"Never been out? I thought too at sight of you that you were too girlish-looking to have done much. But why did you advertise with such a.s.surance? It misleads people."
"I am very sorry: I put "inexperienced" at first, but my brother said it is absurd to trumpet your own weakness to the world, and would not let it remain."
"But your mother knew what was right, I suppose?"
"I have no mother, madam."
"Your father, then?"
"I have no father."
"Well," she said, more softly, "your sisters, aunts, or cousins."
"They didn"t think anything about it."
"You didn"t ask them, I suppose."
"No."
"You should have done so, then. Why didn"t you?"
"Because I haven"t any of them, either."
Miss Aldclyffe showed her surprise. "You deserve forgiveness then at any rate, child," she said, in a sort of drily-kind tone. "However, I am afraid you do not suit me, as I am looking for an elderly person. You see, I want an experienced maid who knows all the usual duties of the office." She was going to add, "Though I like your appearance," but the words seemed offensive to apply to the ladylike girl before her, and she modified them to, "though I like you much."
"I am sorry I misled you, madam," said Cytherea.
Miss Aldclyffe stood in a reverie, without replying.
"Good afternoon," continued Cytherea.
"Good-bye, Miss Graye--I hope you will succeed."
Cytherea turned away towards the door. The movement chanced to be one of her masterpieces. It was precise: it had as much beauty as was compatible with precision, and as little coquettishness as was compatible with beauty.
And she had in turning looked over her shoulder at the other lady with a faint accent of reproach in her face. Those who remember Greuze"s "Head of a Girl," have an idea of Cytherea"s look askance at the turning.
It is not for a man to tell fishers of men how to set out their fascinations so as to bring about the highest possible average of takes within the year: but the action that tugs the hardest of all at an emotional beholder is this sweet method of turning which steals the bosom away and leaves the eyes behind.
Now Miss Aldclyffe herself was no tyro at wheeling. When Cytherea had closed the door upon her, she remained for some time in her motionless att.i.tude, listening to the gradually dying sound of the maiden"s retreating footsteps. She murmured to herself, "It is almost worth while to be bored with instructing her in order to have a creature who could glide round my luxurious indolent body in that manner, and look at me in that way--I warrant how light her fingers are upon one"s head and neck.... What a silly modest young thing she is, to go away so suddenly as that!" She rang the bell.
"Ask the young lady who has just left me to step back again," she said to the attendant. "Quick! or she will be gone."
Cytherea was now in the vestibule, thinking that if she had told her history, Miss Aldclyffe might perhaps have taken her into the household; yet her history she particularly wished to conceal from a stranger.
When she was recalled she turned back without feeling much surprise.
Something, she knew not what, told her she had not seen the last of Miss Aldclyffe.
"You have somebody to refer me to, of course," the lady said, when Cytherea had re-entered the room.
"Yes: Mr. Thorn, a solicitor at Aldbrickham."
"And are you a clever needlewoman?"
"I am considered to be."
"Then I think that at any rate I will write to Mr. Thorn," said Miss Aldclyffe, with a little smile. "It is true, the whole proceeding is very irregular; but my present maid leaves next Monday, and neither of the five I have already seen seem to do for me.... Well, I will write to Mr. Thorn, and if his reply is satisfactory, you shall hear from me. It will be as well to set yourself in readiness to come on Monday."
When Cytherea had again been watched out of the room, Miss Aldclyffe asked for writing materials, that she might at once communicate with Mr.
Thorn. She indecisively played with the pen. "Suppose Mr. Thorn"s reply to be in any way disheartening--and even if so from his own imperfect acquaintance with the young creature more than from circ.u.mstantial knowledge--I shall feel obliged to give her up. Then I shall regret that I did not give her one trial in spite of other people"s prejudices. All her account of herself is reliable enough--yes, I can see that by her face. I like that face of hers."
Miss Aldclyffe put down the pen and left the hotel without writing to Mr. Thorn.
V. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY
1. AUGUST THE EIGHTH. MORNING AND AFTERNOON
At post-time on that following Monday morning, Cytherea watched so anxiously for the postman, that as the time which must bring him narrowed less and less her vivid expectation had only a degree less tangibility than his presence itself. In another second his form came into view. He brought two letters for Cytherea.
One from Miss Aldclyffe, simply stating that she wished Cytherea to come on trial: that she would require her to be at Knapwater House by Monday evening.
The other was from Edward Springrove. He told her that she was the bright spot of his life: that her existence was far dearer to him than his own: that he had never known what it was to love till he had met her. True, he had felt pa.s.sing attachments to other faces from time to time; but they all had been weak inclinations towards those faces as they then appeared. He loved her past and future, as well as her present. He pictured her as a child: he loved her. He pictured her of sage years: he loved her. He pictured her in trouble; he loved her.
Homely friendship entered into his love for her, without which all love was evanescent.
He would make one depressing statement. Uncontrollable circ.u.mstances (a long history, with which it was impossible to acquaint her at present) operated to a certain extent as a drag upon his wishes. He had felt this more strongly at the time of their parting than he did now--and it was the cause of his abrupt behaviour, for which he begged her to forgive him. He saw now an honourable way of freeing himself, and the perception had prompted him to write. In the meantime might he indulge in the hope of possessing her on some bright future day, when by hard labour generated from her own encouraging words, he had placed himself in a position she would think worthy to be shared with him?
Dear little letter; she huddled it up. So much more important a love-letter seems to a girl than to a man. Springrove was unconsciously clever in his letters, and a man with a talent of that kind may write himself up to a hero in the mind of a young woman who loves him without knowing much about him. Springrove already stood a cubit higher in her imagination than he did in his shoes.
During the day she flitted about the room in an ecstasy of pleasure, packing the things and thinking of an answer which should be worthy of the tender tone of the question, her love bubbling from her involuntarily, like prophesyings from a prophet.
In the afternoon Owen went with her to the railway-station, and put her in the train for Carriford Road, the station nearest to Knapwater House.
Half-an-hour later she stepped out upon the platform, and found n.o.body there to receive her--though a pony-carriage was waiting outside. In two minutes she saw a melancholy man in cheerful livery running towards her from a public-house close adjoining, who proved to be the servant sent to fetch her. There are two ways of getting rid of sorrows: one by living them down, the other by drowning them. The coachman drowned his.
He informed her that her luggage would be fetched by a spring-waggon in about half-an-hour; then helped her into the chaise and drove off.
Her lover"s letter, lying close against her neck, fortified her against the restless timidity she had previously felt concerning this new undertaking, and completely furnished her with the confident ease of mind which is required for the critical observation of surrounding objects. It was just that stage in the slow decline of the summer days, when the deep, dark, and vacuous hot-weather shadows are beginning to be replaced by blue ones that have a surface and substance to the eye. They trotted along the turnpike road for a distance of about a mile, which brought them just outside the village of Carriford, and then turned through large lodge-gates, on the heavy stone piers of which stood a pair of bitterns cast in bronze. They then entered the park and wound along a drive shaded by old and drooping lime-trees, not arranged in the form of an avenue, but standing irregularly, sometimes leaving the track completely exposed to the sky, at other times casting a shade over it, which almost approached gloom--the under surface of the lowest boughs hanging at a uniform level of six feet above the gra.s.s--the extreme height to which the nibbling mouths of the cattle could reach.
"Is that the house?" said Cytherea expectantly, catching sight of a grey gable between the trees, and losing it again.
"No; that"s the old manor-house--or rather all that"s left of it. The Aldycliffes used to let it sometimes, but it was oftener empty. "Tis now divided into three cottages. Respectable people didn"t care to live there."
"Why didn"t they?"
"Well, "tis so awkward and unhandy. You see so much of it has been pulled down, and the rooms that are left won"t do very well for a small residence. "Tis so dismal, too, and like most old houses stands too low down in the hollow to be healthy."
"Do they tell any horrid stories about it?"