"I can"t exactly tell you his appearance: "tis always such a difficult thing to do."
"A man you would describe as short? Most men are those we should describe as short, I fancy."
"I should call him, I think, of the middle height; but as I only see him sitting in the office, of course I am not certain about his form and figure."
"I wish you were, then."
"Perhaps you do. But I am not, you see."
"Of course not, you are always so provoking. Owen, I saw a man in the street to-day whom I fancied was he--and yet, I don"t see how it could be, either. He had light brown hair, a snub nose, very round face, and a peculiar habit of reducing his eyes to straight lines when he looked narrowly at anything."
"O no. That was not he, Cytherea."
"Not a bit like him in all probability."
"Not a bit. He has dark hair--almost a Grecian nose, regular teeth, and an intellectual face, as nearly as I can recall to mind."
"Ah, there now, Owen, you _have_ described him! But I suppose he"s not generally called pleasing, or--"
"Handsome?"
"I scarcely meant that. But since you have said it, is he handsome?"
"Rather."
"His tout ensemble is striking?"
"Yes--O no, no--I forgot: it is not. He is rather untidy in his waistcoat, and neck-ties, and hair."
"How vexing!... it must be to himself, poor thing."
"He"s a thorough bookworm--despises the pap-and-daisy school of verse--knows Shakespeare to the very dregs of the foot-notes. Indeed, he"s a poet himself in a small way."
"How delicious!" she said. "I have never known a poet."
"And you don"t know him," said Owen dryly.
She reddened. "Of course I don"t. I know that."
"Have you received any answer to your advertis.e.m.e.nt?" he inquired.
"Ah--no!" she said, and the forgotten disappointment which had showed itself in her face at different times during the day, became visible again.
Another day pa.s.sed away. On Thursday, without inquiry, she learnt more of the head draughtsman. He and Graye had become very friendly, and he had been tempted to show her brother a copy of some poems of his--some serious and sad--some humorous--which had appeared in the poets" corner of a magazine from time to time. Owen showed them now to Cytherea, who instantly began to read them carefully and to think them very beautiful.
"Yes--Springrove"s no fool," said Owen sententiously.
"No fool!--I should think he isn"t, indeed," said Cytherea, looking up from the paper in quite an excitement: "to write such verses as these!"
"What logic are you chopping, Cytherea? Well, I don"t mean on account of the verses, because I haven"t read them; but for what he said when the fellows were talking about falling in love."
"Which you will tell me?"
"He says that your true lover breathlessly finds himself engaged to a sweetheart, like a man who has caught something in the dark. He doesn"t know whether it is a bat or a bird, and takes it to the light when he is cool to learn what it is. He looks to see if she is the right age, but right age or wrong age, he must consider her a prize. Sometime later he ponders whether she is the right kind of prize for him. Right kind or wrong kind--he has called her his, and must abide by it. After a time he asks himself, "Has she the temper, hair, and eyes I meant to have, and was firmly resolved not to do without?" He finds it is all wrong, and then comes the tussle--"
"Do they marry and live happily?"
"Who? O, the supposed pair. I think he said--well, I really forget what he said."
"That _is_ stupid of you!" said the young lady with dismay.
"Yes."
"But he"s a satirist--I don"t think I care about him now."
"There you are just wrong. He is not. He is, as I believe, an impulsive fellow who has been made to pay the penalty of his rashness in some love affair."
Thus ended the dialogue of Thursday, but Cytherea read the verses again in private. On Friday her brother remarked that Springrove had informed him he was going to leave Mr. Gradfield"s in a fortnight to push his fortunes in London.
An indescribable feeling of sadness shot through Cytherea"s heart.
Why should she be sad at such an announcement as that, she thought, concerning a man she had never seen, when her spirits were elastic enough to rebound after hard blows from deep and real troubles as if she had scarcely known them? Though she could not answer this question, she knew one thing, she was saddened by Owen"s news.
4. JULY THE TWENTY-FIRST
A very popular local excursion by steamboat to Lulstead Cove was announced through the streets of Budmouth one Thursday morning by the weak-voiced town-crier, to start at six o"clock the same day. The weather was lovely, and the opportunity being the first of the kind offered to them, Owen and Cytherea went with the rest.
They had reached the Cove, and had walked landward for nearly an hour over the hill which rose beside the strand, when Graye recollected that two or three miles yet further inland from this spot was an interesting mediaeval ruin. He was already familiar with its characteristics through the medium of an archaeological work, and now finding himself so close to the reality, felt inclined to verify some theory he had formed respecting it. Concluding that there would be just sufficient time for him to go there and return before the boat had left the sh.o.r.e, he parted from Cytherea on the hill, struck downwards, and then up a heathery valley.
She remained on the summit where he had left her till the time of his expected return, scanning the details of the prospect around. Placidly spread out before her on the south was the open Channel, reflecting a blue intenser by many shades than that of the sky overhead, and dotted in the foreground by half-a-dozen small craft of contrasting rig, their sails graduating in hue from extreme whiteness to reddish brown, the varying actual colours varied again in a double degree by the rays of the declining sun.
Presently the distant bell from the boat was heard, warning the pa.s.sengers to embark. This was followed by a lively air from the harps and violins on board, their tones, as they arose, becoming intermingled with, though not marred by, the brush of the waves when their crests rolled over--at the point where the check of the shallows was first felt--and then thinned away up the slope of pebbles and sand.
She turned her face landward and strained her eyes to discern, if possible, some sign of Owen"s return. Nothing was visible save the strikingly brilliant, still landscape. The wide concave which lay at the back of the hill in this direction was blazing with the western light, adding an orange tint to the vivid purple of the heather, now at the very climax of bloom, and free from the slightest touch of the invidious brown that so soon creeps into its shades. The light so intensified the colours that they seemed to stand above the surface of the earth and float in mid-air like an exhalation of red. In the minor valleys, between the hillocks and ridges which diversified the contour of the basin, but did not disturb its general sweep, she marked brakes of tall, heavy-stemmed ferns, five or six feet high, in a brilliant light-green dress--a broad riband of them with the path in their midst winding like a stream along the little ravine that reached to the foot of the hill, and delivered up the path to its gra.s.sy area. Among the ferns grew holly bushes deeper in tint than any shadow about them, whilst the whole surface of the scene was dimpled with small conical pits, and here and there were round ponds, now dry, and half overgrown with rushes.
The last bell of the steamer rang. Cytherea had forgotten herself, and what she was looking for. In a fever of distress lest Owen should be left behind, she gathered up in her hand the corners of her handkerchief, containing specimens of the sh.e.l.ls, plants, and fossils which the locality produced, started off to the sands, and mingled with the knots of visitors there congregated from other interesting points around; from the inn, the cottages, and hired conveyances that had returned from short drives inland. They all went aboard by the primitive plan of a narrow plank on two wheels--the women being a.s.sisted by a rope. Cytherea lingered till the very last, reluctant to follow, and looking alternately at the boat and the valley behind. Her delay provoked a remark from Captain Jacobs, a thickset man of hybrid stains, resulting from the mixed effects of fire and water, peculiar to sailors where engines are the propelling power.
"Now then, missy, if you please. I am sorry to tell "ee our time"s up.
Who are you looking for, miss?"
"My brother--he has walked a short distance inland; he must be here directly. Could you wait for him--just a minute?"
"Really, I am afraid not, m"m." Cytherea looked at the stout, round-faced man, and at the vessel, with a light in her eyes so expressive of her own opinion being the same, on reflection, as his, and with such resignation, too, that, from an instinctive feeling of pride at being able to prove himself more humane than he was thought to be--works of supererogation are the only sacrifices that entice in this way--and that at a very small cost, he delayed the boat till some among the pa.s.sengers began to murmur.
"There, never mind," said Cytherea decisively. "Go on without me--I shall wait for him."
"Well, "tis a very awkward thing to leave you here all alone," said the captain. "I certainly advise you not to wait."
"He"s gone across to the railway station, for certain," said another pa.s.senger.