by Thomas Hardy
‘She recovered, rested there for an hour, and first sending off her companion peremptorily (which was another odd thing), she left the house, offering the landlord all the money she had to say nothing about the circumstance. He has never seen her since, according to his own account. I said to him again and again, “Did you find any more particulars afterwards?” “Not a syllable,” he said. O, he should never hear any more of that! too many years had passed since it happened. “At any rate, you found out her surname?” I said. “Well, well, that’s my secret,” he went on. “Perhaps I should never have been in this part of the world if it hadn’t been for that. I failed as a publican, you know.” I imagine the situation of gateman was given him and his debts paid off as a bribe to silence; but I can’t say. “Ah, yes!” he said, with a long breath. “I have never heard that name mentioned since that time till to-night, and then there instantly rose to my eyes the vision of that young lady lying in a fainting fit.” He then stopped talking and fell asleep. Telling the story must have relieved him as it did the Ancient Mariner, for he did not move a muscle or make another sound for the remainder of the night. Now isn’t that an odd story?’
‘It is indeed,’ Cytherea murmured. ‘Very, very strange.’
‘Why should she have said your most uncommon name?’ continued Owen. ‘The man was evidently truthful, for there was not motive sufficient for his invention of such a tale, and he could not have done it either.’
Cytherea looked long at her brother. ‘Don’t you recognize anything else in connection with the story?’ she said.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Do you remember what poor papa once let drop — that Cytherea was the name of his first sweetheart in Bloomsbury, who so mysteriously renounced him? A sort of intuition tells me that this was the same woman.’
‘O no — not likely,’ said her brother sceptically.
‘How not likely, Owen? There’s not another woman of the name in England. In what year used papa to say the event took place?’
‘Eighteen hundred and thirty-five.’
‘And when were the Houses of Parliament burnt? — stop, I can tell you.’ She searched their little stock of books for a list of dates, and found one in an old school history.
‘The Houses of Parliament were burnt down in the evening of the sixteenth of October, eighteen hundred and thirty-four.’
‘Nearly a year and a quarter before she met father,’ remarked Owen.
They were silent. ‘If papa had been alive, what a wonderful absorbing interest this story would have had for him,’ said Cytherea by-and-by. ‘And how strangely knowledge comes to us. We might have searched for a clue to her secret half the world over, and never found one. If we had really had any motive for trying to discover more of the sad history than papa told us, we should have gone to Bloomsbury; but not caring to do so, we go two hundred miles in the opposite direction, and there find information waiting to be told us. What could have been the secret, Owen?’
‘Heaven knows. But our having heard a little more of her in this way (if she is the same woman) is a mere coincidence after all — a family story to tell our friends if we ever have any. But we shall never know any more of the episode now — trust our fates for that.’
Cytherea sat silently thinking.
‘There was no answer this morning to your advertisement, Cytherea?’ he continued.
‘None.’
‘I could see that by your looks when I came in.’
‘Fancy not getting a single one,’ she said sadly. ‘Surely there must be people somewhere who want governesses?’
‘Yes; but those who want them, and can afford to have them, get them mostly by friends’ recommendations; whilst those who want them, and can’t afford to have them, make use of their poor relations.’
‘What shall I do?’
‘Never mind it. Go on living with me. Don’t let the difficulty trouble your mind so; you think about it all day. I can keep you, Cythie, in a plain way of living. Twenty-five shillings a week do not amount to much truly; but then many mechanics have no more, and we live quite as sparingly as journeymen mechanics... It is a meagre narrow life we are drifting into,’ he added gloomily, ‘but it is a degree more tolerable than the worrying sensation of all the world being ashamed of you, which we experienced at Hocbridge.’
‘I couldn’t go back there again,’ she said.
‘Nor I. O, I don’t regret our course for a moment. We did quite right in dropping out of the world.’ The sneering tones of the remark were almost too laboured to be real. ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘something better for me is sure to turn up soon. I wish my engagement here was a permanent one instead of for only two months. It may, certainly, be for a longer time, but all is uncertain.’
‘I wish I could get something to do; and I must too,’ she said firmly. ‘Suppose, as is very probable, you are not wanted after the beginning of October — the time Mr. Gradfield mentioned — what should we do if I were dependent on you only throughout the winter?’
They pondered on numerous schemes by which a young lady might be supposed to earn a decent livelihood — more or less convenient and feasible in imagination, but relinquished them all until advertising had been once more tried, this time taking lower ground. Cytherea was vexed at her temerity in having represented to the world that so inexperienced a being as herself was a qualified governess; and had a fancy that this presumption of hers might be one reason why no ladies applied. The new and humbler attempt appeared in the following form: —
‘NURSERY GOVERNESS OR USEFUL COMPANION. A young person wishes to
hear of a situation in either of the above capacities. Salary very
moderate. She is a good needle-woman — Address G., 3 Cross Street,
Budmouth.’
In the evening they went to post the letter, and then walked up and down the Parade for a while. Soon they met Springrove, said a few words to him, and passed on. Owen noticed that his sister’s face had become crimson. Rather oddly they met Springrove again in a few minutes. This time the three walked a little way together, Edward ostensibly talking to Owen, though with a single thought to the reception of his words by the maiden at the farther side, upon whom his gaze was mostly resting, and who was attentively listening — looking fixedly upon the pavement the while. It has been said that men love with their eyes; women with their ears.
As Owen and himself were little more than acquaintances as yet, and as Springrove was wanting in the assurance of many men of his age, it now became necessary to wish his friends good-evening, or to find a reason for continuing near Cytherea by saying some nice new thing. He thought of a new thing; he proposed a pull across the bay. This was assented to. They went to the pier; stepped into one of the gaily painted boats moored alongside and sheered off. Cytherea sat in the stern steering.
They rowed that evening; the next came, and with it the necessity of rowing again. Then the next, and the next, Cytherea always sitting in the stern with the tiller ropes in her hand. The curves of her figure welded with those of the fragile boat in perfect continuation, as she girlishly yielded herself to its heaving and sinking, seeming to form with it an organic whole.
Then Owen was inclined to test his skill in paddling a canoe. Edward did not like canoes, and the issue was, that, having seen Owen on board, Springrove proposed to pull off after him with a pair of sculls; but not considering himself sufficiently accomplished to do finished rowing before a parade full of promenaders when there was a little swell on, and with the rudder unshipped in addition, he begged that Cytherea might come with him and steer as before. She stepped in, and they floated along in the wake of her brother. Thus passed the fifth evening on the water.
But the sympathetic pair were thrown into still closer companionship, and much more exclusive connection.
2. JULY THE TWENTY-NINTH
It was a sad time for Cytherea — the last day of Springrove’s management at Gradfield’s, and the last evening before his return
from Budmouth to his father’s house, previous to his departure for London.
Graye had been requested by the architect to survey a plot of land nearly twenty miles off, which, with the journey to and fro, would occupy him the whole day, and prevent his returning till late in the evening. Cytherea made a companion of her landlady to the extent of sharing meals and sitting with her during the morning of her brother’s absence. Mid-day found her restless and miserable under this arrangement. All the afternoon she sat alone, looking out of the window for she scarcely knew whom, and hoping she scarcely knew what. Half-past five o’clock came — the end of Springrove’s official day. Two minutes later Springrove walked by.
She endured her solitude for another half-hour, and then could endure no longer. She had hoped — while affecting to fear — that Edward would have found some reason or other for calling, but it seemed that he had not. Hastily dressing herself she went out, when the farce of an accidental meeting was repeated. Edward came upon her in the street at the first turning, and, like the Great Duke Ferdinand in ‘The Statue and the Bust’ —
‘He looked at her as a lover can;
She looked at him as one who awakes —
The past was a sleep, and her life began.’
‘Shall we have a boat?’ he said impulsively.
How blissful it all is at first. Perhaps, indeed, the only bliss in the course of love which can truly be called Eden-like is that which prevails immediately after doubt has ended and before reflection has set in — at the dawn of the emotion, when it is not recognized by name, and before the consideration of what this love is, has given birth to the consideration of what difficulties it tends to create; when on the man’s part, the mistress appears to the mind’s eye in picturesque, hazy, and fresh morning lights, and soft morning shadows; when, as yet, she is known only as the wearer of one dress, which shares her own personality; as the stander in one special position, the giver of one bright particular glance, and the speaker of one tender sentence; when, on her part, she is timidly careful over what she says and does, lest she should be misconstrued or under-rated to the breadth of a shadow of a hair.
‘Shall we have a boat?’ he said again, more softly, seeing that to his first question she had not answered, but looked uncertainly at the ground, then almost, but not quite, in his face, blushed a series of minute blushes, left off in the midst of them, and showed the usual signs of perplexity in a matter of the emotions.
Owen had always been with her before, but there was now a force of habit in the proceeding, and with Arcadian innocence she assumed that a row on the water was, under any circumstances, a natural thing. Without another word being spoken on either side, they went down the steps. He carefully handed her in, took his seat, slid noiselessly off the sand, and away from the shore.
They thus sat facing each other in the graceful yellow cockle-shell, and his eyes frequently found a resting-place in the depths of hers. The boat was so small that at each return of the sculls, when his hands came forward to begin the pull, they approached so near to her that her vivid imagination began to thrill her with a fancy that he was going to clasp his arms round her. The sensation grew so strong that she could not run the risk of again meeting his eyes at those critical moments, and turned aside to inspect the distant horizon; then she grew weary of looking sideways, and was driven to return to her natural position again. At this instant he again leant forward to begin, and met her glance by an ardent fixed gaze. An involuntary impulse of girlish embarrassment caused her to give a vehement pull at the tiller-rope, which brought the boat’s head round till they stood directly for shore.
His eyes, which had dwelt upon her form during the whole time of her look askance, now left her; he perceived the direction in which they were going.
‘Why, you have completely turned the boat, Miss Graye?’ he said, looking over his shoulder. ‘Look at our track on the water — a great semicircle, preceded by a series of zigzags as far as we can see.’
She looked attentively. ‘Is it my fault or yours?’ she inquired. ‘Mine, I suppose?’
‘I can’t help saying that it is yours.’
She dropped the ropes decisively, feeling the slightest twinge of vexation at the answer.
‘Why do you let go?’
‘I do it so badly.’
‘O no; you turned about for shore in a masterly way. Do you wish to return?’
‘Yes, if you please.’
‘Of course, then, I will at once.’
‘I fear what the people will think of us — going in such absurd directions, and all through my wretched steering.’
‘Never mind what the people think.’ A pause. ‘You surely are not so weak as to mind what the people think on such a matter as that?’
Those words might almost be called too firm and hard to be given by him to her; but never mind. For almost the first time in her life she felt the charming sensation, although on such an insignificant subject, of being compelled into an opinion by a man she loved. Owen, though less yielding physically, and more practical, would not have had the intellectual independence to answer a woman thus. She replied quietly and honestly — as honestly as when she had stated the contrary fact a minute earlier —
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I’ll unship the tiller that you may have nothing to do going back but to hold your parasol,’ he continued, and arose to perform the operation, necessarily leaning closely against her, to guard against the risk of capsizing the boat as he reached his hands astern. His warm breath touched and crept round her face like a caress; but he was apparently only concerned with his task. She looked guilty of something when he seated himself. He read in her face what that something was — she had experienced a pleasure from his touch. But he flung a practical glance over his shoulder, seized the oars, and they sped in a straight line towards the shore.
Cytherea saw that he noted in her face what had passed in her heart, and that noting it, he continued as decided as before. She was inwardly distressed. She had not meant him to translate her words about returning home so literally at the first; she had not intended him to learn her secret; but more than all she was not able to endure the perception of his learning it and continuing unmoved.
There was nothing but misery to come now. They would step ashore; he would say good-night, go to London to-morrow, and the miserable She would lose him for ever. She did not quite suppose what was the fact, that a parallel thought was simultaneously passing through his mind.
They were now within ten yards, now within five; he was only now waiting for a ‘smooth’ to bring the boat in. Sweet, sweet Love must not be slain thus, was the fair maid’s reasoning. She was equal to the occasion — ladies are — and delivered the god —
‘Do you want very much to land, Mr. Springrove?’ she said, letting her young violet eyes pine at him a very, very little.
‘I? Not at all,’ said he, looking an astonishment at her inquiry which a slight twinkle of his eye half belied. ‘But you do?’
‘I think that now we have come out, and it is such a pleasant evening,’ she said gently and sweetly, ‘I should like a little longer row if you don’t mind? I’ll try to steer better than before if it makes it easier for you. I’ll try very hard.’
It was the turn of his face to tell a tale now. He looked, ‘We understand each other — ah, we do, darling!’ turned the boat, and pulled back into the Bay once more.
‘Now steer wherever you will,’ he said, in a low voice. ‘Never mind the directness of the course — wherever you will.’
‘Shall it be Creston Shore?’ she said, pointing to a stretch of beach northward from Budmouth Esplanade.
‘Creston Shore certainly,’ he responded, grasping the sculls. She took the strings daintily, and they wound away to the left.
For a long time nothing was audible in the boat but the regular dip of the oars, and their movement in the rowlocks. Springrove at length spoke.
‘I must go away to-morrow,’ he said tent
atively.
‘Yes,’ she replied faintly.
‘To endeavour to advance a little in my profession in London.’
‘Yes,’ she said again, with the same preoccupied softness.
‘But I shan’t advance.’
‘Why not? Architecture is a bewitching profession. They say that an architect’s work is another man’s play.’
‘Yes. But worldly advantage from an art doesn’t depend upon mastering it. I used to think it did; but it doesn’t. Those who get rich need have no skill at all as artists.’
‘What need they have?’
‘A certain kind of energy which men with any fondness for art possess very seldom indeed — an earnestness in making acquaintances, and a love for using them. They give their whole attention to the art of dining out, after mastering a few rudimentary facts to serve up in conversation. Now after saying that, do I seem a man likely to make a name?’
‘You seem a man likely to make a mistake.’
‘What’s that?’
‘To give too much room to the latent feeling which is rather common in these days among the unappreciated, that because some remarkably successful men are fools, all remarkably unsuccessful men are geniuses.’
‘Pretty subtle for a young lady,’ he said slowly. ‘From that remark I should fancy you had bought experience.’
She passed over the idea. ‘Do try to succeed,’ she said, with wistful thoughtfulness, leaving her eyes on him.
Springrove flushed a little at the earnestness of her words, and mused. ‘Then, like Cato the Censor, I shall do what I despise, to be in the fashion,’ he said at last... ‘Well, when I found all this out that I was speaking of, what ever do you think I did? From having already loved verse passionately, I went on to read it continually; then I went rhyming myself. If anything on earth ruins a man for useful occupation, and for content with reasonable success in a profession or trade, it is the habit of writing verses on emotional subjects, which had much better be left to die from want of nourishment.’