Desperate Remedies
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