4. TEN TO TWELVE O'CLOCK A.M.
815 Words
4. TEN TO TWELVE O'CLOCK A.M.A quarter of an hour might have passed when her thoughts became
attracted from the past to the present by unwonted movements
downstairs. She opened the door and listened.
There were hurryings along passages, opening and shutting of
doors, trampling in the stable-yard. She went across into another
bedroom, from which a view of the stable-yard could be obtained,
and arrived there just in time to see the figure of the man who had
driven her from the station vanishing down the coach-road on a
black horse—galloping at the top of the animal's speed.
Another man went off in the direction of the village.
Whatever had occurred, it did not seem to be her duty to inquire
or meddle with it, stranger and dependent as she was, unless she
were requested to, especially after Miss Aldclyffe's strict charge
to her. She sat down again, determined to let no idle curiosity
influence her movements.
Her window commanded the front of the house; and the next thing
she saw was a clergyman walk up and enter the door.
All was silent again till, a long time after the first man had
left, he returned again on the same horse, now matted with sweat
and trotting behind a carriage in which sat an elderly gentleman
driven by a lad in livery. These came to the house, entered, and
all was again the same as before.
The whole household—master, mistress, and servants—appeared to
have forgotten the very existence of such a being as Cytherea. She
almost wished she had not vowed to have no idle curiosity.
Half-an-hour later, the carriage drove off with the elderly
gentleman, and two or three messengers left the house, speeding in
various directions. Rustics in smock-frocks began to hang about the
road opposite the house, or lean against trees, looking idly at the
windows and chimneys.
A tap came to Cytherea's door. She opened it to a young
maid-servant.
'Miss Aldclyffe wishes to see you, ma'am.' Cytherea hastened
down.
Miss Aldclyffe was standing on the hearthrug, her elbow on the
mantel, her hand to her temples, her eyes on the ground; perfectly
calm, but very pale.
'Cytherea,' she said in a whisper, 'come here.'
Cytherea went close.
'Something very serious has taken place,' she said again, and
then paused, with a tremulous movement of her mouth.
'Yes,' said Cytherea.
'My father. He was found dead in his bed this morning.'
'Dead!' echoed the younger woman. It seemed impossible that the
announcement could be true; that knowledge of so great a fact could
be contained in a statement so small.
'Yes, dead,' murmured Miss Aldclyffe solemnly. 'He died alone,
though within a few feet of me. The room we slept in is exactly
over his own.'
Cytherea said hurriedly, 'Do they know at what hour?'
'The doctor says it must have been between two and three o'clock
this morning.'
'Then I heard him!'
'Heard him?'
'Heard him die!'
'You heard him die? What did you hear?'
'A sound I heard once before in my life—at the deathbed of my
mother. I could not identify it—though I recognized it. Then the
dog howled: you remarked it. I did not think it worth while to tell
you what I had heard a little earlier.' She looked agonized.
'It would have been useless,' said Miss Aldclyffe. 'All was over
by that time.' She addressed herself as much as Cytherea when she
continued, 'Is it a Providence who sent you here at this juncture
that I might not be left entirely alone?'
Till this instant Miss Aldclyffe had forgotten the reason of
Cytherea's seclusion in her own room. So had Cytherea herself. The
fact now recurred to both in one moment.
'Do you still wish to go?' said Miss Aldclyffe anxiously.
'I don't want to go now,' Cytherea had remarked simultaneously
with the other's question. She was pondering on the strange
likeness which Miss Aldclyffe's bereavement bore to her own; it had
the appearance of being still another call to her not to forsake
this woman so linked to her life, for the sake of any trivial
vexation.
Miss Aldclyffe held her almost as a lover would have held her,
and said musingly—
'We get more and more into one groove. I now am left fatherless
and motherless as you were.' Other ties lay behind in her thoughts,
but she did not mention them.
'You loved your father, Cytherea, and wept for him?'
'Yes, I did. Poor papa!'
'I was always at variance with mine, and can't weep for him now!
But you must stay here always, and make a better woman of me.'
The compact was thus sealed, and Cytherea, in spite of the
failure of her advertisements, was installed as a veritable
Companion. And, once more in the history of human endeavour, a
position which it was impossible to reach by any direct attempt,
was come to by the seeker's swerving from the path, and regarding
the original object as one of secondary importance.
Chapter 7
THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN DAYS
- Writer
