5. SIX TO SEVEN P.M.
The wet shining road threw the western glare into her eyes with an
invidious lustre which rendered the restlessness of her mood more
wearying. Her thoughts flew from idea to idea without asking for
the slightest link of connection between one and another. One
moment she was full of the wild music and stirring scene with
Manston---the next, Edward's image rose before her like a shadowy
ghost. Then Manston's black eyes seemed piercing her again, and the
reckless voluptuous mouth appeared bending to the curves of his
special words. What could be those troubles to which he had
alluded? Perhaps Miss Aldclyffe was at the bottom of them. Sad at
heart she paced on: her life was bewildering her.
On coming into Miss Aldclyffe's presence Cytherea told her of the
incident, not without a fear that she would burst into one of her
ungovernable fits of temper at learning Cytherea's slight departure
from the programme. But, strangely to Cytherea, Miss Aldclyffe
looked delighted. The usual cross-examination followed.
'And so you were with him all that time?' said the lady, with
assumed severity.
'Yes, I was.'
'I did not tell you to call at the Old House twice.'
'I didn't call, as I have said. He made me come into the porch.'
'What remarks did he make, do you say?'
'That the lightning was not so bad as I thought.'
'A very important remark, that. Did he--' she turned her glance
full upon the girl, and eyeing her searchingly, said--
'Did he say anything about _me_?'
'Nothing,' said Cytherea, returning her gaze calmly, 'except that I
was to give you the subscription.'
'You are quite sure?'
'Quite.'
'I believe you. Did he say anything striking or strange about
himself?'
'Only one thing--that he was troubled,'
'Troubled!'
After saying the word, Miss Aldclyffe relapsed into silence. Such
behaviour as this had ended, on most previous occasions, by her
making a confession, and Cytherea expected one now. But for once
she was mistaken, nothing more was said.
When she had returned to her room she sat down and penned a farewell
letter to Edward Springrove, as little able as any other excitable
and brimming young woman of nineteen to feel that the wisest and
only dignified course at that juncture was to do nothing at all. She told him that, to her painful surprise, she had learnt that his engagement to another woman was a matter of notoriety. She insisted that all honour bade him marry his early love--a woman far better than her unworthy self, who only deserved to be forgotten, and begged him to remember that he was not to see her face again. She upbraided him for levity and cruelty in meeting her so frequently at Budmouth, and above all in stealing the kiss from her lips on the last evening of the water excursions. 'I never, never can forget it!' she said, and then felt a sensation of having done her duty, ostensibly persuading herself that her reproaches and commands were of such a force that no man to whom they were uttered could ever approach her more.
Yet it was all unconsciously said in words which betrayed a
lingering tenderness of love at every unguarded turn. Like Beatrice
accusing Dante from the chariot, try as she might to play the
superior being who contemned such mere eye-sensuousness, she
betrayed at every point a pretty woman's jealousy of a rival, and
covertly gave her old lover hints for excusing himself at each fresh
indictment.
This done, Cytherea, still in a practical mood, upbraided herself
with weakness in allowing a stranger like Mr. Manston to influence
her as he had done that evening. What right on earth had he to
suggest so suddenly that she might meet him at the waterfall to
receive his music? She would have given much to be able to
annihilate the ascendency he had obtained over her during that
extraordinary interval of melodious sound. Not being able to endure
the notion of his living a minute longer in the belief he was then
holding, she took her pen and wrote to him also:--
'KNAPWATER HOUSE
September 20th.
'I find I cannot meet you at seven o'clock by the waterfall as I
promised. The emotion I felt made me forgetful of realities.