VI. THE EVENTS OF TWELVE HOURS
1. AUGUST THE NINTH. ONE TO TWO O'CLOCK A.M.
Cytherea entered her bedroom, and flung herself on the bed, bewilderedby a whirl of thought. Only one subject was clear in her mind, and itwas that, in spite of family discoveries, that day was to be the firstand last of her experience as a lady's-maid. Starvation itself shouldnot compel her to hold such a humiliating post for another instant.'Ah,' she thought, with a sigh, at the martyrdom of her last littlefragment of self-conceit, 'Owen knows everything better than I.'
She jumped up and began making ready for her departure in the morning,the tears streaming down when she grieved and wondered what practicalmatter on earth she could turn her hand to next. All these preparationscompleted, she began to undress, her mind unconsciously drifting awayto the contemplation of her late surprises. To look in the glass for aninstant at the reflection of her own magnificent resources in face andbosom, and to mark their attractiveness unadorned, was perhaps but thenatural action of a young woman who had so lately been chidden whilstpassing through the harassing experience of decorating an older beautyof Miss Aldclyffe's temper.
But she directly checked her weakness by sympathizing reflections on thehidden troubles which must have thronged the past years of the solitarylady, to keep her, though so rich and courted, in a mood so repellentand gloomy as that in which Cytherea found her; and then the young girlmarvelled again and again, as she had marvelled before, at the strangeconfluence of circumstances which had brought herself into contact withthe one woman in the world whose history was so romantically intertwinedwith her own. She almost began to wish she were not obliged to go awayand leave the lonely being to loneliness still.
In bed and in the dark, Miss Aldclyffe haunted her mind morepersistently than ever. Instead of sleeping, she called up staringvisions of the possible past of this queenly lady, her mother's rival.Up the long vista of bygone years she saw, behind all, the young girl'sflirtation, little or much, with the cousin, that seemed to have beennipped in the bud, or to have terminated hastily in some way. Then thesecret meetings between Miss Aldclyffe and the other woman at the littleinn at Hammersmith and other places: the commonplace name she adopted:her swoon at some painful news, and the very slight knowledge the elderfemale had of her partner in mystery. Then, more than a year afterwards,the acquaintanceship of her own father with this his first love; theawakening of the passion, his acts of devotion, the unreasoning heat ofhis rapture, her tacit acceptance of it, and yet her uneasiness underthe delight. Then his declaration amid the evergreens: the utterchange produced in her manner thereby, seemingly the result of a rigiddetermination: and the total concealment of her reason by herselfand her parents, whatever it was. Then the lady's course dropped intodarkness, and nothing more was visible till she was discovered here atKnapwater, nearly fifty years old, still unmarried and still beautiful,but lonely, embittered, and haughty. Cytherea imagined that her father'simage was still warmly cherished in Miss Aldclyffe's heart, and wasthankful that she herself had not been betrayed into announcing thatshe knew many particulars of this page of her father's history, and thechief one, the lady's unaccountable renunciation of him. It would havemade her bearing towards the mistress of the mansion more awkward, andwould have been no benefit to either.
Thus conjuring up the past, and theorizing on the present, she layrestless, changing her posture from one side to the other and backagain. Finally, when courting sleep with all her art, she heard a clockstrike two. A minute later, and she fancied she could distinguish a softrustle in the passage outside her room.
To bury her head in the sheets was her first impulse; then to uncoverit, raise herself on her elbow, and stretch her eyes wide open in thedarkness; her lips being parted with the intentness of her listening.Whatever the noise was, it had ceased for the time.
It began again and came close to her door, lightly touching the panels.Then there was another stillness; Cytherea made a movement which causeda faint rustling of the bed-clothes.
Before she had time to think another thought a light tap was given.Cytherea breathed: the person outside was evidently bent upon findingher awake, and the rustle she had made had encouraged the hope. Themaiden's physical condition shifted from one pole to its opposite. Thecold sweat of terror forsook her, and modesty took the alarm. She becamehot and red; her door was not locked.
A distinct woman's whisper came to her through the keyhole: 'Cytherea!'
Only one being in the house knew her Christian name, and that was MissAldclyffe. Cytherea stepped out of bed, went to the door, and whisperedback, 'Yes?'
'Let me come in, darling.'
The young woman paused in a conflict between judgment and emotion. Itwas now mistress and maid no longer; woman and woman only. Yes; she mustlet her come in, poor thing.
She got a light in an instant, opened the door, and raising her eyes andthe candle, saw Miss Aldclyffe standing outside in her dressing-gown.
'Now you see that it is really myself; put out the light,' said thevisitor. 'I want to stay here with you, Cythie. I came to ask you tocome down into my bed, but it is snugger here. But remember that you aremistress in this room, and that I have no business here, and that youmay send me away if you choose. Shall I go?'
'O no; you shan't indeed if you don't want to,' said Cythie generously.
The instant they were in bed Miss Aldclyffe freed herself from thelast remnant of restraint. She flung her arms round the young girl, andpressed her gently to her heart.
'Now kiss me,' she said.
Cytherea, upon the whole, was rather discomposed at this change oftreatment; and, discomposed or no, her passions were not so impetuous asMiss Aldclyffe's. She could not bring her soul to her lips for a moment,try how she would.
'Come, kiss me,' repeated Miss Aldclyffe.
Cytherea gave her a very small one, as soft in touch and in sound as thebursting of a bubble.
'More earnestly than that--come.'
She gave another, a little but not much more expressively.
'I don't deserve a more feeling one, I suppose,' said Miss Aldclyffe,with an emphasis of sad bitterness in her tone. 'I am an ill-temperedwoman, you think; half out of my mind. Well, perhaps I am; but I havehad grief more than you can think or dream of. But I can't help lovingyou--your name is the same as mine--isn't it strange?'
Cytherea was inclined to say no, but remained silent.
'Now, don't you think I must love you?' continued the other.
'Yes,' said Cytherea absently. She was still thinking whether duty toOwen and her father, which asked for silence on her knowledge of herfather's unfortunate love, or duty to the woman embracing her, whichseemed to ask for confidence, ought to predominate. Here was a solution.She would wait till Miss Aldclyffe referred to her acquaintanceship andattachment to Cytherea's father in past times: then she would tell herall she knew: that would be honour.
'Why can't you kiss me as I can kiss you? Why can't you!' She impressedupon Cytherea's lips a warm motherly salute, given as if in the outburstof strong feeling, long checked, and yearning for something to love andbe loved by in return.
'Do you think badly of me for my behaviour this evening, child? I don'tknow why I am so foolish as to speak to you in this way. I am a veryfool, I believe. Yes. How old are you?'
'Eighteen.'
'Eighteen!... Well, why don't you ask me how old I am?'
'Because I don't want to know.'
'Never mind if you don't. I am forty-six; and it gives me greaterpleasure to tell you this than it does to you to listen. I have not toldmy age truly for the last twenty years till now.'
'Why haven't you?'
'I have met deceit by deceit, till I am weary of it--weary, weary--and Ilong to be what I shall never be again--artless and innocent, like you.But I suppose that you, too, will, prove to be not worth a thought, asevery new friend does on more intimate knowledge. Come, why don't youtalk to me, child? Have you said your prayers?'
'Yes--no
! I forgot them to-night.'
'I suppose you say them every night as a rule?'
'Yes.'
'Why do you do that?'
'Because I have always done so, and it would seem strange if I were notto. Do you?'
'I? A wicked old sinner like me! No, I never do. I have thought all suchmatters humbug for years--thought so so long that I should be glad tothink otherwise from very weariness; and yet, such is the code of thepolite world, that I subscribe regularly to Missionary Societies andothers of the sort.... Well, say your prayers, dear--you won't omit themnow you recollect it. I should like to hear you very much. Will you?'
'It seems hardly--'
'It would seem so like old times to me--when I was young, andnearer--far nearer Heaven than I am now. Do, sweet one,'
Cytherea was embarrassed, and her embarrassment arose from the followingconjuncture of affairs. Since she had loved Edward Springrove, she hadlinked his name with her brother Owen's in her nightly supplications tothe Almighty. She wished to keep her love for him a secret, and, aboveall, a secret from a woman like Miss Aldclyffe; yet her conscience andthe honesty of her love would not for an instant allow her to think ofomitting his dear name, and so endanger the efficacy of all her previousprayers for his success by an unworthy shame now: it would be wickedof her, she thought, and a grievous wrong to him. Under any worldlycircumstances she might have thought the position justified a littlefinesse, and have skipped him for once; but prayer was too solemn athing for such trifling.
'I would rather not say them,' she murmured first. It struck her thenthat this declining altogether was the same cowardice in another dress,and was delivering her poor Edward over to Satan just as unceremoniouslyas before. 'Yes; I will say my prayers, and you shall hear me,' sheadded firmly.
She turned her face to the pillow and repeated in low soft tones thesimple words she had used from childhood on such occasions. Owen's namewas mentioned without faltering, but in the other case, maidenly shynesswas too strong even for religion, and that when supported by excellentintentions. At the name of Edward she stammered, and her voice sank tothe faintest whisper in spite of her.
'Thank you, dearest,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'I have prayed too, I verilybelieve. You are a good girl, I think.' Then the expected question came.
'"Bless Owen," and whom, did you say?'
There was no help for it now, and out it came. 'Owen and Edward,' saidCytherea.
'Who are Owen and Edward?'
'Owen is my brother, madam,' faltered the maid.
'Ah, I remember. Who is Edward?'
A silence.
'Your brother, too?' continued Miss Aldclyffe.
'No.'
Miss Aldclyffe reflected a moment. 'Don't you want to tell me who Edwardis?' she said at last, in a tone of meaning.
'I don't mind telling; only....'
'You would rather not, I suppose?'
'Yes.'
Miss Aldclyffe shifted her ground. 'Were you ever in love?' she inquiredsuddenly.
Cytherea was surprised to hear how quickly the voice had altered fromtenderness to harshness, vexation, and disappointment.
'Yes--I think I was--once,' she murmured.
'Aha! And were you ever kissed by a man?'
A pause.
'Well, were you?' said Miss Aldclyffe, rather sharply.
'Don't press me to tell--I can't--indeed, I won't, madam!'
Miss Aldclyffe removed her arms from Cytherea's neck. ''Tis now withyou as it is always with all girls,' she said, in jealous and gloomyaccents. 'You are not, after all, the innocent I took you for. No, no.'She then changed her tone with fitful rapidity. 'Cytherea, try to loveme more than you love him--do. I love you more sincerely than any mancan. Do, Cythie: don't let any man stand between us. O, I can't bearthat!' She clasped Cytherea's neck again.
'I must love him now I have begun,' replied the other.
'Must--yes--must,' said the elder lady reproachfully. 'Yes, women areall alike. I thought I had at last found an artless woman who hadnot been sullied by a man's lips, and who had not practised or beenpractised upon by the arts which ruin all the truth and sweetness andgoodness in us. Find a girl, if you can, whose mouth and ears havenot been made a regular highway of by some man or another! Leave theadmittedly notorious spots--the drawing-rooms of society--and look inthe villages--leave the villages and search in the schools--and you canhardly find a girl whose heart has not been _had_--is not an old thinghalf worn out by some He or another! If men only knew the staleness ofthe freshest of us! that nine times out of ten the "first love" theythink they are winning from a woman is but the hulk of an old wreckedaffection, fitted with new sails and re-used. O Cytherea, can it be thatyou, too, are like the rest?'
'No, no, no,' urged Cytherea, awed by the storm she had raised in theimpetuous woman's mind. 'He only kissed me once--twice I mean.'
'He might have done it a thousand times if he had cared to, there's nodoubt about that, whoever his lordship is. You are as bad as I--we areall alike; and I--an old fool--have been sipping at your mouth as ifit were honey, because I fancied no wasting lover knew the spot. Buta minute ago, and you seemed to me like a fresh spring meadow--now youseem a dusty highway.'
'O no, no!' Cytherea was not weak enough to shed tears except onextraordinary occasions, but she was fain to begin sobbing now. Shewished Miss Aldclyffe would go to her own room, and leave her and hertreasured dreams alone. This vehement imperious affection was in onesense soothing, but yet it was not of the kind that Cytherea's instinctsdesired. Though it was generous, it seemed somewhat too rank andcapricious for endurance.
'Well,' said the lady in continuation, 'who is he?'
Her companion was desperately determined not to tell his name: she toomuch feared a taunt when Miss Aldclyffe's fiery mood again ruled hertongue.
'Won't you tell me? not tell me after all the affection I have shown?'
'I will, perhaps, another day.'
'Did you wear a hat and white feather in Budmouth for the week or twoprevious to your coming here?'
'Yes.'
'Then I have seen you and your lover at a distance! He rowed you roundthe bay with your brother.'
'Yes.'
'And without your brother--fie! There, there, don't let that littleheart beat itself to death: throb, throb: it shakes the bed, you sillything. I didn't mean that there was any harm in going alone with him. Ionly saw you from the Esplanade, in common with the rest of the people.I often run down to Budmouth. He was a very good figure: now who washe?'
'I--I won't tell, madam--I cannot indeed!'
'Won't tell--very well, don't. You are very foolish to treasure up hisname and image as you do. Why, he has had loves before you, trust himfor that, whoever he is, and you are but a temporary link in a longchain of others like you: who only have your little day as they have hadtheirs.'
''Tisn't true! 'tisn't true! 'tisn't true!' cried Cytherea in an agonyof torture. 'He has never loved anybody else, I know--I am sure hehasn't.'
Miss Aldclyffe was as jealous as any man could have been. Shecontinued--
'He sees a beautiful face and thinks he will never forget it, but in afew weeks the feeling passes off, and he wonders how he could have caredfor anybody so absurdly much.'
'No, no, he doesn't--What does he do when he has thought that--Come,tell me--tell me!'
'You are as hot as fire, and the throbbing of your heart makes menervous. I can't tell you if you get in that flustered state.'
'Do, do tell--O, it makes me so miserable! but tell--come tell me!'
'Ah--the tables are turned now, dear!' she continued, in a tone whichmingled pity with derision--
'"Love's passions shall rock thee As the storm rocks the ravens on high, Bright reason will mock thee Like the sun from a wintry sky."
'What does he do next?--Why, this is what he does next: ruminate on whathe has heard of women's romantic impulses, and how easily men torturethem when they have given way to those feelings, and have
resignedeverything for their hero. It may be that though he loves you heartilynow--that is, as heartily as a man can--and you love him in return, yourloves may be impracticable and hopeless, and you may be separated forever. You, as the weary, weary years pass by will fade and fade--brighteyes _will_ fade--and you will perhaps then die early--true to him toyour latest breath, and believing him to be true to the latest breathalso; whilst he, in some gay and busy spot far away from your last quietnook, will have married some dashing lady, and not purely oblivious ofyou, will long have ceased to regret you--will chat about you, as youwere in long past years--will say, "Ah, little Cytherea used to tie herhair like that--poor innocent trusting thing; it was a pleasant uselessidle dream--that dream of mine for the maid with the bright eyes andsimple, silly heart; but I was a foolish lad at that time." Then he willtell the tale of all your little Wills and Wont's and particular ways,and as he speaks, turn to his wife with a placid smile.'
'It is not true! He can't, he c-can't be s-so cruel--and you are cruelto me--you are, you are!' She was at last driven to desperation: hernatural common sense and shrewdness had seen all through the piece howimaginary her emotions were--she felt herself to be weak and foolish inpermitting them to rise; but even then she could not control them: beagonized she must. She was only eighteen, and the long day's labour,her weariness, her excitement, had completely unnerved her, and worn herout: she was bent hither and thither by this tyrannical working upon herimagination, as a young rush in the wind. She wept bitterly. 'And nowthink how much I like you,' resumed Miss Aldclyffe, when Cytherea grewcalmer. 'I shall never forget you for anybody else, as men do--never. Iwill be exactly as a mother to you. Now will you promise to live with mealways, and always be taken care of, and never deserted?'
'I cannot. I will not be anybody's maid for another day on anyconsideration.'
'No, no, no. You shan't be a lady's-maid. You shall be my companion. Iwill get another maid.'
Companion--that was a new idea. Cytherea could not resist the evidentlyheartfelt desire of the strange-tempered woman for her presence. But shecould not trust to the moment's impulse.
'I will stay, I think. But do not ask for a final answer to-night.'
'Never mind now, then. Put your hair round your mamma's neck, and giveme one good long kiss, and I won't talk any more in that way about yourlover. After all, some young men are not so fickle as others; but evenif he's the ficklest, there is consolation. The love of an inconstantman is ten times more ardent than that of a faithful man--that is, whileit lasts.'
Cytherea did as she was told, to escape the punishment of further talk;flung the twining tresses of her long, rich hair over Miss Aldclyffe'sshoulders as directed, and the two ceased conversing, making themselvesup for sleep. Miss Aldclyffe seemed to give herself over to a luxurioussense of content and quiet, as if the maiden at her side afforded her aprotection against dangers which had menaced her for years; she was soonsleeping calmly.
2. TWO TO FIVE A.M.
With Cytherea it was otherwise. Unused to the place and circumstances,she continued wakeful, ill at ease, and mentally distressed. Shewithdrew herself from her companion's embrace, turned to the otherside, and endeavoured to relieve her busy brain by looking at thewindow-blind, and noticing the light of the rising moon--now in her lastquarter--creep round upon it: it was the light of an old waning moonwhich had but a few days longer to live.
The sight led her to think again of what had happened under the rays ofthe same month's moon, a little before its full, the ecstaticevening scene with Edward: the kiss, and the shortness of those happymoments--maiden imagination bringing about the apotheosis of a statusquo which had had several unpleasantnesses in its earthly reality.
But sounds were in the ascendant that night. Her ears became aware of astrange and gloomy murmur.
She recognized it: it was the gushing of the waterfall, faint and low,brought from its source to the unwonted distance of the House by a faintbreeze which made it distinct and recognizable by reason of the utterabsence of all disturbing sounds. The groom's melancholy representationlent to the sound a more dismal effect than it would have had of its ownnature. She began to fancy what the waterfall must be like at that hour,under the trees in the ghostly moonlight. Black at the head, and overthe surface of the deep cold hole into which it fell; white andfrothy at the fall; black and white, like a pall and its border; sadeverywhere.
She was in the mood for sounds of every kind now, and strained her earsto catch the faintest, in wayward enmity to her quiet of mind. Anothersoon came.
The second was quite different from the first--a kind of intermittentwhistle it seemed primarily: no, a creak, a metallic creak, ever andanon, like a plough, or a rusty wheelbarrow, or at least a wheel of somekind. Yes, it was, a wheel--the water-wheel in the shrubbery by the oldmanor-house, which the coachman had said would drive him mad.
She determined not to think any more of these gloomy things; but nowthat she had once noticed the sound there was no sealing her ears to it.She could not help timing its creaks, and putting on a dread expectancyjust before the end of each half-minute that brought them. To imaginethe inside of the engine-house, whence these noises proceeded, was now anecessity. No window, but crevices in the door, through which, probably,the moonbeams streamed in the most attenuated and skeleton-like rays,striking sharply upon portions of wet rusty cranks and chains; aglistening wheel, turning incessantly, labouring in the dark like acaptive starving in a dungeon and instead of a floor below, gurglingwater, which on account of the darkness could only be heard; water whichlaboured up dark pipes almost to where she lay.
She shivered. Now she was determined to go to sleep; there could benothing else left to be heard or to imagine--it was horrid that herimagination should be so restless. Yet just for an instant before goingto sleep she would think this--suppose another sound _should_ come--justsuppose it should! Before the thought had well passed through her brain,a third sound came.
The third was a very soft gurgle or rattle--of a strange and abnormalkind--yet a sound she had heard before at some past period of herlife--when, she could not recollect. To make it the more disturbing, itseemed to be almost close to her--either close outside the window, closeunder the floor, or close above the ceiling. The accidental fact ofits coming so immediately upon the heels of her supposition, told sopowerfully upon her excited nerves that she jumped up in the bed. Thesame instant, a little dog in some room near, having probably heard thesame noise, set up a low whine. The watch-dog in the yard, hearingthe moan of his associate, began to howl loudly and distinctly. Hismelancholy notes were taken up directly afterwards by the dogs in thekennel a long way off, in every variety of wail.
One logical thought alone was able to enter her flurried brain. Thelittle dog that began the whining must have heard the other two soundseven better than herself. He had taken no notice of them, but he hadtaken notice of the third. The third, then, was an unusual sound.
It was not like water, it was not like wind; it was not the night-jar,it was not a clock, nor a rat, nor a person snoring.
She crept under the clothes, and flung her arms tightly round MissAldclyffe, as if for protection. Cytherea perceived that the lady's latepeaceful warmth had given place to a sweat. At the maiden's touch, MissAldclyffe awoke with a low scream.
She remembered her position instantly. 'O such a terrible dream!' shecried, in a hurried whisper, holding to Cytherea in her turn; 'andyour touch was the end of it. It was dreadful. Time, with his wings,hour-glass, and scythe, coming nearer and nearer to me--grinning andmocking: then he seized me, took a piece of me only... But I can't tellyou. I can't bear to think of it. How those dogs howl! People say itmeans death.'
The return of Miss Aldclyffe to consciousness was sufficient todispel the wild fancies which the loneliness of the night had woven inCytherea's mind. She dismissed the third noise as something which in alllikelihood could easily be explained, if trouble were taken to inquireinto it: large houses had all kinds of strange so
unds floating aboutthem. She was ashamed to tell Miss Aldclyffe her terrors.
A silence of five minutes.
'Are you asleep?' said Miss Aldclyffe.
'No,' said Cytherea, in a long-drawn whisper.
'How those dogs howl, don't they?'
'Yes. A little dog in the house began it.'
'Ah, yes: that was Totsy. He sleeps on the mat outside my father'sbedroom door. A nervous creature.'
There was a silent interval of nearly half-an-hour. A clock on thelanding struck three.
'Are you asleep, Miss Aldclyffe?' whispered Cytherea.
'No,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'How wretched it is not to be able to sleep,isn't it?'
'Yes,' replied Cytherea, like a docile child.
Another hour passed, and the clock struck four. Miss Aldclyffe was stillawake.
'Cytherea,' she said, very softly.
Cytherea made no answer. She was sleeping soundly.
The first glimmer of dawn was now visible. Miss Aldclyffe arose, put onher dressing-gown, and went softly downstairs to her own room.
'I have not told her who I am after all, or found out the particularsof Ambrose's history,' she murmured. 'But her being in love alterseverything.'
3. HALF-PAST SEVEN TO TEN O'CLOCK A.M.
Cytherea awoke, quiet in mind and refreshed. A conclusion to remain atKnapwater was already in possession of her.
Finding Miss Aldclyffe gone, she dressed herself and sat down at thewindow to write an answer to Edward's letter, and an account of herarrival at Knapwater to Owen. The dismal and heart-breaking picturesthat Miss Aldclyffe had placed before her the preceding evening, thelater terrors of the night, were now but as shadows of shadows, and shesmiled in derision at her own excitability.
But writing Edward's letter was the great consoler, the effect of eachword upon him being enacted in her own face as she wrote it. She felthow much she would like to share his trouble--how well she could endurepoverty with him--and wondered what his trouble was. But all would beexplained at last, she knew.
At the appointed time she went to Miss Aldclyffe's room, intending, withthe contradictoriness common in people, to perform with pleasure, as awork of supererogation, what as a duty was simply intolerable.
Miss Aldclyffe was already out of bed. The bright penetrating lightof morning made a vast difference in the elder lady's behaviour to herdependent; the day, which had restored Cytherea's judgment, had effectedthe same for Miss Aldclyffe. Though practical reasons forbade herregretting that she had secured such a companionable creature to read,talk, or play to her whenever her whim required, she was inwardly vexedat the extent to which she had indulged in the womanly luxury of makingconfidences and giving way to emotions. Few would have supposed that thecalm lady sitting aristocratically at the toilet table, seeming scarcelyconscious of Cytherea's presence in the room, even when greeting her,was the passionate creature who had asked for kisses a few hours before.
It is both painful and satisfactory to think how often theseantitheses are to be observed in the individual most open to ourobservation--ourselves. We pass the evening with faces lit up by someflaring illumination or other: we get up the next morning--the fieryjets have all gone out, and nothing confronts us but a few crinkledpipes and sooty wirework, hardly even recalling the outline of theblazing picture that arrested our eyes before bedtime.
Emotions would be half starved if there were no candle-light. Probablynine-tenths of the gushing letters of indiscreet confession are writtenafter nine or ten o'clock in the evening, and sent off before dayreturns to leer invidiously upon them. Few that remain open to catchour glance as we rise in the morning, survive the frigid criticism ofdressing-time.
The subjects uppermost in the minds of the two women who had thus cooledfrom their fires, were not the visionary ones of the later hours,but the hard facts of their earlier conversation. After a remark thatCytherea need not assist her in dressing unless she wished to, MissAldclyffe said abruptly--
'I can tell that young man's name.' She looked keenly at Cytherea. 'Itis Edward Springrove, my tenant's son.'
The inundation of colour upon the younger lady at hearing a name whichto her was a world, handled as if it were only an atom, told MissAldclyffe that she had divined the truth at last.
'Ah--it is he, is it?' she continued. 'Well, I wanted to know forpractical reasons. His example shows that I was not so far wrong in myestimate of men after all, though I only generalized, and had no thoughtof him.' This was perfectly true.
'What do you mean?' said Cytherea, visibly alarmed.
'Mean? Why that all the world knows him to be engaged to be married, andthat the wedding is soon to take place.' She made the remark bluntly andsuperciliously, as if to obtain absolution at the hands of her familypride for the weak confidences of the night.
But even the frigidity of Miss Aldclyffe's morning mood was overcome bythe look of sick and blank despair which the carelessly uttered wordshad produced upon Cytherea's face. She sank back into a chair, andburied her face in her hands.
'Don't be so foolish,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'Come, make the best of it.I cannot upset the fact I have told you of, unfortunately. But I believethe match can be broken off.'
'O no, no.'
'Nonsense. I liked him much as a youth, and I like him now. I'll helpyou to captivate and chain him down. I have got over my absurd feelingof last night in not wanting you ever to go away from me--of course, Icould not expect such a thing as that. There, now I have said I'll helpyou, and that's enough. He's tired of his first choice now that he'sbeen away from home for a while. The love that no outer attack canfrighten away quails before its idol's own homely ways; it is alwaysso.... Come, finish what you are doing if you are going to, and don't bea little goose about such a trumpery affair as that.'
'Who--is he engaged to?' Cytherea inquired by a movement of her lips butno sound of her voice. But Miss Aldclyffe did not answer. It matterednot, Cytherea thought. Another woman--that was enough for her: curiositywas stunned.
She applied herself to the work of dressing, scarcely knowing how. MissAldclyffe went on:--
'You were too easily won. I'd have made him or anybody else speak outbefore he should have kissed my face for his pleasure. But you are oneof those precipitantly fond things who are yearning to throw away theirhearts upon the first worthless fellow who says good-morning. In thefirst place, you shouldn't have loved him so quickly: in the next,if you must have loved him off-hand, you should have concealed it. Ittickled his vanity: "By Jove, that girl's in love with me already!" hethought.'
To hasten away at the end of the toilet, to tell Mrs. Morris--whostood waiting in a little room prepared for her, with tea poured out,bread-and-butter cut into diaphanous slices, and eggs arranged--that shewanted no breakfast: then to shut herself alone in her bedroom, was heronly thought. She was followed thither by the well-intentionedmatron with a cup of tea and one piece of bread-and-butter on a tray,cheerfully insisting that she should eat it.
To those who grieve, innocent cheerfulness seems heartless levity. 'No,thank you, Mrs. Morris,' she said, keeping the door closed. Despitethe incivility of the action, Cytherea could not bear to let a pleasantperson see her face then.
Immediate revocation--even if revocation would be more effective bypostponement--is the impulse of young wounded natures. Cytherea wentto her blotting-book, took out the long letter so carefully written, sofull of gushing remarks and tender hints, and sealed up so neatly witha little seal bearing 'Good Faith' as its motto, tore the missive intofifty pieces, and threw them into the grate. It was then the bitterestof anguishes to look upon some of the words she had so lovingly written,and see them existing only in mutilated forms without meaning--to feelthat his eye would never read them, nobody ever know how ardently shehad penned them.
Pity for one's self for being wasted is mostly present in these moods ofabnegation.
The meaning of all his allusions, his abruptness in telling her of hislove, his constraint at first, the
n his desperate manner of speaking,was clear. They must have been the last flickerings of a conscience notquite dead to all sense of perfidiousness and fickleness. Now he hadgone to London: she would be dismissed from his memory, in the same wayas Miss Aldclyffe had said. And here she was in Edward's own parish,reminded continually of him by what she saw and heard. The landscape,yesterday so much and so bright to her, was now but as the banquet-halldeserted--all gone but herself.
Miss Aldclyffe had wormed her secret out of her, and would now becontinually mocking her for her trusting simplicity in believing him. Itwas altogether unbearable: she would not stay there.
She went downstairs and found Miss Aldclyffe had gone into thebreakfast-room, but that Captain Aldclyffe, who rose later withincreasing infirmities, had not yet made his appearance. Cythereaentered. Miss Aldclyffe was looking out of the window, watching a trailof white smoke along the distant landscape--signifying a passing train.At Cytherea's entry she turned and looked inquiry.
'I must tell you now,' began Cytherea, in a tremulous voice.
'Well, what?' Miss Aldclyffe said.
'I am not going to stay with you. I must go away--a very long way. I amvery sorry, but indeed I can't remain!'
'Pooh--what shall we hear next?' Miss Aldclyffe surveyed Cytherea's facewith leisurely criticism. 'You are breaking your heart again about thatworthless young Springrove. I knew how it would be. It is as Hallam saysof Juliet--what little reason you may have possessed originally has allbeen whirled away by this love. I shan't take this notice, mind.'
'Do let me go!'
Miss Aldclyffe took her new pet's hand, and said with severity, 'As tohindering you, if you are determined to go, of course that's absurd.But you are not now in a state of mind fit for deciding upon any suchproceeding, and I shall not listen to what you have to say. Now, Cythie,come with me; we'll let this volcano burst and spend itself, and afterthat we'll see what had better be done.' She took Cytherea into herworkroom, opened a drawer, and drew forth a roll of linen.
'This is some embroidery I began one day, and now I should like itfinished.'
She then preceded the maiden upstairs to Cytherea's own room. 'There,'she said, 'now sit down here, go on with this work, and remember onething--that you are not to leave the room on any pretext whatever fortwo hours unless I send for you--I insist kindly, dear. Whilst youstitch--you are to stitch, recollect, and not go mooning out of thewindow--think over the whole matter, and get cooled; don't let thefoolish love-affair prevent your thinking as a woman of the world. Ifat the end of that time you still say you must leave me, you may. I willhave no more to say in the matter. Come, sit down, and promise to sithere the time I name.'
To hearts in a despairing mood, compulsion seems a relief; and docilitywas at all times natural to Cytherea. She promised, and sat down. MissAldclyffe shut the door upon her and retreated.
She sewed, stopped to think, shed a tear or two, recollected thearticles of the treaty, and sewed again; and at length fell into areverie which took no account whatever of the lapse of time.
4. TEN TO TWELVE O'CLOCK A.M.
A quarter of an hour might have passed when her thoughts becameattracted from the past to the present by unwonted movements downstairs.She opened the door and listened.
There were hurryings along passages, opening and shutting of doors,trampling in the stable-yard. She went across into another bedroom, fromwhich a view of the stable-yard could be obtained, and arrived therejust in time to see the figure of the man who had driven her from thestation vanishing down the coach-road on a black horse--galloping at thetop of the animal's speed.
Another man went off in the direction of the village.
Whatever had occurred, it did not seem to be her duty to inquire ormeddle with it, stranger and dependent as she was, unless she wererequested to, especially after Miss Aldclyffe's strict charge to her.She sat down again, determined to let no idle curiosity influence hermovements.
Her window commanded the front of the house; and the next thing she sawwas a clergyman walk up and enter the door.
All was silent again till, a long time after the first man had left,he returned again on the same horse, now matted with sweat and trottingbehind a carriage in which sat an elderly gentleman driven by a lad inlivery. These came to the house, entered, and all was again the same asbefore.
The whole household--master, mistress, and servants--appeared to haveforgotten the very existence of such a being as Cytherea. She almostwished she had not vowed to have no idle curiosity.
Half-an-hour later, the carriage drove off with the elderly gentleman,and two or three messengers left the house, speeding in variousdirections. Rustics in smock-frocks began to hang about the roadopposite the house, or lean against trees, looking idly at the windowsand chimneys.
A tap came to Cytherea's door. She opened it to a young maid-servant.
'Miss Aldclyffe wishes to see you, ma'am.' Cytherea hastened down.
Miss Aldclyffe was standing on the hearthrug, her elbow on the mantel,her hand to her temples, her eyes on the ground; perfectly calm, butvery pale.
'Cytherea,' she said in a whisper, 'come here.'
Cytherea went close.
'Something very serious has taken place,' she said again, and thenpaused, with a tremulous movement of her mouth.
'Yes,' said Cytherea.
'My father. He was found dead in his bed this morning.'
'Dead!' echoed the younger woman. It seemed impossible that theannouncement could be true; that knowledge of so great a fact could becontained in a statement so small.
'Yes, dead,' murmured Miss Aldclyffe solemnly. 'He died alone, thoughwithin a few feet of me. The room we slept in is exactly over his own.'
Cytherea said hurriedly, 'Do they know at what hour?'
'The doctor says it must have been between two and three o'clock thismorning.'
'Then I heard him!'
'Heard him?'
'Heard him die!'
'You heard him die? What did you hear?'
'A sound I heard once before in my life--at the deathbed of my mother. Icould not identify it--though I recognized it. Then the dog howled: youremarked it. I did not think it worth while to tell you what I had hearda little earlier.' She looked agonized.
'It would have been useless,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'All was over by thattime.' She addressed herself as much as Cytherea when she continued, 'Isit a Providence who sent you here at this juncture that I might not beleft entirely alone?'
Till this instant Miss Aldclyffe had forgotten the reason of Cytherea'sseclusion in her own room. So had Cytherea herself. The fact nowrecurred to both in one moment.
'Do you still wish to go?' said Miss Aldclyffe anxiously.
'I don't want to go now,' Cytherea had remarked simultaneously with theother's question. She was pondering on the strange likeness which MissAldclyffe's bereavement bore to her own; it had the appearance of beingstill another call to her not to forsake this woman so linked to herlife, for the sake of any trivial vexation.
Miss Aldclyffe held her almost as a lover would have held her, and saidmusingly--
'We get more and more into one groove. I now am left fatherless andmotherless as you were.' Other ties lay behind in her thoughts, but shedid not mention them.
'You loved your father, Cytherea, and wept for him?'
'Yes, I did. Poor papa!'
'I was always at variance with mine, and can't weep for him now! But youmust stay here always, and make a better woman of me.'
The compact was thus sealed, and Cytherea, in spite of the failure ofher advertisements, was installed as a veritable Companion. And,once more in the history of human endeavour, a position which it wasimpossible to reach by any direct attempt, was come to by the seeker'sswerving from the path, and regarding the original object as one ofsecondary importance.