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4. JULY THE TWENTY-FIRST

4. JULY THE TWENTY-FIRSTA very popular local excursion by steamboat to Lulstead Cove was

announced through the streets of Budmouth one Thursday morning by

the weak-voiced town-crier, to start at six o'clock the same day.

The weather was lovely, and the opportunity being the first of the

kind offered to them, Owen and Cytherea went with the rest.

They had reached the Cove, and had walked landward for nearly an

hour over the hill which rose beside the strand, when Graye

recollected that two or three miles yet further inland from this

spot was an interesting mediaeval ruin. He was already familiar

with its characteristics through the medium of an archaeological

work, and now finding himself so close to the reality, felt

inclined to verify some theory he had formed respecting it.

Concluding that there would be just sufficient time for him to go

there and return before the boat had left the shore, he parted from

Cytherea on the hill, struck downwards, and then up a heathery

valley.

She remained on the summit where he had left her till the time

of his expected return, scanning the details of the prospect

around. Placidly spread out before her on the south was the open

Channel, reflecting a blue intenser by many shades than that of the

sky overhead, and dotted in the foreground by half-a-dozen small

craft of contrasting rig, their sails graduating in hue from

extreme whiteness to reddish brown, the varying actual colours

varied again in a double degree by the rays of the declining

sun.

Presently the distant bell from the boat was heard, warning the

passengers to embark. This was followed by a lively air from the

harps and violins on board, their tones, as they arose, becoming

intermingled with, though not marred by, the brush of the waves

when their crests rolled over—at the point where the check of the

shallows was first felt—and then thinned away up the slope of

pebbles and sand.

She turned her face landward and strained her eyes to discern,

if possible, some sign of Owen's return. Nothing was visible save

the strikingly brilliant, still landscape. The wide concave which

lay at the back of the hill in this direction was blazing with the

western light, adding an orange tint to the vivid purple of the

heather, now at the very c****x of bloom, and free from the

slightest touch of the invidious brown that so soon creeps into its

shades. The light so intensified the colours that they seemed to

stand above the surface of the earth and float in mid-air like an

exhalation of red. In the minor valleys, between the hillocks and

ridges which diversified the contour of the basin, but did not

disturb its general sweep, she marked brakes of tall, heavy-stemmed

ferns, five or six feet high, in a brilliant light-green dress—a

broad riband of them with the path in their midst winding like a

stream along the little ravine that reached to the foot of the

hill, and delivered up the path to its grassy area. Among the ferns

grew holly bushes deeper in tint than any shadow about them, whilst

the whole surface of the scene was dimpled with small conical pits,

and here and there were round ponds, now dry, and half overgrown

with rushes.

The last bell of the steamer rang. Cytherea had forgotten

herself, and what she was looking for. In a fever of distress lest

Owen should be left behind, she gathered up in her hand the corners

of her handkerchief, containing specimens of the shells, plants,

and fossils which the locality produced, started off to the sands,

and mingled with the knots of visitors there congregated from other

interesting points around; from the inn, the cottages, and hired

conveyances that had returned from short drives inland. They all

went aboard by the primitive plan of a narrow plank on two

wheels—the women being assisted by a rope. Cytherea lingered till

the very last, reluctant to follow, and looking alternately at the

boat and the valley behind. Her delay provoked a remark from

Captain Jacobs, a thickset man of hybrid stains, resulting from the

mixed effects of fire and water, peculiar to sailors where engines

are the propelling power.

'Now then, missy, if you please. I am sorry to tell 'ee our

time's up. Who are you looking for, miss?'

'My brother—he has walked a short distance inland; he must be

here directly. Could you wait for him—just a minute?'

'Really, I am afraid not, m'm.' Cytherea looked at the stout,

round-faced man, and at the vessel, with a light in her eyes so

expressive of her own opinion being the same, on reflection, as

his, and with such resignation, too, that, from an instinctive

feeling of pride at being able to prove himself more humane than he

was thought to be—works of supererogation are the only sacrifices

that entice in this way—and that at a very small cost, he delayed

the boat till some among the passengers began to murmur.

'There, never mind,' said Cytherea decisively. 'Go on without

me—I shall wait for him.'

'Well, 'tis a very awkward thing to leave you here all alone,'

said the captain. 'I certainly advise you not to wait.'

'He's gone across to the railway station, for certain,' said

another passenger.

'No—here he is!' Cytherea said, regarding, as she spoke, the

half hidden figure of a man who was seen advancing at a headlong

pace down the ravine which lay between the heath and the shore.

'He can't get here in less than five minutes,' a passenger said.

'People should know what they are about, and keep time. Really,

if—'

'You see, sir,' said the captain, in an apologetic undertone,

'since 'tis her brother, and she's all alone, 'tis only nater to

wait a minute, now he's in sight. Suppose, now, you were a young

woman, as might be, and had a brother, like this one, and you stood

of an evening upon this here wild lonely shore, like her, why you'd

want us to wait, too, wouldn't you, sir? I think you would.'

The person so hastily approaching had been lost to view during

this remark by reason of a hollow in the ground, and the projecting

cliff immediately at hand covered the path in its rise. His

footsteps were now heard striking sharply upon the flinty road at a

distance of about twenty or thirty yards, but still behind the

escarpment. To save time, Cytherea prepared to ascend the

plank.

'Let me give you my hand, miss,' said Captain Jacobs.

'No—please don't touch me,' said she, ascending cautiously by

sliding one foot forward two or three inches, bringing up the other

behind it, and so on alternately—her lips compressed by

concentration on the feat, her eyes glued to the plank, her hand to

the rope, and her immediate thought to the fact of the distressing

narrowness of her footing. Steps now shook the lower end of the

board, and in an instant were up to her heels with a bound.

'O, Owen, I am so glad you are come!' she said without turning.

'Don't, don't shake the plank or touch me, whatever you do… .

There, I am up. Where have you been so long?' she continued, in a

lower tone, turning round to him as she reached the top.

Raising her eyes from her feet, which, standing on the firm

deck, demanded her attention no longer, she acquired perceptions of

the new-comer in the following order: unknown trousers; unknown

waistcoat; unknown face. The man was not her brother, but a total

stranger.

Off went the plank; the paddles started, stopped, backed,

pattered in confusion, then revolved decisively, and the boat

passed out into deep water.

One or two persons had said, 'How d'ye do, Mr. Springrove?' and

looked at Cytherea, to see how she bore her disappointment. Her

ears had but just caught the name of the head draughtsman, when she

saw him advancing directly to address her.

'Miss Graye, I believe?' he said, lifting his hat.

'Yes,' said Cytherea, colouring, and trying not to look guilty

of a surreptitious knowledge of him.

'I am Mr. Springrove. I passed Corvsgate Castle about an hour

ago, and soon afterwards met your brother going that way. He had

been deceived in the distance, and was about to turn without seeing

the ruin, on account of a lameness that had come on in his leg or

foot. I proposed that he should go on, since he had got so near;

and afterwards, instead of walking back to the boat, get across to

Anglebury Station—a shorter walk for him—where he could catch the

late train, and go directly home. I could let you know what he had

done, and allay any uneasiness.'

'Is the lameness serious, do you know?'

'O no; simply from over-walking himself. Still, it was just as

well to ride home.'

Relieved from her apprehensions on Owen's score, she was able

slightly to examine the appearance of her informant—Edward

Springrove—who now removed his hat for a while, to cool himself. He

was rather above her brother's height. Although the upper part of

his face and head was handsomely formed, and bounded by lines of

sufficiently masculine regularity, his brows were somewhat too

softly arched, and finely pencilled for one of his s*x; without

prejudice, however, to the belief which the sum total of his

features inspired—that though they did not prove that the man who

thought inside them would do much in the world, men who had done

most of all had had no better ones. Across his forehead, otherwise

perfectly smooth, ran one thin line, the healthy freshness of his

remaining features expressing that it had come there

prematurely.

Though some years short of the age at which the clear spirit

bids good-bye to the last infirmity of noble mind, and takes to

house-hunting and investments, he had reached the period in a young

man's life when episodic periods, with a hopeful birth and a

disappointing death, have begun to accumulate, and to bear a fruit

of generalities; his glance sometimes seeming to state, 'I have

already thought out the issue of such conditions as these we are

experiencing.' At other times he wore an abstracted look: 'I seem

to have lived through this moment before.'

He was carelessly dressed in dark grey, wearing a rolled-up

black kerchief as a neck-cloth; the knot of which was disarranged,

and stood obliquely—a deposit of white dust having lodged in the

creases.

'I am sorry for your disappointment,' he continued, glancing

into her face. Their eyes having met, became, as it were, mutually

locked together, and the single instant only which good breeding

allows as the length of such a look, became trebled: a clear

penetrating ray of intelligence had shot from each into each,

giving birth to one of those unaccountable sensations which carry

home to the heart before the hand has been touched or the merest

compliment passed, by something stronger than mathematical proof,

the conviction, 'A tie has begun to unite us.'

Both faces also unconsciously stated that their owners had been

much in each other's thoughts of late. Owen had talked to the young

architect of his sister as freely as to Cytherea of the young

architect.

A conversation began, which was none the less interesting to the

parties engaged because it consisted only of the most trivial and

commonplace remarks. Then the band of harps and violins struck up a

lively melody, and the deck was cleared for dancing; the sun

dipping beneath the horizon during the proceeding, and the moon

showing herself at their stern. The sea was so calm, that the soft

hiss produced by the bursting of the innumerable bubbles of foam

behind the paddles could be distinctly heard. The passengers who

did not dance, including Cytherea and Springrove, lapsed into

silence, leaning against the paddle-boxes, or standing

aloof—noticing the trembling of the deck to the steps of the

dance—watching the waves from the paddles as they slid thinly and

easily under each other's edges.

Night had quite closed in by the time they reached Budmouth

harbour, sparkling with its white, red, and green lights in

opposition to the shimmering path of the moon's reflection on the

other side, which reached away to the horizon till the flecked

ripples reduced themselves to sparkles as fine as gold dust.

'I will walk to the station and find out the exact time the

train arrives,' said Springrove, rather eagerly, when they had

landed.

She thanked him much.

'Perhaps we might walk together,' he suggested hesitatingly. She

looked as if she did not quite know, and he settled the question by

showing the way.

They found, on arriving there, that on the first day of that

month the particular train selected for Graye's return had ceased

to stop at Anglebury station.

'I am very sorry I misled him,' said Springrove.

'O, I am not alarmed at all,' replied Cytherea.

'Well, it's sure to be all right—he will sleep there, and come

by the first in the morning. But what will you do, alone?'

'I am quite easy on that point; the landlady is very friendly. I

must go indoors now. Good-night, Mr. Springrove.'

'Let me go round to your door with you?' he pleaded.

'No, thank you; we live close by.'

He looked at her as a waiter looks at the change he brings back.

But she was inexorable.

'Don't—forget me,' he murmured. She did not answer.

'Let me see you sometimes,' he said.

'Perhaps you never will again—I am going away,' she replied in

lingering tones; and turning into Cross Street, ran indoors and

upstairs.

The sudden withdrawal of what was superfluous at first, is often

felt as an essential loss. It was felt now with regard to the

maiden. More, too, after a meeting so pleasant and so enkindling,

she had seemed to imply that they would never come together

again.

The young man softly followed her, stood opposite the house and

watched her come into the upper room with the light. Presently his

gaze was cut short by her approaching the window and pulling down

the blind—Edward dwelling upon her vanishing figure with a hopeless

sense of loss akin to that which Adam is said by logicians to have

felt when he first saw the sun set, and thought, in his

inexperience, that it would return no more.

He waited till her shadow had twice crossed the window, when,

finding the charming outline was not to be expected again, he left

the street, crossed the harbour-bridge, and entered his own

solitary chamber on the other side, vaguely thinking as he went

(for undefined reasons),

'One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother.'

Chapter 3

THE EVENTS OF EIGHT DAYS