The long sunny days of the later summer-time brought only the same
dreary accounts from Budmouth, and saw Cytherea paying the same sad
visits.
She grew perceptibly weaker, in body and mind. Manston still persisted
in his suit, but with more of his former indirectness, now that he saw
how unexpectedly well she stood an open attack. His was the system of
Dares at the Sicilian games--
‘He, like a captain who beleaguers round
Some strong-built castle on a rising ground,
Views all the approaches with observing eyes,
This and that other part again he tries,
And more on industry than force relies.’
Miss Aldclyffe made it appear more clearly than ever that aid to
Owen from herself depended entirely upon Cytherea’s acceptance of
her steward. Hemmed in and distressed, Cytherea’s answers to his
importunities grew less uniform; they were firm, or wavering, as Owen’s
malady fluctuated. Had a register of her pitiful oscillations been kept,
it would have rivalled in pathos the diary wherein De Quincey tabulates
his combat with Opium--perhaps as noticeable an instance as any in which
a thrilling dramatic power has been given to mere numerals. Thus she
wearily and monotonously lived through the month, listening on Sundays
to the well-known round of chapters narrating the history of Elijah and
Elisha in famine and drought; on week-days to buzzing flies in hot sunny
rooms. ‘So like, so very like, was day to day.’ Extreme lassitude seemed
all that the world could show her.
Her state was in this wise, when one afternoon, having been with her
brother, she met the surgeon, and begged him to tell the actual truth
concerning Owen’s condition.
The reply was that he feared that the first operation had not been
thorough; that although the wound had healed, another attempt might
still be necessary, unless nature were left to effect her own cure. But
the time such a self-healing proceeding would occupy might be ruinous.
‘How long would it be?’ she said.
‘It is impossible to say. A year or two, more or less.’
‘And suppose he submitted to another artificial extraction?’
‘Then he might be well in four or six months.’
Now the remainder of his and her possessions, together with a sum he had
borrowed, would not provide him with necessary comforts for half
that time. To combat the misfortune, there were two courses open--her
becoming betrothed to Manston, or the sending Owen to the County
Hospital.
Thus terrified, driven into a corner, panting and fluttering about for
some loophole of escape, yet still shrinking from the idea of being
Manston’s wife, the poor little bird endeavoured to find out from
Miss Aldclyffe whether it was likely Owen would be well treated in the
hospital.
‘County Hospital!’ said Miss Aldclyffe; ‘why, it is only another
name for slaughter-house--in surgical cases at any rate. Certainly if
anything about your body is snapt in two they do join you together in
a fashion, but ‘tis so askew and ugly, that you may as well be apart
again.’ Then she terrified the inquiring and anxious maiden by relating
horrid stories of how the legs and arms of poor people were cut off at a
moment’s notice, especially in cases where the restorative treatment was
likely to be long and tedious.
‘You know how willing I am to help you, Cytherea,’ she added
reproachfully. ‘You know it. Why are you so obstinate then? Why do you
selfishly bar the clear, honourable, and only sisterly path which leads
out of this difficulty? I cannot, on my conscience, countenance you; no,
I cannot.’
Manston once more repeated his offer; and once more she refused, but
this time weakly, and with signs of an internal struggle. Manston’s eye
sparkled; he saw for the hundredth time in his life, that perseverance,
if only systematic, was irresistible by womankind.