But things are not what they seem. A responsive love for Edward
Springrove had made its appearance in Cytherea’s bosom with all the
fascinating attributes of a first experience, not succeeding to or
displacing other emotions, as in older hearts, but taking up entirely
new ground; as when gazing just after sunset at the pale blue sky we see
a star come into existence where nothing was before.
His parting words, ‘Don’t forget me,’ she repeated to herself a hundred
times, and though she thought their import was probably commonplace, she
could not help toying with them,--looking at them from all points,
and investing them with meanings of love and faithfulness,--ostensibly
entertaining such meanings only as fables wherewith to pass the time,
yet in her heart admitting, for detached instants, a possibility of
their deeper truth. And thus, for hours after he had left her, her
reason flirted with her fancy as a kitten will sport with a dove,
pleasantly and smoothly through easy attitudes, but disclosing its cruel
and unyielding nature at crises.
To turn now to the more material media through which this story moves,
it so happened that the very next morning brought round a circumstance
which, slight in itself, took up a relevant and important position
between the past and the future of the persons herein concerned.
At breakfast time, just as Cytherea had again seen the postman pass
without bringing her an answer to the advertisement, as she had fully
expected he would do, Owen entered the room.
‘Well,’ he said, kissing her, ‘you have not been alarmed, of course.
Springrove told you what I had done, and you found there was no train?’
‘Yes, it was all clear. But what is the lameness owing to?’
‘I don’t know--nothing. It has quite gone off now... Cytherea, I hope
you like Springrove. Springrove’s a nice fellow, you know.’
‘Yes. I think he is, except that--’
‘It happened just to the purpose that I should meet him there, didn’t
it? And when I reached the station and learnt that I could not get on by
train my foot seemed better. I started off to walk home, and went about
five miles along a path beside the railway. It then struck me that I
might not be fit for anything to-day if I walked and aggravated the
bothering foot, so I looked for a place to sleep at. There was
no available village or inn, and I eventually got the keeper of a
gate-house, where a lane crossed the line, to take me in.’
They proceeded with their breakfast. Owen yawned.
‘You didn’t get much sleep at the gate-house last night, I’m afraid,
Owen,’ said his sister.
‘To tell the truth, I didn’t. I was in such very close and narrow
quarters. Those gate-houses are such small places, and the man had
only his own bed to offer me. Ah, by-the-bye, Cythie, I have such an
extraordinary thing to tell you in connection with this man!--by Jove,
I had nearly forgotten it! But I’ll go straight on. As I was saying,
he had only his own bed to offer me, but I could not afford to be
fastidious, and as he had a hearty manner, though a very queer one, I
agreed to accept it, and he made a rough pallet for himself on the floor
close beside me. Well, I could not sleep for my life, and I wished I had
not stayed there, though I was so tired. For one thing, there were the
luggage trains rattling by at my elbow the early part of the night. But
worse than this, he talked continually in his sleep, and occasionally
struck out with his limbs at something or another, knocking against the
post of the bedstead and making it tremble. My condition was altogether
so unsatisfactory that at last I awoke him, and asked him what he had
been dreaming about for the previous hour, for I could get no sleep at
all. He begged my pardon for disturbing me, but a name I had casually
let fall that evening had led him to think of another stranger he had
once had visit him, who had also accidentally mentioned the same name,
and some very strange incidents connected with that meeting. The affair
had occurred years and years ago; but what I had said had made him think
and dream about it as if it were but yesterday. What was the word? I
said. “Cytherea,” he said. What was the story? I asked then. He then
told me that when he was a young man in London he borrowed a few pounds
to add to a few he had saved up, and opened a little inn at Hammersmith.
One evening, after the inn had been open about a couple of months,
every idler in the neighbourhood ran off to Westminster. The Houses of
Parliament were on fire.
‘Not a soul remained in his parlour besides himself, and he began
picking up the pipes and glasses his customers had hastily relinquished.
At length a young lady about seventeen or eighteen came in. She asked
if a woman was there waiting for herself--Miss Jane Taylor. He said no;
asked the young lady if she would wait, and showed her into the small
inner room. There was a glass-pane in the partition dividing this room
from the bar to enable the landlord to see if his visitors, who sat
there, wanted anything. A curious awkwardness and melancholy about the
behaviour of the girl who called, caused my informant to look frequently
at her through the partition. She seemed weary of her life, and sat with
her face buried in her hands, evidently quite out of her element in
such a house. Then a woman much older came in and greeted Miss Taylor by
name. The man distinctly heard the following words pass between them:--
‘“Why have you not brought him?”
‘“He is ill; he is not likely to live through the night.”
‘At this announcement from the elderly woman, the young lady fell to the
floor in a swoon, apparently overcome by the news. The landlord ran in
and lifted her up. Well, do what they would they could not for a long
time bring her back to consciousness, and began to be much alarmed. “Who
is she?” the innkeeper said to the other woman. “I know her,” the other
said, with deep meaning in her tone. The elderly and young woman seemed
allied, and yet strangers.
‘She now showed signs of life, and it struck him (he was plainly of an
inquisitive turn), that in her half-bewildered state he might get some
information from her. He stooped over her, put his mouth to her ear,
and said sharply, “What’s your name?” “To catch a woman napping
is difficult, even when she’s half dead; but I did it,” says the
gatekeeper. When he asked her her name, she said immediately--
‘“Cytherea”--and stopped suddenly.’
‘My own name!’ said Cytherea.
‘Yes--your name. Well, the gateman thought at the time it might be
equally with Jane a name she had invented for the occasion, that they
might not trace her; but I think it was truth unconsciously uttered,
for she added directly afterwards: “O, what have I said!” and was quite
overcome again--this time with fright. Her vexation that the woman now
doubted the genuineness of her other name was very much greater than
that the innkeeper did, and it is evident that to blind the woman was
her main object. He also learnt from words the elderly woman casually
dropped, that meetings of the same kind had been held before, and that
the falseness of the soi-disant Miss Jane Taylor’s name had never been
suspected by this dependent or confederate till then.
‘She recovered, rested there for an hour, and first sending off her
companion peremptorily (which was another odd thing), she left the
house, offering the landlord all the money she had to say nothing about
the circumstance. He has never seen her since, according to his
own account. I said to him again and again, “Did you find any more
particulars afterwards?” “Not a syllable,” he said. O, he should never
hear any more of that! too many years had passed since it happened. “At
any rate, you found out her surname?” I said. “Well, well, that’s my
secret,” he went on. “Perhaps I should never have been in this part of
the world if it hadn’t been for that. I failed as a publican, you know.”
I imagine the situation of gateman was given him and his debts paid off
as a bribe to silence; but I can’t say. “Ah, yes!” he said, with a long
breath. “I have never heard that name mentioned since that time till
to-night, and then there instantly rose to my eyes the vision of that
young lady lying in a fainting fit.” He then stopped talking and fell
asleep. Telling the story must have relieved him as it did the Ancient
Mariner, for he did not move a muscle or make another sound for the
remainder of the night. Now isn’t that an odd story?’
‘It is indeed,’ Cytherea murmured. ‘Very, very strange.’
‘Why should she have said your most uncommon name?’ continued Owen. ‘The
man was evidently truthful, for there was not motive sufficient for his
invention of such a tale, and he could not have done it either.’
Cytherea looked long at her brother. ‘Don’t you recognize anything else
in connection with the story?’ she said.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Do you remember what poor papa once let drop--that Cytherea was
the name of his first sweetheart in Bloomsbury, who so mysteriously
renounced him? A sort of intuition tells me that this was the same
woman.’
‘O no--not likely,’ said her brother sceptically.
‘How not likely, Owen? There’s not another woman of the name in England.
In what year used papa to say the event took place?’
‘Eighteen hundred and thirty-five.’
‘And when were the Houses of Parliament burnt?--stop, I can tell you.’
She searched their little stock of books for a list of dates, and found
one in an old school history.
‘The Houses of Parliament were burnt down in the evening of the
sixteenth of October, eighteen hundred and thirty-four.’
‘Nearly a year and a quarter before she met father,’ remarked Owen.
They were silent. ‘If papa had been alive, what a wonderful absorbing
interest this story would have had for him,’ said Cytherea by-and-by.
‘And how strangely knowledge comes to us. We might have searched for a
clue to her secret half the world over, and never found one. If we had
really had any motive for trying to discover more of the sad history
than papa told us, we should have gone to Bloomsbury; but not caring to
do so, we go two hundred miles in the opposite direction, and there
find information waiting to be told us. What could have been the secret,
Owen?’
‘Heaven knows. But our having heard a little more of her in this way (if
she is the same woman) is a mere coincidence after all--a family story
to tell our friends if we ever have any. But we shall never know any
more of the episode now--trust our fates for that.’
Cytherea sat silently thinking.
‘There was no answer this morning to your advertisement, Cytherea?’ he
continued.
‘None.’
‘I could see that by your looks when I came in.’
‘Fancy not getting a single one,’ she said sadly. ‘Surely there must be
people somewhere who want governesses?’
‘Yes; but those who want them, and can afford to have them, get them
mostly by friends’ recommendations; whilst those who want them, and
can’t afford to have them, make use of their poor relations.’
‘What shall I do?’
‘Never mind it. Go on living with me. Don’t let the difficulty trouble
your mind so; you think about it all day. I can keep you, Cythie, in a
plain way of living. Twenty-five shillings a week do not amount to
much truly; but then many mechanics have no more, and we live quite as
sparingly as journeymen mechanics... It is a meagre narrow life we are
drifting into,’ he added gloomily, ‘but it is a degree more tolerable
than the worrying sensation of all the world being ashamed of you, which
we experienced at Hocbridge.’
‘I couldn’t go back there again,’ she said.
‘Nor I. O, I don’t regret our course for a moment. We did quite right in
dropping out of the world.’ The sneering tones of the remark were almost
too laboured to be real. ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘something better for
me is sure to turn up soon. I wish my engagement here was a permanent
one instead of for only two months. It may, certainly, be for a longer
time, but all is uncertain.’
‘I wish I could get something to do; and I must too,’ she said firmly.
‘Suppose, as is very probable, you are not wanted after the beginning of
October--the time Mr. Gradfield mentioned--what should we do if I were
dependent on you only throughout the winter?’
They pondered on numerous schemes by which a young lady might be
supposed to earn a decent livelihood--more or less convenient and
feasible in imagination, but relinquished them all until advertising had
been once more tried, this time taking lower ground. Cytherea was vexed
at her temerity in having represented to the world that so inexperienced
a being as herself was a qualified governess; and had a fancy that this
presumption of hers might be one reason why no ladies applied. The new
and humbler attempt appeared in the following form:--
‘NURSERY GOVERNESS OR USEFUL COMPANION. A young person wishes to
hear of a situation in either of the above capacities. Salary very
moderate. She is a good needle-woman--Address G., 3 Cross Street,
Budmouth.’
In the evening they went to post the letter, and then walked up and down
the Parade for a while. Soon they met Springrove, said a few words
to him, and passed on. Owen noticed that his sister’s face had become
crimson. Rather oddly they met Springrove again in a few minutes. This
time the three walked a little way together, Edward ostensibly talking
to Owen, though with a single thought to the reception of his words by
the maiden at the farther side, upon whom his gaze was mostly resting,
and who was attentively listening--looking fixedly upon the pavement the
while. It has been said that men love with their eyes; women with their
ears.
As Owen and himself were little more than acquaintances as yet, and as
Springrove was wanting in the assurance of many men of his age, it now
became necessary to wish his friends good-evening, or to find a reason
for continuing near Cytherea by saying some nice new thing. He thought
of a new thing; he proposed a pull across the bay. This was assented
to. They went to the pier; stepped into one of the gaily painted boats
moored alongside and sheered off. Cytherea sat in the stern steering.
They rowed that evening; the next came, and with it the necessity of
rowing again. Then the next, and the next, Cytherea always sitting in
the stern with the tiller ropes in her hand. The curves of her figure
welded with those of the fragile boat in perfect continuation, as she
girlishly yielded herself to its heaving and sinking, seeming to form
with it an organic whole.
Then Owen was inclined to test his skill in paddling a canoe. Edward
did not like canoes, and the issue was, that, having seen Owen on board,
Springrove proposed to pull off after him with a pair of sculls; but
not considering himself sufficiently accomplished to do finished rowing
before a parade full of promenaders when there was a little swell on,
and with the rudder unshipped in addition, he begged that Cytherea might
come with him and steer as before. She stepped in, and they floated
along in the wake of her brother. Thus passed the fifth evening on the
water.
But the sympathetic pair were thrown into still closer companionship,
and much more exclusive connection.