‘O no. The property, with the name, came from her mother’s uncle. Her family is a branch of the old Aldclyffe family on the maternal side. Her mother married a Bradleigh--a mere nobody at that time--and was on that account cut by her relations. But very singularly the other branch of the family died out one by one--three of them, and Miss Aldclyffe’s great-uncle then left all his property, including this estate, to Captain Bradleigh and his wife--Miss Aldclyffe’s father and mother--on condition that they took the old family name as well. There’s all about it in the “Landed Gentry.” ‘Tis a thing very often done.’
‘O, I see. Thank you. Well, now I am going. Good-night.’
1. AUGUST THE NINTH. ONE TO TWO O’CLOCK A.M.
Cytherea entered her bedroom, and flung herself on the bed, bewildered by a whirl of thought. Only one subject was clear in her mind, and it was that, in spite of family discoveries, that day was to be the first and last of her experience as a lady’s-maid. Starvation itself should not compel her to hold such a humiliating post for another instant. ‘Ah,’ she thought, with a sigh, at the martyrdom of her last little fragment of self-conceit, ‘Owen knows everything better than I.’
She jumped up and began making ready for her departure in the morning, the tears streaming down when she grieved and wondered what practical matter on earth she could turn her hand to next. All these preparations completed, she began to undress, her mind unconsciously drifting away to the contemplation of her late surprises. To look in the glass for an instant at the reflection of her own magnificent resources in face and bosom, and to mark their attractiveness unadorned, was perhaps but the natural action of a young woman who had so lately been chidden whilst passing through the harassing experience of decorating an older beauty of Miss Aldclyffe’s temper.
But she directly checked her weakness by sympathizing reflections on the hidden troubles which must have thronged the past years of the solitary lady, to keep her, though so rich and courted, in a mood so repellent and gloomy as that in which Cytherea found her; and then the young girl marvelled again and again, as she had marvelled before, at the strange confluence of circumstances which had brought herself into contact with the one woman in the world whose history was so romantically intertwined with her own. She almost began to wish she were not obliged to go away and leave the lonely being to loneliness still.