She had that morning determined to check his further advances, until she had thoroughly considered her position. The remonstrance was now on her tongue, but as accident would have it, before the word could be spoken Mrs. Leat was stepping from the last stair to the floor, and no remonstrance came.
With the subtlety which characterized him in all his dealings with her, he quickly concluded his own errand, bade her a good-bye, in the tones of which love was so garnished with pure politeness that it only showed its presence to herself, and left the house--putting it out of her power to refuse him her companionship homeward, or to object to his late action of kissing her hand.
The Friday of the next week brought another letter from her brother. In this he informed her that, in absolute grief lest he should distress her unnecessarily, he had some time earlier borrowed a few pounds. A week ago, he said, his creditor became importunate, but that on the day on which he wrote, the creditor had told him there was no hurry for a settlement, that "his _sister"s suitor_ had guaranteed the sum." "Is he Mr. Manston? tell me, Cytherea," said Owen.
He also mentioned that a wheeled chair had been anonymously hired for his especial use, though as yet he was hardly far enough advanced towards convalescence to avail himself of the luxury. "Is this Mr.
Manston"s doing?" he inquired.
She could dally with her perplexity, evade it, trust to time for guidance, no longer. The matter had come to a crisis: she must once and for all choose between the dictates of her understanding and those of her heart. She longed, till her soul seemed nigh to bursting, for her lost mother"s return to earth, but for one minute, that she might have tender counsel to guide her through this, her great difficulty.
As for her heart, she half fancied that it was not Edward"s to quite the extent that it once had been; she thought him cruel in conducting himself towards her as he did at Budmouth, cruel afterwards in making so light of her. She knew he had stifled his love for her--was utterly lost to her. But for all that she could not help indulging in a woman"s pleasure of recreating defunct agonies, and lacerating herself with them now and then.
"If I were rich," she thought, "I would give way to the luxury of being morbidly faithful to him for ever without his knowledge."
But she considered; in the first place she was a homeless dependent; and what did practical wisdom tell her to do under such desperate circ.u.mstances? To provide herself with some place of refuge from poverty, and with means to aid her brother Owen. This was to be Mr.
Manston"s wife.
She did not love him.
But what was love without a home? Misery. What was a home without love?
Alas, not much; but still a kind of home.
"Yes," she thought, "I am urged by my common sense to marry Mr.
Manston."
Did anything n.o.bler in her say so too?
With the death (to her) of Edward her heart"s occupation was gone. Was it necessary or even right for her to tend it and take care of it as she used to in the old time, when it was still a capable minister?
By a slight sacrifice here she could give happiness to at least two hearts whose emotional activities were still unwounded. She would do good to two men whose lives were far more important than hers.
"Yes," she said again, "even Christianity urges me to marry Mr.
Manston."
Directly Cytherea had persuaded herself that a kind of heroic self-abnegation had to do with the matter, she became much more content in the consideration of it. A wilful indifference to the future was what really prevailed in her, ill and worn out, as she was, by the perpetual hara.s.sments of her sad fortune, and she regarded this indifference, as gushing natures will do under such circ.u.mstances, as genuine resignation and devotedness.
Manston met her again the following day: indeed, there was no escaping him now. At the end of a short conversation between them, which took place in the hollow of the park by the waterfall, obscured on the outer side by the low hanging branches of the limes, she tacitly a.s.sented to his a.s.sumption of a privilege greater than any that had preceded it. He stooped and kissed her brow.
Before going to bed she wrote to Owen explaining the whole matter. It was too late in the evening for the postman"s visit, and she placed the letter on the mantelpiece to send it the next day.
The morning (Sunday) brought a hurried postscript to Owen"s letter of the day before:--
"September 9, 1865.
"DEAR CYTHEREA--I have received a frank and friendly letter from Mr.
Manston explaining the position in which he stands now, and also that in which he hopes to stand towards you. Can"t you love him? Why not? Try, for he is a good, and not only that, but a cultured man. Think of the weary and laborious future that awaits you if you continue for life in your present position, and do you see any way of escape from it except by marriage? I don"t. Don"t go against your heart, Cytherea, but be wise.--Ever affectionately yours, OWEN."
She thought that probably he had replied to Mr. Manston in the same favouring mood. She had a conviction that that day would settle her doom. Yet
"So true a fool is love,"
that even now she nourished a half-hope that something would happen at the last moment to thwart her deliberately-formed intentions, and favour the old emotion she was using all her strength to thrust down.
8. THE TENTH OF SEPTEMBER
The Sunday was the thirteenth after Trinity, and the afternoon service at Carriford was nearly over. The people were singing the Evening Hymn.
Manston was at church as usual in his accustomed place two seats forward from the large square pew occupied by Miss Aldclyffe and Cytherea.
The ordinary sadness of an autumnal evening-service seemed, in Cytherea"s eyes, to be doubled on this particular occasion. She looked at all the people as they stood and sang, waving backwards and forwards like a forest of pines swayed by a gentle breeze; then at the village children singing too, their heads inclined to one side, their eyes listlessly tracing some crack in the old walls, or following the movement of a distant bough or bird with features petrified almost to painfulness. Then she looked at Manston; he was already regarding her with some purpose in his glance.
"It is coming this evening," she said in her mind. A minute later, at the end of the hymn, when the congregation began to move out, Manston came down the aisle. He was opposite the end of her seat as she stepped from it, the remainder of their progress to the door being in contact with each other. Miss Aldclyffe had lingered behind.
"Don"t let"s hurry," he said, when Cytherea was about to enter the private path to the House as usual. "Would you mind turning down this way for a minute till Miss Aldclyffe has pa.s.sed?"
She could not very well refuse now. They turned into a secluded path on their left, leading round through a thicket of laurels to the other gate of the church-yard, walking very slowly. By the time the further gate was reached, the church was closed. They met the s.e.xton with the keys in his hand.
"We are going inside for a minute," said Manston to him, taking the keys unceremoniously. "I will bring them to you when we return."
The s.e.xton nodded his a.s.sent, and Cytherea and Manston walked into the porch, and up the nave.
They did not speak a word during their progress, or in any way interfere with the stillness and silence that prevailed everywhere around them.
Everything in the place was the embodiment of decay: the fading red glare from the setting sun, which came in at the west window, emphasizing the end of the day and all its cheerful doings, the mildewed walls, the uneven paving-stones, the wormy pews, the sense of recent occupation, and the dank air of death which had gathered with the evening, would have made grave a lighter mood than Cytherea"s was then.
"What sensations does the place impress you with?" she said at last, very sadly.
"I feel imperatively called upon to be honest, from very despair of achieving anything by stratagem in a world where the materials are such as these." He, too, spoke in a depressed voice, purposely or otherwise.
"I feel as if I were almost ashamed to be seen walking such a world,"
she murmured; "that"s the effect it has upon me; but it does not induce me to be honest particularly."
He took her hand in both his, and looked down upon the lids of her eyes.
"I pity you sometimes," he said more emphatically.
"I am pitiable, perhaps; so are many people. Why do you pity me?"
"I think that you make yourself needlessly sad."
"Not needlessly."
"Yes, needlessly. Why should you be separated from your brother so much, when you might have him to stay with you till he is well?"
"That can"t be," she said, turning away.
He went on, "I think the real and only good thing that can be done for him is to get him away from Budmouth awhile; and I have been wondering whether it could not be managed for him to come to my house to live for a few weeks. Only a quarter of a mile from you. How pleasant it would be!"