Desperate Remedies, The Hand of Ethelberta & A Laodicean: Complete Illustrated Trilogy. Томас Харди

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      The happiness that a generous spirit derives from the belief that it exists in others is often greater than the primary happiness itself. The gardener thought ‘How happy they are!’ and the thought made him happier than they.

      Coming out of the forcing-house again, she was on the point of returning indoors, when a feeling that these moments of solitude would be her last of freedom induced her to prolong them a little, and she stood still, unheeding the wintry aspect of the curly-leaved plants, the straw-covered beds, and the bare fruit-trees around her. The garden, no part of which was visible from the house, sloped down to a narrow river at the foot, dividing it from the meadows without.

      A man was lingering along the public path on the other side of the river; she fancied she knew the form. Her resolutions, taken in the presence of Owen, did not fail her now. She hoped and prayed that it might not be one who had stolen her heart away, and still kept it. Why should he have reappeared at all, when he had declared that he went out of her sight for ever?

      She hastily hid herself, in the lowest corner of the garden close to the river. A large dead tree, thickly robed in ivy, had been considerably depressed by its icy load of the morning, and hung low over the stream, which here ran slow and deep. The tree screened her from the eyes of any passer on the other side.

      She waited timidly, and her timidity increased. She would not allow herself to see him — she would hear him pass, and then look to see if it had been Edward.

      But, before she heard anything, she became aware of an object reflected in the water from under the tree which hung over the river in such a way that, though hiding the actual path, and objects upon it, it permitted their reflected images to pass beneath its boughs. The reflected form was that of the man she had seen further off, but being inverted, she could not definitely characterize him.

      He was looking at the upper windows of the House — at hers — was it Edward, indeed? If so, he was probably thinking he would like to say one parting word. He came closer, gazed into the stream, and walked very slowly. She was almost certain that it was Edward. She kept more safely hidden. Conscience told her that she ought not to see him. But she suddenly asked herself a question: ‘Can it be possible that he sees my reflected image, as I see his? Of course he does!’

      He was looking at her in the water.

      She could not help herself now. She stepped forward just as he emerged from the other side of the tree and appeared erect before her. It was Edward Springrove — till the inverted vision met his eye, dreaming no more of seeing his Cytherea there than of seeing the dead themselves.

      ‘Cytherea!’

      ‘Mr. Springrove,’ she returned, in a low voice, across the stream.

      He was the first to speak again.

      ‘Since we have met, I want to tell you something, before we become quite as strangers to each other.’

      ‘No — not now — I did not mean to speak — it is not right, Edward.’ She spoke hurriedly and turned away from him, beating the air with her hand.

      ‘Not one common word of explanation?’ he implored. ‘Don’t think I am bad enough to try to lead you astray. Well, go — it is better.’

      Their eyes met again. She was nearly choked. O, how she longed — and dreaded — to hear his explanation!

      ‘What is it?’ she said desperately.

      ‘It is that I did not come to the church this morning in order to distress you: I did not, Cytherea. It was to try to speak to you before you were — married.’

      He stepped closer, and went on, ‘You know what has taken place? Surely you do? — my cousin is married, and I am free.’

      ‘Married — and not to you?’ Cytherea faltered, in a weak whisper.

      ‘Yes, she was married yesterday! A rich man had appeared, and she jilted me. She said she never would have jilted a stranger, but that by jilting me, she only exercised the right everybody has of snubbing their own relations. But that’s nothing now. I came to you to ask once more if. . . . But I was too late.’

      ‘But, Edward, what’s that, what’s that!’ she cried, in an agony of reproach. ‘Why did you leave me to return to her? Why did you write me that cruel, cruel letter that nearly killed me!’

      ‘Cytherea! Why, you had grown to love — like — Mr. Manston, and how could you be anything to me — or care for me? Surely I acted naturally?’

      ‘O no — never! I loved you — only you — not him — always you! — till lately. . . . I try to love him now.’

      ‘But that can’t be correct! Miss Aldclyffe told me that you wanted to hear no more of me — proved it to me!’ said Edward.

      ‘Never! she couldn’t.’

      ‘She did, Cytherea. And she sent me a letter — a love-letter, you wrote to Mr. Manston.’

      ‘A love-letter I wrote?’

      ‘Yes, a love-letter — you could not meet him just then, you said you were sorry, but the emotion you had felt with him made you forgetful of realities.’

      The strife of thought in the unhappy girl who listened to this distortion of her meaning could find no vent in words. And then there followed the slow revelation in return, bringing with it all the misery of an explanation which comes too late. The question whether Miss Aldclyffe were schemer or dupe was almost passed over by Cytherea, under the immediate oppressiveness of her despair in the sense that her position was irretrievable.

      Not so Springrove. He saw through all the cunning half-misrepresentations — worse than downright lies — which had just been sufficient to turn the scale both with him and with her; and from the bottom of his soul he cursed the woman and man who had brought all this agony upon him and his Love. But he could not add more misery to the future of the poor child by revealing too much. The whole scheme she should never know.

      ‘I was indifferent to my own future,’ Edward said, ‘and was urged to promise adherence to my engagement with my cousin Adelaide by Miss Aldclyffe: now you are married I cannot tell you how, but it was on account of my father. Being forbidden to think of you, what did I care about anything? My new thought that you still loved me was first raised by what my father said in the letter announcing my cousin’s marriage. He said that although you were to be married on Old Christmas Day — that is tomorrow — he had noticed your appearance with pity: he thought you loved me still. It was enough for me — I came down by the earliest morning train, thinking I could see you some time today, the day, as I thought, before your marriage, hoping, but hardly daring to hope, that you might be induced to marry me. I hurried from the station; when I reached the village I saw idlers about the church, and the private gate leading to the House open. I ran into the church by the small door and saw you come out of the vestry; I was too late. I have now told you. I was compelled to tell you. O, my lost darling, now I shall live content — or die content!’

      ‘I am to blame, Edward, I am,’ she said mournfully; ‘I was taught to dread pauperism; my nights were made sleepless; there was continually reiterated in my ears till СКАЧАТЬ