Desperate Remedies Part 76

'Well, of course you cannot stay with me on a sudden like this.... Go home, or he will be at a loss for things. And to-morrow morning come again, won't you, dearest, come again--we'll fetch you. But you mustn't stay now, and put Owen out. O no--it would be absurd.' The absorbing concern about trifles of daily routine, which is so often seen in very sick people, was present here.

Cytherea promised to go home, and come the next morning to stay continuously.

'Stay till I die then, will you not? Yes, till I die--I shan't die till to-morrow.'

'We hope for your recovery--all of us.'

'I know best. Come at six o'clock, darling.'

'As soon as ever I can,' returned Cytherea tenderly.

'But six is too early--you will have to think of your brother's breakfast. Leave Tolchurch at eight, will you?'

Cytherea consented to this. Miss Aldclyffe would never have known had her companion stayed in the house all night; but the honesty of Cytherea's nature rebelled against even the friendly deceit which such a proceeding would have involved.

An arrangement was come to whereby she was to be taken home in the pony-carriage instead of the brougham that fetched her; the carriage to put up at Tolchurch farm for the night, and on that account to be in readiness to bring her back earlier.

4. MARCH THE THIRTIETH. DAYBREAK

The third and last instance of Cytherea's subjection to those periodic terrors of the night which had emphasized her connection with the Aldclyffe name and blood occurred at the present date.

It was about four o'clock in the morning when Cytherea, though most probably dreaming, seemed to awake--and instantly was transfixed by a sort of spell, that had in it more of awe than of affright. At the foot of her bed, looking her in the face with an expression of entreaty beyond the power of words to portray, was the form of Miss Aldclyffe--wan and distinct. No motion was perceptible in her; but longing--earnest longing--was written in every feature.

Cytherea believed she exercised her waking judgment as usual in thinking, without a shadow of doubt, that Miss Aldclyffe stood before her in flesh and blood. Reason was not sufficiently alert to lead Cytherea to ask herself how such a thing could have occurred.

'I would have remained with you--why would you not allow me to stay!'

Cytherea exclaimed. The spell was broken: she became broadly awake; and the figure vanished.

It was in the grey time of dawn. She trembled in a sweat of disquiet, and not being able to endure the thought of her brother being asleep, she went and tapped at his door.

'Owen!'

He was not a heavy sleeper, and it was verging upon his time to rise.

'What do you want, Cytherea?'

'I ought not to have left Knapwater last night. I wish I had not. I really think I will start at once. She wants me, I know.'

'What time is it?'

'A few minutes past four.'

'You had better not. Keep to the time agreed upon. Consider, we should have such a trouble in rousing the driver, and other things.'

Upon the whole it seemed wiser not to act on a mere fancy. She went to bed again.

An hour later, when Owen was thinking of getting up, a knocking came to the front door. The next minute something touched the gla.s.s of Owen's window. He waited--the noise was repeated. A little gravel had been thrown against it to arouse him.

He crossed the room, pulled up the blind, and looked out. A solemn white face was gazing upwards from the road, expectantly straining to catch the first glimpse of a person within the panes. It was the face of a Knapwater man sitting on horseback.

Owen saw his errand. There is an unmistakable look in the face of every man who brings tidings of death. Graye opened the window.

'Miss Aldclyffe....' said the messenger, and paused.

'Ah--dead?'

'Yes--she is dead.'

'When did she die?'

'At ten minutes past four, after another effusion. She knew best, you see, sir. I started directly, by the rector's orders.'

SEQUEL

Fifteen months have pa.s.sed, and we are brought on to Midsummer Night, 1867.

The picture presented is the interior of the old belfry of Carriford Church, at ten o'clock in the evening.

Six Carriford men and one stranger are gathered there, beneath the light of a flaring candle stuck on a piece of wood against the wall. The six Carriford men are the well-known ringers of the fine-toned old bells in the key of F, which have been music to the ears of Carriford parish and the outlying districts for the last four hundred years. The stranger is an a.s.sistant, who has appeared from n.o.body knows where.

The six natives--in their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, and without hats--pull and catch frantically at the dancing bellropes, the locks of their hair waving in the breeze created by their quick motions; the stranger, who has the treble bell, does likewise, but in his right mind and coat.

Their ever-changing shadows mingle on the wall in an endless variety of kaleidoscopic forms, and the eyes of all the seven are religiously fixed on a diagram like a large addition sum, which is chalked on the floor.

Vividly contrasting with the yellow light of the candle upon the four unplastered walls of the tower, and upon the faces and clothes of the men, is the scene discernible through the screen beneath the tower archway. At the extremity of the long mysterious avenue of the nave and chancel can be seen shafts of moonlight streaming in at the east window of the church--blue, phosphoric, and ghostly.

A thorough renovation of the bell-ringing machinery and accessories had taken place in antic.i.p.ation of an interesting event. New ropes had been provided; every bell had been carefully s.h.i.+fted from its carriage, and the pivots lubricated. Bright red 'sallies' of woollen texture--soft to the hands and easily caught--glowed on the ropes in place of the old ragged knots, all of which newness in small details only rendered more evident the irrepressible aspect of age in the ma.s.s surrounding them.

The triple-bob-major was ended, and the ringers wiped their faces and rolled down their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, previously to tucking away the ropes and leaving the place for the night.

'Piph--h--h--h! A good forty minutes,' said a man with a streaming face, and blowing out his breath--one of the pair who had taken the tenor bell.

'Our friend here pulled proper well--that 'a did--seeing he's but a stranger,' said Clerk Crickett, who had just resigned the second rope, and addressing the man in the black coat.

''A did,' said the rest.

'I enjoyed it much,' said the man modestly.

'What we should ha' done without you words can't tell. The man that d'belong by rights to that there bell is ill o' two gallons o' wold cider.'

'And now so's,' remarked the fifth ringer, as pertaining to the last allusion, 'we'll finish this drop o' metheglin and cider, and every man home--along straight as a line.'

'Wi' all my heart,' Clerk Crickett replied. 'And the Lord send if I ha'n't done my duty by Master Teddy Springrove--that I have so.'

'And the rest o' us,' they said, as the cup was handed round.