III. THE EVENTS OF EIGHT DAYS
1. FROM THE TWENTY-SECOND TO THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF JULY
But things are not what they seem. A responsive love for Edward
Springrove had made its appearance in Cytherea's bosom with all the
fascinating attributes of a first experience, not succeeding to or
displacing other emotions, as in older hearts, but taking up
entirely new ground; as when gazing just after sunset at the pale
blue sky we see a star come into existence where nothing was before.
His parting words, 'Don't forget me,' she repeated to herself a
hundred times, and though she thought their import was probably
commonplace, she could not help toying with them,--looking at them
from all points, and investing them with meanings of love and
faithfulness,--ostensibly entertaining such meanings only as fables
wherewith to pass the time, yet in her heart admitting, for detached
instants, a possibility of their deeper truth. And thus, for hours
after he had left her, her reason flirted with her fancy as a kitten
will sport with a dove, pleasantly and smoothly through easy
attitudes, but disclosing its cruel and unyielding nature at crises.
To turn now to the more material media through which this story
moves, it so happened that the very next morning brought round a
circumstance which, slight in itself, took up a relevant and
important position between the past and the future of the persons
herein concerned.
At breakfast time, just as Cytherea had again seen the postman pass
without bringing her an answer to the advertisement, as she had
fully expected he would do, Owen entered the room.
'Well,' he said, kissing her, 'you have not been alarmed, of course.
Springrove told you what I had done, and you found there was no
train?'
'Yes, it was all clear. But what is the lameness owing to?'
'I don't know--nothing. It has quite gone off now . . . Cytherea,
I hope you like Springrove. Springrove's a nice fellow, you know.'
'Yes. I think he is, except that--'
'It happened just to the purpose that I should meet him there,
didn't it? And when I reached the station and learnt that I could
not get on by train my foot seemed better. I started off to walk
home, and went about five miles along a path beside the railway. It
then struck me that I might not be fit for anything today if I
walked and aggravated the bothering foot, so I looked for a place to
sleep at. There was no available village or inn, and I eventually
got the keeper of a gate-house, where a lane crossed the line, to
take me in.'
They proceeded with their breakfast. Owen yawned.
'You didn't get much sleep at the gate-house last night, I'm afraid,
Owen,' said his sister.
'To tell the truth, I didn't. I was in such very close and narrow
quarters. Those gate-houses are such small places, and the man had
only his own bed to offer me. Ah, by-the-bye, Cythie, I have such
an extraordinary thing to tell you in connection with this man!--by
Jove, I had nearly forgotten it! But I'll go straight on. As I was
saying, he had only his own bed to offer me, but I could not afford
to be fastidious, and as he had a hearty manner, though a very queer
one, I agreed to accept it, and he made a rough pallet for himself
on the floor close beside me. Well, I could not sleep for my life,
and I wished I had not stayed there, though I was so tired. For one
thing, there were the luggage trains rattling by at my elbow the
early part of the night. But worse than this, he talked continually
in his sleep, and occasionally struck out with his limbs at
something or another, knocking against the post of the bedstead and
making it tremble. My condition was altogether so unsatisfactory
that at last I awoke him, and asked him what he had been dreaming
about for the previous hour, for I could get no sleep at all. He
begged my pardon for disturbing me, but a name I had casually let
fall that evening had led him to think of another stranger he had
once had visit him, who had also accidentally mentioned the same
name, and some very strange incidents connected with that meeting.
The affair had occurred years and years ago; but what I had said had
made him think and dream about it as if it were but yesterday. What
was the word? I said. "Cytherea," he said. What was the story? I
asked then. He then told me that when he was a young man in London
he borrowed a few pounds to add to a few he had saved up, and opened
a little inn at Hammersmith. One evening, after the inn had been
open about a couple of months, every idler in the neighbourhood ran
off to Westminster. The Houses of Parliament were on fire.
'Not a soul remained in his parlour besides himself, and he began
picking up the pipes and glasses his customers had hastily
relinquished. At length a young lady about seventeen or eighteen
came in. She asked if a woman was there waiting for herself--Miss
Jane Taylor. He said no; asked the young lady if she would wait,
and showed her into the small inner room. There was a glass-pane in
the partition dividing this room from the bar to enable the landlord
to see if his visitors, who sat there, wanted anything. A curious
awkwardness and melancholy about the behaviour of the girl who
called, caused my informant to look frequently at her through the
partition. She seemed weary of her life, and sat with her face
buried in her hands, evidently quite out of her element in such a
house. Then a woman much older came in and greeted Miss Taylor by
name. The man distinctly heard the following words pass between
them:--
'"Why have you not brought him?"
'"He is ill; he is not likely to live through the night."
'At this announcement from the elderly woman, the young lady fell to
the floor in a swoon, apparently overcome by the news. The landlord
ran in and lifted her up. Well, do what they would they could not
for a long time bring her back to consciousness, and began to be
much alarmed. "Who is she?" the innkeeper said to the other woman.
"I know her," the other said, with deep meaning in her tone. The
elderly and young woman seemed allied, and yet strangers.
'She now showed signs of life, and it struck him (he was plainly of
an inquisitive turn), that in her half-bewildered state he might get
some information from her. He stooped over her, put his mouth to
her ear, and said sharply, "What's your name?" "To catch a woman
napping is difficult, even when she's half dead; but I did it," says
the gatekeeper. When he asked her her name, she said immediately--
'"Cytherea"--and stopped suddenly.'
'My own name!' said Cytherea.
'Yes--your name. Well, the gateman thought at the time it might be
equally with Jane a name she had invented for the occasion, that
they might not trace her; but I think it was truth unconsciously
uttered, for she added directly afterwards: "O, what have I said!"
and was quite overcome again--this time with fright. Her vexation
that the woman now doubted the genuineness of her other name was
very much greater than that the innkeeper did, and it is evident
that to blind the woman was her main object. He also learnt from
words the elderly woman casually dropped, that meetings of the same
kind had been held before, and that the falseness of the soi-disant
Miss Jane Taylor's name had never been suspected by this dependent
or confederate till then.
'She recovered, rested there for an hour, and first sending off her
companion peremptorily (which was another odd thing), she left the
house, offering the landlord all the money she had to say nothing
about the circumstance. He has never seen her since, according to
his own account. I said to him again and again, "Did you find any
more particulars afterwards?" "Not a syllable," he said. O, he
should never hear any more of that! too many years had passed since
it happened. "At any rate, you found out her surname?" I said.
"Well, well, that's my secret," he went on. "Perhaps I should never
have been in this part of the world if it hadn't been for that. I
failed as a publican, you know." I imagine the situation of gateman
was given him and his debts paid off as a bribe to silence; but I
can't say. "Ah, yes!" he said, with a long breath. "I have never
heard that name mentioned since that time till to-night, and then
there instantly rose to my eyes the vision of that young lady lying
in a fainting fit." He then stopped talking and fell asleep.
Telling the story must have relieved him as it did the Ancient
Mariner, for he did not move a muscle or make another sound for the
remainder of the night. Now isn't that an odd story?'
'It is indeed,' Cytherea murmured. 'Very, very strange.'
'Why should she have said your most uncommon name?' continued Owen.
'The man was evidently truthful, for there was not motive sufficient
for his invention of such a tale, and he could not have done it
either.'
Cytherea looked long at her brother. 'Don't you recognize anything
else in connection with the story?' she said.
'What?' he asked.
'Do you remember what poor papa once let drop--that Cytherea was the
name of his first sweetheart in Bloomsbury, who so mysteriously
renounced him? A sort of intuition tells me that this was the same
woman.'
'O no--not likely,' said her brother sceptically.
'How not likely, Owen? There's not another woman of the name in
England. In what year used papa to say the event took place?'
'Eighteen hundred and thirty-five.'
'And when were the Houses of Parliament burnt?--stop, I can tell
you.' She searched their little stock of books for a list of dates,
and found one in an old school history.
'The Houses of Parliament were burnt down in the evening of the
sixteenth of October, eighteen hundred and thirty-four.'
'Nearly a year and a quarter before she met father,' remarked Owen.
They were silent. 'If papa had been alive, what a wonderful
absorbing interest this story would have had for him,' said Cytherea
by-and-by. 'And how strangely knowledge comes to us. We might have
searched for a clue to her secret half the world over, and never
found one. If we had really had any motive for trying to discover
more of the sad history than papa told us, we should have gone to
Bloomsbury; but not caring to do so, we go two hundred miles in the
opposite direction, and there find information waiting to be told
us. What could have been the secret, Owen?'
'Heaven knows. But our having heard a little more of her in this
way (if she is the same woman) is a mere coincidence after all--a
family story to tell our friends if we ever have any. But we shall
never know any more of the episode now--trust our fates for that.'
Cytherea sat silently thinking.
'There was no answer this morning to your advertisement, Cytherea?'
he continued.
'None.'
'I could see that by your looks when I came in.'
'Fancy not getting a single one,' she said sadly. 'Surely there
must be people somewhere who want governesses?'
'Yes; but those who want them, and can afford to have them, get them
mostly by friends' recommendations; whilst those who want them, and
can't afford to have them, make use of their poor relations.'
'What shall I do?'
'Never mind it. Go on living with me. Don't let the difficulty
trouble your mind so; you think about it all day. I can keep you,
Cythie, in a plain way of living. Twenty-five shillings a week do
not amount to much truly; but then many mechanics have no more, and
we live quite as sparingly as journeymen mechanics. . . It is a
meagre narrow life we are drifting into,' he added gloomily, 'but it
is a degree more tolerable than the worrying sensation of all the
world being ashamed of you, which we experienced at Hocbridge.'
'I couldn't go back there again,' she said.
'Nor I. O, I don't regret our course for a moment. We did quite
right in dropping out of the world.' The sneering tones of the
remark were almost too laboured to be real. 'Besides,' he
continued, 'something better for me is sure to turn up soon. I wish
my engagement here was a permanent one instead of for only two
months. It may, certainly, be for a longer time, but all is
uncertain.'
'I wish I could get something to do; and I must too,' she said
firmly. 'Suppose, as is very probable, you are not wanted after the
beginning of October--the time Mr. Gradfield mentioned--what should
we do if I were dependent on you only throughout the winter?'
They pondered on numerous schemes by which a young lady might be
supposed to earn a decent livelihood--more or less convenient and
feasible in imagination, but relinquished them all until advertising
had been once more tried, this time taking lower ground. Cytherea
was vexed at her temerity in having represented to the world that so
inexperienced a being as herself was a qualified governess; and had
a fancy that this presumption of hers might be one reason why no
ladies applied. The new and humbler attempt appeared in the
following form:--
'NURSERY GOVERNESS OR USEFUL COMPANION. A young person wishes to
hear of a situation in either of the above capacities. Salary very
moderate. She is a good needle-woman--Address G., 3 Cross Street,
Budmouth.'
In the evening they went to post the letter, and then walked up and
down the Parade for a while. Soon they met Springrove, said a few
words to him, and passed on. Owen noticed that his sister's face
had become crimson. Rather oddly they met Springrove again in a few
minutes. This time the three walked a little way together, Edward
ostensibly talking to Owen, though with a single thought to the
reception of his words by the maiden at the farther side, upon whom
his gaze was mostly resting, and who was attentively listening--
looking fixedly upon the pavement the while. It has been said that
men love with their eyes; women with their ears.
As Owen and himself were little more than acquaintances as yet, and
as Springrove was wanting in the assurance of many men of his age,
it now became necessary to wish his friends good-evening, or to find
a reason for continuing near Cytherea by saying some nice new thing.
He thought of a new thing; he proposed a pull across the bay. This
was assented to. They went to the pier; stepped into one of the
gaily painted boats moored alongside and sheered off. Cytherea sat
in the stern steering.
They rowed that evening; the next came, and with it the necessity of
rowing again. Then the next, and the next, Cytherea always sitting
in the stern with the tiller ropes in her hand. The curves of her
figure welded with those of the fragile boat in perfect
continuation, as she girlishly yielded herself to its heaving and
sinking, seeming to form with it an organic whole.
Then Owen was inclined to test his skill in paddling a canoe.
Edward did not like canoes, and the issue was, that, having seen
Owen on board, Springrove proposed to pull off after him with a pair
of sculls; but not considering himself sufficiently accomplished to
do finished rowing before a parade full of promenaders when there
was a little swell on, and with the rudder unshipped in addition, he
begged that Cytherea might come with him and steer as before. She
stepped in, and they floated along in the wake of her brother. Thus
passed the fifth evening on the water.
But the sympathetic pair were thrown into still closer
companionship, and much more exclusive connection.
2. JULY THE TWENTY-NINTH
It was a sad time for Cytherea--the last day of Springrove's
management at Gradfield's, and the last evening before his return
from Budmouth to his father's house, previous to his departure for
London.
Graye had been requested by the architect to survey a plot of land
nearly twenty miles off, which, with the journey to and fro, would
occupy him the whole day, and prevent his returning till late in the
evening. Cytherea made a companion of her landlady to the extent of
sharing meals and sitting with her during the morning of her
brother's absence. Mid-day found her restless and miserable under
this arrangement. All the afternoon she sat alone, looking out of
the window for she scarcely knew whom, and hoping she scarcely knew
what. Half-past five o'clock came--the end of Springrove's official
day. Two minutes later Springrove walked by.
She endured her solitude for another half-hour, and then could
endure no longer. She had hoped--while affecting to fear--that
Edward would have found some reason or other for calling, but it
seemed that he had not. Hastily dressing herself she went out, when
the farce of an accidental meeting was repeated. Edward came upon
her in the street at the first turning, and, like the Great Duke
Ferdinand in 'The Statue and the Bust'--
'He looked at her as a lover can;
She looked at him as one who awakes--
The past was a sleep, and her life began.'
'Shall we have a boat?' he said impulsively.
How blissful it all is at first. Perhaps, indeed, the only bliss in
the course of love which can truly be called Eden-like is that which
prevails immediately after doubt has ended and before reflection has
set in--at the dawn of the emotion, when it is not recognized by
name, and before the consideration of what this love is, has given
birth to the consideration of what difficulties it tends to create;
when on the man's part, the mistress appears to the mind's eye in
picturesque, hazy, and fresh morning lights, and soft morning
shadows; when, as yet, she is known only as the wearer of one dress,
which shares her own personality; as the stander in one special
position, the giver of one bright particular glance, and the speaker
of one tender sentence; when, on her part, she is timidly careful
over what she says and does, lest she should be misconstrued or
under-rated to the breadth of a shadow of a hair.
'Shall we have a boat?' he said again, more softly, seeing that to
his first question she had not answered, but looked uncertainly at
the ground, then almost, but not quite, in his face, blushed a
series of minute blushes, left off in the midst of them, and showed
the usual signs of perplexity in a matter of the emotions.
Owen had always been with her before, but there was now a force of
habit in the proceeding, and with Arcadian innocence she assumed
that a row on the water was, under any circumstances, a natural
thing. Without another word being spoken on either side, they went
down the steps. He carefully handed her in, took his seat, slid
noiselessly off the sand, and away from the shore.
They thus sat facing each other in the graceful yellow cockle-shell,
and his eyes frequently found a resting-place in the depths of hers.
The boat was so small that at each return of the sculls, when his
hands came forward to begin the pull, they approached so near to her
that her vivid imagination began to thrill her with a fancy that he
was going to clasp his arms round her. The sensation grew so strong
that she could not run the risk of again meeting his eyes at those
critical moments, and turned aside to inspect the distant horizon;
then she grew weary of looking sideways, and was driven to return to
her natural position again. At this instant he again leant forward
to begin, and met her glance by an ardent fixed gaze. An
involuntary impulse of girlish embarrassment caused her to give a
vehement pull at the tiller-rope, which brought the boat's head
round till they stood directly for shore.
His eyes, which had dwelt upon her form during the whole time of her
look askance, now left her; he perceived the direction in which they
were going.
'Why, you have completely turned the boat, Miss Graye?' he said,
looking over his shoulder. 'Look at our track on the water--a great
semicircle, preceded by a series of zigzags as far as we can see.'
She looked attentively. 'Is it my fault or yours?' she inquired.
'Mine, I suppose?'
'I can't help saying that it is yours.'
She dropped the ropes decisively, feeling the slightest twinge of
vexation at the answer.
'Why do you let go?'
'I do it so badly.'
'O no; you turned about for shore in a masterly way. Do you wish to
return?'
'Yes, if you please.'
'Of course, then, I will at once.'
'I fear what the people will think of us--going in such absurd
directions, and all through my wretched steering.'
'Never mind what the people think.' A pause. 'You surely are not
so weak as to mind what the people think on such a matter as that?'
Those words might almost be called too firm and hard to be given by
him to her; but never mind. For almost the first time in her life
she felt the charming sensation, although on such an insignificant
subject, of being compelled into an opinion by a man she loved.
Owen, though less yielding physically, and more practical, would not
have had the intellectual independence to answer a woman thus. She
replied quietly and honestly--as honestly as when she had stated the
contrary fact a minute earlier--
'I don't mind.'
'I'll unship the tiller that you may have nothing to do going back
but to hold your parasol,' he continued, and arose to perform the
operation, necessarily leaning closely against her, to guard against
the risk of capsizing the boat as he reached his hands astern. His
warm breath touched and crept round her face like a caress; but he
was apparently only concerned with his task. She looked guilty of
something when he seated himself. He read in her face what that
something was--she had experienced a pleasure from his touch. But
he flung a practical glance over his shoulder, seized the oars, and
they sped in a straight line towards the shore.
Cytherea saw that he noted in her face what had passed in her heart,
and that noting it, he continued as decided as before. She was
inwardly distressed. She had not meant him to translate her words
about returning home so literally at the first; she had not intended
him to learn her secret; but more than all she was not able to
endure the perception of his learning it and continuing unmoved.
There was nothing but misery to come now. They would step ashore;
he would say good-night, go to London to-morrow, and the miserable
She would lose him for ever. She did not quite suppose what was the
fact, that a parallel thought was simultaneously passing through his
mind.
They were now within ten yards, now within five; he was only now
waiting for a 'smooth' to bring the boat in. Sweet, sweet Love must
not be slain thus, was the fair maid's reasoning. She was equal to
the occasion--ladies are--and delivered the god--
'Do you want very much to land, Mr. Springrove?' she said, letting
her young violet eyes pine at him a very, very little.
'I? Not at all,' said he, looking an astonishment at her inquiry
which a slight twinkle of his eye half belied. 'But you do?'
'I think that now we have come out, and it is such a pleasant
evening,' she said gently and sweetly, 'I should like a little
longer row if you don't mind? I'll try to steer better than before
if it makes it easier for you. I'll try very hard.'
It was the turn of his face to tell a tale now. He looked, 'We
understand each other--ah, we do, darling!' turned the boat, and
pulled back into the Bay once more.
'Now steer wherever you will,' he said, in a low voice. 'Never mind
the directness of the course--wherever you will.'
'Shall it be Creston Shore?' she said, pointing to a stretch of
beach northward from Budmouth Esplanade.
'Creston Shore certainly,' he responded, grasping the sculls. She
took the strings daintily, and they wound away to the left.
For a long time nothing was audible in the boat but the regular dip
of the oars, and their movement in the rowlocks. Springrove at
length spoke.
'I must go away to-morrow,' he said tentatively.
'Yes,' she replied faintly.
'To endeavour to advance a little in my profession in London.'
'Yes,' she said again, with the same preoccupied softness.
'But I shan't advance.'
'Why not? Architecture is a bewitching profession. They say that
an architect's work is another man's play.'
'Yes. But worldly advantage from an art doesn't depend upon
mastering it. I used to think it did; but it doesn't. Those who
get rich need have no skill at all as artists.'
'What need they have?'
'A certain kind of energy which men with any fondness for art
possess very seldom indeed--an earnestness in making acquaintances,
and a love for using them. They give their whole attention to the
art of dining out, after mastering a few rudimentary facts to serve
up in conversation. Now after saying that, do I seem a man likely
to make a name?'
'You seem a man likely to make a mistake.'
'What's that?'
'To give too much room to the latent feeling which is rather common
in these days among the unappreciated, that because some remarkably
successful men are fools, all remarkably unsuccessful men are
geniuses.'
'Pretty subtle for a young lady,' he said slowly. 'From that remark
I should fancy you had bought experience.'
She passed over the idea. 'Do try to succeed,' she said, with
wistful thoughtfulness, leaving her eyes on him.
Springrove flushed a little at the earnestness of her words, and
mused. 'Then, like Cato the Censor, I shall do what I despise, to
be in the fashion,' he said at last. . . 'Well, when I found all
this out that I was speaking of, what ever do you think I did? From
having already loved verse passionately, I went on to read it
continually; then I went rhyming myself. If anything on earth ruins
a man for useful occupation, and for content with reasonable success
in a profession or trade, it is the habit of writing verses on
emotional subjects, which had much better be left to die from want
of nourishment.'
'Do you write poems now?' she said.
'None. Poetical days are getting past with me, according to the
usual rule. Writing rhymes is a stage people of my sort pass
through, as they pass through the stage of shaving for a beard, or
thinking they are ill-used, or saying there's nothing in the world
worth living for.'
'Then the difference between a common man and a recognized poet is,
that one has been deluded, and cured of his delusion, and the other
continues deluded all his days.'
'Well, there's just enough truth in what you say, to make the remark
unbearable. However, it doesn't matter to me now that I "meditate
the thankless Muse" no longer, but. . .' He paused, as if
endeavouring to think what better thing he did.
Cytherea's mind ran on to the succeeding lines of the poem, and
their startling harmony with the present situation suggested the
fancy that he was 'sporting' with her, and brought an awkward
contemplativeness to her face.
Springrove guessed her thoughts, and in answer to them simply said
'Yes.' Then they were silent again.
'If I had known an Amaryllis was coming here, I should not have made
arrangements for leaving,' he resumed.
Such levity, superimposed on the notion of 'sport', was intolerable
to Cytherea; for a woman seems never to see any but the serious side
of her attachment, though the most devoted lover has all the time a
vague and dim perception that he is losing his old dignity and
frittering away his time.
'But will you not try again to get on in your profession? Try once
more; do try once more,' she murmured. 'I am going to try again. I
have advertised for something to do.'
'Of course I will,' he said, with an eager gesture and smile. 'But
we must remember that the fame of Christopher Wren himself depended
upon the accident of a fire in Pudding Lane. My successes seem to
come very slowly. I often think, that before I am ready to live, it
will be time for me to die. However, I am trying--not for fame now,
but for an easy life of reasonable comfort.'
It is a melancholy truth for the middle classes, that in proportion
as they develop, by the study of poetry and art, their capacity for
conjugal love of the highest and purest kind, they limit the
possibility of their being able to exercise it--the very act putting
out of their power the attainment of means sufficient for marriage.
The man who works up a good income has had no time to learn love to
its solemn extreme; the man who has learnt that has had no time to
get rich.
'And if you should fail--utterly fail to get that reasonable
wealth,' she said earnestly, 'don't be perturbed. The truly great
stand upon no middle ledge; they are either famous or unknown.'
'Unknown,' he said, 'if their ideas have been allowed to flow with a
sympathetic breadth. Famous only if they have been convergent and
exclusive.'
'Yes; and I am afraid from that, that my remark was but
discouragement, wearing the dress of comfort. Perhaps I was not
quite right in--'
'It depends entirely upon what is meant by being truly great. But
the long and the short of the matter is, that men must stick to a
thing if they want to succeed in it--not giving way to over-much
admiration for the flowers they see growing in other people's
borders; which I am afraid has been my case.' He looked into the
far distance and paused.
Adherence to a course with persistence sufficient to ensure success
is possible to widely appreciative minds only when there is also
found in them a power--commonplace in its nature, but rare in such
combination--the power of assuming to conviction that in the
outlying paths which appear so much more brilliant than their own,
there are bitternesses equally great--unperceived simply on account
of their remoteness.
They were opposite Ringsworth Shore. The cliffs here were formed of
strata completely contrasting with those of the further side of the
Bay, whilst in and beneath the water hard boulders had taken the
place of sand and shingle, between which, however, the sea glided
noiselessly, without breaking the crest of a single wave, so
strikingly calm was the air. The breeze had entirely died away,
leaving the water of that rare glassy smoothness which is unmarked
even by the small dimples of the least aerial movement. Purples and
blues of divers shades were reflected from this mirror accordingly
as each undulation sloped east or west. They could see the rocky
bottom some twenty feet beneath them, luxuriant with weeds of
various growths, and dotted with pulpy creatures reflecting a
silvery and spangled radiance upwards to their eyes.
At length she looked at him to learn the effect of her words of
encouragement. He had let the oars drift alongside, and the boat
had come to a standstill. Everything on earth seemed taking a
contemplative rest, as if waiting to hear the avowal of something
from his lips. At that instant he appeared to break a resolution
hitherto zealously kept. Leaving his seat amidships he came and
gently edged himself down beside her upon the narrow seat at the
stern.
She breathed more quickly and warmly: he took her right hand in his
own right: it was not withdrawn. He put his left hand behind her
neck till it came round upon her left cheek: it was not thrust
away. Lightly pressing her, he brought her face and mouth towards
his own; when, at this the very brink, some unaccountable thought or
spell within him suddenly made him halt--even now, and as it seemed
as much to himself as to her, he timidly whispered 'May I?'
Her endeavour was to say No, so denuded of its flesh and sinews that
its nature would hardly be recognized, or in other words a No from
so near the affirmative frontier as to be affected with the Yes
accent. It was thus a whispered No, drawn out to nearly a quarter
of a minute's length, the O making itself audible as a sound like
the spring coo of a pigeon on unusually friendly terms with its
mate. Though conscious of her success in producing the kind of word
she had wished to produce, she at the same time trembled in suspense
as to how it would be taken. But the time available for doubt was
so short as to admit of scarcely more than half a pulsation:
pressing closer he kissed her. Then he kissed her again with a
longer kiss.
It was the supremely happy moment of their experience. The 'bloom'
and the 'purple light' were strong on the lineaments of both. Their
hearts could hardly believe the evidence of their lips.
'I love you, and you love me, Cytherea!' he whispered.
She did not deny it; and all seemed well. The gentle sounds around
them from the hills, the plains, the distant town, the adjacent
shore, the water heaving at their side, the kiss, and the long kiss,
were all 'many a voice of one delight,' and in unison with each
other.
But his mind flew back to the same unpleasant thought which had been
connected with the resolution he had broken a minute or two earlier.
'I could be a slave at my profession to win you, Cytherea; I would
work at the meanest, honest trade to be near you--much less claim
you as mine; I would--anything. But I have not told you all; it is
not this; you don't know what there is yet to tell. Could you
forgive as you can love?' She was alarmed to see that he had become
pale with the question.
'No--do not speak,' he said. 'I have kept something from you, which
has now become the cause of a great uneasiness. I had no right--to
love you; but I did it. Something forbade--'
'What?' she exclaimed.
'Something forbade me--till the kiss--yes, till the kiss came; and
now nothing shall forbid it! We'll hope in spite of all. . . I
must, however, speak of this love of ours to your brother. Dearest,
you had better go indoors whilst I meet him at the station, and
explain everything.'
Cytherea's short-lived bliss was dead and gone. O, if she had known
of this sequel would she have allowed him to break down the barrier
of mere acquaintanceship--never, never!
'Will you not explain to me?' she faintly urged. Doubt--indefinite,
carking doubt had taken possession of her.
'Not now. You alarm yourself unnecessarily,' he said tenderly. 'My
only reason for keeping silence is that with my present knowledge I
may tell an untrue story. It may be that there is nothing to tell.
I am to blame for haste in alluding to any such thing. Forgive me,
sweet--forgive me.' Her heart was ready to burst, and she could not
answer him. He returned to his place and took to the oars.
They again made for the distant Esplanade, now, with its line of
houses, lying like a dark grey band against the light western sky.
The sun had set, and a star or two began to peep out. They drew
nearer their destination, Edward as he pulled tracing listlessly
with his eyes the red stripes upon her scarf, which grew to appear
as black ones in the increasing dusk of evening. She surveyed the
long line of lamps on the sea-wall of the town, now looking small
and yellow, and seeming to send long tap-roots of fire quivering
down deep into the sea. By-and-by they reached the landing-steps.
He took her hand as before, and found it as cold as the water about
them. It was not relinquished till he reached her door. His
assurance had not removed the constraint of her manner: he saw that
she blamed him mutely and with her eyes, like a captured sparrow.
Left alone, he went and seated himself in a chair on the Esplanade.
Neither could she go indoors to her solitary room, feeling as she
did in such a state of desperate heaviness. When Springrove was out
of sight she turned back, and arrived at the corner just in time to
see him sit down. Then she glided pensively along the pavement
behind him, forgetting herself to marble like Melancholy herself as
she mused in his neighbourhood unseen. She heard, without heeding,
the notes of pianos and singing voices from the fashionable houses
at her back, from the open windows of which the lamp-light streamed
to join that of the orange-hued full moon, newly risen over the Bay
in front. Then Edward began to pace up and down, and Cytherea,
fearing that he would notice her, hastened homeward, flinging him a
last look as she passed out of sight. No promise from him to write:
no request that she herself would do so--nothing but an indefinite
expression of hope in the face of some fear unknown to her. Alas,
alas!
When Owen returned he found she was not in the small sitting-room,
and creeping upstairs into her bedroom with a light, he discovered
her there lying asleep upon the coverlet of the bed, still with her
hat and jacket on. She had flung herself down on entering, and
succumbed to the unwonted oppressiveness that ever attends full-
blown love. The wet traces of tears were yet visible upon her long
drooping lashes.
'Love is a sowre delight, and sugred griefe,
A living death, and ever-dying life.'
'Cytherea,' he whispered, kissing her. She awoke with a start, and
vented an exclamation before recovering her judgment. 'He's gone!'
she said.
'He has told me all,' said Graye soothingly. 'He is going off early
to-morrow morning. 'Twas a shame of him to win you away from me,
and cruel of you to keep the growth of this attachment a secret.'
'We couldn't help it,' she said, and then jumping up--'Owen, has he
told you ALL?'
'All of your love from beginning to end,' he said simply.
Edward then had not told more--as he ought to have done: yet she
could not convict him. But she would struggle against his fetters.
She tingled to the very soles of her feet at the very possibility
that he might be deluding her.
'Owen,' she continued, with dignity, 'what is he to me? Nothing. I
must dismiss such weakness as this--believe me, I will. Something
far more pressing must drive it away. I have been looking my
position steadily in the face, and I must get a living somehow. I
mean to advertise once more.'
'Advertising is no use.'
'This one will be.' He looked surprised at the sanguine tone of her
answer, till she took a piece of paper from the table and showed it
him. 'See what I am going to do,' she said sadly, almost bitterly.
This was her third effort:--
'LADY'S-MAID. Inexperienced. Age eighteen.--G., 3 Cross Street,
Budmouth.'
Owen--Owen the respectable--looked blank astonishment. He repeated
in a nameless, varying tone, the two words--
'Lady's-maid!'
'Yes; lady's-maid. 'Tis an honest profession,' said Cytherea
bravely.
'But YOU, Cytherea?'
'Yes, I--who am I?'
'You will never be a lady's-maid--never, I am quite sure.'
'I shall try to be, at any rate.'
'Such a disgrace--'
'Nonsense! I maintain that it is no disgrace!' she said, rather
warmly. 'You know very well--'
'Well, since you will, you must,' he interrupted. 'Why do you put
"inexperienced?"'
'Because I am.'
'Never mind that--scratch out "inexperienced." We are poor,
Cytherea, aren't we?' he murmured, after a silence, 'and it seems
that the two months will close my engagement here.'
'We can put up with being poor,' she said, 'if they only give us
work to do. . . . Yes, we desire as a blessing what was given us as
a curse, and even that is denied. However, be cheerful, Owen, and
never mind!'
In justice to desponding men, it is as well to remember that the
brighter endurance of women at these epochs--invaluable, sweet,
angelic, as it is--owes more of its origin to a narrower vision that
shuts out many of the leaden-eyed despairs in the van, than to a
hopefulness intense enough to quell them.
