It was a sad time for Cytherea--the last day of Springrove’s management
at Gradfield’s, and the last evening before his return from Budmouth to
his father’s house, previous to his departure for London.
Graye had been requested by the architect to survey a plot of land
nearly twenty miles off, which, with the journey to and fro, would
occupy him the whole day, and prevent his returning till late in the
evening. Cytherea made a companion of her landlady to the extent of
sharing meals and sitting with her during the morning of her
brother’s absence. Mid-day found her restless and miserable under this
arrangement. All the afternoon she sat alone, looking out of the window
for she scarcely knew whom, and hoping she scarcely knew what. Half-past
five o’clock came--the end of Springrove’s official day. Two minutes
later Springrove walked by.
She endured her solitude for another half-hour, and then could endure no
longer. She had hoped--while affecting to fear--that Edward would have
found some reason or other for calling, but it seemed that he had not.
Hastily dressing herself she went out, when the farce of an accidental
meeting was repeated. Edward came upon her in the street at the first
turning, and, like the Great Duke Ferdinand in ‘The Statue and the
Bust’--
‘He looked at her as a lover can;
She looked at him as one who awakes--
The past was a sleep, and her life began.’
‘Shall we have a boat?’ he said impulsively.
How blissful it all is at first. Perhaps, indeed, the only bliss in
the course of love which can truly be called Eden-like is that which
prevails immediately after doubt has ended and before reflection has set
in--at the dawn of the emotion, when it is not recognized by name, and
before the consideration of what this love is, has given birth to the
consideration of what difficulties it tends to create; when on the man’s
part, the mistress appears to the mind’s eye in picturesque, hazy, and
fresh morning lights, and soft morning shadows; when, as yet, she is
known only as the wearer of one dress, which shares her own personality;
as the stander in one special position, the giver of one bright
particular glance, and the speaker of one tender sentence; when, on
her part, she is timidly careful over what she says and does, lest she
should be misconstrued or under-rated to the breadth of a shadow of a
hair.
‘Shall we have a boat?’ he said again, more softly, seeing that to
his first question she had not answered, but looked uncertainly at the
ground, then almost, but not quite, in his face, blushed a series of
minute blushes, left off in the midst of them, and showed the usual
signs of perplexity in a matter of the emotions.
Owen had always been with her before, but there was now a force of habit
in the proceeding, and with Arcadian innocence she assumed that a row on
the water was, under any circumstances, a natural thing. Without another
word being spoken on either side, they went down the steps. He carefully
handed her in, took his seat, slid noiselessly off the sand, and away
from the shore.
They thus sat facing each other in the graceful yellow cockle-shell,
and his eyes frequently found a resting-place in the depths of hers. The
boat was so small that at each return of the sculls, when his hands came
forward to begin the pull, they approached so near to her that her vivid
imagination began to thrill her with a fancy that he was going to clasp
his arms round her. The sensation grew so strong that she could not run
the risk of again meeting his eyes at those critical moments, and turned
aside to inspect the distant horizon; then she grew weary of looking
sideways, and was driven to return to her natural position again. At
this instant he again leant forward to begin, and met her glance by
an ardent fixed gaze. An involuntary impulse of girlish embarrassment
caused her to give a vehement pull at the tiller-rope, which brought the
boat’s head round till they stood directly for shore.
His eyes, which had dwelt upon her form during the whole time of her
look askance, now left her; he perceived the direction in which they
were going.
‘Why, you have completely turned the boat, Miss Graye?’ he said, looking
over his shoulder. ‘Look at our track on the water--a great semicircle,
preceded by a series of zigzags as far as we can see.’
She looked attentively. ‘Is it my fault or yours?’ she inquired. ‘Mine,
I suppose?’
‘I can’t help saying that it is yours.’
She dropped the ropes decisively, feeling the slightest twinge of
vexation at the answer.
‘Why do you let go?’
‘I do it so badly.’
‘O no; you turned about for shore in a masterly way. Do you wish to
return?’
‘Yes, if you please.’
‘Of course, then, I will at once.’
‘I fear what the people will think of us--going in such absurd
directions, and all through my wretched steering.’
‘Never mind what the people think.’ A pause. ‘You surely are not so weak
as to mind what the people think on such a matter as that?’
Those words might almost be called too firm and hard to be given by him
to her; but never mind. For almost the first time in her life she felt
the charming sensation, although on such an insignificant subject, of
being compelled into an opinion by a man she loved. Owen, though
less yielding physically, and more practical, would not have had the
intellectual independence to answer a woman thus. She replied quietly
and honestly--as honestly as when she had stated the contrary fact a
minute earlier--
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I’ll unship the tiller that you may have nothing to do going back but
to hold your parasol,’ he continued, and arose to perform the operation,
necessarily leaning closely against her, to guard against the risk
of capsizing the boat as he reached his hands astern. His warm breath
touched and crept round her face like a caress; but he was apparently
only concerned with his task. She looked guilty of something when he
seated himself. He read in her face what that something was--she had
experienced a pleasure from his touch. But he flung a practical glance
over his shoulder, seized the oars, and they sped in a straight line
towards the shore.
Cytherea saw that he noted in her face what had passed in her heart,
and that noting it, he continued as decided as before. She was inwardly
distressed. She had not meant him to translate her words about returning
home so literally at the first; she had not intended him to learn her
secret; but more than all she was not able to endure the perception of
his learning it and continuing unmoved.
There was nothing but misery to come now. They would step ashore; he
would say good-night, go to London to-morrow, and the miserable She
would lose him for ever. She did not quite suppose what was the fact,
that a parallel thought was simultaneously passing through his mind.
They were now within ten yards, now within five; he was only now waiting
for a ‘smooth’ to bring the boat in. Sweet, sweet Love must not be
slain thus, was the fair maid’s reasoning. She was equal to the
occasion--ladies are--and delivered the god--
‘Do you want very much to land, Mr. Springrove?’ she said, letting her
young violet eyes pine at him a very, very little.
‘I? Not at all,’ said he, looking an astonishment at her inquiry which a
slight twinkle of his eye half belied. ‘But you do?’
‘I think that now we have come out, and it is such a pleasant evening,’
she said gently and sweetly, ‘I should like a little longer row if you
don’t mind? I’ll try to steer better than before if it makes it easier
for you. I’ll try very hard.’
It was the turn of his face to tell a tale now. He looked, ‘We
understand each other--ah, we do, darling!’ turned the boat, and pulled
back into the Bay once more.
‘Now steer wherever you will,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘Never mind the
directness of the course--wherever you will.’
‘Shall it be Creston Shore?’ she said, pointing to a stretch of beach
northward from Budmouth Esplanade.
‘Creston Shore certainly,’ he responded, grasping the sculls. She took
the strings daintily, and they wound away to the left.
For a long time nothing was audible in the boat but the regular dip
of the oars, and their movement in the rowlocks. Springrove at length
spoke.
‘I must go away to-morrow,’ he said tentatively.
‘Yes,’ she replied faintly.
‘To endeavour to advance a little in my profession in London.’
‘Yes,’ she said again, with the same preoccupied softness.
‘But I shan’t advance.’
‘Why not? Architecture is a bewitching profession. They say that an
architect’s work is another man’s play.’
‘Yes. But worldly advantage from an art doesn’t depend upon mastering
it. I used to think it did; but it doesn’t. Those who get rich need have
no skill at all as artists.’
‘What need they have?’
‘A certain kind of energy which men with any fondness for art possess
very seldom indeed--an earnestness in making acquaintances, and a love
for using them. They give their whole attention to the art of
dining out, after mastering a few rudimentary facts to serve up in
conversation. Now after saying that, do I seem a man likely to make a
name?’
‘You seem a man likely to make a mistake.’
‘What’s that?’
‘To give too much room to the latent feeling which is rather common
in these days among the unappreciated, that because some remarkably
successful men are fools, all remarkably unsuccessful men are geniuses.’
‘Pretty subtle for a young lady,’ he said slowly. ‘From that remark I
should fancy you had bought experience.’
She passed over the idea. ‘Do try to succeed,’ she said, with wistful
thoughtfulness, leaving her eyes on him.
Springrove flushed a little at the earnestness of her words, and mused.
‘Then, like Cato the Censor, I shall do what I despise, to be in the
fashion,’ he said at last... ‘Well, when I found all this out that I
was speaking of, what ever do you think I did? From having already
loved verse passionately, I went on to read it continually; then I went
rhyming myself. If anything on earth ruins a man for useful occupation,
and for content with reasonable success in a profession or trade, it is
the habit of writing verses on emotional subjects, which had much better
be left to die from want of nourishment.’
‘Do you write poems now?’ she said.
‘None. Poetical days are getting past with me, according to the usual
rule. Writing rhymes is a stage people of my sort pass through, as they
pass through the stage of shaving for a beard, or thinking they are
ill-used, or saying there’s nothing in the world worth living for.’
‘Then the difference between a common man and a recognized poet is, that
one has been deluded, and cured of his delusion, and the other continues
deluded all his days.’
‘Well, there’s just enough truth in what you say, to make the remark
unbearable. However, it doesn’t matter to me now that I “meditate the
thankless Muse” no longer, but....’ He paused, as if endeavouring to
think what better thing he did.
Cytherea’s mind ran on to the succeeding lines of the poem, and their
startling harmony with the present situation suggested the fancy that he
was ‘sporting’ with her, and brought an awkward contemplativeness to her
face.
Springrove guessed her thoughts, and in answer to them simply said
‘Yes.’ Then they were silent again.
‘If I had known an Amaryllis was coming here, I should not have made
arrangements for leaving,’ he resumed.
Such levity, superimposed on the notion of ‘sport’, was intolerable to
Cytherea; for a woman seems never to see any but the serious side of her
attachment, though the most devoted lover has all the time a vague and
dim perception that he is losing his old dignity and frittering away his
time.
‘But will you not try again to get on in your profession? Try once
more; do try once more,’ she murmured. ‘I am going to try again. I have
advertised for something to do.’
‘Of course I will,’ he said, with an eager gesture and smile. ‘But we
must remember that the fame of Christopher Wren himself depended upon
the accident of a fire in Pudding Lane. My successes seem to come very
slowly. I often think, that before I am ready to live, it will be time
for me to die. However, I am trying--not for fame now, but for an easy
life of reasonable comfort.’
It is a melancholy truth for the middle classes, that in proportion
as they develop, by the study of poetry and art, their capacity for
conjugal love of the highest and purest kind, they limit the possibility
of their being able to exercise it--the very act putting out of their
power the attainment of means sufficient for marriage. The man who works
up a good income has had no time to learn love to its solemn extreme;
the man who has learnt that has had no time to get rich.
‘And if you should fail--utterly fail to get that reasonable wealth,’
she said earnestly, ‘don’t be perturbed. The truly great stand upon no
middle ledge; they are either famous or unknown.’
‘Unknown,’ he said, ‘if their ideas have been allowed to flow with
a sympathetic breadth. Famous only if they have been convergent and
exclusive.’
‘Yes; and I am afraid from that, that my remark was but discouragement,
wearing the dress of comfort. Perhaps I was not quite right in--’
‘It depends entirely upon what is meant by being truly great. But the
long and the short of the matter is, that men must stick to a thing if
they want to succeed in it--not giving way to over-much admiration
for the flowers they see growing in other people’s borders; which I am
afraid has been my case.’ He looked into the far distance and paused.
Adherence to a course with persistence sufficient to ensure success is
possible to widely appreciative minds only when there is also found
in them a power--commonplace in its nature, but rare in such
combination--the power of assuming to conviction that in the outlying
paths which appear so much more brilliant than their own, there are
bitternesses equally great--unperceived simply on account of their
remoteness.
They were opposite Ringsworth Shore. The cliffs here were formed of
strata completely contrasting with those of the further side of the Bay,
whilst in and beneath the water hard boulders had taken the place of
sand and shingle, between which, however, the sea glided noiselessly,
without breaking the crest of a single wave, so strikingly calm was the
air. The breeze had entirely died away, leaving the water of that rare
glassy smoothness which is unmarked even by the small dimples of the
least aerial movement. Purples and blues of divers shades were reflected
from this mirror accordingly as each undulation sloped east or west.
They could see the rocky bottom some twenty feet beneath them,
luxuriant with weeds of various growths, and dotted with pulpy creatures
reflecting a silvery and spangled radiance upwards to their eyes.
At length she looked at him to learn the effect of her words of
encouragement. He had let the oars drift alongside, and the boat had
come to a standstill. Everything on earth seemed taking a contemplative
rest, as if waiting to hear the avowal of something from his lips. At
that instant he appeared to break a resolution hitherto zealously kept.
Leaving his seat amidships he came and gently edged himself down beside
her upon the narrow seat at the stern.
She breathed more quickly and warmly: he took her right hand in his own
right: it was not withdrawn. He put his left hand behind her neck till
it came round upon her left cheek: it was not thrust away. Lightly
pressing her, he brought her face and mouth towards his own; when, at
this the very brink, some unaccountable thought or spell within him
suddenly made him halt--even now, and as it seemed as much to himself as
to her, he timidly whispered ‘May I?’
Her endeavour was to say No, so denuded of its flesh and sinews that its
nature would hardly be recognized, or in other words a No from so near
the affirmative frontier as to be affected with the Yes accent. It was
thus a whispered No, drawn out to nearly a quarter of a minute’s length,
the O making itself audible as a sound like the spring coo of a pigeon
on unusually friendly terms with its mate. Though conscious of her
success in producing the kind of word she had wished to produce, she at
the same time trembled in suspense as to how it would be taken. But the
time available for doubt was so short as to admit of scarcely more than
half a pulsation: pressing closer he kissed her. Then he kissed her
again with a longer kiss.
It was the supremely happy moment of their experience. The ‘bloom’ and
the ‘purple light’ were strong on the lineaments of both. Their hearts
could hardly believe the evidence of their lips.
‘I love you, and you love me, Cytherea!’ he whispered.
She did not deny it; and all seemed well. The gentle sounds around them
from the hills, the plains, the distant town, the adjacent shore, the
water heaving at their side, the kiss, and the long kiss, were all ‘many
a voice of one delight,’ and in unison with each other.
But his mind flew back to the same unpleasant thought which had been
connected with the resolution he had broken a minute or two earlier. ‘I
could be a slave at my profession to win you, Cytherea; I would work at
the meanest, honest trade to be near you--much less claim you as mine; I
would--anything. But I have not told you all; it is not this; you don’t
know what there is yet to tell. Could you forgive as you can love?’ She
was alarmed to see that he had become pale with the question.
‘No--do not speak,’ he said. ‘I have kept something from you, which has
now become the cause of a great uneasiness. I had no right--to love you;
but I did it. Something forbade--’
‘What?’ she exclaimed.
‘Something forbade me--till the kiss--yes, till the kiss came; and now
nothing shall forbid it! We’ll hope in spite of all... I must, however,
speak of this love of ours to your brother. Dearest, you had better go
indoors whilst I meet him at the station, and explain everything.’
Cytherea’s short-lived bliss was dead and gone. O, if she had known of
this sequel would she have allowed him to break down the barrier of mere
acquaintanceship--never, never!
‘Will you not explain to me?’ she faintly urged. Doubt--indefinite,
carking doubt had taken possession of her.
‘Not now. You alarm yourself unnecessarily,’ he said tenderly. ‘My only
reason for keeping silence is that with my present knowledge I may tell
an untrue story. It may be that there is nothing to tell. I am to blame
for haste in alluding to any such thing. Forgive me, sweet--forgive me.’
Her heart was ready to burst, and she could not answer him. He returned
to his place and took to the oars.
They again made for the distant Esplanade, now, with its line of houses,
lying like a dark grey band against the light western sky. The sun
had set, and a star or two began to peep out. They drew nearer their
destination, Edward as he pulled tracing listlessly with his eyes the
red stripes upon her scarf, which grew to appear as black ones in the
increasing dusk of evening. She surveyed the long line of lamps on the
sea-wall of the town, now looking small and yellow, and seeming to send
long tap-roots of fire quivering down deep into the sea. By-and-by they
reached the landing-steps. He took her hand as before, and found it as
cold as the water about them. It was not relinquished till he reached
her door. His assurance had not removed the constraint of her manner:
he saw that she blamed him mutely and with her eyes, like a captured
sparrow. Left alone, he went and seated himself in a chair on the
Esplanade.
Neither could she go indoors to her solitary room, feeling as she did
in such a state of desperate heaviness. When Springrove was out of sight
she turned back, and arrived at the corner just in time to see him
sit down. Then she glided pensively along the pavement behind him,
forgetting herself to marble like Melancholy herself as she mused in his
neighbourhood unseen. She heard, without heeding, the notes of pianos
and singing voices from the fashionable houses at her back, from the
open windows of which the lamp-light streamed to join that of the
orange-hued full moon, newly risen over the Bay in front. Then Edward
began to pace up and down, and Cytherea, fearing that he would notice
her, hastened homeward, flinging him a last look as she passed out of
sight. No promise from him to write: no request that she herself would
do so--nothing but an indefinite expression of hope in the face of some
fear unknown to her. Alas, alas!
When Owen returned he found she was not in the small sitting-room, and
creeping upstairs into her bedroom with a light, he discovered her there
lying asleep upon the coverlet of the bed, still with her hat and
jacket on. She had flung herself down on entering, and succumbed to
the unwonted oppressiveness that ever attends full-blown love. The wet
traces of tears were yet visible upon her long drooping lashes.
‘Love is a sowre delight, and sugred griefe,
A living death, and ever-dying life.’
‘Cytherea,’ he whispered, kissing her. She awoke with a start, and
vented an exclamation before recovering her judgment. ‘He’s gone!’ she
said.
‘He has told me all,’ said Graye soothingly. ‘He is going off early
to-morrow morning. ‘Twas a shame of him to win you away from me, and
cruel of you to keep the growth of this attachment a secret.’
‘We couldn’t help it,’ she said, and then jumping up--‘Owen, has he told
you _all_?’
‘All of your love from beginning to end,’ he said simply.
Edward then had not told more--as he ought to have done: yet she could
not convict him. But she would struggle against his fetters. She tingled
to the very soles of her feet at the very possibility that he might be
deluding her.
‘Owen,’ she continued, with dignity, ‘what is he to me? Nothing. I must
dismiss such weakness as this--believe me, I will. Something far more
pressing must drive it away. I have been looking my position steadily
in the face, and I must get a living somehow. I mean to advertise once
more.’
‘Advertising is no use.’
‘This one will be.’ He looked surprised at the sanguine tone of her
answer, till she took a piece of paper from the table and showed it him.
‘See what I am going to do,’ she said sadly, almost bitterly. This was
her third effort:--
‘LADY’S-MAID. Inexperienced. Age eighteen.--G., 3 Cross Street,
Budmouth.’
Owen--Owen the respectable--looked blank astonishment. He repeated in a
nameless, varying tone, the two words--
‘Lady’s-maid!’
‘Yes; lady’s-maid. ‘Tis an honest profession,’ said Cytherea bravely.
‘But _you_, Cytherea?’
‘Yes, I--who am I?’
‘You will never be a lady’s-maid--never, I am quite sure.’
‘I shall try to be, at any rate.’
‘Such a disgrace--’
‘Nonsense! I maintain that it is no disgrace!’ she said, rather warmly.
‘You know very well--’
‘Well, since you will, you must,’ he interrupted. ‘Why do you put
“inexperienced?”’
‘Because I am.’
‘Never mind that--scratch out “inexperienced.” We are poor, Cytherea,
aren’t we?’ he murmured, after a silence, ‘and it seems that the two
months will close my engagement here.’
‘We can put up with being poor,’ she said, ‘if they only give us work
to do.... Yes, we desire as a blessing what was given us as a curse, and
even that is denied. However, be cheerful, Owen, and never mind!’
In justice to desponding men, it is as well to remember that the
brighter endurance of women at these epochs--invaluable, sweet, angelic,
as it is--owes more of its origin to a narrower vision that shuts out
many of the leaden-eyed despairs in the van, than to a hopefulness
intense enough to quell them.