"Of course it isn"t--you know that well enough. She was a great burden and trouble to him. This may become a great good to you both."
A rush of feeling at remembering that the same woman, before Manston"s arrival, had just as frankly advocated Edward"s claims, checked Cytherea"s utterance for awhile.
"There, don"t look at me like that, for Heaven"s sake!" said Miss Aldclyffe. "You could almost kill a person by the force of reproach you can put into those eyes of yours, I verily believe."
Edward once in the young lady"s thoughts, there was no getting rid of him. She wanted to be alone.
"Do you want me here?" she said.
"Now there, there; you want to be off, and have a good cry," said Miss Aldclyffe, taking her hand. "But you mustn"t, my dear. There"s nothing in the past for you to regret. Compare Mr. Manston"s honourable conduct towards his wife and yourself, with Springrove towards his betrothed and yourself, and then see which appears the more worthy of your thoughts."
3. FROM THE FOURTH OF MAY TO THE TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE
The next stage in Manston"s advances towards her hand was a clearly defined courtship. She was sadly perplexed, and some contrivance was necessary on his part in order to meet with her. But it is next to impossible for an appreciative woman to have a positive repugnance towards an unusually handsome and gifted man, even though she may not be inclined to love him. Hence Cytherea was not so alarmed at the sight of him as to render a meeting and conversation with her more than a matter of difficulty.
Coming and going from church was his grand opportunity. Manston was very religious now. It is commonly said that no man was ever converted by argument, but there is a single one which will make any Laodicean in England, let him be once love-sick, wear prayer-books and become a zealous Episcopalian--the argument that his sweetheart can be seen from his pew.
Manston introduced into his method a system of bewitching flattery, everywhere pervasive, yet, too, so transitory and intangible, that, as in the case of the poet Wordsworth and the Wandering Voice, though she felt it present, she could never find it. As a foil to heighten its effect, he occasionally spoke philosophically of the evanescence of female beauty--the worthlessness of mere appearance. "Handsome is that handsome does" he considered a proverb which should be written on the looking-gla.s.s of every woman in the land. "Your form, your motions, your heart have won me," he said, in a tone of playful sadness. "They are beautiful. But I see these things, and it comes into my mind that they are doomed, they are gliding to nothing as I look. Poor eyes, poor mouth, poor face, poor maiden! "Where will her glories be in twenty years?" I say. "Where will all of her be in a hundred?" Then I think it is cruel that you should bloom a day, and fade for ever and ever. It seems hard and sad that you will die as ordinarily as I, and be buried; be food for roots and worms, be forgotten and come to earth, and grow up a mere blade of churchyard-gra.s.s and an ivy leaf. Then, Miss Graye, when I see you are a Lovely Nothing, I pity you, and the love I feel then is better and sounder, larger and more lasting than that I felt at the beginning." Again an ardent flash of his handsome eyes.
It was by this route that he ventured on an indirect declaration and offer of his hand.
She implied in the same indirect manner that she did not love him enough to accept it.
An actual refusal was more than he had expected. Cursing himself for what he called his egregious folly in making himself the slave of a mere lady"s attendant, and for having given the parish, should they know of her refusal, a chance of sneering at him--certainly a ground for thinking less of his standing than before--he went home to the Old House, and walked indecisively up and down his back-yard. Turning aside, he leant his arms upon the edge of the rain-water-b.u.t.t standing in the corner, and looked into it. The reflection from the smooth stagnant surface tinged his face with the greenish shades of Correggio"s nudes.
Staves of sunlight slanted down through the still pool, lighting it up with wonderful distinctness. Hundreds of thousands of minute living creatures sported and tumbled in its depth with every contortion that gaiety could suggest; perfectly happy, though consisting only of a head, or a tail, or at most a head and a tail, and all doomed to die within the twenty-four hours.
"d.a.m.n my position! Why shouldn"t I be happy through my little day too?
Let the parish sneer at my repulses, let it. I"ll get her, if I move heaven and earth to do it!"
Indeed, the inexperienced Cytherea had, towards Edward in the first place, and Manston afterwards, unconsciously adopted bearings that would have been the very tactics of a professional fisher of men who wished to have them each successively dangling at her heels. For if any rule at all can be laid down in a matter which, for men collectively, is notoriously beyond regulation, it is that to snub a petted man, and to pet a snubbed man, is the way to win in suits of both kinds. Manston with Springrove"s encouragement would have become indifferent. Edward with Manston"s repulses would have sheered off at the outset, as he did afterwards. Her supreme indifference added fuel to Manston"s ardour--it completely disarmed his pride. The invulnerable n.o.body seemed greater to him than a susceptible Princess.
4. FROM THE TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE TO THE END OF JULY
Cytherea had in the meantime received the following letter from her brother. It was the first definite notification of the enlargement of that cloud no bigger than a man"s hand which had for nearly a twelvemonth hung before them in the distance, and which was soon to give a colour to their whole sky from horizon to horizon.
"BUDMOUTH REGIS,
Sat.u.r.day.
"DARLING SIS,--I have delayed telling you for a long time of a little matter which, though not one to be seriously alarmed about, is sufficiently vexing, and it would be unfair in me to keep it from you any longer. It is that for some time past I have again been distressed by that lameness which I first distinctly felt when we went to Lulstead Cove, and again when I left Knapwater that morning early. It is an unusual pain in my left leg, between the knee and the ankle. I had just found fresh symptoms of it when you were here for that half-hour about a month ago--when you said in fun that I began to move like an old man. I had a good mind to tell you then, but fancying it would go off in a few days, I thought it was not worth while. Since that time it has increased, but I am still able to work in the office, sitting on the stool. My great fear is that Mr. G. will have some out-door measuring work for me to do soon, and that I shall be obliged to decline it.
However, we will hope for the best. How it came, what was its origin, or what it tends to, I cannot think. You shall hear again in a day or two, if it is no better...--Your loving brother, OWEN."
This she answered, begging to know the worst, which she could bear, but suspense and anxiety never. In two days came another letter from him, of which the subjoined paragraph is a portion:--
"I had quite decided to let you know the worst, and to a.s.sure you that it was the worst, before you wrote to ask it. And again I give you my word that I will conceal nothing--so that there will be no excuse whatever for your wearing yourself out with fears that I am worse than I say. This morning then, for the first time, I have been obliged to stay away from the office. Don"t be frightened at this, dear Cytherea. Rest is all that is wanted, and by nursing myself now for a week, I may avoid an illness of six months."
After a visit from her he wrote again:--
"Dr. Chestman has seen me. He said that the ailment was some sort of rheumatism, and I am now undergoing proper treatment for its cure. My leg and foot have been placed in hot bran, liniments have been applied, and also severe friction with a pad. He says I shall be as right as ever in a very short time. Directly I am I shall run up by the train to see you. Don"t trouble to come to me if Miss Aldclyffe grumbles again about your being away, for I am going on capitally.... You shall hear again at the end of the week."
At the time mentioned came the following:--
"I am sorry to tell you, because I know it will be so disheartening after my last letter, that I am not so well as I was then, and that there has been a sort of hitch in the proceedings. After I had been treated for rheumatism a few days longer (in which treatment they p.r.i.c.ked the place with a long needle several times,) I saw that Dr.
Chestman was in doubt about something, and I requested that he would call in a brother professional man to see me as well. They consulted together and then told me that rheumatism was not the disease after all, but erysipelas. They then began treating it differently, as became a different matter. Blisters, flour, and starch, seem to be the order of the day now--medicine, of course, besides.
"Mr. Gradfield has been in to inquire about me. He says he has been obliged to get a designer in my place, which grieves me very much, though, of course, it could not be avoided."
A month pa.s.sed away; throughout this period, Cytherea visited him as often as the limited time at her command would allow, and wore as cheerful a countenance as the womanly determination to do nothing which might depress him could enable her to wear. Another letter from him then told her these additional facts:--
"The doctors find they are again on the wrong tack. They cannot make out what the disease is. O Cytherea! how I wish they knew! This suspense is wearing me out. Could not Miss Aldclyffe spare you for a day? Do come to me. We will talk about the best course then. I am sorry to complain, but I am worn out."
Cytherea went to Miss Aldclyffe, and told her of the melancholy turn her brother"s illness had taken. Miss Aldclyffe at once said that Cytherea might go, and offered to do anything to a.s.sist her which lay in her power. Cytherea"s eyes beamed grat.i.tude as she turned to leave the room, and hasten to the station.
"O, Cytherea," said Miss Aldclyffe, calling her back; "just one word.
Has Mr. Manston spoken to you lately?"
"Yes," said Cytherea, blushing timorously.
"He proposed?"
"Yes."
"And you refused him?"
"Yes."
"Tut, tut! Now listen to my advice," said Miss Aldclyffe emphatically, "and accept him before he changes his mind. The chance which he offers you of settling in life is one that may possibly, probably, not occur again. His position is good and secure, and the life of his wife would be a happy one. You may not be sure that you love him madly; but suppose you are not sure? My father used to say to me as a child when he was teaching me whist, "When in doubt win the trick!" That advice is ten times as valuable to a woman on the subject of matrimony. In refusing a man there is always the risk that you may never get another offer."
"Why didn"t you win the trick when you were a girl?" said Cytherea.
"Come, my lady Pert; I"m not the text," said Miss Aldclyffe, her face glowing like fire.
Cytherea laughed stealthily.
"I was about to say," resumed Miss Aldclyffe severely, "that here is Mr. Manston waiting with the tenderest solicitude for you, and you overlooking it, as if it were altogether beneath you. Think how you might benefit your sick brother if you were Mrs. Manston. You will please me _very much_ by giving him some encouragement. You understand me, Cythie dear?"
Cytherea was silent.