The early part of the next week brought an answer to Cytherea’s last
note of hope in the way of advertisement--not from a distance of
hundreds of miles, London, Scotland, Ireland, the Continent--as Cytherea
seemed to think it must, to be in keeping with the means adopted for
obtaining it, but from a place in the neighbourhood of that in which
she was living--a country mansion not twenty miles off. The reply ran
thus:--
KNAPWATER HOUSE,
August 3, 1864.
‘Miss Aldclyffe is in want of a young person as lady’s-maid. The duties
of the place are light. Miss Aldclyffe will be in Budmouth on Thursday,
when (should G. still not have heard of a place) she would like to see
her at the Belvedere Hotel, Esplanade, at four o’clock. No answer need
be returned to this note.’
A little earlier than the time named, Cytherea, clothed in a modest
bonnet, and a black silk jacket, turned down to the hotel. Expectation,
the fresh air from the water, the bright, far-extending outlook, raised
the most delicate of pink colours to her cheeks, and restored to her
tread a portion of that elasticity which her past troubles, and thoughts
of Edward, had well-nigh taken away.
She entered the vestibule, and went to the window of the bar.
‘Is Miss Aldclyffe here?’ she said to a nicely-dressed barmaid in the
foreground, who was talking to a landlady covered with chains, knobs,
and clamps of gold, in the background.
‘No, she isn’t,’ said the barmaid, not very civilly. Cytherea looked a
shade too pretty for a plain dresser.
‘Miss Aldclyffe is expected here,’ the landlady said to a third person,
out of sight, in the tone of one who had known for several days the fact
newly discovered from Cytherea. ‘Get ready her room--be quick.’ From the
alacrity with which the order was given and taken, it seemed to Cytherea
that Miss Aldclyffe must be a woman of considerable importance.
‘You are to have an interview with Miss Aldclyffe here?’ the landlady
inquired.
‘Yes.’
‘The young person had better wait,’ continued the landlady. With a
money-taker’s intuition she had rightly divined that Cytherea would
bring no profit to the house.
Cytherea was shown into a nondescript chamber, on the shady side of the
building, which appeared to be either bedroom or dayroom, as occasion
necessitated, and was one of a suite at the end of the first-floor
corridor. The prevailing colour of the walls, curtains, carpet, and
coverings of furniture, was more or less blue, to which the cold light
coming from the north easterly sky, and falling on a wide roof of new
slates--the only object the small window commanded--imparted a more
striking paleness. But underneath the door, communicating with the next
room of the suite, gleamed an infinitesimally small, yet very powerful,
fraction of contrast--a very thin line of ruddy light, showing that the
sun beamed strongly into this room adjoining. The line of radiance was
the only cheering thing visible in the place.
People give way to very infantine thoughts and actions when they wait;
the battle-field of life is temporarily fenced off by a hard and fast
line--the interview. Cytherea fixed her eyes idly upon the streak, and
began picturing a wonderful paradise on the other side as the source
of such a beam--reminding her of the well-known good deed in a naughty
world.
Whilst she watched the particles of dust floating before the brilliant
chink she heard a carriage and horses stop opposite the front of the
house. Afterwards came the rustle of a lady’s skirts down the corridor,
and into the room communicating with the one Cytherea occupied.
The golden line vanished in parts like the phosphorescent streak caused
by the striking of a match; there was the fall of a light footstep
on the floor just behind it: then a pause. Then the foot tapped
impatiently, and ‘There’s no one here!’ was spoken imperiously by a
lady’s tongue.
‘No, madam; in the next room. I am going to fetch her,’ said the
attendant.
‘That will do--or you needn’t go in; I will call her.’
Cytherea had risen, and she advanced to the middle door with the chink
under it as the servant retired. She had just laid her hand on the knob,
when it slipped round within her fingers, and the door was pulled open
from the other side.