Christabel Coleridge - Waynflete

Partly from this, and partly, perhaps, from the incautiousness of old age, before many minutes had passed, she had made John Cooper aware, both of Guy’s plans and of his strictures. It was so natural to discuss the crude ideas of the youth with her experienced old friend.

John Cooper was very much taken by surprise. The reticent and cautious Guy had never betrayed how carefully he had been “takin’ notes.” Had this lad really put his finger on the weak places? John Cooper was much too careful to commit himself to a direct contradiction.

“Well, Mrs Waynflete,” he said; “Mr Guy is young, and young folks like to have something to show for their opinions. But, there’s been many new fashions since you and I began to work the business. The old master never held with following the fashion.”

“You can be making changes every year if you do.”

“So you can do, Mrs Waynflete; so you can. Eh, but I’ve seen changes.”

“Mr Guy has a notion of business, too,” said the old lady.

“Did ye see Mr Guy when he came home, ma’am?” said John Cooper, suddenly.

“No; he had a bit of headache, and went to his room. Young men aren’t as tough as they used to be.”

There was a silence. The old man watched the lady over the writing-table between them. He, too, was a vigorous old grey-head, with a hard mouth and keen eyes wrinkled up close. The little room was full of bills and letters and safes. A stray ray of afternoon sun shot through the small-paned window, and showed the dusty air and the dusty floor, and the well-arranged contents of the dusty shelves.

John Cooper crossed the little room, and stood in the streak of sunshine. It shone upon his well-known grey hair, on his shrewd, weather-beaten face, and glittered on a small key left in a little oak cupboard in the wall. John Cooper opened the cupboard, and the sun shot in and sparkled with sudden brilliant reflections on something inside.

“Eh, what have you there?” said Mrs Waynflete.

John Cooper took out a tall brandy-bottle, nearly empty, and a glass still containing some drops of spirit, and set them on the table.

“Mr Guy left the key by mistake,” he said.

“John Cooper! What do you mean?”

No asseveration could have added to the abrupt force of the intonation, as Mrs Waynflete sat upright, grasping the arms of her wooden chair, and looking straight at the manager.

“Mr Guy keeps that cupboard close locked. But to-day he left it swinging open, when he went home – with a headache.”

“Did ye see him go?”

“I came in at the door here, Mrs Waynflete, and Mr Guy staggered past me, and never saw me. He went stumbling out and up the lane. Hurrying and reeling as he went – as once and again I’ve seen him before.”

Mrs Waynflete’s brown old face grew a shade paler, she still held by the arms of the chair, as she rapidly weighed what had been said.

It seemed to her that the fact of the young man’s possessing a bottle of spirits was as nothing compared with the secrecy with which he had concealed it. Nor would he be the first in the house of Waynflete to fall a victim to such a temptation.

On the one hand, Mrs Waynflete had seen it in her father, and feared it for her brother; on the other, there was nothing in Guy’s look or ways to suggest it, save the occasional attacks of illness, as to which he was always mysterious and secretive.

“Lock up the cupboard,” she said, “and give me the key. And ye’ll not say a word of this matter.”

“Nay, not to Joshua Howarth, nor to young Jos, nor to my own John Henry. It’s no matter for talking of.”

Mrs Waynflete put the key in her pocket, rose, and standing at her full height, said – “Good day to you,” and walked away with firm, unfaltering step, across the paved entrance, up the bit of lane that led to the garden wall. She went in through the gate and across the garden, and upstairs to Guy’s room, at which she knocked sharply.

“Guy, I wish to come in.”

The door was unfastened, and Guy stood there in great surprise.

“Aunt Margaret!” he said. “What is it? I am much better. I am coming down for some tea.”

Mrs Waynflete put him aside with her hand, entered the room, and shut the door.

It was a large, comfortable room, with a bookcase and a good supply of books, a writing-table, a sofa and an armchair, besides the little iron bed in the corner, and it was brilliantly light, for there was not a curtain or a hanging of any sort in the room. Such was Guy’s taste. He looked pale still, but quite himself, and there was nothing peculiar in his manner, as he repeated —

“What is it, Aunt Margaret?”

“This,” said his aunt, as she sat down in the armchair, and held out the key.

“What is it that you mean?” said Guy, with a sudden look of being on his guard, and much in the tone of her own question to John Cooper.

“You left your cupboard open, Guy, and John Cooper, very properly, locked it up, and gave me the key. What should a lad of your age do with a bottle of brandy?”

“Confound John Cooper’s meddling impertinence!” said Guy, passionately. “It is nothing to him or to any one what I choose to keep there.”

“That depends upon the use you make of it.”

“Has John Cooper been setting it about that I’ve been drinking?” said Guy, with an angry laugh. “Is that – is that what it looks like?”

He caught himself up with a start, and turning away to the window, stood staring out of it, while his aunt said —

“It’s a matter I’ll have cleared up, Guy, before I answer all your questions of this morning. I’ve known many young fellows take a drop too much in company. That wasn’t thought so much of when I was young. But it’s different nowadays; and what that bottle of brandy means, if it means anything at all, is a very different matter again.”

Whether Guy was struggling with temper or embarrassment, or whether he really did not know what to say, he was silent for some time. At last he turned round, and said ungraciously – “On my word and honour, I don’t drink. I have never been drunk in my life – yet.”

“Then what does this mean?” still holding out the key.

“Sometimes – very seldom – I get faint or dizzy – with a headache – I hate a fuss, and I can set myself right with a little brandy.” There was something in the extreme reluctance with which the answer was given that justified suspicion.

“You ought to see a doctor, if that is so,” said Mrs Waynflete, with much reason; “and when I hear what he says, I’ll think of what you say.”

“As you please, Aunt Margaret,” said Guy. “If my word is not to be taken, I don’t care in the least to be cleared by another person’s.”

“You ought to care how your character stands in my eyes,” said Mrs Waynflete. “Take back your key. I shall judge for myself.”

She looked keenly at the young man standing in the sunlight. It was obvious that now, at any rate, he was fully master of himself, and Mrs Waynflete had lived too much with men, and knew their ways too well, not to perceive that there was nothing in his look to substantiate the charge against him.

Suddenly he looked round at her, in a curious, furtive way – a look which he withdrew at once as she met it, but which startled her. She had caught the glance of fear and suspicion.

“Time will show,” she said, as she left the room. “But I’ll have it all made clear to me, before I trust matters in your hands.”

When left alone, Guy hastily locked his door again, then flung himself down on the sofa.

“Oh, I am a fool, a fool!” he cried to himself. “God knows what will become of me!”

He turned his face downwards with a gesture of despair. There was no one to help him, and he could not help himself.