"During the life of Captain Aldclyffe, with you as the foreman of works, and he himself as his own steward, everything worked well. But now it may be necessary to have a steward, whose management will encroach further upon things which have hitherto been left in your hands than did your late master"s. What I mean is, that he will directly and in detail superintend all."
"Then--I shall not be wanted, ma"am?" he faltered.
"O yes; if you like to stay on as foreman in the yard and workshops only. I should be sorry to lose you. However, you had better consider. I will send for you in a few days."
Leaving him to suspense, and all the ills that came in its train--distracted application to his duties, and an undefined number of sleepless nights and untasted dinners, Miss Aldclyffe looked at her watch and returned to the House. She was about to keep an appointment with her solicitor, Mr. Nyttleton, who had been to Budmouth, and was coming to Knapwater on his way back to London.
2. AUGUST THE TWENTIETH
On the Sat.u.r.day subsequent to Mr. Nyttleton"s visit to Knapwater House, the subjoined advertis.e.m.e.nt appeared in the Field and the Builder newspapers:--
"LAND STEWARD.
"A gentleman of integrity and professional skill is required immediately for the MANAGEMENT of an ESTATE, containing about 1000 acres, upon which agricultural improvements and the erection of buildings are contemplated. He must be a man of superior education, unmarried, and not more than thirty years of age. Considerable preference will be shown for one who possesses an artistic as well as a practical knowledge of planning and laying out. The remuneration will consist of a salary of 220 pounds, with the old manor-house as a residence--Address Messrs.
Nyttleton and Tayling, solicitors, Lincoln"s Inn Fields."
A copy of each paper was sent to Miss Aldclyffe on the day of publication. The same evening she told Cytherea that she was advertising for a steward, who would live at the old manor-house, showing her the papers containing the announcement.
What was the drift of that remark? thought the maiden; or was it merely made to her in confidential intercourse, as other arrangements were told her daily. Yet it seemed to have more meaning than common. She remembered the conversation about architects and surveyors, and her brother Owen. Miss Aldclyffe knew that his situation was precarious, that he was well educated and practical, and was applying himself heart and soul to the details of the profession and all connected with it. Miss Aldclyffe might be ready to take him if he could compete successfully with others who would reply. She hazarded a question:
"Would it be desirable for Owen to answer it?"
"Not at all," said Miss Aldclyffe peremptorily.
A flat answer of this kind had ceased to alarm Cytherea. Miss Aldclyffe"s blunt mood was not her worst. Cytherea thought of another man, whose name, in spite of resolves, tears, renunciations and injured pride, lingered in her ears like an old familiar strain. That man was qualified for a stewardship under a king.
"Would it be of any use if Edward Springrove were to answer it?" she said, resolutely enunciating the name.
"None whatever," replied Miss Aldclyffe, again in the same decided tone.
"You are very unkind to speak in that way."
"Now don"t pout like a goosie, as you are. I don"t want men like either of them, for, of course, I must look to the good of the estate rather than to that of any individual. The man I want must have been more specially educated. I have told you that we are going to London next week; it is mostly on this account."
Cytherea found that she had mistaken the drift of Miss Aldclyffe"s peculiar explicitness on the subject of advertising, and wrote to tell her brother that if he saw the notice it would be useless to reply.
3. AUGUST THE TWENTY-FIFTH
Five days after the above-mentioned dialogue took place they went to London, and, with scarcely a minute"s pause, to the solicitors" offices in Lincoln"s Inn Fields.
They alighted opposite one of the characteristic entrances about the place--a gate which was never, and could never be, closed, flanked by lamp-standards carrying no lamp. Rust was the only active agent to be seen there at this time of the day and year. The palings along the front were rusted away at their base to the thinness of wires, and the successive coats of paint, with which they were overlaid in bygone days, had been completely undermined by the same insidious canker, which lifted off the paint in flakes, leaving the raw surface of the iron on palings, standards, and gate hinges, of a staring blood-red.
But once inside the railings the picture changed. The court and offices were a complete contrast to the grand ruin of the outwork which enclosed them. Well-painted respectability extended over, within, and around the doorstep; and in the carefully swept yard not a particle of dust was visible.
Mr. Nyttleton, who had just come up from Margate, where he was staying with his family, was standing at the top of his own staircase as the pair ascended. He politely took them inside.
"Is there a comfortable room in which this young lady can sit during our interview?" said Miss Aldclyffe.
It was rather a favourite habit of hers to make much of Cytherea when they were out, and snub her for it afterwards when they got home.
"Certainly--Mr. Tayling"s." Cytherea was shown into an inner room.
Social definitions are all made relatively: an absolute datum is only imagined. The small gentry about Knapwater seemed unpractised to Miss Aldclyffe, Miss Aldclyffe herself seemed unpractised to Mr. Nyttleton"s experienced old eyes.
"Now then," the lady said, when she was alone with the lawyer; "what is the result of our advertis.e.m.e.nt?"
It was late summer; the estate-agency, building, engineering, and surveying worlds were dull. There were forty-five replies to the advertis.e.m.e.nt.
Mr. Nyttleton spread them one by one before Miss Aldclyffe. "You will probably like to read some of them yourself, madam?" he said.
"Yes, certainly," said she.
"I will not trouble you with those which are from persons manifestly unfit at first sight," he continued; and began selecting from the heap twos and threes which he had marked, collecting others into his hand.
"The man we want lies among these, if my judgment doesn"t deceive me, and from them it would be advisable to select a certain number to be communicated with."
"I should like to see every one--only just to glance them over--exactly as they came," she said suasively.
He looked as if he thought this a waste of his time, but dismissing his sentiment unfolded each singly and laid it before her. As he laid them out, it struck him that she studied them quite as rapidly as he could spread them. He slyly glanced up from the outer corner of his eye to hers, and noticed that all she did was look at the name at the bottom of the letter, and then put the enclosure aside without further ceremony.
He thought this an odd way of inquiring into the merits of forty-five men who at considerable trouble gave in detail reasons why they believed themselves well qualified for a certain post. She came to the final one, and put it down with the rest.
Then the lady said that in her opinion it would be best to get as many replies as they possibly could before selecting--"to give us a wider choice. What do you think, Mr. Nyttleton?"
It seemed to him, he said, that a greater number than those they already had would scarcely be necessary, and if they waited for more, there would be this disadvantage attending it, that some of those they now could command would possibly not be available.
"Never mind, we will run that risk," said Miss Aldclyffe. "Let the advertis.e.m.e.nt be inserted once more, and then we will certainly settle the matter."
Mr. Nyttleton bowed, and seemed to think Miss Aldclyffe, for a single woman, and one who till so very recently had never concerned herself with business of any kind, a very meddlesome client. But she was rich, and handsome still. "She"s a new broom in estate-management as yet,"
he thought. "She will soon get tired of this," and he parted from her without a sentiment which could mar his habitual blandness.
The two ladies then proceeded westward. Dismissing the cab in Waterloo Place, they went along Pall Mall on foot, where in place of the usual well-dressed clubbists--rubicund with alcohol--were to be seen, in linen pinafores, flocks of house-painters pallid from white lead. When they had reached the Green Park, Cytherea proposed that they should sit down awhile under the young elms at the brow of the hill. This they did--the growl of Piccadilly on their left hand--the monastic seclusion of the Palace on their right: before them, the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, standing forth with a metallic l.u.s.tre against a livid Lambeth sky.
Miss Aldclyffe still carried in her hand a copy of the newspaper, and while Cytherea had been interesting herself in the picture around, glanced again at the advertis.e.m.e.nt.
She heaved a slight sigh, and began to fold it up again. In the action her eye caught sight of two consecutive advertis.e.m.e.nts on the cover, one relating to some lecture on Art, and addressed to members of the Inst.i.tute of Architects. The other emanated from the same source, but was addressed to the public, and stated that the exhibition of drawings at the Inst.i.tute"s rooms would close at the end of that week.
Her eye lighted up. She sent Cytherea back to the hotel in a cab, then turned round by Piccadilly into Bond Street, and proceeded to the rooms of the Inst.i.tute. The secretary was sitting in the lobby. After making her payment, and looking at a few of the drawings on the walls, in the company of three gentlemen, the only other visitors to the exhibition, she turned back and asked if she might be allowed to see a list of the members. She was a little connected with the architectural world, she said, with a smile, and was interested in some of the names.
"Here it is, madam," he replied, politely handing her a pamphlet containing the names.
Miss Aldclyffe turned the leaves till she came to the letter M. The name she hoped to find there was there, with the address appended, as was the case with all the rest.
The address was at some chambers in a street not far from Charing Cross.
"Chambers," as a residence, had always been a.s.sumed by the lady to imply the condition of a bachelor. She murmured two words, "There still."
Another request had yet to be made, but it was of a more noticeable kind than the first, and might compromise the secrecy with which she wished to act throughout this episode. Her object was to get one of the envelopes lying on the secretary"s table, stamped with the die of the Inst.i.tute; and in order to get it she was about to ask if she might write a note.