LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Pifh!’

      ‘Don’t let a word be said till the wedden is over, for Heaven’s sake,’ the clerk continued. ‘Miss Aldclyffe would fairly hang and quarter me, if my news broke off that there wedden at a last minute like this.’

      ‘Then you had better get your wife to bolt you in the closet for an hour or two, for you’ll chatter it yourself to the whole boiling parish if she don’t! ’Tis a poor womanly feller!’

      ‘You shouldn’t ha’ begun it, clerk. I knew how ‘twould be,’ said the gardener soothingly, in a whisper to the clerk’s mangled remains.

      The clerk turned and smiled at the fire, and warmed his other hand.

      3. noon

      The weather gave way. In half-an-hour there began a rapid thaw. By ten o’clock the roads, though still dangerous, were practicable to the extent of the half-mile required by the people of Knapwater Park. One mass of heavy leaden cloud spread over the whole sky; the air began to feel damp and mild out of doors, though still cold and frosty within.

      They reached the church and passed up the nave, the deep-coloured glass of the narrow windows rendering the gloom of the morning almost night itself inside the building. Then the ceremony began. The only warmth or spirit imported into it came from the bridegroom, who retained a vigorous — even Spenserian — bridal-mood throughout the morning.

      Cytherea was as firm as he at this critical moment, but as cold as the air surrounding her. The few persons forming the wedding-party were constrained in movement and tone, and from the nave of the church came occasional coughs, emitted by those who, in spite of the weather, had assembled to see the termination of Cytherea’s existence as a single woman. Many poor people loved her. They pitied her success, why, they could not tell, except that it was because she seemed to stand more like a statue than Cytherea Graye.

      Yet she was prettily and carefully dressed; a strange contradiction in a man’s idea of things — a saddening, perplexing contradiction. Are there any points in which a difference of sex amounts to a difference of nature? Then this is surely one. Not so much, as it is commonly put, in regard to the amount of consideration given, but in the conception of the thing considered. A man emasculated by coxcombry may spend more time upon the arrangement of his clothes than any woman, but even then there is no fetichism in his idea of them — they are still only a covering he uses for a time. But here was Cytherea, in the bottom of her heart almost indifferent to life, yet possessing an instinct with which her heart had nothing to do, the instinct to be particularly regardful of those sorry trifles, her robe, her flowers, her veil, and her gloves.

      The irrevocable words were soon spoken — the indelible writing soon written — and they came out of the vestry. Candles had been necessary here to enable them to sign their names, and on their return to the church the light from the candles streamed from the small open door, and across the chancel to a black chestnut screen on the south side, dividing it from a small chapel or chantry, erected for the soul’s peace of some Aldclyffe of the past. Through the open-work of this screen could now be seen illuminated, inside the chantry, the reclining figures of cross-legged knights, damp and green with age, and above them a huge classic monument, also inscribed to the Aldclyffe family, heavily sculptured in cadaverous marble.

      Leaning here — almost hanging to the monument — was Edward Springrove, or his spirit.

      The weak daylight would never have revealed him, shaded as he was by the screen; but the unexpected rays of candle-light in the front showed him forth in startling relief to any and all of those whose eyes wandered in that direction. The sight was a sad one — sad beyond all description. His eyes were wild, their orbits leaden. His face was of a sickly paleness, his hair dry and disordered, his lips parted as if he could get no breath. His figure was spectre-thin. His actions seemed beyond his own control.

      Manston did not see him; Cytherea did. The healing effect upon her heart of a year’s silence — a year and a half’s separation — was undone in an instant. One of those strange revivals of passion by mere sight — commoner in women than in men, and in oppressed women commonest of all — had taken place in her — so transcendently, that even to herself it seemed more like a new creation than a revival.

      Marrying for a home — what a mockery it was!

      It may be said that the means most potent for rekindling old love in a maiden’s heart are, to see her lover in laughter and good spirits in her despite when the breach has been owing to a slight from herself; when owing to a slight from him, to see him suffering for his own fault. If he is happy in a clear conscience, she blames him; if he is miserable because deeply to blame, she blames herself. The latter was Cytherea’s case now.

      First, an agony of face told of the suppressed misery within her, which presently could be suppressed no longer. When they were coming out of the porch, there broke from her in a low plaintive scream the words, ‘He’s dying — dying! O God, save us!’ She began to sink down, and would have fallen had not Manston caught her. The chief bridesmaid applied her vinaigrette.

      ‘What did she say?’ inquired Manston.

      Owen was the only one to whom the words were intelligible, and he was far too deeply impressed, or rather alarmed, to reply. She did not faint, and soon began to recover her self-command. Owen took advantage of the hindrance to step back to where the apparition had been seen. He was enraged with Springrove for what he considered an unwarrantable intrusion.

      But Edward was not in the chantry. As he had come, so he had gone, nobody could tell how or whither.

      4. Afternoon

      It might almost have been believed that a transmutation had taken place in Cytherea’s idiosyncrasy, that her moral nature had fled.

      The wedding-party returned to the house. As soon as he could find an opportunity, Owen took his sister aside to speak privately with her on what had happened. The expression of her face was hard, wild, and unreal — an expression he had never seen there before, and it disturbed him. He spoke to her severely and sadly.

      ‘Cytherea,’ he said, ‘I know the cause of this emotion of yours. But remember this, there was no excuse for it. You should have been woman enough to control yourself. Remember whose wife you are, and don’t think anything more of a mean-spirited fellow like Springrove; he had no business to come there as he did. You are altogether wrong, Cytherea, and I am vexed with you more than I can say — very vexed.’

      ‘Say ashamed of me at once,’ she bitterly answered.

      ‘I am ashamed of you,’ he retorted angrily; ‘the mood has not left you yet, then?’

      ‘Owen,’ she said, and paused. Her lip trembled; her eye told of sensations too deep for tears. ‘No, Owen, it has not left me; and I will be honest. I own now to you, without any disguise of words, what last night I did not own to myself, because I hardly knew of it. I love Edward Springrove with all my strength, and heart, and soul. You call me a wanton for it, don’t you? I don’t care; I have gone beyond caring for anything!’ She looked stonily into his face and made the speech calmly.

      ‘Well, poor Cytherea, don’t talk like that!’ he said, alarmed at her manner.

      ‘I thought that I did not love him at all,’ she went on hysterically. ‘A year and a half had passed since we met. I could go by the gate of his garden without thinking of him — look at his seat in church and not care. But I saw him this morning — dying because he loves me so — I know it is that! Can I help loving him too? No, I cannot, and I will love him, and I don’t care! We have been separated somehow by some contrivance — I know we have. O, if I could only die!’

      He held her in his arms. ‘Many a woman has gone to ruin herself,’ he said, ‘and brought those who love her into disgrace, by acting upon such impulses as possess you now. I have a reputation to lose as well as you. It seems that do what I will by way of remedying the stains which fell upon

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