20 Must-Read Thriller Novels

2. JULY THE TWENTY-NINTH-2

'But will you not try again to get on in your profession? Try

once more; do try once more,' she murmured. 'I am going to try

again. I have advertised for something to do.'

'Of course I will,' he said, with an eager gesture and smile.

'But we must remember that the fame of Christopher Wren himself

depended upon the accident of a fire in Pudding Lane. My successes

seem to come very slowly. I often think, that before I am ready to

live, it will be time for me to die. However, I am trying—not for

fame now, but for an easy life of reasonable comfort.'

It is a melancholy truth for the middle classes, that in

proportion as they develop, by the study of poetry and art, their

capacity for conjugal love of the highest and purest kind, they

limit the possibility of their being able to exercise it—the very

act putting out of their power the attainment of means sufficient

for marriage. The man who works up a good income has had no time to

learn love to its solemn extreme; the man who has learnt that has

had no time to get rich.

'And if you should fail—utterly fail to get that reasonable

wealth,' she said earnestly, 'don't be perturbed. The truly great

stand upon no middle ledge; they are either famous or unknown.'

'Unknown,' he said, 'if their ideas have been allowed to flow

with a sympathetic breadth. Famous only if they have been

convergent and exclusive.'

'Yes; and I am afraid from that, that my remark was but

discouragement, wearing the dress of comfort. Perhaps I was not

quite right in—'

'It depends entirely upon what is meant by being truly great.

But the long and the short of the matter is, that men must stick to

a thing if they want to succeed in it—not giving way to over-much

admiration for the flowers they see growing in other people's

borders; which I am afraid has been my case.' He looked into the

far distance and paused.

Adherence to a course with persistence sufficient to ensure

success is possible to widely appreciative minds only when there is

also found in them a power—commonplace in its nature, but rare in

such combination—the power of assuming to conviction that in the

outlying paths which appear so much more brilliant than their own,

there are bitternesses equally great—unperceived simply on account

of their remoteness.

They were opposite Ringsworth Shore. The cliffs here were formed

of strata completely contrasting with those of the further side of

the Bay, whilst in and beneath the water hard boulders had taken

the place of sand and shingle, between which, however, the sea

glided noiselessly, without breaking the crest of a single wave, so

strikingly calm was the air. The breeze had entirely died away,

leaving the water of that rare glassy smoothness which is unmarked

even by the small dimples of the least aerial movement. Purples and

blues of divers shades were reflected from this mirror accordingly

as each undulation sloped east or west. They could see the rocky

bottom some twenty feet beneath them, luxuriant with weeds of

various growths, and dotted with pulpy creatures reflecting a

silvery and spangled radiance upwards to their eyes.

At length she looked at him to learn the effect of her words of

encouragement. He had let the oars drift alongside, and the boat

had come to a standstill. Everything on earth seemed taking a

contemplative rest, as if waiting to hear the avowal of something

from his lips. At that instant he appeared to break a resolution

hitherto zealously kept. Leaving his seat amidships he came and

gently edged himself down beside her upon the narrow seat at the

stern.

She breathed more quickly and warmly: he took her right hand in

his own right: it was not withdrawn. He put his left hand behind

her neck till it came round upon her left cheek: it was not thrust

away. Lightly pressing her, he brought her face and mouth towards

his own; when, at this the very brink, some unaccountable thought

or spell within him suddenly made him halt—even now, and as it

seemed as much to himself as to her, he timidly whispered 'May

I?'

Her endeavour was to say No, so denuded of its flesh and sinews

that its nature would hardly be recognized, or in other words a No

from so near the affirmative frontier as to be affected with the

Yes accent. It was thus a whispered No, drawn out to nearly a

quarter of a minute's length, the O making itself audible as a

sound like the spring coo of a pigeon on unusually friendly terms

with its mate. Though conscious of her success in producing the

kind of word she had wished to produce, she at the same time

trembled in suspense as to how it would be taken. But the time

available for doubt was so short as to admit of scarcely more than

half a pulsation: pressing closer he kissed her. Then he kissed her

again with a longer kiss.

It was the supremely happy moment of their experience. The

'bloom' and the 'purple light' were strong on the lineaments of

both. Their hearts could hardly believe the evidence of their

lips.

'I love you, and you love me, Cytherea!' he whispered.

She did not deny it; and all seemed well. The gentle sounds

around them from the hills, the plains, the distant town, the

adjacent shore, the water heaving at their side, the kiss, and the

long kiss, were all 'many a voice of one delight,' and in unison

with each other.

But his mind flew back to the same unpleasant thought which had

been connected with the resolution he had broken a minute or two

earlier. 'I could be a slave at my profession to win you, Cytherea;

I would work at the meanest, honest trade to be near you—much less

claim you as mine; I would—anything. But I have not told you all;

it is not this; you don't know what there is yet to tell. Could you

forgive as you can love?' She was alarmed to see that he had become

pale with the question.

'No—do not speak,' he said. 'I have kept something from you,

which has now become the cause of a great uneasiness. I had no

right—to love you; but I did it. Something forbade—'

'What?' she exclaimed.

'Something forbade me—till the kiss—yes, till the kiss came; and

now nothing shall forbid it! We'll hope in spite of all… I must,

however, speak of this love of ours to your brother. Dearest, you

had better go indoors whilst I meet him at the station, and explain

everything.'

Cytherea's short-lived bliss was dead and gone. O, if she had

known of this sequel would she have allowed him to break down the

barrier of mere acquaintanceship—never, never!

'Will you not explain to me?' she faintly urged.

Doubt—indefinite, carking doubt had taken possession of her.

'Not now. You alarm yourself unnecessarily,' he said tenderly.

'My only reason for keeping silence is that with my present

knowledge I may tell an untrue story. It may be that there is

nothing to tell. I am to blame for haste in alluding to any such

thing. Forgive me, sweet—forgive me.' Her heart was ready to burst,

and she could not answer him. He returned to his place and took to

the oars.

They again made for the distant Esplanade, now, with its line of

houses, lying like a dark grey band against the light western sky.

The sun had set, and a star or two began to peep out. They drew

nearer their destination, Edward as he pulled tracing listlessly

with his eyes the red stripes upon her scarf, which grew to appear

as black ones in the increasing dusk of evening. She surveyed the

long line of lamps on the sea-wall of the town, now looking small

and yellow, and seeming to send long tap-roots of fire quivering

down deep into the sea. By-and-by they reached the landing-steps.

He took her hand as before, and found it as cold as the water about

them. It was not relinquished till he reached her door. His

assurance had not removed the constraint of her manner: he saw that

she blamed him mutely and with her eyes, like a captured sparrow.

Left alone, he went and seated himself in a chair on the

Esplanade.

Neither could she go indoors to her solitary room, feeling as

she did in such a state of desperate heaviness. When Springrove was

out of sight she turned back, and arrived at the corner just in

time to see him sit down. Then she glided pensively along the

pavement behind him, forgetting herself to marble like Melancholy

herself as she mused in his neighbourhood unseen. She heard,

without heeding, the notes of pianos and singing voices from the

fashionable houses at her back, from the open windows of which the

lamp-light streamed to join that of the orange-hued full moon,

newly risen over the Bay in front. Then Edward began to pace up and

down, and Cytherea, fearing that he would notice her, hastened

homeward, flinging him a last look as she passed out of sight. No

promise from him to write: no request that she herself would do

so—nothing but an indefinite expression of hope in the face of some

fear unknown to her. Alas, alas!

When Owen returned he found she was not in the small

sitting-room, and creeping upstairs into her bedroom with a light,

he discovered her there lying asleep upon the coverlet of the bed,

still with her hat and jacket on. She had flung herself down on

entering, and succumbed to the unwonted oppressiveness that ever

attends full-blown love. The wet traces of tears were yet visible

upon her long drooping lashes.

'Love is a sowre delight, and sugred griefe,

A living death, and ever-dying life.'

'Cytherea,' he whispered, kissing her. She awoke with a start,

and vented an exclamation before recovering her judgment. 'He's

gone!' she said.

'He has told me all,' said Graye soothingly. 'He is going off

early to-morrow morning. 'Twas a shame of him to win you away from

me, and cruel of you to keep the growth of this attachment a

secret.'

'We couldn't help it,' she said, and then jumping up—'Owen, has

he told you all?'

'All of your love from beginning to end,' he said simply.

Edward then had not told more—as he ought to have done: yet she

could not convict him. But she would struggle against his fetters.

She tingled to the very soles of her feet at the very possibility

that he might be deluding her.

'Owen,' she continued, with dignity, 'what is he to me? Nothing.

I must dismiss such weakness as this—believe me, I will. Something

far more pressing must drive it away. I have been looking my

position steadily in the face, and I must get a living somehow. I

mean to advertise once more.'

'Advertising is no use.'

'This one will be.' He looked surprised at the sanguine tone of

her answer, till she took a piece of paper from the table and

showed it him. 'See what I am going to do,' she said sadly, almost

bitterly. This was her third effort:—

'LADY'S-MAID. Inexperienced. Age eighteen.—G., 3 Cross Street,

Budmouth.'

Owen—Owen the respectable—looked blank astonishment. He repeated

in a nameless, varying tone, the two words—

'Lady's-maid!'

'Yes; lady's-maid. 'Tis an honest profession,' said Cytherea

bravely.

'But you, Cytherea?'

'Yes, I—who am I?'

'You will never be a lady's-maid—never, I am quite sure.'

'I shall try to be, at any rate.'

'Such a disgrace—'

'Nonsense! I maintain that it is no disgrace!' she said, rather

warmly. 'You know very well—'

'Well, since you will, you must,' he interrupted. 'Why do you

put "inexperienced?"'

'Because I am.'

'Never mind that—scratch out "inexperienced." We are poor,

Cytherea, aren't we?' he murmured, after a silence, 'and it seems

that the two months will close my engagement here.'

'We can put up with being poor,' she said, 'if they only give us

work to do… . Yes, we desire as a blessing what was given us as a

curse, and even that is denied. However, be cheerful, Owen, and

never mind!'

In justice to desponding men, it is as well to remember that the

brighter endurance of women at these epochs—invaluable, sweet,

angelic, as it is—owes more of its origin to a narrower vision that

shuts out many of the leaden-eyed despairs in the van, than to a

hopefulness intense enough to quell them.

Chapter 4

THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY