A Changed Man and Other Tales

T >> Thomas Hardy >> A Changed Man and Other Tales


One or two people sang songs, as overtures to the melody of the morrow,
till at length bedtime came, and they all withdrew, her mother having
retired a little earlier. When Baptista found herself again alone in her
bedroom the case stood as before: she had come home with much to say, and
she had said nothing.

It was now growing clear even to herself that Charles being dead, she had
not determination sufficient within her to break tidings which, had he
been alive, would have imperatively announced themselves. And thus with
the stroke of midnight came the turning of the scale; her story should
remain untold. It was not that upon the whole she thought it best not to
attempt to tell it; but that she could not undertake so explosive a
matter. To stop the wedding now would cause a convulsion in Giant's Town
little short of volcanic. Weakened, tired, and terrified as she had been
by the day's adventures, she could not make herself the author of such a
catastrophe. But how refuse Heddegan without telling? It really seemed
to her as if her marriage with Mr. Heddegan were about to take place as
if nothing had intervened.

Morning came. The events of the previous days were cut off from her
present existence by scene and sentiment more completely than ever.
Charles Stow had grown to be a special being of whom, owing to his
character, she entertained rather fearful than loving memory. Baptista
could hear when she awoke that her parents were already moving about
downstairs. But she did not rise till her mother's rather rough voice
resounded up the staircase as it had done on the preceding evening.

'Baptista! Come, time to be stirring! The man will be here, by heaven's
blessing, in three-quarters of an hour. He has looked in already for a
minute or two--and says he's going to the church to see if things be well
forward.'

Baptista arose, looked out of the window, and took the easy course. When
she emerged from the regions above she was arrayed in her new silk frock
and best stockings, wearing a linen jacket over the former for
breakfasting, and her common slippers over the latter, not to spoil the
new ones on the rough precincts of the dwelling.

It is unnecessary to dwell at any great length on this part of the
morning's proceedings. She revealed nothing; and married Heddegan, as
she had given her word to do, on that appointed August day.



CHAPTER V


Mr. Heddegan forgave the coldness of his bride's manner during and after
the wedding ceremony, full well aware that there had been considerable
reluctance on her part to acquiesce in this neighbourly arrangement, and,
as a philosopher of long standing, holding that whatever Baptista's
attitude now, the conditions would probably be much the same six months
hence as those which ruled among other married couples.

An absolutely unexpected shock was given to Baptista's listless mind
about an hour after the wedding service. They had nearly finished the
mid-day dinner when the now husband said to her father, 'We think of
starting about two. And the breeze being so fair we shall bring up
inside Pen-zephyr new pier about six at least.'

'What--are we going to Pen-zephyr?' said Baptista. 'I don't know
anything of it.'

'Didn't you tell her?' asked her father of Heddegan.

It transpired that, owing to the delay in her arrival, this proposal too,
among other things, had in the hurry not been mentioned to her, except
some time ago as a general suggestion that they would go somewhere.
Heddegan had imagined that any trip would be pleasant, and one to the
mainland the pleasantest of all.

She looked so distressed at the announcement that her husband willingly
offered to give it up, though he had not had a holiday off the island for
a whole year. Then she pondered on the inconvenience of staying at
Giant's Town, where all the inhabitants were bonded, by the circumstances
of their situation, into a sort of family party, which permitted and
encouraged on such occasions as these oral criticism that was apt to
disturb the equanimity of newly married girls, and would especially worry
Baptista in her strange situation. Hence, unexpectedly, she agreed not
to disorganize her husband's plans for the wedding jaunt, and it was
settled that, as originally intended, they should proceed in a
neighbour's sailing boat to the metropolis of the district.

In this way they arrived at Pen-zephyr without difficulty or mishap.
Bidding adieu to Jenkin and his man, who had sailed them over, they
strolled arm in arm off the pier, Baptista silent, cold, and obedient.
Heddegan had arranged to take her as far as Plymouth before their return,
but to go no further than where they had landed that day. Their first
business was to find an inn; and in this they had unexpected difficulty,
since for some reason or other--possibly the fine weather--many of the
nearest at hand were full of tourists and commercial travellers. He led
her on till he reached a tavern which, though comparatively unpretending,
stood in as attractive a spot as any in the town; and this, somewhat to
their surprise after their previous experience, they found apparently
empty. The considerate old man, thinking that Baptista was educated to
artistic notions, though he himself was deficient in them, had decided
that it was most desirable to have, on such an occasion as the present,
an apartment with 'a good view' (the expression being one he had often
heard in use among tourists); and he therefore asked for a favourite room
on the first floor, from which a bow-window protruded, for the express
purpose of affording such an outlook.

The landlady, after some hesitation, said she was sorry that particular
apartment was engaged; the next one, however, or any other in the house,
was unoccupied.

'The gentleman who has the best one will give it up to-morrow, and then
you can change into it,' she added, as Mr. Heddegan hesitated about
taking the adjoining and less commanding one.

'We shall be gone to-morrow, and shan't want it,' he said.

Wishing not to lose customers, the landlady earnestly continued that
since he was bent on having the best room, perhaps the other gentleman
would not object to move at once into the one they despised, since,
though nothing could be seen from the window, the room was equally large.

'Well, if he doesn't care for a view,' said Mr. Heddegan, with the air of
a highly artistic man who did.

'O no--I am sure he doesn't,' she said. 'I can promise that you shall
have the room you want. If you would not object to go for a walk for
half an hour, I could have it ready, and your things in it, and a nice
tea laid in the bow-window by the time you come back?'

This proposal was deemed satisfactory by the fussy old tradesman, and
they went out. Baptista nervously conducted him in an opposite direction
to her walk of the former day in other company, showing on her wan face,
had he observed it, how much she was beginning to regret her sacrificial
step for mending matters that morning.

She took advantage of a moment when her husband's back was turned to
inquire casually in a shop if anything had been heard of the gentleman
who was sucked down in the eddy while bathing.

The shopman said, 'Yes, his body has been washed ashore,' and had just
handed Baptista a newspaper on which she discerned the heading, 'A
Schoolmaster drowned while bathing,' when her husband turned to join her.
She might have pursued the subject without raising suspicion; but it was
more than flesh and blood could do, and completing a small purchase
almost ran out of the shop.

'What is your terrible hurry, mee deer?' said Heddegan, hastening after.

'I don't know--I don't want to stay in shops,' she gasped.

'And we won't,' he said. 'They are suffocating this weather. Let's go
back and have some tay!'

They found the much desired apartment awaiting their entry. It was a
sort of combination bed and sitting-room, and the table was prettily
spread with high tea in the bow-window, a bunch of flowers in the midst,
and a best-parlour chair on each side. Here they shared the meal by the
ruddy light of the vanishing sun. But though the view had been engaged,
regardless of expense, exclusively for Baptista's pleasure, she did not
direct any keen attention out of the window. Her gaze as often fell on
the floor and walls of the room as elsewhere, and on the table as much as
on either, beholding nothing at all.

But there was a change. Opposite her seat was the door, upon which her
eyes presently became riveted like those of a little bird upon a snake.
For, on a peg at the back of the door, there hung a hat; such a
hat--surely, from its peculiar make, the actual hat--that had been worn
by Charles. Conviction grew to certainty when she saw a railway ticket
sticking up from the band. Charles had put the ticket there--she had
noticed the act.

Her teeth almost chattered; she murmured something incoherent. Her
husband jumped up and said, 'You are not well! What is it? What shall I
get 'ee?'

'Smelling salts!' she said, quickly and desperately; 'at that chemist's
shop you were in just now.'

He jumped up like the anxious old man that he was, caught up his own hat
from a back table, and without observing the other hastened out and
downstairs.

Left alone she gazed and gazed at the back of the door, then
spasmodically rang the bell. An honest-looking country maid-servant
appeared in response.

'A hat!' murmured Baptista, pointing with her finger. 'It does not
belong to us.'

'O yes, I'll take it away,' said the young woman with some hurry. 'It
belongs to the other gentleman.'

She spoke with a certain awkwardness, and took the hat out of the room.
Baptista had recovered her outward composure. 'The other gentleman?' she
said. 'Where is the other gentleman?'

'He's in the next room, ma'am. He removed out of this to oblige 'ee.'

'How can you say so? I should hear him if he were there,' said Baptista,
sufficiently recovered to argue down an apparent untruth.

'He's there,' said the girl, hardily.

'Then it is strange that he makes no noise,' said Mrs. Heddegan,
convicting the girl of falsity by a look.

'He makes no noise; but it is not strange,' said the servant.

All at once a dread took possession of the bride's heart, like a cold
hand laid thereon; for it flashed upon her that there was a possibility
of reconciling the girl's statement with her own knowledge of facts.

'Why does he make no noise?' she weakly said.

The waiting-maid was silent, and looked at her questioner. 'If I tell
you, ma'am, you won't tell missis?' she whispered.

Baptista promised.

'Because he's a-lying dead!' said the girl. 'He's the schoolmaster that
was drownded yesterday.'

'O!' said the bride, covering her eyes. 'Then he was in this room till
just now?'

'Yes,' said the maid, thinking the young lady's agitation natural enough.
'And I told missis that I thought she oughtn't to have done it, because I
don't hold it right to keep visitors so much in the dark where death's
concerned; but she said the gentleman didn't die of anything infectious;
she was a poor, honest, innkeeper's wife, she says, who had to get her
living by making hay while the sun sheened. And owing to the drownded
gentleman being brought here, she said, it kept so many people away that
we were empty, though all the other houses were full. So when your good
man set his mind upon the room, and she would have lost good paying folk
if he'd not had it, it wasn't to be supposed, she said, that she'd let
anything stand in the way. Ye won't say that I've told ye, please, m'm?
All the linen has been changed, and as the inquest won't be till
to-morrow, after you are gone, she thought you wouldn't know a word of
it, being strangers here.'

The returning footsteps of her husband broke off further narration.
Baptista waved her hand, for she could not speak. The waiting-maid
quickly withdrew, and Mr. Heddegan entered with the smelling salts and
other nostrums.

'Any better?' he questioned.

'I don't like the hotel,' she exclaimed, almost simultaneously. 'I can't
bear it--it doesn't suit me!'

'Is that all that's the matter?' he returned pettishly (this being the
first time of his showing such a mood). 'Upon my heart and life such
trifling is trying to any man's temper, Baptista! Sending me about from
here to yond, and then when I come back saying 'ee don't like the place
that I have sunk so much money and words to get for 'ee. 'Od dang it
all, 'tis enough to--But I won't say any more at present, mee deer,
though it is just too much to expect to turn out of the house now. We
shan't get another quiet place at this time of the evening--every other
inn in the town is bustling with rackety folk of one sort and t'other,
while here 'tis as quiet as the grave--the country, I would say. So bide
still, d'ye hear, and to-morrow we shall be out of the town altogether--as
early as you like.'

The obstinacy of age had, in short, overmastered its complaisance, and
the young woman said no more. The simple course of telling him that in
the adjoining room lay a corpse which had lately occupied their own
might, it would have seemed, have been an effectual one without further
disclosure, but to allude to that subject, however it was disguised, was
more than Heddegan's young wife had strength for. Horror broke her down.
In the contingency one thing only presented itself to her paralyzed
regard--that here she was doomed to abide, in a hideous contiguity to the
dead husband and the living, and her conjecture did, in fact, bear itself
out. That night she lay between the two men she had married--Heddegan on
the one hand, and on the other through the partition against which the
bed stood, Charles Stow.



CHAPTER VI


Kindly time had withdrawn the foregoing event three days from the present
of Baptista Heddegan. It was ten o'clock in the morning; she had been
ill, not in an ordinary or definite sense, but in a state of cold
stupefaction, from which it was difficult to arouse her so much as to say
a few sentences. When questioned she had replied that she was pretty
well.

Their trip, as such, had been something of a failure. They had gone on
as far as Falmouth, but here he had given way to her entreaties to return
home. This they could not very well do without repassing through Pen-
zephyr, at which place they had now again arrived.

In the train she had seen a weekly local paper, and read there a
paragraph detailing the inquest on Charles. It was added that the
funeral was to take place at his native town of Redrutin on Friday.

After reading this she had shown no reluctance to enter the fatal
neighbourhood of the tragedy, only stipulating that they should take
their rest at a different lodging from the first; and now comparatively
braced up and calm--indeed a cooler creature altogether than when last in
the town, she said to David that she wanted to walk out for a while, as
they had plenty of time on their hands.

'To a shop as usual, I suppose, mee deer?'

'Partly for shopping,' she said. 'And it will be best for you, dear, to
stay in after trotting about so much, and have a good rest while I am
gone.'

He assented; and Baptista sallied forth. As she had stated, her first
visit was made to a shop, a draper's. Without the exercise of much
choice she purchased a black bonnet and veil, also a black stuff gown; a
black mantle she already wore. These articles were made up into a parcel
which, in spite of the saleswoman's offers, her customer said she would
take with her. Bearing it on her arm she turned to the railway, and at
the station got a ticket for Redrutin.

Thus it appeared that, on her recovery from the paralyzed mood of the
former day, while she had resolved not to blast utterly the happiness of
her present husband by revealing the history of the departed one, she had
also determined to indulge a certain odd, inconsequent, feminine
sentiment of decency, to the small extent to which it could do no harm to
any person. At Redrutin she emerged from the railway carriage in the
black attire purchased at the shop, having during the transit made the
change in the empty compartment she had chosen. The other clothes were
now in the bandbox and parcel. Leaving these at the cloak-room she
proceeded onward, and after a wary survey reached the side of a hill
whence a view of the burial ground could be obtained.

It was now a little before two o'clock. While Baptista waited a funeral
procession ascended the road. Baptista hastened across, and by the time
the procession entered the cemetery gates she had unobtrusively joined
it.

In addition to the schoolmaster's own relatives (not a few), the
paragraph in the newspapers of his death by drowning had drawn together
many neighbours, acquaintances, and onlookers. Among them she passed
unnoticed, and with a quiet step pursued the winding path to the chapel,
and afterwards thence to the grave. When all was over, and the relatives
and idlers had withdrawn, she stepped to the edge of the chasm. From
beneath her mantle she drew a little bunch of forget-me-nots, and dropped
them in upon the coffin. In a few minutes she also turned and went away
from the cemetery. By five o'clock she was again in Pen-zephyr.

'You have been a mortal long time!' said her husband, crossly. 'I
allowed you an hour at most, mee deer.'

'It occupied me longer,' said she.

'Well--I reckon it is wasting words to complain. Hang it, ye look so
tired and wisht that I can't find heart to say what I would!'

'I am--weary and wisht, David; I am. We can get home to-morrow for
certain, I hope?'

'We can. And please God we will!' said Mr. Heddegan heartily, as if he
too were weary of his brief honeymoon. 'I must be into business again on
Monday morning at latest.'

They left by the next morning steamer, and in the afternoon took up their
residence in their own house at Giant's Town.

The hour that she reached the island it was as if a material weight had
been removed from Baptista's shoulders. Her husband attributed the
change to the influence of the local breezes after the hot-house
atmosphere of the mainland. However that might be, settled here, a few
doors from her mother's dwelling, she recovered in no very long time much
of her customary bearing, which was never very demonstrative. She
accepted her position calmly, and faintly smiled when her neighbours
learned to call her Mrs. Heddegan, and said she seemed likely to become
the leader of fashion in Giant's Town.

Her husband was a man who had made considerably more money by trade than
her father had done: and perhaps the greater profusion of surroundings at
her command than she had heretofore been mistress of, was not without an
effect upon her. One week, two weeks, three weeks passed; and, being pre-
eminently a young woman who allowed things to drift, she did nothing
whatever either to disclose or conceal traces of her first marriage; or
to learn if there existed possibilities--which there undoubtedly did--by
which that hasty contract might become revealed to those about her at any
unexpected moment.

While yet within the first month of her marriage, and on an evening just
before sunset, Baptista was standing within her garden adjoining the
house, when she saw passing along the road a personage clad in a greasy
black coat and battered tall hat, which, common enough in the slums of a
city, had an odd appearance in St. Maria's. The tramp, as he seemed to
be, marked her at once--bonnetless and unwrapped as she was her features
were plainly recognizable--and with an air of friendly surprise came and
leant over the wall.

'What! don't you know me?' said he.

She had some dim recollection of his face, but said that she was not
acquainted with him.

'Why, your witness to be sure, ma'am. Don't you mind the man that was
mending the church-window when you and your intended husband walked up to
be made one; and the clerk called me down from the ladder, and I came and
did my part by writing my name and occupation?'

Baptista glanced quickly around; her husband was out of earshot. That
would have been of less importance but for the fact that the wedding
witnessed by this personage had not been the wedding with Mr. Heddegan,
but the one on the day previous.

'I've had a misfortune since then, that's pulled me under,' continued her
friend. 'But don't let me damp yer wedded joy by naming the particulars.
Yes, I've seen changes since; though 'tis but a short time ago--let me
see, only a month next week, I think; for 'twere the first or second day
in August.'

'Yes--that's when it was,' said another man, a sailor, who had come up
with a pipe in his mouth, and felt it necessary to join in (Baptista
having receded to escape further speech). 'For that was the first time I
set foot in Giant's Town; and her husband took her to him the same day.'

A dialogue then proceeded between the two men outside the wall, which
Baptista could not help hearing.

'Ay, I signed the book that made her one flesh,' repeated the decayed
glazier. 'Where's her goodman?'

'About the premises somewhere; but you don't see 'em together much,'
replied the sailor in an undertone. 'You see, he's older than she.'

'Older? I should never have thought it from my own observation,' said
the glazier. 'He was a remarkably handsome man.'

'Handsome? Well, there he is--we can see for ourselves.'

David Heddegan had, indeed, just shown himself at the upper end of the
garden; and the glazier, looking in bewilderment from the husband to the
wife, saw the latter turn pale.

Now that decayed glazier was a far-seeing and cunning man--too far-seeing
and cunning to allow himself to thrive by simple and straightforward
means--and he held his peace, till he could read more plainly the meaning
of this riddle, merely adding carelessly, 'Well--marriage do alter a man,
'tis true. I should never ha' knowed him!'

He then stared oddly at the disconcerted Baptista, and moving on to where
he could again address her, asked her to do him a good turn, since he
once had done the same for her. Understanding that he meant money, she
handed him some, at which he thanked her, and instantly went away.



CHAPTER VII


She had escaped exposure on this occasion; but the incident had been an
awkward one, and should have suggested to Baptista that sooner or later
the secret must leak out. As it was, she suspected that at any rate she
had not heard the last of the glazier.

In a day or two, when her husband had gone to the old town on the other
side of the island, there came a gentle tap at the door, and the worthy
witness of her first marriage made his appearance a second time.

'It took me hours to get to the bottom of the mystery--hours!' he said
with a gaze of deep confederacy which offended her pride very deeply.
'But thanks to a good intellect I've done it. Now, ma'am, I'm not a man
to tell tales, even when a tale would be so good as this. But I'm going
back to the mainland again, and a little assistance would be as rain on
thirsty ground.'

'I helped you two days ago,' began Baptista.

'Yes--but what was that, my good lady? Not enough to pay my passage to
Pen-zephyr. I came over on your account, for I thought there was a
mystery somewhere. Now I must go back on my own. Mind this--'twould be
very awkward for you if your old man were to know. He's a queer temper,
though he may be fond.'

She knew as well as her visitor how awkward it would be; and the hush-
money she paid was heavy that day. She had, however, the satisfaction of
watching the man to the steamer, and seeing him diminish out of sight.
But Baptista perceived that the system into which she had been led of
purchasing silence thus was one fatal to her peace of mind, particularly
if it had to be continued.

Hearing no more from the glazier she hoped the difficulty was past. But
another week only had gone by, when, as she was pacing the Giant's Walk
(the name given to the promenade), she met the same personage in the
company of a fat woman carrying a bundle.

'This is the lady, my dear,' he said to his companion. 'This, ma'am, is
my wife. We've come to settle in the town for a time, if so be we can
find room.'

'That you won't do,' said she. 'Nobody can live here who is not
privileged.'

'I am privileged,' said the glazier, 'by my trade.'

Baptista went on, but in the afternoon she received a visit from the
man's wife. This honest woman began to depict, in forcible colours, the
necessity for keeping up the concealment.

'I will intercede with my husband, ma'am,' she said. 'He's a true man if
rightly managed; and I'll beg him to consider your position. 'Tis a very
nice house you've got here,' she added, glancing round, 'and well worth a
little sacrifice to keep it.'

The unlucky Baptista staved off the danger on this third occasion as she
had done on the previous two. But she formed a resolve that, if the
attack were once more to be repeated she would face a revelation--worse
though that must now be than before she had attempted to purchase silence
by bribes. Her tormentors, never believing her capable of acting upon
such an intention, came again; but she shut the door in their faces. They
retreated, muttering something; but she went to the back of the house,
where David Heddegan was.