‘Have a tall gentleman named Manston, and a young wife arrived here this evening?’ he asked again, in words which had grown odd to his ears from very familiarity.
‘A new-married couple, did you say?’
‘They are, though I didn’t say so.’
‘They have taken a sitting-room and bedroom, number thirteen.’
‘Are they indoors?’
‘I don’t know. Eliza!’
‘Yes, m’m.’
‘See if number thirteen is in – that gentleman and his wife.’
‘Yes, m’m.’
‘Has any telegram come for them?’ said Edward, when the maid had gone on her errand.
‘No – nothing that I know of.’
‘Somebody did come and ask if a Mr. and Mrs. Masters, or some such name, were here this evening,’ said another voice from the back of the bar-parlour.
‘And did they get the message?’
‘Of course they did not – they were not here – they didn’t come till half-an-hour after that. The man who made inquiries left no message. I told them when they came that they, or a name something like theirs, had been asked for, but they didn’t seem to understand why it should be, and so the matter dropped.’
The chambermaid came back. ‘The gentleman is not in, but the lady is. Who shall I say?’
‘Nobody,’ said Edward. For it now became necessary to reflect upon his method of proceeding. His object in finding their whereabouts – apart from the wish to assist Owen – had been to see Manston, ask him flatly for an explanation, and confirm the request of the message in the presence of Cytherea – so as to prevent the possibility of the steward’s palming off a story upon Cytherea, or eluding her brother when he came. But here were two important modifications of the expected condition of affairs. The telegram had not been received, and Cytherea was in the house alone.
He hesitated as to the propriety of intruding upon her in Manston’s absence. Besides, the women at the bottom of the stairs would see him – his intrusion would seem odd – and Manston might return at any moment. He certainly might call, and wait for Manston with the accusation upon his tongue, as he had intended. But it was a doubtful course. That idea had been based upon the assumption that Cytherea was not married. If the first wife were really dead after all – and he felt sick at the thought – Cytherea as the steward’s wife might in after-years – perhaps, at once – be subjected to indignity and cruelty on account of an old lover’s interference now.
Yes, perhaps the announcement would come most properly and safely for her from her brother Owen, the time of whose arrival had almost expired.
But, on turning round, he saw that the staircase and passage were quite deserted. He and his errand had as completely died from the minds of the attendants as if they had never been. There was absolutely nothing between him and Cytherea’s presence. Reason was powerless now; he must see her – right or wrong, fair or unfair to Manston – offensive to her brother or no. His lips must be the first to tell the alarming story to her. Who loved her as he! He went back lightly through the hall, up the stairs, two at a time, and followed the corridor till he came to the door numbered thirteen.
He knocked softly: nobody answered.
There was no time to lose if he would speak to Cytherea before Manston came. He turned the handle of the door and looked in. The lamp on the table burned low, and showed writing materials open beside it; the chief light came from the fire, the direct rays of which were obscured by a sweet familiar outline of head and shoulders – still as precious to him as ever.
7. A QUARTER-PAST EIGHT O’CLOCK P.M.
There is an attitude – approximatively called pensive – in which the soul of a human being, and especially of a woman, dominates outwardly and expresses its presence so strongly, that the intangible essence seems more apparent than the body itself. This was Cytherea’s expression now. What old days and sunny eves at Budmouth Bay was she picturing? Her reverie had caused her not to notice his knock.
‘Cytherea!’ he said softly.
She let drop her hand, and turned her head, evidently thinking that her visitor could be no other than Manston, yet puzzled at the voice.
There was no preface on Springrove’s tongue; he forgot his position – hers – that he had come to ask quietly if Manston had other proofs of being a widower – everything – and jumped to a conclusion.
‘You are not his wife, Cytherea – come away, he has a wife living!’ he cried in an agitated whisper. ‘Owen will be here directly.’
She started up, recognized the tidings first, the bearer of them afterwards. ‘Not his wife? O, what is it – what – who is living?’ She awoke by degrees. ‘What must I do? Edward, it is you! Why did you come? Where is Owen?’
‘What has Manston shown you in proof of the death of his other wife? Tell me quick.’
‘Nothing – we have never spoken of the subject. Where is my brother Owen? I want him, I want him!’
‘He is coming by-and-by. Come to the station to meet him – do,’ implored Springrove. ‘If Mr. Manston comes, he will keep you from me: I am nobody,’ he added bitterly, feeling the reproach her words had faintly shadowed forth.
‘Mr. Manston is only gone out to post a letter he has just written,’ she said, and without being distinctly cognizant of the action, she wildly looked for her bonnet and cloak, and began putting them on, but in the act of fastening them uttered a spasmodic cry.
‘No, I’ll not go out with you,’ she said, flinging the articles down again. Running to the door she flitted along the passage, and downstairs.
‘Give me a private room – quite private,’ she said breathlessly to some one below.
‘Number twelve is a single room, madam, and unoccupied,’ said some tongue in astonishment.
Without waiting for any person to show her into it, Cytherea hurried upstairs again, brushed through the corridor, entered the room specified, and closed the door. Edward heard her sob out —
‘Nobody but Owen shall speak to me – nobody!’
‘He will be here directly,’ said Springrove, close against the panel, and then went towards the stairs. He had seen her; it was enough.
He descended, stepped into the street, and hastened to meet Owen at the railway-station.
As for the poor maiden who had received the news, she knew not what to think. She listened till the echo of Edward’s footsteps had died away, then bowed her face upon the bed. Her sudden impulse had been to escape from sight. Her weariness after the unwonted strain, mental and bodily, which had been put upon her by the scenes she had passed through during the long day, rendered her much more timid and shaken by her position than she would naturally have been. She thought and thought of that single fact which had been told her – that the first Mrs. Manston was still living – till her brain seemed ready to burst its confinement with excess of throbbing. It was only natural that she should, by degrees, be unable to separate the discovery, which was matter of fact, from the suspicion of treachery on her husband’s part, which was only matter of inference. And thus there arose in her a personal fear of him.
‘Suppose he should come in now and seize me!’ This at first mere frenzied supposition grew by degrees to a definite horror of his presence, and especially of his intense gaze. Thus she raised herself to a heat of excitement, which was none the less real for being vented in no cry of any kind. No; she could not meet Manston’s eye alone, she would only see him in her brother’s company.
Almost delirious with this idea, she ran and locked the door to prevent all possibility of her intentions being nullified, or a look or word being flung at her by anybody whilst she knew not what she was.
8. HALF-PAST EIGHT O’CLOCK P.M.
Then Cytherea felt her way amid the darkness of the room till she came to the head of the bed, where she searched for the bell-rope and gave it a pull. Her summons was speedily answered by the landlady herself, whose curiosity to know the meaning of these strange proceedings knew no bounds. The landlady attempted to turn the handle of the door. Cytherea kept the door locked. ‘Please tell Mr. Manston when he comes that I am ill,’ she said from the inside, ‘and that I cannot see him.’
‘Certainly I will, madam,’ said the landlady. ‘Won’t you have a fire?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Nor a light?’
‘I don’t want one, thank you.’
‘Nor anything?’
‘Nothing.’
The landlady withdrew, thinking her visitor half insane.
Manston came in about five minutes later, and went at once up to the sitting-room, fully expecting to find his wife there. He looked round, rang, and was told the words Cytherea had said, that she was too ill to be seen.
‘She is in number twelve room,’ added the maid.
Manston was alarmed, and knocked at the door. ‘Cytherea!’
‘I am unwell, I cannot see you,’ she said.
‘Are you seriously ill, dearest? Surely not.’
‘No, not seriously.’
‘Let me come in; I will get a doctor.’
‘No, he can’t see me either.’
‘She won’t open the door, sir, not to nobody at all!’ said the chambermaid, with wonder-waiting eyes.
‘Hold your tongue, and be off!’ said Manston with a snap.
The maid vanished.
‘Come, Cytherea, this is foolish – indeed it is – not opening the door… I cannot comprehend what can be the matter with you. Nor can a doctor either, unless he sees you.’
Her voice had trembled more and more at each answer she gave, but nothing could induce her to come out and confront him. Hating scenes, Manston went back to the sitting-room, greatly irritated and perplexed.
And there Cytherea from the adjoining room could hear him pacing up and down. She thought, ‘Suppose he insists upon seeing me – he probably may – and will burst open the door!’ This notion increased, and she sank into a corner in a half-somnolent state, but with ears alive to the slightest sound. Reason could not overthrow the delirious fancy that outside her door stood Manston and all the people in the hotel, waiting to laugh her to scorn.
9. HALF-PAST EIGHT TO ELEVEN P.M.
In the meantime, Springrove was pacing up and down the arrival platform of the railway-station. Half-past eight o’clock – the time at which Owen’s train was due – had come, and passed, but no train appeared.
‘When will the eight-thirty train be in?’ he asked of a man who was sweeping the mud from the steps.
‘She is not expected yet this hour.’
‘How is that?’
‘Christmas-time, you see, ‘tis always so. People are running about to see their friends. The trains have been like it ever since Christmas Eve, and will be for another week yet.’
Edward again went on walking and waiting under the draughty roof. He found it utterly impossible to leave the spot. His mind was so intent upon the importance of meeting with Owen, and informing him of Cytherea’s whereabouts, that he could not but fancy Owen might leave the station unobserved if he turned his back, and become lost to him in the streets of the town.
The hour expired. Ten o’clock struck. ‘When will the train be in?’ said Edward to the telegraph clerk.
‘In five-and-thirty minutes. She’s now at L – . They have extra passengers, and the rails are bad to-day.’
At last, at a quarter to eleven, the train came in.
The first to alight from it was Owen, looking pale and cold. He casually glanced round upon the nearly deserted platform, and was hurrying to the outlet, when his eyes fell upon Edward. At sight of his friend he was quite bewildered, and could not speak.
‘Here I am, Mr. Graye,’ said Edward cheerfully. ‘I have seen Cytherea, and she has been waiting for you these two or three hours.’
Owen took Edward’s hand, pressed it, and looked at him in silence. Such was the concentration of his mind, that not till many minutes after did he think of inquiring how Springrove had contrived to be there before him.
10. ELEVEN O’CLOCK P.M.
On their arrival at the door of the hotel, it was arranged between Springrove and Graye that the latter only should enter, Edward waiting outside. Owen had remembered continually what his friend had frequently overlooked, that there was yet a possibility of his sister being Manston’s wife, and the recollection taught him to avoid any rashness in his proceedings which might lead to bitterness hereafter.
Entering the room, he found Manston sitting in the chair which had been occupied by Cytherea on Edward’s visit, three hours earlier. Before Owen had spoken, Manston arose, and stepping past him closed the door. His face appeared harassed – much more troubled than the slight circumstance which had as yet come to his knowledge seemed to account for.
Manston could form no reason for Owen’s presence, but intuitively linked it with Cytherea’s seclusion. ‘Altogether this is most unseemly,’ he said, ‘whatever it may mean.’
‘Don’t think there is meant anything unfriendly by my coming here,’ said Owen earnestly; ‘but listen to this, and think if I could do otherwise than come.’
He took from his pocket the confession of Chinney the porter, as hastily written out by the vicar, and read it aloud. The aspects of Manston’s face whilst he listened to the opening words were strange, dark, and mysterious enough to have justified suspicions that no deceit could be too complicated for the possessor of such impulses, had there not overridden them all, as the reading went on, a new and irrepressible expression – one unmistakably honest. It was that of unqualified amazement in the steward’s mind at the news he heard. Owen looked up and saw it. The sight only confirmed him in the belief he had held throughout, in antagonism to Edward’s suspicions.
There could no longer be a shadow of doubt that if the first Mrs. Manston lived, her husband was ignorant of the fact. What he could have feared by his ghastly look at first, and now have ceased to fear, it was quite futile to conjecture.
‘Now I do not for a moment doubt your complete ignorance of the whole matter; you cannot suppose for an instant that I do,’ said Owen when he had finished reading. ‘But is it not best for both that Cytherea should come back with me till the matter is cleared up? In fact, under the circumstances, no other course is left open to me than to request it.’
Whatever Manston’s original feelings had been, all in him now gave way to irritation, and irritation to rage. He paced up and down the room till he had mastered it; then said in ordinary tones —
‘Certainly, I know no more than you and others know – it was a gratuitous unpleasantness in you to say you did not doubt me. Why should you, or anybody, have doubted me?’
‘Well, where is my sister?’ said Owen.
‘Locked in the next room.’
His own answer reminded Manston that Cytherea must, by some inscrutable means, have had an inkling of the event.
Owen had gone to the door of Cytherea’s room.
‘Cytherea, darling – ‘tis Owen,’ he said, outside the door. A rustling of clothes, soft footsteps, and a voice saying from the inside, ‘Is it really you, Owen, – is it really?’
‘It is.’
‘O, will you take care of me?’
‘Always.’
She unlocked the door, and retreated again. Manston came forward from the other room with a candle in his hand, as Owen pushed open the door.
Her frightened eyes were unnaturally large, and shone like stars in the darkness of the background, as the light fell upon them. She leapt up to Owen in one bound, her small taper fingers extended like the leaves of a lupine. Then she clasped her cold and trembling hands round his neck and shivered.
The sight of her again kindled all Manston’s passions into activity. ‘She shall not go with you,’ he said firmly, and stepping a pace or two closer, ‘unless you prove that she is not my wife; and you can’t do it!’
‘This is proof,’ said Owen, holding up the paper.
‘No proof at all,’ said Manston hotly. ‘’Tis not a death-bed confession, and those are the only things of the kind held as good evidence.’
‘Send for a lawyer,’ Owen returned, ‘and let him tell us the proper course to adopt.’
‘Never mind the law – let me go with Owen!’ cried Cytherea, still holding on to him. ‘You will let me go with him, won’t you, sir?’ she said, turning appealingly to Manston.
‘We’ll have it all right and square,’ said Manston, with more quietness. ‘I have no objection to your brother sending for a lawyer, if he wants to.’
It was getting on for twelve o’clock, but the proprietor of the hotel had not yet gone to bed on account of the mystery on the first floor, which was an occurrence unusual in the quiet family lodging. Owen looked over the banisters, and saw him standing in the hall. It struck Graye that the wisest course would be to take the landlord to a certain extent into their confidence, appeal to his honour as a gentleman, and so on, in order to acquire the information he wanted, and also to prevent the episode of the evening from becoming a public piece of news. He called the landlord up to where they stood, and told him the main facts of the story.
The landlord was fortunately a quiet, prejudiced man, and a meditative smoker.
‘I know the very man you want to see – the very man,’ he said, looking at the general features of the candle-flame. ‘Sharp as a needle, and not over-rich. Timms will put you all straight in no time – trust Timms for that.’
‘He’s in bed by this time for certain,’ said Owen.
‘Never mind that – Timms knows me, I know him. He’ll oblige me as a personal favour. Wait here a bit. Perhaps, too, he’s up at some party or another – he’s a nice, jovial fellow, sharp as a needle, too; mind you, sharp as a needle, too.’
He went downstairs, put on his overcoat, and left the house, the three persons most concerned entering the room, and standing motionless, awkward, and silent in the midst of it. Cytherea pictured to herself the long weary minutes she would have to stand there, whilst a sleepy man could be prepared for consultation, till the constraint between them seemed unendurable to her – she could never last out the time. Owen was annoyed that Manston had not quietly arranged with him at once; Manston at Owen’s homeliness of idea in proposing to send for an attorney, as if he would be a touchstone of infallible proof.
Reflection was cut short by the approach of footsteps, and in a few moments the proprietor of the hotel entered, introducing his friend. ‘Mr. Timms has not been in bed,’ he said; ‘he had just returned from dining with a few friends, so there’s no trouble given. To save time I explained the matter as we came along.’
It occurred to Owen and Manston both that they might get a misty exposition of the law from Mr. Timms at that moment of concluding dinner with a few friends.
‘As far as I can see,’ said the lawyer, yawning, and turning his vision inward by main force, ‘it is quite a matter for private arrangement between the parties, whoever the parties are – at least at present. I speak more as a father than as a lawyer, it is true, but, let the young lady stay with her father, or guardian, safe out of shame’s way, until the mystery is sifted, whatever the mystery is. Should the evidence prove to be false, or trumped up by anybody to get her away from you, her husband, you may sue them for the damages accruing from the delay.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Manston, who had completely recovered his self-possession and common-sense; ‘let it all be settled by herself.’ Turning to Cytherea he whispered so softly that Owen did not hear the words —
‘Do you wish to go back with your brother, dearest, and leave me here miserable, and lonely, or will you stay with me, your own husband.’
‘I’ll go back with Owen.’
‘Very well.’ He relinquished his coaxing tone, and went on sternly: ‘And remember this, Cytherea, I am as innocent of deception in this thing as you are yourself. Do you believe me?’
‘I do,’ she said.
‘I had no shadow of suspicion that my first wife lived. I don’t think she does even now. Do you believe me?’
‘I believe you,’ she said.
‘And now, good-evening,’ he continued, opening the door and politely intimating to the three men standing by that there was no further necessity for their remaining in his room. ‘In three days I shall claim her.’
The lawyer and the hotel-keeper retired first. Owen, gathering up as much of his sister’s clothing as lay about the room, took her upon his arm, and followed them. Edward, to whom she owed everything, who had been left standing in the street like a dog without a home, was utterly forgotten. Owen paid the landlord and the lawyer for the trouble he had occasioned them, looked to the packing, and went to the door.
A fly, which somewhat unaccountably was seen lingering in front of the house, was called up, and Cytherea’s luggage put upon it.
‘Do you know of any hotel near the station that is open for night arrivals?’ Owen inquired of the driver.
‘A place has been bespoke for you, sir, at the White Unicorn – and the gentleman wished me to give you this.’
‘Bespoken by Springrove, who ordered the fly, of course,’ said Owen to himself. By the light of the street-lamp he read these lines, hurriedly traced in pencil: —
‘I have gone home by the mail-train. It is better for all parties that I should be out of the way. Tell Cytherea that I apologize for having caused her such unnecessary pain, as it seems I did – but it cannot be helped now. E.S.’
Owen handed his sister into the vehicle, and told the flyman to drive on.
‘Poor Springrove – I think we have served him rather badly,’ he said to Cytherea, repeating the words of the note to her.
A thrill of pleasure passed through her bosom as she listened to them. They were the genuine reproach of a lover to his mistress; the trifling coldness of her answer to him would have been noticed by no man who was only a friend. But, in entertaining that sweet thought, she had forgotten herself, and her position for the instant.
Was she still Manston’s wife – that was the terrible supposition, and her future seemed still a possible misery to her. For, on account of the late jarring accident, a life with Manston which would otherwise have been only a sadness, must become a burden of unutterable sorrow.
Then she thought of the misrepresentation and scandal that would ensue if she were no wife. One cause for thankfulness accompanied the reflection; Edward knew the truth.
They soon reached the quiet old inn, which had been selected for them by the forethought of the man who loved her well. Here they installed themselves for the night, arranging to go to Budmouth by the first train the next day.
At this hour Edward Springrove was fast approaching his native county on the wheels of the night-mail.