20 Must-Read Thriller Novels

1. FROM THE TWENTY-SECOND TO THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF JULY

1. FROM THE TWENTY-SECOND TO THE

TWENTY-SEVENTH OF JULYBut things are not what they seem. A responsive love for Edward

Springrove had made its appearance in Cytherea's bosom with all the

fascinating attributes of a first experience, not succeeding to or

displacing other emotions, as in older hearts, but taking up

entirely new ground; as when gazing just after sunset at the pale

blue sky we see a star come into existence where nothing was

before.

His parting words, 'Don't forget me,' she repeated to herself a

hundred times, and though she thought their import was probably

commonplace, she could not help toying with them,—looking at them

from all points, and investing them with meanings of love and

faithfulness,—ostensibly entertaining such meanings only as fables

wherewith to pass the time, yet in her heart admitting, for

detached instants, a possibility of their deeper truth. And thus,

for hours after he had left her, her reason flirted with her fancy

as a kitten will sport with a dove, pleasantly and smoothly through

easy attitudes, but disclosing its cruel and unyielding nature at

crises.

To turn now to the more material media through which this story

moves, it so happened that the very next morning brought round a

circumstance which, slight in itself, took up a relevant and

important position between the past and the future of the persons

herein concerned.

At breakfast time, just as Cytherea had again seen the postman

pass without bringing her an answer to the advertisement, as she

had fully expected he would do, Owen entered the room.

'Well,' he said, kissing her, 'you have not been alarmed, of

course. Springrove told you what I had done, and you found there

was no train?'

'Yes, it was all clear. But what is the lameness owing to?'

'I don't know—nothing. It has quite gone off now… Cytherea, I

hope you like Springrove. Springrove's a nice fellow, you

know.'

'Yes. I think he is, except that—'

'It happened just to the purpose that I should meet him there,

didn't it? And when I reached the station and learnt that I could

not get on by train my foot seemed better. I started off to walk

home, and went about five miles along a path beside the railway. It

then struck me that I might not be fit for anything to-day if I

walked and aggravated the bothering foot, so I looked for a place

to sleep at. There was no available village or inn, and I

eventually got the keeper of a gate-house, where a lane crossed the

line, to take me in.'

They proceeded with their breakfast. Owen yawned.

'You didn't get much sleep at the gate-house last night, I'm

afraid, Owen,' said his sister.

'To tell the truth, I didn't. I was in such very close and

narrow quarters. Those gate-houses are such small places, and the

man had only his own bed to offer me. Ah, by-the-bye, Cythie, I

have such an extraordinary thing to tell you in connection with

this man!—by Jove, I had nearly forgotten it! But I'll go straight

on. As I was saying, he had only his own bed to offer me, but I

could not afford to be fastidious, and as he had a hearty manner,

though a very queer one, I agreed to accept it, and he made a rough

pallet for himself on the floor close beside me. Well, I could not

sleep for my life, and I wished I had not stayed there, though I

was so tired. For one thing, there were the luggage trains rattling

by at my elbow the early part of the night. But worse than this, he

talked continually in his sleep, and occasionally struck out with

his limbs at something or another, knocking against the post of the

bedstead and making it tremble. My condition was altogether so

unsatisfactory that at last I awoke him, and asked him what he had

been dreaming about for the previous hour, for I could get no sleep

at all. He begged my pardon for disturbing me, but a name I had

casually let fall that evening had led him to think of another

stranger he had once had visit him, who had also accidentally

mentioned the same name, and some very strange incidents connected

with that meeting. The affair had occurred years and years ago; but

what I had said had made him think and dream about it as if it were

but yesterday. What was the word? I said. "Cytherea," he said. What

was the story? I asked then. He then told me that when he was a

young man in London he borrowed a few pounds to add to a few he had

saved up, and opened a little inn at Hammersmith. One evening,

after the inn had been open about a couple of months, every idler

in the neighbourhood ran off to Westminster. The Houses of

Parliament were on fire.

'Not a soul remained in his parlour besides himself, and he

began picking up the pipes and glasses his customers had hastily

relinquished. At length a young lady about seventeen or eighteen

came in. She asked if a woman was there waiting for herself—Miss

Jane Taylor. He said no; asked the young lady if she would wait,

and showed her into the small inner room. There was a glass-pane in

the partition dividing this room from the bar to enable the

landlord to see if his visitors, who sat there, wanted anything. A

curious awkwardness and melancholy about the behaviour of the girl

who called, caused my informant to look frequently at her through

the partition. She seemed weary of her life, and sat with her face

buried in her hands, evidently quite out of her element in such a

house. Then a woman much older came in and greeted Miss Taylor by

name. The man distinctly heard the following words pass between

them:—

'"Why have you not brought him?"

'"He is ill; he is not likely to live through the night."

'At this announcement from the elderly woman, the young lady

fell to the floor in a swoon, apparently overcome by the news. The

landlord ran in and lifted her up. Well, do what they would they

could not for a long time bring her back to consciousness, and

began to be much alarmed. "Who is she?" the innkeeper said to the

other woman. "I know her," the other said, with deep meaning in her

tone. The elderly and young woman seemed allied, and yet

strangers.

'She now showed signs of life, and it struck him (he was plainly

of an inquisitive turn), that in her half-bewildered state he might

get some information from her. He stooped over her, put his mouth

to her ear, and said sharply, "What's your name?" "To catch a woman

napping is difficult, even when she's half dead; but I did it,"

says the gatekeeper. When he asked her her name, she said

immediately—

'"Cytherea"—and stopped suddenly.'

'My own name!' said Cytherea.

'Yes—your name. Well, the gateman thought at the time it might

be equally with Jane a name she had invented for the occasion, that

they might not trace her; but I think it was truth unconsciously

uttered, for she added directly afterwards: "O, what have I said!"

and was quite overcome again—this time with fright. Her vexation

that the woman now doubted the genuineness of her other name was

very much greater than that the innkeeper did, and it is evident

that to blind the woman was her main object. He also learnt from

words the elderly woman casually dropped, that meetings of the same

kind had been held before, and that the falseness of the soi-disant

Miss Jane Taylor's name had never been suspected by this dependent

or confederate till then.

'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.