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 climax 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 sex; 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,
