Cytherea entered her bedroom, and flung herself on the bed, bewildered
by a whirl of thought. Only one subject was clear in her mind, and it
was that, in spite of family discoveries, that day was to be the first
and last of her experience as a lady’s-maid. Starvation itself should
not compel her to hold such a humiliating post for another instant.
‘Ah,’ she thought, with a sigh, at the martyrdom of her last little
fragment of self-conceit, ‘Owen knows everything better than I.’
She jumped up and began making ready for her departure in the morning,
the tears streaming down when she grieved and wondered what practical
matter on earth she could turn her hand to next. All these preparations
completed, she began to undress, her mind unconsciously drifting away
to the contemplation of her late surprises. To look in the glass for an
instant at the reflection of her own magnificent resources in face and
bosom, and to mark their attractiveness unadorned, was perhaps but the
natural action of a young woman who had so lately been chidden whilst
passing through the harassing experience of decorating an older beauty
of Miss Aldclyffe’s temper.
But she directly checked her weakness by sympathizing reflections on the
hidden troubles which must have thronged the past years of the solitary
lady, to keep her, though so rich and courted, in a mood so repellent
and gloomy as that in which Cytherea found her; and then the young girl
marvelled again and again, as she had marvelled before, at the strange
confluence of circumstances which had brought herself into contact with
the one woman in the world whose history was so romantically intertwined
with her own. She almost began to wish she were not obliged to go away
and leave the lonely being to loneliness still.
In bed and in the dark, Miss Aldclyffe haunted her mind more
persistently than ever. Instead of sleeping, she called up staring
visions of the possible past of this queenly lady, her mother’s rival.
Up the long vista of bygone years she saw, behind all, the young girl’s
flirtation, little or much, with the cousin, that seemed to have been
nipped in the bud, or to have terminated hastily in some way. Then the
secret meetings between Miss Aldclyffe and the other woman at the little
inn at Hammersmith and other places: the commonplace name she adopted:
her swoon at some painful news, and the very slight knowledge the elder
female had of her partner in mystery. Then, more than a year afterwards,
the acquaintanceship of her own father with this his first love; the
awakening of the passion, his acts of devotion, the unreasoning heat of
his rapture, her tacit acceptance of it, and yet her uneasiness under
the delight. Then his declaration amid the evergreens: the utter
change produced in her manner thereby, seemingly the result of a rigid
determination: and the total concealment of her reason by herself
and her parents, whatever it was. Then the lady’s course dropped into
darkness, and nothing more was visible till she was discovered here at
Knapwater, nearly fifty years old, still unmarried and still beautiful,
but lonely, embittered, and haughty. Cytherea imagined that her father’s
image was still warmly cherished in Miss Aldclyffe’s heart, and was
thankful that she herself had not been betrayed into announcing that
she knew many particulars of this page of her father’s history, and the
chief one, the lady’s unaccountable renunciation of him. It would have
made her bearing towards the mistress of the mansion more awkward, and
would have been no benefit to either.
Thus conjuring up the past, and theorizing on the present, she lay
restless, changing her posture from one side to the other and back
again. Finally, when courting sleep with all her art, she heard a clock
strike two. A minute later, and she fancied she could distinguish a soft
rustle in the passage outside her room.
To bury her head in the sheets was her first impulse; then to uncover
it, raise herself on her elbow, and stretch her eyes wide open in the
darkness; her lips being parted with the intentness of her listening.
Whatever the noise was, it had ceased for the time.
It began again and came close to her door, lightly touching the panels.
Then there was another stillness; Cytherea made a movement which caused
a faint rustling of the bed-clothes.
Before she had time to think another thought a light tap was given.
Cytherea breathed: the person outside was evidently bent upon finding
her awake, and the rustle she had made had encouraged the hope. The
maiden’s physical condition shifted from one pole to its opposite. The
cold sweat of terror forsook her, and modesty took the alarm. She became
hot and red; her door was not locked.
A distinct woman’s whisper came to her through the keyhole: ‘Cytherea!’
Only one being in the house knew her Christian name, and that was Miss
Aldclyffe. Cytherea stepped out of bed, went to the door, and whispered
back, ‘Yes?’
‘Let me come in, darling.’
The young woman paused in a conflict between judgment and emotion. It
was now mistress and maid no longer; woman and woman only. Yes; she must
let her come in, poor thing.
She got a light in an instant, opened the door, and raising her eyes and
the candle, saw Miss Aldclyffe standing outside in her dressing-gown.
‘Now you see that it is really myself; put out the light,’ said the
visitor. ‘I want to stay here with you, Cythie. I came to ask you to
come down into my bed, but it is snugger here. But remember that you are
mistress in this room, and that I have no business here, and that you
may send me away if you choose. Shall I go?’
‘O no; you shan’t indeed if you don’t want to,’ said Cythie generously.
The instant they were in bed Miss Aldclyffe freed herself from the
last remnant of restraint. She flung her arms round the young girl, and
pressed her gently to her heart.
‘Now kiss me,’ she said.
Cytherea, upon the whole, was rather discomposed at this change of
treatment; and, discomposed or no, her passions were not so impetuous as
Miss Aldclyffe’s. She could not bring her soul to her lips for a moment,
try how she would.
‘Come, kiss me,’ repeated Miss Aldclyffe.
Cytherea gave her a very small one, as soft in touch and in sound as the
bursting of a bubble.
‘More earnestly than that--come.’
She gave another, a little but not much more expressively.
‘I don’t deserve a more feeling one, I suppose,’ said Miss Aldclyffe,
with an emphasis of sad bitterness in her tone. ‘I am an ill-tempered
woman, you think; half out of my mind. Well, perhaps I am; but I have
had grief more than you can think or dream of. But I can’t help loving
you--your name is the same as mine--isn’t it strange?’
Cytherea was inclined to say no, but remained silent.
‘Now, don’t you think I must love you?’ continued the other.
‘Yes,’ said Cytherea absently. She was still thinking whether duty to
Owen and her father, which asked for silence on her knowledge of her
father’s unfortunate love, or duty to the woman embracing her, which
seemed to ask for confidence, ought to predominate. Here was a solution.
She would wait till Miss Aldclyffe referred to her acquaintanceship and
attachment to Cytherea’s father in past times: then she would tell her
all she knew: that would be honour.
‘Why can’t you kiss me as I can kiss you? Why can’t you!’ She impressed
upon Cytherea’s lips a warm motherly salute, given as if in the outburst
of strong feeling, long checked, and yearning for something to love and
be loved by in return.
‘Do you think badly of me for my behaviour this evening, child? I don’t
know why I am so foolish as to speak to you in this way. I am a very
fool, I believe. Yes. How old are you?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘Eighteen!... Well, why don’t you ask me how old I am?’
‘Because I don’t want to know.’
‘Never mind if you don’t. I am forty-six; and it gives me greater
pleasure to tell you this than it does to you to listen. I have not told
my age truly for the last twenty years till now.’
‘Why haven’t you?’
‘I have met deceit by deceit, till I am weary of it--weary, weary--and I
long to be what I shall never be again--artless and innocent, like you.
But I suppose that you, too, will, prove to be not worth a thought, as
every new friend does on more intimate knowledge. Come, why don’t you
talk to me, child? Have you said your prayers?’
‘Yes--no! I forgot them to-night.’
‘I suppose you say them every night as a rule?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why do you do that?’
‘Because I have always done so, and it would seem strange if I were not
to. Do you?’
‘I? A wicked old sinner like me! No, I never do. I have thought all such
matters humbug for years--thought so so long that I should be glad to
think otherwise from very weariness; and yet, such is the code of the
polite world, that I subscribe regularly to Missionary Societies and
others of the sort.... Well, say your prayers, dear--you won’t omit them
now you recollect it. I should like to hear you very much. Will you?’
‘It seems hardly--’
‘It would seem so like old times to me--when I was young, and
nearer--far nearer Heaven than I am now. Do, sweet one,’
Cytherea was embarrassed, and her embarrassment arose from the following
conjuncture of affairs. Since she had loved Edward Springrove, she had
linked his name with her brother Owen’s in her nightly supplications to
the Almighty. She wished to keep her love for him a secret, and, above
all, a secret from a woman like Miss Aldclyffe; yet her conscience and
the honesty of her love would not for an instant allow her to think of
omitting his dear name, and so endanger the efficacy of all her previous
prayers for his success by an unworthy shame now: it would be wicked
of her, she thought, and a grievous wrong to him. Under any worldly
circumstances she might have thought the position justified a little
finesse, and have skipped him for once; but prayer was too solemn a
thing for such trifling.
‘I would rather not say them,’ she murmured first. It struck her then
that this declining altogether was the same cowardice in another dress,
and was delivering her poor Edward over to Satan just as unceremoniously
as before. ‘Yes; I will say my prayers, and you shall hear me,’ she
added firmly.
She turned her face to the pillow and repeated in low soft tones the
simple words she had used from childhood on such occasions. Owen’s name
was mentioned without faltering, but in the other case, maidenly shyness
was too strong even for religion, and that when supported by excellent
intentions. At the name of Edward she stammered, and her voice sank to
the faintest whisper in spite of her.
‘Thank you, dearest,’ said Miss Aldclyffe. ‘I have prayed too, I verily
believe. You are a good girl, I think.’ Then the expected question came.
‘“Bless Owen,” and whom, did you say?’
There was no help for it now, and out it came. ‘Owen and Edward,’ said
Cytherea.
‘Who are Owen and Edward?’
‘Owen is my brother, madam,’ faltered the maid.
‘Ah, I remember. Who is Edward?’
A silence.
‘Your brother, too?’ continued Miss Aldclyffe.
‘No.’
Miss Aldclyffe reflected a moment. ‘Don’t you want to tell me who Edward
is?’ she said at last, in a tone of meaning.
‘I don’t mind telling; only....’
‘You would rather not, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’
Miss Aldclyffe shifted her ground. ‘Were you ever in love?’ she inquired
suddenly.
Cytherea was surprised to hear how quickly the voice had altered from
tenderness to harshness, vexation, and disappointment.
‘Yes--I think I was--once,’ she murmured.
‘Aha! And were you ever kissed by a man?’
A pause.
‘Well, were you?’ said Miss Aldclyffe, rather sharply.
‘Don’t press me to tell--I can’t--indeed, I won’t, madam!’
Miss Aldclyffe removed her arms from Cytherea’s neck. ‘’Tis now with
you as it is always with all girls,’ she said, in jealous and gloomy
accents. ‘You are not, after all, the innocent I took you for. No, no.’
She then changed her tone with fitful rapidity. ‘Cytherea, try to love
me more than you love him--do. I love you more sincerely than any man
can. Do, Cythie: don’t let any man stand between us. O, I can’t bear
that!’ She clasped Cytherea’s neck again.
‘I must love him now I have begun,’ replied the other.
‘Must--yes--must,’ said the elder lady reproachfully. ‘Yes, women are
all alike. I thought I had at last found an artless woman who had
not been sullied by a man’s lips, and who had not practised or been
practised upon by the arts which ruin all the truth and sweetness and
goodness in us. Find a girl, if you can, whose mouth and ears have
not been made a regular highway of by some man or another! Leave the
admittedly notorious spots--the drawing-rooms of society--and look in
the villages--leave the villages and search in the schools--and you can
hardly find a girl whose heart has not been _had_--is not an old thing
half worn out by some He or another! If men only knew the staleness of
the freshest of us! that nine times out of ten the “first love” they
think they are winning from a woman is but the hulk of an old wrecked
affection, fitted with new sails and re-used. O Cytherea, can it be that
you, too, are like the rest?’
‘No, no, no,’ urged Cytherea, awed by the storm she had raised in the
impetuous woman’s mind. ‘He only kissed me once--twice I mean.’
‘He might have done it a thousand times if he had cared to, there’s no
doubt about that, whoever his lordship is. You are as bad as I--we are
all alike; and I--an old fool--have been sipping at your mouth as if
it were honey, because I fancied no wasting lover knew the spot. But
a minute ago, and you seemed to me like a fresh spring meadow--now you
seem a dusty highway.’
‘O no, no!’ Cytherea was not weak enough to shed tears except on
extraordinary occasions, but she was fain to begin sobbing now. She
wished Miss Aldclyffe would go to her own room, and leave her and her
treasured dreams alone. This vehement imperious affection was in one
sense soothing, but yet it was not of the kind that Cytherea’s instincts
desired. Though it was generous, it seemed somewhat too rank and
capricious for endurance.
‘Well,’ said the lady in continuation, ‘who is he?’
Her companion was desperately determined not to tell his name: she too
much feared a taunt when Miss Aldclyffe’s fiery mood again ruled her
tongue.
‘Won’t you tell me? not tell me after all the affection I have shown?’
‘I will, perhaps, another day.’
‘Did you wear a hat and white feather in Budmouth for the week or two
previous to your coming here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I have seen you and your lover at a distance! He rowed you round
the bay with your brother.’
‘Yes.’
‘And without your brother--fie! There, there, don’t let that little
heart beat itself to death: throb, throb: it shakes the bed, you silly
thing. I didn’t mean that there was any harm in going alone with him. I
only saw you from the Esplanade, in common with the rest of the people.
I often run down to Budmouth. He was a very good figure: now who was
he?’
‘I--I won’t tell, madam--I cannot indeed!’
‘Won’t tell--very well, don’t. You are very foolish to treasure up his
name and image as you do. Why, he has had loves before you, trust him
for that, whoever he is, and you are but a temporary link in a long
chain of others like you: who only have your little day as they have had
theirs.’
‘’Tisn’t true! ‘tisn’t true! ‘tisn’t true!’ cried Cytherea in an agony
of torture. ‘He has never loved anybody else, I know--I am sure he
hasn’t.’
Miss Aldclyffe was as jealous as any man could have been. She
continued--
‘He sees a beautiful face and thinks he will never forget it, but in a
few weeks the feeling passes off, and he wonders how he could have cared
for anybody so absurdly much.’
‘No, no, he doesn’t--What does he do when he has thought that--Come,
tell me--tell me!’
‘You are as hot as fire, and the throbbing of your heart makes me
nervous. I can’t tell you if you get in that flustered state.’
‘Do, do tell--O, it makes me so miserable! but tell--come tell me!’
‘Ah--the tables are turned now, dear!’ she continued, in a tone which
mingled pity with derision--
‘“Love’s passions shall rock thee
As the storm rocks the ravens on high,
Bright reason will mock thee
Like the sun from a wintry sky.”
‘What does he do next?--Why, this is what he does next: ruminate on what
he has heard of women’s romantic impulses, and how easily men torture
them when they have given way to those feelings, and have resigned
everything for their hero. It may be that though he loves you heartily
now--that is, as heartily as a man can--and you love him in return, your
loves may be impracticable and hopeless, and you may be separated for
ever. You, as the weary, weary years pass by will fade and fade--bright
eyes _will_ fade--and you will perhaps then die early--true to him to
your latest breath, and believing him to be true to the latest breath
also; whilst he, in some gay and busy spot far away from your last quiet
nook, will have married some dashing lady, and not purely oblivious of
you, will long have ceased to regret you--will chat about you, as you
were in long past years--will say, “Ah, little Cytherea used to tie her
hair like that--poor innocent trusting thing; it was a pleasant useless
idle dream--that dream of mine for the maid with the bright eyes and
simple, silly heart; but I was a foolish lad at that time.” Then he will
tell the tale of all your little Wills and Wont’s and particular ways,
and as he speaks, turn to his wife with a placid smile.’
‘It is not true! He can’t, he c-can’t be s-so cruel--and you are cruel
to me--you are, you are!’ She was at last driven to desperation: her
natural common sense and shrewdness had seen all through the piece how
imaginary her emotions were--she felt herself to be weak and foolish in
permitting them to rise; but even then she could not control them: be
agonized she must. She was only eighteen, and the long day’s labour,
her weariness, her excitement, had completely unnerved her, and worn her
out: she was bent hither and thither by this tyrannical working upon her
imagination, as a young rush in the wind. She wept bitterly. ‘And now
think how much I like you,’ resumed Miss Aldclyffe, when Cytherea grew
calmer. ‘I shall never forget you for anybody else, as men do--never. I
will be exactly as a mother to you. Now will you promise to live with me
always, and always be taken care of, and never deserted?’
‘I cannot. I will not be anybody’s maid for another day on any
consideration.’
‘No, no, no. You shan’t be a lady’s-maid. You shall be my companion. I
will get another maid.’
Companion--that was a new idea. Cytherea could not resist the evidently
heartfelt desire of the strange-tempered woman for her presence. But she
could not trust to the moment’s impulse.
‘I will stay, I think. But do not ask for a final answer to-night.’
‘Never mind now, then. Put your hair round your mamma’s neck, and give
me one good long kiss, and I won’t talk any more in that way about your
lover. After all, some young men are not so fickle as others; but even
if he’s the ficklest, there is consolation. The love of an inconstant
man is ten times more ardent than that of a faithful man--that is, while
it lasts.’
Cytherea did as she was told, to escape the punishment of further talk;
flung the twining tresses of her long, rich hair over Miss Aldclyffe’s
shoulders as directed, and the two ceased conversing, making themselves
up for sleep. Miss Aldclyffe seemed to give herself over to a luxurious
sense of content and quiet, as if the maiden at her side afforded her a
protection against dangers which had menaced her for years; she was soon
sleeping calmly.