'Now that her poor baby was gone, the girl blamed herself bitterly for cruelty towards it, and wished she had adopted her parents' counsel to secretly hire a nurse. She longed to see it. She didn't know what to do. She wrote in an assumed name to the woman who had taken it in, and asked her to meet the writer with the infant at certain places she named. These were hotels or coffee-houses in Chelsea, Pimlico, or Hammersmith. The woman, being well paid, always came, and asked no questions. At one meeting--at an inn in Hammersmith--she made her appearance without the child, and told the girl it was so ill that it would not live through the night. The news, and fatigue, brought on a fainting-fit . . .'
Miss Aldclyffe's sobs choked her utterance, and she became painfully agitated. Cytherea, pale and amazed at what she heard, wept for her, bent over her, and begged her not to go on speaking.
'Yes--I must,' she cried, between her sobs. 'I will--I must go on!
And I must tell yet more plainly!. . . you must hear it before I am gone, Cytherea.' The sympathizing and astonished girl sat down again.
'The name of the woman who had taken the child was MANSTON. She was the widow of a schoolmaster. She said she had adopted the child of a relation.
'Only one man ever found out who the mother was. He was the keeper of the inn in which she fainted, and his silence she has purchased ever since.
'A twelvemonth passed--fifteen months--and the saddened girl met a man at her father's house named Graye--your father, Cytherea, then unmarried. Ah, such a man! Inexperience now perceived what it was to be loved in spirit and in truth! But it was too late. Had he known her secret he would have cast her out. She withdrew from him by an effort, and pined.
'Years and years afterwards, when she became mistress of a fortune and estates by her father's death, she formed the weak scheme of having near her the son whom, in her father's life-time, she had been forbidden to recognize. Cytherea, you know who that weak woman is.
. . .
'By such toilsome labour as this I got him here as my steward. And I wanted to see him YOUR HUSBAND, Cytherea!--the husband of my true lover's child. It was a sweet dream to me. . . . Pity me--O, pity me! To die unloved is more than I can bear! I loved your father, and I love him now.'
That was the burden of Cytherea Aldclyffe.
'I suppose you must leave me again--you always leave me,' she said, after holding the young woman's hand a long while in silence.
'No--indeed I'll stay always. Do you like me to stay?'
Miss Aldclyffe in the jaws of death was Miss Aldclyffe still, though the old fire had degenerated to mere phosphorescence now. 'But you are your brother's housekeeper?'
'Yes.'
'Well, of course you cannot stay with me on a sudden like this. . .
Go home, or he will be at a loss for things. And to-morrow morning come again, won't you, dearest, come again--we'll fetch you. But you mustn't stay now, and put Owen out. O no--it would be absurd.'
The absorbing concern about trifles of daily routine, which is so often seen in very sick people, was present here.
Cytherea promised to go home, and come the next morning to stay continuously.
'Stay till I die then, will you not? Yes, till I die--I shan't die till to-morrow.'
'We hope for your recovery--all of us.'
'I know best. Come at six o'clock, darling.'
'As soon as ever I can,' returned Cytherea tenderly.
'But six is too early--you will have to think of your brother's breakfast. Leave Tolchurch at eight, will you?'
Cytherea consented to this. Miss Aldclyffe would never have known had her companion stayed in the house all night; but the honesty of Cytherea's nature rebelled against even the friendly deceit which such a proceeding would have involved.
An arrangement was come to whereby she was to be taken home in the pony-carriage instead of the brougham that fetched her; the carriage to put up at Tolchurch farm for the night, and on that account to be in readiness to bring her back earlier.
4. MARCH THE THIRTIETH. DAYBREAK
The third and last instance of Cytherea's subjection to those periodic terrors of the night which had emphasized her connection with the Aldclyffe name and blood occurred at the present date.
It was about four o'clock in the morning when Cytherea, though most probably dreaming, seemed to awake--and instantly was transfixed by a sort of spell, that had in it more of awe than of affright. At the foot of her bed, looking her in the face with an expression of entreaty beyond the power of words to portray, was the form of Miss Aldclyffe--wan and distinct. No motion was perceptible in her; but longing--earnest longing--was written in every feature.
Cytherea believed she exercised her waking judgment as usual in thinking, without a shadow of doubt, that Miss Aldclyffe stood before her in flesh and blood. Reason was not sufficiently alert to lead Cytherea to ask herself how such a thing could have occurred.
'I would have remained with you--why would you not allow me to stay!' Cytherea exclaimed. The spell was broken: she became broadly awake; and the figure vanished.
It was in the grey time of dawn. She trembled in a sweat of disquiet, and not being able to endure the thought of her brother being asleep, she went and tapped at his door.
'Owen!'
He was not a heavy sleeper, and it was verging upon his time to rise.
'What do you want, Cytherea?'
'I ought not to have left Knapwater last night. I wish I had not.
I really think I will start at once. She wants me, I know.'
'What time is it?'
'A few minutes past four.'
'You had better not. Keep to the time agreed upon. Consider, we should have such a trouble in rousing the driver, and other things.'
Upon the whole it seemed wiser not to act on a mere fancy. She went to bed again.
An hour later, when Owen was thinking of getting up, a knocking came to the front door. The next minute something touched the glass of Owen's window. He waited--the noise was repeated. A little gravel had been thrown against it to arouse him.
He crossed the room, pulled up the blind, and looked out. A solemn white face was gazing upwards from the road, expectantly straining to catch the first glimpse of a person within the panes. It was the face of a Knapwater man sitting on horseback.
Owen saw his errand. There is an unmistakable look in the face of every man who brings tidings of death. Graye opened the window.
'Miss Aldclyffe . . . ' said the messenger, and paused.
'Ah--dead?'
'Yes--she is dead.'
'When did she die?'
'At ten minutes past four, after another effusion. She knew best, you see, sir. I started directly, by the rector's orders.'
