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 passing 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 circumstances (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 nobody
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 grass--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?’
‘No, not a single one.’
‘Ah, that’s a pity.’
‘Yes, that’s what I say. ‘Tis jest the house for a nice ghastly
hair-on-end story, that would make the parish religious. Perhaps it will
have one some day to make it complete; but there’s not a word of
the kind now. There, I wouldn’t live there for all that. In fact, I
couldn’t. O no, I couldn’t.’
‘Why couldn’t you?’
‘The sounds.’
‘What are they?’
‘One is the waterfall, which stands so close by that you can hear that
there waterfall in every room of the house, night or day, ill or well.
‘Tis enough to drive anybody mad: now hark.’
He stopped the horse. Above the slight common sounds in the air came the
unvarying steady rush of falling water from some spot unseen on account
of the thick foliage of the grove.
‘There’s something awful in the timing o’ that sound, ain’t there,
miss?’
‘When you say there is, there really seems to be. You said there were
two--what is the other horrid sound?’
‘The pumping-engine. That’s close by the Old House, and sends water up
the hill and all over the Great House. We shall hear that directly....
There, now hark again.’
From the same direction down the dell they could now hear the whistling
creak of cranks, repeated at intervals of half-a-minute, with a sousing
noise between each: a creak, a souse, then another creak, and so on
continually.
‘Now if anybody could make shift to live through the other sounds, these
would finish him off, don’t you think so, miss? That machine goes on
night and day, summer and winter, and is hardly ever greased or visited.
Ah, it tries the nerves at night, especially if you are not very well;
though we don’t often hear it at the Great House.’
‘That sound is certainly very dismal. They might have the wheel greased.
Does Miss Aldclyffe take any interest in these things?’
‘Well, scarcely; you see her father doesn’t attend to that sort of thing
as he used to. The engine was once quite his hobby. But now he’s getten
old and very seldom goes there.’
‘How many are there in family?’
‘Only her father and herself. He’s a’ old man of seventy.’
‘I had thought that Miss Aldclyffe was sole mistress of the property,
and lived here alone.’
‘No, m--’ The coachman was continually checking himself thus, being
about to style her miss involuntarily, and then recollecting that he was
only speaking to the new lady’s-maid.
‘She will soon be mistress, however, I am afraid,’ he continued, as if
speaking by a spirit of prophecy denied to ordinary humanity. ‘The poor
old gentleman has decayed very fast lately.’ The man then drew a long
breath.
‘Why did you breathe sadly like that?’ said Cytherea.
‘Ah!... When he’s dead peace will be all over with us old servants. I
expect to see the old house turned inside out.’
‘She will marry, do you mean?’
‘Marry--not she! I wish she would. No, in her soul she’s as solitary
as Robinson Crusoe, though she has acquaintances in plenty, if
not relations. There’s the rector, Mr. Raunham--he’s a relation by
marriage--yet she’s quite distant towards him. And people say that if
she keeps single there will be hardly a life between Mr. Raunham and the
heirship of the estate. Dang it, she don’t care. She’s an extraordinary
picture of womankind--very extraordinary.’
‘In what way besides?’
‘You’ll know soon enough, miss. She has had seven lady’s-maids this last
twelvemonth. I assure you ‘tis one body’s work to fetch ‘em from the
station and take ‘em back again. The Lord must be a neglectful party at
heart, or he’d never permit such overbearen goings on!’
‘Does she dismiss them directly they come!’
‘Not at all--she never dismisses them--they go theirselves. Ye see ‘tis
like this. She’s got a very quick temper; she flees in a passion with
them for nothing at all; next mornen they come up and say they are
going; she’s sorry for it and wishes they’d stay, but she’s as proud as
a lucifer, and her pride won’t let her say, “Stay,” and away they go.
‘Tis like this in fact. If you say to her about anybody, “Ah, poor
thing!” she says, “Pooh! indeed!” If you say, “Pooh, indeed!” “Ah, poor
thing!” she says directly. She hangs the chief baker, as mid be, and
restores the chief butler, as mid be, though the devil but Pharaoh
herself can see the difference between ‘em.’
Cytherea was silent. She feared she might be again a burden to her
brother.
‘However, you stand a very good chance,’ the man went on, ‘for I
think she likes you more than common. I have never known her send the
pony-carriage to meet one before; ‘tis always the trap, but this time
she said, in a very particular ladylike tone, “Roobert, gaow with the
pony-kerriage.”... There, ‘tis true, pony and carriage too are getten
rather shabby now,’ he added, looking round upon the vehicle as if to
keep Cytherea’s pride within reasonable limits.
‘’Tis to be hoped you’ll please in dressen her to-night.’
‘Why to-night?’
‘There’s a dinner-party of seventeen; ‘tis her father’s birthday, and
she’s very particular about her looks at such times. Now see; this is
the house. Livelier up here, isn’t it, miss?’
They were now on rising ground, and had just emerged from a clump of
trees. Still a little higher than where they stood was situated the
mansion, called Knapwater House, the offices gradually losing themselves
among the trees behind.