yes. I’ve an invitation for you, which I’ve a mind you shall accept.”
“Are the Rabys giving a dance?” asked Guy, who was becoming an eligible partner.
“No; this is from Constance Palmer. Her husband was your great-uncle’s cousin. She wanted to spend some months in bracing air, so I let Waynflete to her. You know the old lease of the house fell in this spring. She asks you two to come there for a visit. You shall go.”
“I should like to see Waynflete,” said Guy, with some curiosity, while Godfrey said —
“Is it only an old lady? Will there be any other fellows there?”
“She isn’t old,