Desperate Remedies
window--think over the whole matter, and get cooled; don’t let the
foolish love-affair prevent your thinking as a woman of the world. If
at the end of that time you still say you must leave me, you may. I will
have no more to say in the matter. Come, sit down, and promise to sit
here the time I name.’
To hearts in a despairing mood, compulsion seems a relief; and docility
was at all times natural to Cytherea. She promised, and sat down. Miss
Aldclyffe shut the door upon her and retreated.
She sewed, stopped to think, shed a tear or two, recollected the
articles of the treaty, and sewed again; and at length fell into a
reverie which took no account whatever of the lapse of time.
4. TEN TO TWELVE O’CLOCK A.M.
A quarter of an hour might have passed when her thoughts became
attracted from the past to the present by unwonted movements downstairs.
She opened the door and listened.
There were hurryings along passages, opening and shutting of doors,
trampling in the stable-yard. She went across into another bedroom, from
which a view of the stable-yard could be obtained, and arrived there
just in time to see the figure of the man who had driven her from the
station vanishing down the coach-road on a black horse--galloping at the
top of the animal’s speed.
Another man went off in the direction of the village.
Whatever had occurred, it did not seem to be her duty to inquire or
meddle with it, stranger and dependent as she was, unless she were
requested to, especially after Miss Aldclyffe’s strict charge to her.
She sat down again, determined to let no idle curiosity influence her
movements.
Her window commanded the front of the house; and the next thing she saw
was a clergyman walk up and enter the door.
All was silent again till, a long time after the first man had left,
he returned again on the same horse, now matted with sweat and trotting
behind a carriage in which sat an elderly gentleman driven by a lad in
livery. These came to the house, entered, and all was again the same as
before.
The whole household--master, mistress, and servants--appeared to have
forgotten the very existence of such a being as Cytherea. She almost
wished she had not vowed to have no idle curiosity.
Half-an-hour later, the carriage drove off with the elderly gentleman,
and two or three messengers left the house, speeding in various
directions. Rustics in smock-frocks began to hang about the road
opposite the house, or lean against trees, looking idly at the windows
and chimneys.
A tap came to Cytherea’s door. She opened it to a young maid-servant.
‘Miss Aldclyffe wishes to see you, ma’am.’ Cytherea hastened down.
Miss Aldclyffe was standing on the hearthrug, her elbow on the mantel,
her hand to her temples, her eyes on the ground; perfectly calm, but
very pale.
‘Cytherea,’ she said in a whisper, ‘come here.’
Cytherea went close.
‘Something very serious has taken place,’ she said again, and then
paused, with a tremulous movement of her mouth.
‘Yes,’ said Cytherea.
‘My father. He was found dead in his bed this morning.’
‘Dead!’ echoed the younger woman. It seemed impossible that the
announcement could be true; that knowledge of so great a fact could be
contained in a statement so small.
‘Yes, dead,’ murmured Miss Aldclyffe solemnly. ‘He died alone, though
within a few feet of me. The room we slept in is exactly over his own.’
Cytherea said hurriedly, ‘Do they know at what hour?’
‘The doctor says it must have been between two and three o’clock this
morning.’
‘Then I heard him!’
‘Heard him?’
‘Heard him die!’
‘You heard him die? What did you hear?’
‘A sound I heard once before in my life--at the deathbed of my mother. I
could not identify it--though I recognized it. Then the dog howled: you
remarked it. I did not think it worth while to tell you what I had heard
a little earlier.’ She looked agonized.
‘It would have been useless,’ said Miss Aldclyffe. ‘All was over by that
time.’ She addressed herself as much as Cytherea when she continued, ‘Is
it a Providence who sent you here at this juncture that I might not be
left entirely alone?’
Till this instant Miss Aldclyffe had forgotten the reason of Cytherea’s
seclusion in her own room. So had Cytherea herself. The fact now
recurred to both in one moment.
‘Do you still wish to go?’ said Miss Aldclyffe anxiously.
‘I don’t want to go now,’ Cytherea had remarked simultaneously with the
other’s question. She was pondering on the strange likeness which Miss
Aldclyffe’s bereavement bore to her own; it had the appearance of being
still another call to her not to forsake this woman so linked to her
life, for the sake of any trivial vexation.
Miss Aldclyffe held her almost as a lover would have held her, and said
musingly--
‘We get more and more into one groove. I now am left fatherless and
motherless as you were.’ Other ties lay behind in her thoughts, but she
did not mention them.
‘You loved your father, Cytherea, and wept for him?’
‘Yes, I did. Poor papa!’
‘I was always at variance with mine, and can’t weep for him now! But you
must stay here always, and make a better woman of me.’
The compact was thus sealed, and Cytherea, in spite of the failure of
her advertisements, was installed as a veritable Companion. And,
once more in the history of human endeavour, a position which it was
impossible to reach by any direct attempt, was come to by the seeker’s
swerving from the path, and regarding the original object as one of
secondary importance.
VII. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN DAYS
1. AUGUST THE SEVENTEENTH
The time of day was four o’clock in the afternoon. The place was the
lady’s study or boudoir, Knapwater House. The person was Miss Aldclyffe
sitting there alone, clothed in deep mourning.
The funeral of the old Captain had taken place, and his will had been
read. It was very concise, and had been executed about five years
previous to his death. It was attested by his solicitors, Messrs.
Nyttleton and Tayling, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The whole of his estate,
real and personal, was bequeathed to his daughter Cytherea, for her sole
and absolute use, subject only to the payment of a legacy to the rector,
their relative, and a few small amounts to the servants.
Miss Aldclyffe had not chosen the easiest chair of her boudoir to sit
in, or even a chair of ordinary comfort, but an uncomfortable, high,
narrow-backed, oak framed and seated chair, which was allowed to
remain in the room only on the ground of being a companion in artistic
quaintness to an old coffer beside it, and was never used except to
stand in to reach for a book from the highest row of shelves. But she
had sat erect in this chair for more than an hour, for the reason that
she was utterly unconscious of what her actions and bodily feelings
were. The chair had stood nearest her path on entering the room, and she
had gone to it in a dream.
She sat in the attitude which denotes unflagging, intense, concentrated
thought--as if she were cast in bronze. Her feet were together, her body
bent a little forward, and quite unsupported by the back of the chair;
her hands on her knees, her eyes fixed intently on the corner of a
footstool.
At last she moved and tapped her fingers upon the table at her side.
Her pent-up ideas had finally found some channel to advance in. Motions
became more and more frequent as she laboured to carry further and
further the problem which occupied her brain. She sat back and drew
a long breath: she sat sideways and leant her forehead upon her
hand. Later still she arose, walked up and down the room--at first
abstractedly, with her features as firmly set as ever; but by degrees
her brow relaxed, her footsteps became lighter and more leisurely; her
head rode gracefully and was no longer bowed. She plumed herself like a
swan after exertion.
‘Yes,’ she said aloud. ‘To get _him_ here without letting him know that
I have any other object than that of getting a useful man--that’s the
difficulty--and that I think I can master.’
She rang for the new maid, a placid woman of forty with a few grey
hairs.
‘Ask Miss Graye if she can come to me.’
Cytherea was not far off, and came in.
‘Do you know anything about architects and surveyors?’ said Miss
Aldclyffe abruptly.
‘Know anything?’ replied Cytherea, poising herself on her toe to
consider the compass of the question.
‘Yes--know anything,’ said Miss Aldclyffe.
‘Owen is an architect and surveyor’s draughtsman,’ the maiden said, and
thought of somebody else who was likewise.
‘Yes! that’s why I asked you. What are the different kinds of work
comprised in an architect’s practice? They lay out estates, and
superintend the various works done upon them, I should think, among
other things?’
‘Those are, more properly, a land or building steward’s duties--at least
I have always imagined so. Country architects include those things in
their practice; city architects don’t.’
‘I know that, child. But a steward’s is an indefinite fast and loose
profession, it seems to me. Shouldn’t you think that a man who had been
brought up as an architect would do for a steward?’
Cytherea had doubts whether an architect pure would do.
The chief pleasure connected with asking an opinion lies in not adopting
it. Miss Aldclyffe replied decisively--
‘Nonsense; of course he would. Your brother Owen makes plans for country
buildings--such as cottages, stables, homesteads, and so on?’
‘Yes; he does.’
‘And superintends the building of them?’
‘Yes; he will soon.’
‘And he surveys land?’
‘O yes.’
‘And he knows about hedges and ditches--how wide they ought to be,
boundaries, levelling, planting trees to keep away the winds, measuring
timber, houses for ninety-nine years, and such things?’
‘I have never heard him say that; but I think Mr. Gradfield does those
things. Owen, I am afraid, is inexperienced as yet.’
‘Yes; your brother is not old enough for such a post yet, of course.
And then there are rent-days, the audit and winding up of tradesmen’s
accounts. I am afraid, Cytherea, you don’t know much more about the
matter than I do myself.... I am going out just now,’ she continued. ‘I
shall not want you to walk with me to-day. Run away till dinner-time.’
Miss Aldclyffe went out of doors, and down the steps to the lawn: then
turning to the left, through a shrubbery, she opened a wicket and passed
into a neglected and leafy carriage-drive, leading down the hill. This
she followed till she reached the point of its greatest depression,
which was also the lowest ground in the whole grove.
The trees here were so interlaced, and hung their branches so near the
ground, that a whole summer’s day was scarcely long enough to change
the air pervading the spot from its normal state of coolness to even a
temporary warmth. The unvarying freshness was helped by the nearness of
the ground to the level of the springs, and by the presence of a deep,
sluggish stream close by, equally well shaded by bushes and a high wall.
Following the road, which now ran along at the margin of the stream,
she came to an opening in the wall, on the other side of the water,
revealing a large rectangular nook from which the stream proceeded,
covered with froth, and accompanied by a dull roar. Two more steps,
and she was opposite the nook, in full view of the cascade forming its
further boundary. Over the top could be seen the bright outer sky in the
form of a crescent, caused by the curve of a bridge across the rapids,
and the trees above.
Beautiful as was the scene she did not look in that direction. The same
standing-ground afforded another prospect, straight in the front, less
sombre than the water on the right or the trees all around. The avenue