Desperate Remedies

T >> Thomas Hardy >> Desperate Remedies



KNAPWATER HOUSE,
August 3, 1864.

'Miss Aldclyffe is in want of a young person as lady's-maid. The
duties of the place are light. Miss Aldclyffe will be in Budmouth
on Thursday, when (should G. still not have heard of a place) she
would like to see her at the Belvedere Hotel, Esplanade, at four
o'clock. No answer need be returned to this note.'


A little earlier than the time named, Cytherea, clothed in a modest
bonnet, and a black silk jacket, turned down to the hotel.
Expectation, the fresh air from the water, the bright, far-extending
outlook, raised the most delicate of pink colours to her cheeks, and
restored to her tread a portion of that elasticity which her past
troubles, and thoughts of Edward, had well-nigh taken away.

She entered the vestibule, and went to the window of the bar.

'Is Miss Aldclyffe here?' she said to a nicely-dressed barmaid in
the foreground, who was talking to a landlady covered with chains,
knobs, and clamps of gold, in the background.

'No, she isn't,' said the barmaid, not very civilly. Cytherea
looked a shade too pretty for a plain dresser.

'Miss Aldclyffe is expected here,' the landlady said to a third
person, out of sight, in the tone of one who had known for several
days the fact newly discovered from Cytherea. 'Get ready her room
--be quick.' From the alacrity with which the order was given and
taken, it seemed to Cytherea that Miss Aldclyffe must be a woman of
considerable importance.

'You are to have an interview with Miss Aldclyffe here?' the
landlady inquired.

'Yes.'

'The young person had better wait,' continued the landlady. With a
money-taker's intuition she had rightly divined that Cytherea would
bring no profit to the house.

Cytherea was shown into a nondescript chamber, on the shady side of
the building, which appeared to be either bedroom or dayroom, as
occasion necessitated, and was one of a suite at the end of the
first-floor corridor. The prevailing colour of the walls, curtains,
carpet, and coverings of furniture, was more or less blue, to which
the cold light coming from the north easterly sky, and falling on a
wide roof of new slates--the only object the small window commanded
--imparted a more striking paleness. But underneath the door,
communicating with the next room of the suite, gleamed an
infinitesimally small, yet very powerful, fraction of contrast--a
very thin line of ruddy light, showing that the sun beamed strongly
into this room adjoining. The line of radiance was the only
cheering thing visible in the place.

People give way to very infantine thoughts and actions when they
wait; the battle-field of life is temporarily fenced off by a hard
and fast line--the interview. Cytherea fixed her eyes idly upon the
streak, and began picturing a wonderful paradise on the other side
as the source of such a beam--reminding her of the well-known good
deed in a naughty world.

Whilst she watched the particles of dust floating before the
brilliant chink she heard a carriage and horses stop opposite the
front of the house. Afterwards came the rustle of a lady's skirts
down the corridor, and into the room communicating with the one
Cytherea occupied.

The golden line vanished in parts like the phosphorescent streak
caused by the striking of a match; there was the fall of a light
footstep on the floor just behind it: then a pause. Then the foot
tapped impatiently, and 'There's no one here!' was spoken
imperiously by a lady's tongue.

'No, madam; in the next room. I am going to fetch her,' said the
attendant.

'That will do--or you needn't go in; I will call her.'

Cytherea had risen, and she advanced to the middle door with the
chink under it as the servant retired. She had just laid her hand
on the knob, when it slipped round within her fingers, and the door
was pulled open from the other side.

2. FOUR O'CLOCK

The direct blaze of the afternoon sun, partly refracted through the
crimson curtains of the window, and heightened by reflections from
the crimson-flock paper which covered the walls, and a carpet on the
floor of the same tint, shone with a burning glow round the form of
a lady standing close to Cytherea's front with the door in her hand.
The stranger appeared to the maiden's eyes--fresh from the blue
gloom, and assisted by an imagination fresh from nature--like a tall
black figure standing in the midst of fire. It was the figure of a
finely-built woman, of spare though not angular proportions.

Cytherea involuntarily shaded her eyes with her hand, retreated a
step or two, and then she could for the first time see Miss
Aldclyffe's face in addition to her outline, lit up by the secondary
and softer light that was reflected from the varnished panels of the
door. She was not a very young woman, but could boast of much
beauty of the majestic autumnal phase.

'O,' said the lady, 'come this way.' Cytherea followed her to the
embrasure of the window.

Both the women showed off themselves to advantage as they walked
forward in the orange light; and each showed too in her face that
she had been struck with her companion's appearance. The warm tint
added to Cytherea's face a voluptuousness which youth and a simple
life had not yet allowed to express itself there ordinarily; whilst
in the elder lady's face it reduced the customary expression, which
might have been called sternness, if not harshness, to grandeur, and
warmed her decaying complexion with much of the youthful richness it
plainly had once possessed.

She appeared now no more than five-and-thirty, though she might
easily have been ten or a dozen years older. She had clear steady
eyes, a Roman nose in its purest form, and also the round prominent
chin with which the Caesars are represented in ancient marbles; a
mouth expressing a capability for and tendency to strong emotion,
habitually controlled by pride. There was a severity about the
lower outlines of the face which gave a masculine cast to this
portion of her countenance. Womanly weakness was nowhere visible
save in one part--the curve of her forehead and brows--there it was
clear and emphatic. She wore a lace shawl over a brown silk dress,
and a net bonnet set with a few blue cornflowers.

'You inserted the advertisement for a situation as lady's-maid
giving the address, G., Cross Street?'

'Yes, madam. Graye.'

'Yes. I have heard your name--Mrs. Morris, my housekeeper,
mentioned you, and pointed out your advertisement.'

This was puzzling intelligence, but there was not time enough to
consider it.

'Where did you live last?' continued Miss Aldclyffe.

'I have never been a servant before. I lived at home.'

'Never been out? I thought too at sight of you that you were too
girlish-looking to have done much. But why did you advertise with
such assurance? It misleads people.'

'I am very sorry: I put "inexperienced" at first, but my brother
said it is absurd to trumpet your own weakness to the world, and
would not let it remain.'

'But your mother knew what was right, I suppose?'

'I have no mother, madam.'

'Your father, then?'

'I have no father.'

'Well,' she said, more softly, 'your sisters, aunts, or cousins.'

'They didn't think anything about it.'

'You didn't ask them, I suppose.'

'No.'

'You should have done so, then. Why didn't you?'

'Because I haven't any of them, either.'

Miss Aldclyffe showed her surprise. 'You deserve forgiveness then
at any rate, child,' she said, in a sort of drily-kind tone.
'However, I am afraid you do not suit me, as I am looking for an
elderly person. You see, I want an experienced maid who knows all
the usual duties of the office.' She was going to add, 'Though I
like your appearance,' but the words seemed offensive to apply to
the ladylike girl before her, and she modified them to, 'though I
like you much.'

'I am sorry I misled you, madam,' said Cytherea.

Miss Aldclyffe stood in a reverie, without replying.

'Good afternoon,' continued Cytherea.

'Good-bye, Miss Graye--I hope you will succeed.'

Cytherea turned away towards the door. The movement chanced to be
one of her masterpieces. It was precise: it had as much beauty as
was compatible with precision, and as little coquettishness as was
compatible with beauty.

And she had in turning looked over her shoulder at the other lady
with a faint accent of reproach in her face. Those who remember
Greuze's 'Head of a Girl,' have an idea of Cytherea's look askance
at the turning. It is not for a man to tell fishers of men how to
set out their fascinations so as to bring about the highest possible
average of takes within the year: but the action that tugs the
hardest of all at an emotional beholder is this sweet method of
turning which steals the bosom away and leaves the eyes behind.

Now Miss Aldclyffe herself was no tyro at wheeling. When Cytherea
had closed the door upon her, she remained for some time in her
motionless attitude, listening to the gradually dying sound of the
maiden's retreating footsteps. She murmured to herself, 'It is
almost worth while to be bored with instructing her in order to have
a creature who could glide round my luxurious indolent body in that
manner, and look at me in that way--I warrant how light her fingers
are upon one's head and neck. . . . What a silly modest young thing
she is, to go away so suddenly as that!' She rang the bell.

'Ask the young lady who has just left me to step back again,' she
said to the attendant. 'Quick! or she will be gone.'

Cytherea was now in the vestibule, thinking that if she had told her
history, Miss Aldclyffe might perhaps have taken her into the
household; yet her history she particularly wished to conceal from a
stranger. When she was recalled she turned back without feeling
much surprise. Something, she knew not what, told her she had not
seen the last of Miss Aldclyffe.

'You have somebody to refer me to, of course,' the lady said, when
Cytherea had re-entered the room.

'Yes: Mr. Thorn, a solicitor at Aldbrickham.'

'And are you a clever needlewoman?'

'I am considered to be.'

'Then I think that at any rate I will write to Mr. Thorn,' said Miss
Aldclyffe, with a little smile. 'It is true, the whole proceeding
is very irregular; but my present maid leaves next Monday, and
neither of the five I have already seen seem to do for me. . . .
Well, I will write to Mr. Thorn, and if his reply is satisfactory,
you shall hear from me. It will be as well to set yourself in
readiness to come on Monday.'

When Cytherea had again been watched out of the room, Miss Aldclyffe
asked for writing materials, that she might at once communicate with
Mr. Thorn. She indecisively played with the pen. 'Suppose Mr.
Thorn's reply to be in any way disheartening--and even if so from
his own imperfect acquaintance with the young creature more than
from circumstantial knowledge--I shall feel obliged to give her up.
Then I shall regret that I did not give her one trial in spite of
other people's prejudices. All her account of herself is reliable
enough--yes, I can see that by her face. I like that face of hers.'

Miss Aldclyffe put down the pen and left the hotel without writing
to Mr. Thorn.



V. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY

1. AUGUST THE EIGHTH. MORNING AND AFTERNOON

At post-time on that following Monday morning, Cytherea watched so
anxiously for the postman, that as the time which must bring him
narrowed less and less her vivid expectation had only a degree less
tangibility than his presence itself. In another second his form
came into view. He brought two letters for Cytherea.

One from Miss Aldclyffe, simply stating that she wished Cytherea to
come on trial: that she would require her to be at Knapwater House
by Monday evening.

The other was from Edward Springrove. He told her that she was the
bright spot of his life: that her existence was far dearer to him
than his own: that he had never known what it was to love till he
had met her. True, he had felt passing attachments to other faces
from time to time; but they all had been weak inclinations towards
those faces as they then appeared. He loved her past and future, as
well as her present. He pictured her as a child: he loved her. He
pictured her of sage years: he loved her. He pictured her in
trouble; he loved her. Homely friendship entered into his love for
her, without which all love was evanescent.

He would make one depressing statement. Uncontrollable
circumstances (a long history, with which it was impossible to
acquaint her at present) operated to a certain extent as a drag upon
his wishes. He had felt this more strongly at the time of their
parting than he did now--and it was the cause of his abrupt
behaviour, for which he begged her to forgive him. He saw now an
honourable way of freeing himself, and the perception had prompted
him to write. In the meantime might he indulge in the hope of
possessing her on some bright future day, when by hard labour
generated from her own encouraging words, he had placed himself in a
position she would think worthy to be shared with him?

Dear little letter; she huddled it up. So much more important a
love-letter seems to a girl than to a man. Springrove was
unconsciously clever in his letters, and a man with a talent of that
kind may write himself up to a hero in the mind of a young woman who
loves him without knowing much about him. Springrove already stood
a cubit higher in her imagination than he did in his shoes.

During the day she flitted about the room in an ecstasy of pleasure,
packing the things and thinking of an answer which should be worthy
of the tender tone of the question, her love bubbling from her
involuntarily, like prophesyings from a prophet.

In the afternoon Owen went with her to the railway-station, and put
her in the train for Carriford Road, the station nearest to
Knapwater House.

Half-an-hour later she stepped out upon the platform, and found
nobody there to receive her--though a pony-carriage was waiting
outside. In two minutes she saw a melancholy man in cheerful livery
running towards her from a public-house close adjoining, who proved
to be the servant sent to fetch her. There are two ways of getting
rid of sorrows: one by living them down, the other by drowning
them. The coachman drowned his.

He informed her that her luggage would be fetched by a spring-waggon
in about half-an-hour; then helped her into the chaise and drove
off.

Her lover's letter, lying close against her neck, fortified her
against the restless timidity she had previously felt concerning
this new undertaking, and completely furnished her with the
confident ease of mind which is required for the critical
observation of surrounding objects. It was just that stage in the
slow decline of the summer days, when the deep, dark, and vacuous
hot-weather shadows are beginning to be replaced by blue ones that
have a surface and substance to the eye. They trotted along the
turnpike road for a distance of about a mile, which brought them
just outside the village of Carriford, and then turned through large
lodge-gates, on the heavy stone piers of which stood a pair of
bitterns cast in bronze. They then entered the park and wound along
a drive shaded by old and drooping lime-trees, not arranged in the
form of an avenue, but standing irregularly, sometimes leaving the
track completely exposed to the sky, at other times casting a shade
over it, which almost approached gloom--the under surface of the
lowest boughs hanging at a uniform level of six feet above the
grass--the extreme height to which the nibbling mouths of the cattle
could reach.

'Is that the house?' said Cytherea expectantly, catching sight of a
grey gable between the trees, and losing it again.

'No; that's the old manor-house--or rather all that's left of it.
The Aldycliffes used to let it sometimes, but it was oftener empty.
'Tis now divided into three cottages. Respectable people didn't
care to live there.'

'Why didn't they?'

'Well, 'tis so awkward and unhandy. You see so much of it has been
pulled down, and the rooms that are left won't do very well for a
small residence. 'Tis so dismal, too, and like most old houses
stands too low down in the hollow to be healthy.'

'Do they tell any horrid stories about it?'

'No, not a single one.'

'Ah, that's a pity.'

'Yes, that's what I say. 'Tis jest the house for a nice ghastly
hair-on-end story, that would make the parish religious. Perhaps it
will have one some day to make it complete; but there's not a word
of the kind now. There, I wouldn't live there for all that. In
fact, I couldn't. O no, I couldn't.'

'Why couldn't you?'

'The sounds.'

'What are they?'

'One is the waterfall, which stands so close by that you can hear
that there waterfall in every room of the house, night or day, ill
or well. 'Tis enough to drive anybody mad: now hark.'

He stopped the horse. Above the slight common sounds in the air
came the unvarying steady rush of falling water from some spot
unseen on account of the thick foliage of the grove.

'There's something awful in the timing o' that sound, ain't there,
miss?'

'When you say there is, there really seems to be. You said there
were two--what is the other horrid sound?'

'The pumping-engine. That's close by the Old House, and sends water
up the hill and all over the Great House. We shall hear that
directly. . . . There, now hark again.'

From the same direction down the dell they could now hear the
whistling creak of cranks, repeated at intervals of half-a-minute,
with a sousing noise between each: a creak, a souse, then another
creak, and so on continually.

'Now if anybody could make shift to live through the other sounds,
these would finish him off, don't you think so, miss? That machine
goes on night and day, summer and winter, and is hardly ever greased
or visited. Ah, it tries the nerves at night, especially if you are
not very well; though we don't often hear it at the Great House.'

'That sound is certainly very dismal. They might have the wheel
greased. Does Miss Aldclyffe take any interest in these things?'

'Well, scarcely; you see her father doesn't attend to that sort of
thing as he used to. The engine was once quite his hobby. But now
he's getten old and very seldom goes there.'

'How many are there in family?'

'Only her father and herself. He's a' old man of seventy.'

'I had thought that Miss Aldclyffe was sole mistress of the
property, and lived here alone.'

'No, m--' The coachman was continually checking himself thus, being
about to style her miss involuntarily, and then recollecting that he
was only speaking to the new lady's-maid.

'She will soon be mistress, however, I am afraid,' he continued, as
if speaking by a spirit of prophecy denied to ordinary humanity.
'The poor old gentleman has decayed very fast lately.' The man then
drew a long breath.

'Why did you breathe sadly like that?' said Cytherea.

'Ah! . . . When he's dead peace will be all over with us old
servants. I expect to see the old house turned inside out.'

'She will marry, do you mean?'

'Marry--not she! I wish she would. No, in her soul she's as
solitary as Robinson Crusoe, though she has acquaintances in plenty,
if not relations. There's the rector, Mr. Raunham--he's a relation
by marriage--yet she's quite distant towards him. And people say
that if she keeps single there will be hardly a life between Mr.
Raunham and the heirship of the estate. Dang it, she don't care.
She's an extraordinary picture of womankind--very extraordinary.'

'In what way besides?'

'You'll know soon enough, miss. She has had seven lady's-maids this
last twelvemonth. I assure you 'tis one body's work to fetch 'em
from the station and take 'em back again. The Lord must be a
neglectful party at heart, or he'd never permit such overbearen
goings on!'

'Does she dismiss them directly they come!'

'Not at all--she never dismisses them--they go theirselves. Ye see
'tis like this. She's got a very quick temper; she flees in a
passion with them for nothing at all; next mornen they come up and
say they are going; she's sorry for it and wishes they'd stay, but
she's as proud as a lucifer, and her pride won't let her say,
"Stay," and away they go. 'Tis like this in fact. If you say to
her about anybody, "Ah, poor thing!" she says, "Pooh! indeed!" If
you say, "Pooh, indeed!" "Ah, poor thing!" she says directly. She
hangs the chief baker, as mid be, and restores the chief butler, as
mid be, though the devil but Pharaoh herself can see the difference
between 'em.'

Cytherea was silent. She feared she might be again a burden to her
brother.

'However, you stand a very good chance,' the man went on, 'for I
think she likes you more than common. I have never known her send
the pony-carriage to meet one before; 'tis always the trap, but this
time she said, in a very particular ladylike tone, "Roobert, gaow
with the pony-kerriage.". . . There, 'tis true, pony and carriage
too are getten rather shabby now,' he added, looking round upon the
vehicle as if to keep Cytherea's pride within reasonable limits.

''Tis to be hoped you'll please in dressen her to-night.'

'Why to-night?'

'There's a dinner-party of seventeen; 'tis her father's birthday,
and she's very particular about her looks at such times. Now see;
this is the house. Livelier up here, isn't it, miss?'

They were now on rising ground, and had just emerged from a clump of
trees. Still a little higher than where they stood was situated the
mansion, called Knapwater House, the offices gradually losing
themselves among the trees behind.

2. EVENING

The house was regularly and substantially built of clean grey
freestone throughout, in that plainer fashion of Greek classicism
which prevailed at the latter end of the last century, when the
copyists called designers had grown weary of fantastic variations in
the Roman orders. The main block approximated to a square on the
ground plan, having a projection in the centre of each side,
surmounted by a pediment. From each angle of the inferior side ran
a line of buildings lower than the rest, turning inwards again at
their further end, and forming within them a spacious open court,
within which resounded an echo of astonishing clearness. These
erections were in their turn backed by ivy-covered ice-houses,
laundries, and stables, the whole mass of subsidiary buildings being
half buried beneath close-set shrubs and trees.

There was opening sufficient through the foliage on the right hand
to enable her on nearer approach to form an idea of the arrangement
of the remoter or lawn front also. The natural features and contour
of this quarter of the site had evidently dictated the position of
the house primarily, and were of the ordinary, and upon the whole,
most satisfactory kind, namely, a broad, graceful slope running from
the terrace beneath the walls to the margin of a placid lake lying
below, upon the surface of which a dozen swans and a green punt
floated at leisure. An irregular wooded island stood in the midst
of the lake; beyond this and the further margin of the water were
plantations and greensward of varied outlines, the trees
heightening, by half veiling, the softness of the exquisite
landscape stretching behind.

The glimpses she had obtained of this portion were now checked by
the angle of the building. In a minute or two they reached the side
door, at which Cytherea alighted. She was welcomed by an elderly
woman of lengthy smiles and general pleasantness, who announced
herself to be Mrs. Morris, the housekeeper.

'Mrs. Graye, I believe?' she said.

'I am not--O yes, yes, we are all mistresses,' said Cytherea,
smiling, but forcedly. The title accorded her seemed disagreeably
like the first slight scar of a brand, and she thought of Owen's
prophecy.

Mrs. Morris led her into a comfortable parlour called The Room.
Here tea was made ready, and Cytherea sat down, looking, whenever
occasion allowed, at Mrs. Morris with great interest and curiosity,
to discover, if possible, something in her which should give a clue
to the secret of her knowledge of herself, and the recommendation
based upon it. But nothing was to be learnt, at any rate just then.
Mrs. Morris was perpetually getting up, feeling in her pockets,
going to cupboards, leaving the room two or three minutes, and
trotting back again.

'You'll excuse me, Mrs. Graye,' she said, 'but 'tis the old
gentleman's birthday, and they always have a lot of people to dinner
on that day, though he's getting up in years now. However, none of
them are sleepers--she generally keeps the house pretty clear of
lodgers (being a lady with no intimate friends, though many
acquaintances), which, though it gives us less to do, makes it all
the duller for the younger maids in the house.' Mrs. Morris then
proceeded to give in fragmentary speeches an outline of the
constitution and government of the estate.

'Now, are you sure you have quite done tea? Not a bit or drop more?
Why, you've eaten nothing, I'm sure. . . . Well, now, it is rather
inconvenient that the other maid is not here to show you the ways of
the house a little, but she left last Saturday, and Miss Aldclyffe
has been making shift with poor old clumsy me for a maid all
yesterday and this morning. She is not come in yet. I expect she
will ask for you, Mrs. Graye, the first thing. . . . I was going to
say that if you have really done tea, I will take you upstairs, and
show you through the wardrobes--Miss Aldclyffe's things are not laid
out for to-night yet.'