Desperate Remedies

T >> Thomas Hardy >> Desperate Remedies


She searched the house from roof-tree to cellar, for some other
trace of feminine existence or appurtenance; but none was to be
found.

She went out into the yard, coal-hole, stable, hay-loft,
green-house, fowl-house, and piggery, and still there was no sign.
Coming in again, she saw a bonnet, eagerly pounced upon it; and
found it to be her own.

Hastily completing her arrangements in the other rooms, she entered
the village again, and called at once on the postmistress, Elizabeth
Leat, an intimate friend of hers, and a female who sported several
unique diseases and afflictions.

Mrs. Crickett unfolded the paper, took out the hair, and waved it on
high before the perplexed eyes of Elizabeth, which immediately
mooned and wandered after it like a cat's.

'What is it?' said Mrs. Leat, contracting her eyelids, and
stretching out towards the invisible object a narrow bony hand that
would have been an unmitigated delight to the pencil of Carlo
Crivelli.

'You shall hear,' said Mrs. Crickett, complacently gathering up the
treasure into her own fat hand; and the secret was then solemnly
imparted, together with the accident of its discovery.

A shaving-glass was taken down from a nail, laid on its back in the
middle of a table by the window, and the hair spread carefully out
upon it. The pair then bent over the table from opposite sides,
their elbows on the edge, their hands supporting their heads, their
foreheads nearly touching, and their eyes upon the hair.

'He ha' been mad a'ter my lady Cytherea,' said Mrs. Crickett, 'and
'tis my very belief the hair is--'

'No 'tidn'. Hers idn' so dark as that,' said Elizabeth.

'Elizabeth, you know that as the faithful wife of a servant of the
Church, I should be glad to think as you do about the girl. Mind I
don't wish to say anything against Miss Graye, but this I do say,
that I believe her to be a nameless thing, and she's no right to
stick a moral clock in her face, and deceive the country in such a
way. If she wasn't of a bad stock at the outset she was bad in the
planten, and if she wasn't bad in the planten, she was bad in the
growen, and if not in the growen, she's made bad by what she's gone
through since.'

'But I have another reason for knowing it idn' hers,' said Mrs.
Leat.

'Ah! I know whose it is then--Miss Aldclyffe's, upon my song!'

''Tis the colour of hers, but I don't believe it to be hers either.'

'Don't you believe what they d' say about her and him?'

'I say nothen about that; but you don't know what I know about his
letters.'

'What about 'em?'

'He d' post all his letters here except those for one person, and
they he d' take to Budmouth. My son is in Budmouth Post Office, as
you know, and as he d' sit at desk he can see over the blind of the
window all the people who d' post letters. Mr. Manston d'
unvariably go there wi' letters for that person; my boy d' know 'em
by sight well enough now.'

'Is it a she?'

''Tis a she.'

'What's her name?'

'The little stunpoll of a fellow couldn't call to mind more than
that 'tis Miss Somebody, of London. However, that's the woman who
ha' been here, depend upon't--a wicked one--some poor street-wench
escaped from Sodom, I warrant ye.'

'Only to find herself in Gomorrah, seemingly.'

'That may be.'

'No, no, Mrs. Leat, this is clear to me. 'Tis no miss who came here
to see our steward last night--whenever she came or wherever she
vanished. Do you think he would ha' let a miss get here how she
could, go away how she would, without breakfast or help of any
kind?'

Elizabeth shook her head--Mrs. Crickett looked at her solemnly.

'I say I know she had no help of any kind; I know it was so, for the
grate was quite cold when I touched it this morning with these
fingers, and he was still in bed. No, he wouldn't take the trouble
to write letters to a girl and then treat her so off-hand as that.
There's a tie between 'em stronger than feelen. She's his wife.'

'He married! The Lord so 's, what shall we hear next? Do he look
married now? His are not the abashed eyes and lips of a married
man.'

'Perhaps she's a tame one--but she's his wife still.'

'No, no: he's not a married man.'

'Yes, yes, he is. I've had three, and I ought to know.'

'Well, well,' said Mrs. Leat, giving way. 'Whatever may be the
truth on't I trust Providence will settle it all for the best, as He
always do.'

'Ay, ay, Elizabeth,' rejoined Mrs. Crickett with a satirical sigh,
as she turned on her foot to go home, 'good people like you may say
so, but I have always found Providence a different sort of feller.'

5. NOVEMBER THE TWENTIETH

It was Miss Aldclyffe's custom, a custom originated by her father,
and nourished by her own exclusiveness, to unlock the post-bag
herself every morning, instead of allowing the duty to devolve on
the butler, as was the case in most of the neighbouring county
families. The bag was brought upstairs each morning to her
dressing-room, where she took out the contents, mostly in the
presence of her maid and Cytherea, who had the entree of the chamber
at all hours, and attended there in the morning at a kind of
reception on a small scale, which was held by Miss Aldclyffe of her
namesake only.

Here she read her letters before the glass, whilst undergoing the
operation of being brushed and dressed.

'What woman can this be, I wonder?' she said on the morning
succeeding that of the last section. '"London, N.!" It is the
first time in my life I ever had a letter from that outlandish
place, the North side of London.'

Cytherea had just come into her presence to learn if there was
anything for herself; and on being thus addressed, walked up to Miss
Aldclyffe's corner of the room to look at the curiosity which had
raised such an exclamation. But the lady, having opened the
envelope and read a few lines, put it quickly in her pocket, before
Cytherea could reach her side.

'O, 'tis nothing,' she said. She proceeded to make general remarks
in a noticeably forced tone of sang-froid, from which she soon
lapsed into silence. Not another word was said about the letter:
she seemed very anxious to get her dressing done, and the room
cleared. Thereupon Cytherea went away to the other window, and a
few minutes later left the room to follow her own pursuits.

It was late when Miss Aldclyffe descended to the breakfast-table and
then she seemed there to no purpose; tea, coffee, eggs, cutlets, and
all their accessories, were left absolutely untasted. The next that
was seen of her was when walking up and down the south terrace, and
round the flower-beds; her face was pale, and her tread was fitful,
and she crumpled a letter in her hand.

Dinner-time came round as usual; she did not speak ten words, or
indeed seem conscious of the meal; for all that Miss Aldclyffe did
in the way of eating, dinner might have been taken out as intact as
it was taken in.

In her own private apartment Miss Aldclyffe again pulled out the
letter of the morning. One passage in it ran thus:--


'Of course, being his wife, I could publish the fact, and compel him
to acknowledge me at any moment, notwithstanding his threats, and
reasonings that it will be better to wait. I have waited, and
waited again, and the time for such acknowledgment seems no nearer
than at first. To show you how patiently I have waited I can tell
you that not till a fortnight ago, when by stress of circumstances I
had been driven to new lodgings, have I ever assumed my married
name, solely on account of its having been his request all along
that I should not do it. This writing to you, madam, is my first
disobedience, and I am justified in it. A woman who is driven to
visit her husband like a thief in the night and then sent away like
a street dog--left to get up, unbolt, unbar, and find her way out of
the house as she best may--is justified in doing anything.

'But should I demand of him a restitution of rights, there would be
involved a publicity which I could not endure, and a noisy scandal
flinging my name the length and breadth of the country.

'What I still prefer to any such violent means is that you reason
with him privately, and compel him to bring me home to your parish
in a decent and careful manner, in the way that would be adopted by
any respectable man, whose wife had been living away from him for
some time, by reason, say, of peculiar family circumstances which
had caused disunion, but not enmity, and who at length was enabled
to reinstate her in his house.

'You will, I know, oblige me in this, especially as knowledge of a
peculiar transaction of your own, which took place some years ago,
has lately come to me in a singular way. I will not at present
trouble you by describing how. It is enough, that I alone, of all
people living, know _all the sides of the story_, those from whom I
collected it having each only a partial knowledge which confuses
them and points to nothing. One person knows of your early
engagement and its sudden termination; another, of the reason of
those strange meetings at inns and coffee-houses; another, of what
was sufficient to cause all this, and so on. I know what fits one
and all the circumstances like a key, and shows them to be the
natural outcrop of a rational (though rather rash) line of conduct
for a young lady. You will at once perceive how it was that some at
least of these things were revealed to me.

'This knowledge then, common to, and secretly treasured by us both,
is the ground upon which I beg for your friendship and help, with a
feeling that you will be too generous to refuse it to me.

'I may add that, as yet, my husband knows nothing of this, neither
need he if you remember my request.'


'A threat--a flat stinging threat! as delicately wrapped up in words
as the woman could do it; a threat from a miserable unknown creature
to an Aldclyffe, and not the least proud member of the family
either! A threat on his account--O, O! shall it be?'

Presently this humour of defiance vanished, and the members of her
body became supple again, her proceedings proving that it was
absolutely necessary to give way, Aldclyffe as she was. She wrote a
short answer to Mrs. Manston, saying civilly that Mr. Manston's
possession of such a near relation was a fact quite new to herself,
and that she would see what could be done in such an unfortunate
affair.

6. NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-FIRST

Manston received a message the next day requesting his attendance at
the House punctually at eight o'clock the ensuing evening. Miss
Aldclyffe was brave and imperious, but with the purpose she had in
view she could not look him in the face whilst daylight shone upon
her.

The steward was shown into the library. On entering it, he was
immediately struck with the unusual gloom which pervaded the
apartment. The fire was dead and dull, one lamp, and that a
comparatively small one, was burning at the extreme end, leaving the
main proportion of the lofty and sombre room in an artificial
twilight, scarcely powerful enough to render visible the titles of
the folio and quarto volumes which were jammed into the lower tiers
of the bookshelves.

After keeping him waiting for more than twenty minutes (Miss
Aldclyffe knew that excellent recipe for taking the stiffness out of
human flesh, and for extracting all pre-arrangement from human
speech) she entered the room.

Manston sought her eye directly. The hue of her features was not
discernible, but the calm glance she flung at him, from which all
attempt at returning his scrutiny was absent, awoke him to the
perception that probably his secret was by some means or other known
to her; how it had become known he could not tell.

She drew forth the letter, unfolded it, and held it up to him,
letting it hang by one corner from between her finger and thumb, so
that the light from the lamp, though remote, fell directly upon its
surface.

'You know whose writing this is?' she said.

He saw the strokes plainly, instantly resolving to burn his ships
and hazard all on an advance.

'My wife's,' he said calmly.

His quiet answer threw her off her balance. She had no more
expected an answer than does a preacher when he exclaims from the
pulpit, 'Do you feel your sin?' She had clearly expected a sudden
alarm.

'And why all this concealment?' she said again, her voice rising, as
she vainly endeavoured to control her feelings, whatever they were.

'It doesn't follow that, because a man is married, he must tell
every stranger of it, madam,' he answered, just as calmly as before.

'Stranger! well, perhaps not; but, Mr. Manston, why did you choose
to conceal it, I ask again? I have a perfect right to ask this
question, as you will perceive, if you consider the terms of my
advertisement.'

'I will tell you. There were two simple reasons. The first was
this practical one; you advertised for an unmarried man, if you
remember?'

'Of course I remember.'

'Well, an incident suggested to me that I should try for the
situation. I was married; but, knowing that in getting an office
where there is a restriction of this kind, leaving one's wife behind
is always accepted as a fulfilment of the condition, I left her
behind for awhile. The other reason is, that these terms of yours
afforded me a plausible excuse for escaping (for a short time) the
company of a woman I had been mistaken in marrying.'

'Mistaken! what was she?' the lady inquired.

'A third-rate actress, whom I met with during my stay in Liverpool
last summer, where I had gone to fulfil a short engagement with an
architect.'

'Where did she come from?'

'She is an American by birth, and I grew to dislike her when we had
been married a week.'

'She was ugly, I imagine?'

'She is not an ugly woman by any means.'

'Up to the ordinary standard?'

'Quite up to the ordinary standard--indeed, handsome. After a while
we quarrelled and separated.'

'You did not ill-use her, of course?' said Miss Aldclyffe, with a
little sarcasm.

'I did not.'

'But at any rate, you got thoroughly tired of her.'

Manston looked as if he began to think her questions out of place;
however, he said quietly, 'I did get tired of her. I never told her
so, but we separated; I to come here, bringing her with me as far as
London and leaving her there in perfectly comfortable quarters; and
though your advertisement expressed a single man, I have always
intended to tell you the whole truth; and this was when I was going
to tell it, when your satisfaction with my careful management of
your affairs should have proved the risk to be a safe one to run.'

She bowed.

'Then I saw that you were good enough to be interested in my welfare
to a greater extent than I could have anticipated or hoped, judging
you by the frigidity of other employers, and this caused me to
hesitate. I was vexed at the complication of affairs. So matters
stood till three nights ago; I was then walking home from the
pottery, and came up to the railway. The down-train came along
close to me, and there, sitting at a carriage window, I saw my wife:
she had found out my address, and had thereupon determined to follow
me here. I had not been home many minutes before she came in, next
morning early she left again--'

'Because you treated her so cavalierly?'

'And as I suppose, wrote to you directly. That's the whole story of
her, madam.' Whatever were Manston's real feelings towards the lady
who had received his explanation in these supercilious tones, they
remained locked within him as within a casket of steel.

'Did your friends know of your marriage, Mr. Manston?' she continued.

'Nobody at all; we kept it a secret for various reasons.'

'It is true then that, as your wife tells me in this letter, she has
not passed as Mrs. Manston till within these last few days?'

'It is quite true; I was in receipt of a very small and uncertain
income when we married; and so she continued playing at the theatre
as before our marriage, and in her maiden name.'

'Has she any friends?'

'I have never heard that she has any in England. She came over here
on some theatrical speculation, as one of a company who were going
to do much, but who never did anything; and here she has remained.'

A pause ensued, which was terminated by Miss Aldclyffe.

'I understand,' she said. 'Now, though I have no direct right to
concern myself with your private affairs (beyond those which arise
from your misleading me and getting the office you hold)--'

'As to that, madam,' he interrupted, rather hotly, 'as to coming
here, I am vexed as much as you. Somebody, a member of the
Institute of Architects--who, I could never tell--sent to my old
address in London your advertisement cut from the paper; it was
forwarded to me; I wanted to get away from Liverpool, and it seemed
as if this was put in my way on purpose, by some old friend or
other. I answered the advertisement certainly, but I was not
particularly anxious to come here, nor am I anxious to stay.'

Miss Aldclyffe descended from haughty superiority to womanly
persuasion with a haste which was almost ludicrous. Indeed, the
Quos ego of the whole lecture had been less the genuine menace of
the imperious ruler of Knapwater than an artificial utterance to
hide a failing heart.

'Now, now, Mr. Manston, you wrong me; don't suppose I wish to be
overbearing, or anything of the kind; and you will allow me to say
this much, at any rate, that I have become interested in your wife,
as well as in yourself.'

'Certainly, madam,' he said, slowly, like a man feeling his way in
the dark. Manston was utterly at fault now. His previous
experience of the effect of his form and features upon womankind en
masse, had taught him to flatter himself that he could account by
the same law of natural selection for the extraordinary interest
Miss Aldclyffe had hitherto taken in him, as an unmarried man; an
interest he did not at all object to, seeing that it kept him near
Cytherea, and enabled him, a man of no wealth, to rule on the estate
as if he were its lawful owner. Like Curius at his Sabine farm, he
had counted it his glory not to possess gold himself, but to have
power over her who did. But at this hint of the lady's wish to take
his wife under her wing also, he was perplexed: could she have any
sinister motive in doing so? But he did not allow himself to be
troubled with these doubts, which only concerned his wife's
happiness.

'She tells me,' continued Miss Aldclyffe, 'how utterly alone in the
world she stands, and that is an additional reason why I should
sympathize with her. Instead, then, of requesting the favour of
your retirement from the post, and dismissing your interests
altogether, I will retain you as my steward still, on condition that
you bring home your wife, and live with her respectably, in short,
as if you loved her; you understand. I _wish_ you to stay here if you
grant that everything shall flow smoothly between yourself and her.'

The breast and shoulders of the steward rose, as if an expression of
defiance was about to be poured forth; before it took form, he
controlled himself and said, in his natural voice--

'My part of the performance shall be carried out, madam.'

'And her anxiety to obtain a standing in the world ensures that hers
will,' replied Miss Aldclyffe. 'That will be satisfactory, then.'

After a few additional remarks, she gently signified that she wished
to put an end to the interview. The steward took the hint and
retired.

He felt vexed and mortified; yet in walking homeward he was
convinced that telling the whole truth as he had done, with the
single exception of his love for Cytherea (which he tried to hide
even from himself), had never served him in better stead than it had
done that night.

Manston went to his desk and thought of Cytherea's beauty with the
bitterest, wildest regret. After the lapse of a few minutes he
calmed himself by a stoical effort, and wrote the subjoined letter
to his wife:--


'KNAPWATER,
November 21, 1864.

'DEAR EUNICE,--I hope you reached London safely after your flighty
visit to me.

'As I promised, I have thought over our conversation that night, and
your wish that your coming here should be no longer delayed. After
all, it was perfectly natural that you should have spoken unkindly
as you did, ignorant as you were of the circumstances which bound
me.

'So I have made arrangements to fetch you home at once. It is
hardly worth while for you to attempt to bring with you any luggage
you may have gathered about you (beyond mere clothing). Dispose of
superfluous things at a broker's; your bringing them would only make
a talk in this parish, and lead people to believe we had long been
keeping house separately.

'Will next Monday suit you for coming? You have nothing to do that
can occupy you for more than a day or two, as far as I can see, and
the remainder of this week will afford ample time. I can be in
London the night before, and we will come down together by the
mid-day train--Your very affectionate husband,

'AENEAS MANSTON.

'Now, of course, I shall no longer write to you as Mrs. Rondley.'


The address on the envelope was--

MRS. MANSTON,
41 CHARLES SQUARE,
HOXTON,
LONDON, N.

He took the letter to the house, and it being too late for the
country post, sent one of the stablemen with it to Casterbridge,
instead of troubling to go to Budmouth with it himself as
heretofore. He had no longer any necessity to keep his condition a
secret.

7. FROM THE TWENTY-SECOND TO THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF NOVEMBER

But the next morning Manston found that he had been forgetful of
another matter, in naming the following Monday to his wife for the
journey.

The fact was this. A letter had just come, reminding him that he
had left the whole of the succeeding week open for an important
business engagement with a neighbouring land-agent, at that
gentleman's residence thirteen miles off. The particular day he had
suggested to his wife, had, in the interim, been appropriated by his
correspondent. The meeting could not now be put off.

So he wrote again to his wife, stating that business, which could
not be postponed, called him away from home on Monday, and would
entirely prevent him coming all the way to fetch her on Sunday night
as he had intended, but that he would meet her at the Carriford Road
Station with a conveyance when she arrived there in the evening.

The next day came his wife's answer to his first letter, in which
she said that she would be ready to be fetched at the time named.
Having already written his second letter, which was by that time in
her hands, he made no further reply.

The week passed away. The steward had, in the meantime, let it
become generally known in the village that he was a married man, and
by a little judicious management, sound family reasons for his past
secrecy upon the subject, which were floated as adjuncts to the
story, were placidly received; they seemed so natural and
justifiable to the unsophisticated minds of nine-tenths of his
neighbours, that curiosity in the matter, beyond a strong curiosity
to see the lady's face, was well-nigh extinguished.



X. THE EVENTS OF A DAY AND NIGHT

1. NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH. UNTIL TEN P.M.

Monday came, the day named for Mrs. Manston's journey from London to
her husband's house; a day of singular and great events, influencing
the present and future of nearly all the personages whose actions in
a complex drama form the subject of this record.

The proceedings of the steward demand the first notice. Whilst
taking his breakfast on this particular morning, the clock pointing
to eight, the horse-and-gig that was to take him to Chettlewood
waiting ready at the door, Manston hurriedly cast his eyes down the
column of Bradshaw which showed the details and duration of the
selected train's journey.

The inspection was carelessly made, the leaf being kept open by the
aid of one hand, whilst the other still held his cup of coffee; much
more carelessly than would have been the case had the expected
new-comer been Cytherea Graye, instead of his lawful wife.

He did not perceive, branching from the column down which his finger
ran, a small twist, called a shunting-line, inserted at a particular
place, to imply that at that point the train was divided into two.
By this oversight he understood that the arrival of his wife at
Carriford Road Station would not be till late in the evening: by
the second half of the train, containing the third-class passengers,
and passing two hours and three-quarters later than the previous
one, by which the lady, as a second-class passenger, would really be
brought.

He then considered that there would be plenty of time for him to
return from his day's engagement to meet this train. He finished
his breakfast, gave proper and precise directions to his servant on
the preparations that were to be made for the lady's reception,
jumped into his gig, and drove off to Lord Claydonfield's, at
Chettlewood.

He went along by the front of Knapwater House. He could not help
turning to look at what he knew to be the window of Cytherea's room.
Whilst he looked, a hopeless expression of passionate love and
sensuous anguish came upon his face and lingered there for a few
seconds; then, as on previous occasions, it was resolutely
repressed, and he trotted along the smooth white road, again
endeavouring to banish all thought of the young girl whose beauty
and grace had so enslaved him.