1. MARCH THE SIXTH
The next morning the opening move of the game was made. Cytherea, under cover of a thick veil, hired a conveyance and drove to within a mile or so of Carriford. It was with a renewed sense of depression that she saw again the objects which had become familiar to her eye during her sojourn under Miss Aldclyffe's roof--the outline of the hills, the meadow streams, the old park trees. She hastened by a lonely path to the rectory-house, and asked if Mr. Raunham was at home.
Now the rector, though a solitary bachelor, was as gallant and
courteous to womankind as an ancient Iberian; and, moreover, he was
Cytherea's friend in particular, to an extent far greater than she
had ever surmised. Rarely visiting his relative, Miss Aldclyffe, except on parish matters, more rarely still being called upon by Miss Aldclyffe, Cytherea had learnt very little of him whilst she lived at Knapwater. The relationship was on the impecunious paternal side, and for this branch of her family the lady of the estate had never evinced much sympathy. In looking back upon our line of descent it is an instinct with us to feel that all our vitality was drawn from the richer party to any unequal marriage in the chain.
Since the death of the old captain, the rector's bearing in
Knapwater House had been almost that of a stranger, a circumstance
which he himself was the last man in the world to regret. This
polite indifference was so frigid on both sides that the rector did
not concern himself to preach at her, which was a great deal in a
rector; and she did not take the trouble to think his sermons poor
stuff, which in a cynical woman was a great deal more.
Though barely fifty years of age, his hair was as white as snow, contrasting strangely with the redness of his skin, which was as fresh and healthy as a lad's. Cytherea's bright eyes, mutely and demurely glancing up at him Sunday after Sunday, had been the means of driving away many of the saturnine humours that creep into an empty heart during the hours of a solitary life; in this case, however, to supplant them, when she left his parish, by those others of a more aching nature which accompany an over-full one. In short, he had been on the verge of feeling towards her that passion to which his dignified self-respect would not give its true name, even in the privacy of his own thought.
He received her kindly; but she was not disposed to be frank with
him. He saw her wish to be reserved, and with genuine good taste
and good nature made no comment whatever upon her request to be
allowed to see the Chronicle for the year before the last. He
placed the papers before her on his study table, with a timidity as
great as her own, and then left her entirely to herself.
She turned them over till she came to the first heading connected
with the subject of her search--'Disastrous Fire and Loss of Life at
Carriford.'
The sight, and its calamitous bearing upon her own life, made her so
dizzy that she could, for a while, hardly decipher the letters. Stifling recollection by an effort she nerved herself to her work, and carefully read the column. The account reminded her of no other fact than was remembered already.
She turned on to the following week's report of the inquest. After
a miserable perusal she could find no more pertaining to Mrs. Manston's address than this:--
'ABRAHAM BROWN, of Hoxton, London, at whose house the deceased woman
had been living, deposed,' etc.
Nobody else from London had attended the inquest. She arose to
depart, first sending a message of thanks to Mr. Raunham, who was
out of doors gardening.
He stuck his spade into the ground, and accompanied her to the gate.
'Can I help you in anything, Cytherea?' he said, using her Christian
name by an intuition that unpleasant memories might be revived if he
called her Miss Graye after wishing her good-bye as Mrs. Manston at
the wedding. Cytherea saw the motive and appreciated it, nevertheless replying evasively--
'I only guess and fear.'
He earnestly looked at her again.
'Promise me that if you want assistance, and you think I can give
it, you will come to me.'
'I will,' she said.
The gate closed between them.
'You don't want me to help you in anything now, Cytherea?' he
repeated.