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 am very sorry, but indeed I can"t remain!"
"Pooh--what shall we hear next?" Miss Aldclyffe surveyed Cytherea"s face with leisurely criticism. "You are breaking your heart again about that worthless young Springrove. I knew how it would be. It is as Hallam says of Juliet--what little reason you may have possessed originally has all been 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 to hindering 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 such proceeding, 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 after that we"ll see what had better be done." She took Cytherea into her workroom, opened a drawer, and drew forth a roll of linen.
"This is some embroidery I began one day, and now I should like it finished."
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 one thing--that you are not to leave the room on any pretext whatever for two hours unless I send for you--I insist kindly, dear. Whilst you st.i.tch--you are to st.i.tch, recollect, and not go mooning out of the window--think over the whole matter, and get cooled; don"t let the foolish love-affair prevent your thinking as a woman of the world. If at the end of that time you still say you must leave me, you may. I will have no more to say in the matter. Come, sit down, and promise to sit here the time I name."
To hearts in a despairing mood, compulsion seems a relief; and docility was at all times natural to Cytherea. She promised, and sat down. Miss Aldclyffe shut the door upon her and retreated.
She sewed, stopped to think, shed a tear or two, recollected the articles of the treaty, and sewed again; and at length fell into a reverie 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 pa.s.sed when her thoughts became attracted from the past to the present by unwonted movements downstairs.
She opened the door and listened.
There were hurryings along pa.s.sages, opening and shutting of doors, trampling in the stable-yard. She went across into another bedroom, from which a view of the stable-yard could be obtained, and arrived there just in time to see the figure of the man who had driven her from the station vanishing down the coach-road on a black horse--galloping at the top 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 or meddle with it, stranger and dependent as she was, unless she were requested to, especially after Miss Aldclyffe"s strict charge to her.
She sat down again, determined to let no idle curiosity influence her movements.
Her window commanded the front of the house; and the next thing she saw was 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 trotting behind a carriage in which sat an elderly gentleman driven by a lad in livery. These came to the house, entered, and all was again the same as before.
The whole household--master, mistress, and servants--appeared to have forgotten the very existence of such a being as Cytherea. She almost wished 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 various directions. Rustics in smock-frocks began to hang about the road opposite the house, or lean against trees, looking idly at the windows and 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, but very pale.
"Cytherea," she said in a whisper, "come here."
Cytherea went close.
"Something very serious has taken place," she said again, and then paused, 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 the announcement could be true; that knowledge of so great a fact could be contained in a statement so small.
"Yes, dead," murmured Miss Aldclyffe solemnly. "He died alone, though within 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 this morning."
"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. I could not identify it--though I recognized it. Then the dog howled: you remarked it. I did not think it worth while to tell you what I had heard a little earlier." She looked agonized.
"It would have been useless," said Miss Aldclyffe. "All was over by that time." She addressed herself as much as Cytherea when she continued, "Is it a Providence who sent you here at this juncture that I might not be left entirely alone?"
Till this instant Miss Aldclyffe had forgotten the reason of Cytherea"s seclusion in her own room. So had Cytherea herself. The fact now recurred 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 the other"s question. She was pondering on the strange likeness which Miss Aldclyffe"s bereavement bore to her own; it had the appearance of being still another call to her not to forsake this woman so linked to her life, for the sake of any trivial vexation.
Miss Aldclyffe held her almost as a lover would have held her, and said musingly--
"We get more and more into one groove. I now am left fatherless and motherless as you were." Other ties lay behind in her thoughts, but she did 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 you must stay here always, and make a better woman of me."
The compact was thus sealed, and Cytherea, in spite of the failure of her advertis.e.m.e.nts, was installed as a veritable Companion. And, once more in the history of human endeavour, a position which it was impossible to reach by any direct attempt, was come to by the seeker"s swerving from the path, and regarding the original object as one of secondary importance.