The weather gave way. In half-an-hour there began a rapid thaw. By
ten o’clock the roads, though still dangerous, were practicable to the
extent of the half-mile required by the people of Knapwater Park. One
mass of heavy leaden cloud spread over the whole sky; the air began to
feel damp and mild out of doors, though still cold and frosty within.
They reached the church and passed up the nave, the deep-coloured glass
of the narrow windows rendering the gloom of the morning almost night
itself inside the building. Then the ceremony began. The only warmth
or spirit imported into it came from the bridegroom, who retained a
vigorous--even Spenserian--bridal-mood throughout the morning.
Cytherea was as firm as he at this critical moment, but as cold as the
air surrounding her. The few persons forming the wedding-party were
constrained in movement and tone, and from the nave of the church came
occasional coughs, emitted by those who, in spite of the weather, had
assembled to see the termination of Cytherea’s existence as a single
woman. Many poor people loved her. They pitied her success, why, they
could not tell, except that it was because she seemed to stand more like
a statue than Cytherea Graye.
Yet she was prettily and carefully dressed; a strange contradiction in
a man’s idea of things--a saddening, perplexing contradiction. Are
there any points in which a difference of sex amounts to a difference of
nature? Then this is surely one. Not so much, as it is commonly put, in
regard to the amount of consideration given, but in the conception of
the thing considered. A man emasculated by coxcombry may spend more time
upon the arrangement of his clothes than any woman, but even then there
is no fetichism in his idea of them--they are still only a covering
he uses for a time. But here was Cytherea, in the bottom of her heart
almost indifferent to life, yet possessing an instinct with which her
heart had nothing to do, the instinct to be particularly regardful of
those sorry trifles, her robe, her flowers, her veil, and her gloves.
The irrevocable words were soon spoken--the indelible writing soon
written--and they came out of the vestry. Candles had been necessary
here to enable them to sign their names, and on their return to the
church the light from the candles streamed from the small open door,
and across the chancel to a black chestnut screen on the south side,
dividing it from a small chapel or chantry, erected for the soul’s peace
of some Aldclyffe of the past. Through the open-work of this screen
could now be seen illuminated, inside the chantry, the reclining figures
of cross-legged knights, damp and green with age, and above them a
huge classic monument, also inscribed to the Aldclyffe family, heavily
sculptured in cadaverous marble.
Leaning here--almost hanging to the monument--was Edward Springrove, or
his spirit.
The weak daylight would never have revealed him, shaded as he was by the
screen; but the unexpected rays of candle-light in the front showed him
forth in startling relief to any and all of those whose eyes wandered in
that direction. The sight was a sad one--sad beyond all description. His
eyes were wild, their orbits leaden. His face was of a sickly paleness,
his hair dry and disordered, his lips parted as if he could get no
breath. His figure was spectre-thin. His actions seemed beyond his own
control.
Manston did not see him; Cytherea did. The healing effect upon her heart
of a year’s silence--a year and a half’s separation--was undone in
an instant. One of those strange revivals of passion by mere
sight--commoner in women than in men, and in oppressed women commonest
of all--had taken place in her--so transcendently, that even to herself
it seemed more like a new creation than a revival.
Marrying for a home--what a mockery it was!
It may be said that the means most potent for rekindling old love in a
maiden’s heart are, to see her lover in laughter and good spirits in her
despite when the breach has been owing to a slight from herself; when
owing to a slight from him, to see him suffering for his own fault. If
he is happy in a clear conscience, she blames him; if he is miserable
because deeply to blame, she blames herself. The latter was Cytherea’s
case now.
First, an agony of face told of the suppressed misery within her, which
presently could be suppressed no longer. When they were coming out of
the porch, there broke from her in a low plaintive scream the words,
‘He’s dying--dying! O God, save us!’ She began to sink down, and would
have fallen had not Manston caught her. The chief bridesmaid applied her
vinaigrette.
‘What did she say?’ inquired Manston.
Owen was the only one to whom the words were intelligible, and he was
far too deeply impressed, or rather alarmed, to reply. She did not
faint, and soon began to recover her self-command. Owen took advantage
of the hindrance to step back to where the apparition had been seen.
He was enraged with Springrove for what he considered an unwarrantable
intrusion.
But Edward was not in the chantry. As he had come, so he had gone,
nobody could tell how or whither.