Desperate Remedies

T >> Thomas Hardy >> Desperate Remedies


Heavy bills, showing the extent of his obligations, tumbled in
immediately upon the heels of the funeral from quarters previously
unheard and unthought of. Thus pressed, a bill was filed in
Chancery to have the assets, such as they were, administered by the
Court.

'What will become of us now?' thought Owen continually.

There is in us an unquenchable expectation, which at the gloomiest
time persists in inferring that because we are _ourselves_, there
must be a special future in store for us, though our nature and
antecedents to the remotest particular have been common to
thousands. Thus to Cytherea and Owen Graye the question how their
lives would end seemed the deepest of possible enigmas. To others
who knew their position equally well with themselves the question
was the easiest that could be asked--'Like those of other people
similarly circumstanced.'

Then Owen held a consultation with his sister to come to some
decision on their future course, and a month was passed in waiting
for answers to letters, and in the examination of schemes more or
less futile. Sudden hopes that were rainbows to the sight proved
but mists to the touch. In the meantime, unpleasant remarks,
disguise them as some well-meaning people might, were floating
around them every day. The undoubted truth, that they were the
children of a dreamer who let slip away every farthing of his money
and ran into debt with his neighbours--that the daughter had been
brought up to no profession--that the son who had, had made no
progress in it, and might come to the dogs--could not from the
nature of things be wrapped up in silence in order that it might not
hurt their feelings; and as a matter of fact, it greeted their ears
in some form or other wherever they went. Their few acquaintances
passed them hurriedly. Ancient pot-wallopers, and thriving
shopkeepers, in their intervals of leisure, stood at their
shop-doors--their toes hanging over the edge of the step, and their
obese waists hanging over their toes--and in discourses with friends
on the pavement, formulated the course of the improvident, and
reduced the children's prospects to a shadow-like attenuation. The
sons of these men (who wore breastpins of a sarcastic kind, and
smoked humorous pipes) stared at Cytherea with a stare unmitigated
by any of the respect that had formerly softened it.

Now it is a noticeable fact that we do not much mind what men think
of us, or what humiliating secret they discover of our means,
parentage, or object, provided that each thinks and acts thereupon
in isolation. It is the exchange of ideas about us that we dread
most; and the possession by a hundred acquaintances, severally
insulated, of the knowledge of our skeleton-closet's whereabouts, is
not so distressing to the nerves as a chat over it by a party of
half-a-dozen--exclusive depositaries though these may be.

Perhaps, though Hocbridge watched and whispered, its animus would
have been little more than a trifle to persons in thriving
circumstances. But unfortunately, poverty, whilst it is new, and
before the skin has had time to thicken, makes people susceptible
inversely to their opportunities for shielding themselves. In Owen
was found, in place of his father's impressibility, a larger share
of his father's pride, and a squareness of idea which, if coupled
with a little more blindness, would have amounted to positive
prejudice. To him humanity, so far as he had thought of it at all,
was rather divided into distinct classes than blended from extreme
to extreme. Hence by a sequence of ideas which might be traced if
it were worth while, he either detested or respected opinion, and
instinctively sought to escape a cold shade that mere sensitiveness
would have endured. He could have submitted to separation,
sickness, exile, drudgery, hunger and thirst, with stoical
indifference, but superciliousness was too incisive.

After living on for nine months in attempts to make an income as his
father's successor in the profession--attempts which were utterly
fruitless by reason of his inexperience--Graye came to a simple and
sweeping resolution. They would privately leave that part of
England, drop from the sight of acquaintances, gossips, harsh
critics, and bitter creditors of whose misfortune he was not the
cause, and escape the position which galled him by the only road
their great poverty left open to them--that of his obtaining some
employment in a distant place by following his profession as a
humble under-draughtsman.

He thought over his capabilities with the sensations of a soldier
grinding his sword at the opening of a campaign. What with lack of
employment, owing to the decrease of his late father's practice, and
the absence of direct and uncompromising pressure towards monetary
results from a pupil's labour (which seems to be always the case
when a professional man's pupil is also his son), Owen's progress in
the art and science of architecture had been very insignificant
indeed. Though anything but an idle young man, he had hardly
reached the age at which industrious men who lack an external whip
to send them on in the world, are induced by their own common sense
to whip on themselves. Hence his knowledge of plans, elevations,
sections, and specifications, was not greater at the end of two
years of probation than might easily have been acquired in six
months by a youth of average ability--himself, for instance--amid a
bustling London practice.

But at any rate he could make himself handy to one of the
profession--some man in a remote town--and there fulfil his
indentures. A tangible inducement lay in this direction of survey.
He had a slight conception of such a man--a Mr. Gradfield--who was
in practice in Budmouth Regis, a seaport town and watering-place in
the south of England.

After some doubts, Graye ventured to write to this gentleman, asking
the necessary question, shortly alluding to his father's death, and
stating that his term of apprenticeship had only half expired. He
would be glad to complete his articles at a very low salary for the
whole remaining two years, provided payment could begin at once.

The answer from Mr. Gradfield stated that he was not in want of a
pupil who would serve the remainder of his time on the terms Mr.
Graye mentioned. But he would just add one remark. He chanced to
be in want of some young man in his office--for a short time only,
probably about two months--to trace drawings, and attend to other
subsidiary work of the kind. If Mr. Graye did not object to occupy
such an inferior position as these duties would entail, and to
accept weekly wages which to one with his expectations would be
considered merely nominal, the post would give him an opportunity
for learning a few more details of the profession.

'It is a beginning, and, above all, an abiding-place, away from the
shadow of the cloud which hangs over us here--I will go,' said Owen.

Cytherea's plan for her future, an intensely simple one, owing to
the even greater narrowness of her resources, was already marked
out. One advantage had accrued to her through her mother's
possession of a fair share of personal property, and perhaps only
one. She had been carefully educated. Upon this consideration her
plan was based. She was to take up her abode in her brother's
lodging at Budmouth, when she would immediately advertise for a
situation as governess, having obtained the consent of a lawyer at
Aldbrickham who was winding up her father's affairs, and who knew
the history of her position, to allow himself to be referred to in
the matter of her past life and respectability.

Early one morning they departed from their native town, leaving
behind them scarcely a trace of their footsteps.

Then the town pitied their want of wisdom in taking such a step.
'Rashness; they would have made a better income in Hocbridge, where
they are known! There is no doubt that they would.'

But what is Wisdom really? A steady handling of any means to bring
about any end necessary to happiness.

Yet whether one's end be the usual end--a wealthy position in life
--or no, the name of wisdom is seldom applied but to the means to
that usual end.



II. THE EVENTS OF A FORTNIGHT

1. THE NINTH OF JULY

The day of their departure was one of the most glowing that the
climax of a long series of summer heats could evolve. The wide
expanse of landscape quivered up and down like the flame of a taper,
as they steamed along through the midst of it. Placid flocks of
sheep reclining under trees a little way off appeared of a pale blue
colour. Clover fields were livid with the brightness of the sun
upon their deep red flowers. All waggons and carts were moved to
the shade by their careful owners, rain-water butts fell to pieces;
well-buckets were lowered inside the covers of the well-hole, to
preserve them from the fate of the butts, and generally, water
seemed scarcer in the country than the beer and cider of the
peasantry who toiled or idled there.

To see persons looking with children's eyes at any ordinary scenery,
is a proof that they possess the charming faculty of drawing new
sensations from an old experience--a healthy sign, rare in these
feverish days--the mark of an imperishable brightness of nature.

Both brother and sister could do this; Cytherea more noticeably.
They watched the undulating corn-lands, monotonous to all their
companions; the stony and clayey prospect succeeding those, with its
angular and abrupt hills. Boggy moors came next, now withered and
dry--the spots upon which pools usually spread their waters showing
themselves as circles of smooth bare soil, over-run by a net-work of
innumerable little fissures. Then arose plantations of firs,
abruptly terminating beside meadows cleanly mown, in which
high-hipped, rich-coloured cows, with backs horizontal and straight
as the ridge of a house, stood motionless or lazily fed. Glimpses of
the sea now interested them, which became more and more frequent
till the train finally drew up beside the platform at Budmouth.

'The whole town is looking out for us,' had been Graye's impression
throughout the day. He called upon Mr. Gradfield--the only man who
had been directly informed of his coming--and found that Mr.
Gradfield had forgotten it.

However, arrangements were made with this gentleman--a stout,
active, grey-bearded burgher of sixty--by which Owen was to commence
work in his office the following week.

The same day Cytherea drew up and sent off the advertisement
appended:--


'A YOUNG LADY is desirous of meeting with an _engagement_ as
_governess_ or _companion_. She is competent to teach English,
French, and Music. Satisfactory references--Address, C. G.,
Post-Office, Budmouth.'


It seemed a more material existence than her own that she saw thus
delineated on the paper. 'That can't be myself; how odd I look!'
she said, and smiled.

2. JULY THE ELEVENTH

On the Monday subsequent to their arrival in Budmouth, Owen Graye
attended at Mr. Gradfield's office to enter upon his duties, and his
sister was left in their lodgings alone for the first time.

Despite the sad occurrences of the preceding autumn, an unwonted
cheerfulness pervaded her spirit throughout the day. Change of
scene--and that to untravelled eyes--conjoined with the sensation of
freedom from supervision, revived the sparkle of a warm young nature
ready enough to take advantage of any adventitious restoratives.
Point-blank grief tends rather to seal up happiness for a time than
to produce that attrition which results from griefs of anticipation
that move onward with the days: these may be said to furrow away
the capacity for pleasure.

Her expectations from the advertisement began to be extravagant. A
thriving family, who had always sadly needed her, was already
definitely pictured in her fancy, which, in its exuberance, led her
on to picturing its individual members, their possible peculiarities,
virtues, and vices, and obliterated for a time the recollection that
she would be separated from her brother.

Thus musing, as she waited for his return in the evening, her eyes
fell on her left hand. The contemplation of her own left fourth
finger by symbol-loving girlhood of this age is, it seems, very
frequently, if not always, followed by a peculiar train of romantic
ideas. Cytherea's thoughts, still playing about her future, became
directed into this romantic groove. She leant back in her chair,
and taking hold of the fourth finger, which had attracted her
attention, she lifted it with the tips of the others, and looked at
the smooth and tapering member for a long time.

She whispered idly, 'I wonder who and what he will be?

'If he's a gentleman of fashion, he will take my finger so, just
with the tips of his own, and with some fluttering of the heart, and
the least trembling of his lip, slip the ring so lightly on that I
shall hardly know it is there--looking delightfully into my eyes all
the time.

'If he's a bold, dashing soldier, I expect he will proudly turn
round, take the ring as if it equalled her Majesty's crown in value,
and desperately set it on my finger thus. He will fix his eyes
unflinchingly upon what he is doing--just as if he stood in battle
before the enemy (though, in reality, very fond of me, of course),
and blush as much as I shall.

'If he's a sailor, he will take my finger and the ring in this way,
and deck it out with a housewifely touch and a tenderness of
expression about his mouth, as sailors do: kiss it, perhaps, with a
simple air, as if we were children playing an idle game, and not at
the very height of observation and envy by a great crowd saying,
"Ah! they are happy now!"

'If he should be rather a poor man--noble-minded and affectionate,
but still poor--'

Owen's footsteps rapidly ascending the stairs, interrupted this
fancy-free meditation. Reproaching herself, even angry with herself
for allowing her mind to stray upon such subjects in the face of
their present desperate condition, she rose to meet him, and make
tea.

Cytherea's interest to know how her brother had been received at Mr.
Gradfield's broke forth into words at once. Almost before they had
sat down to table, she began cross-examining him in the regular
sisterly way.

'Well, Owen, how has it been with you to-day? What is the place
like--do you think you will like Mr. Gradfield?'

'O yes. But he has not been there to-day; I have only had the head
draughtsman with me.'

Young women have a habit, not noticeable in men, of putting on at
a moment's notice the drama of whosoever's life they choose.
Cytherea's interest was transferred from Mr. Gradfield to his
representative.

'What sort of a man is he?'

'He seems a very nice fellow indeed; though of course I can hardly
tell to a certainty as yet. But I think he's a very worthy fellow;
there's no nonsense in him, and though he is not a public school man
he has read widely, and has a sharp appreciation of what's good in
books and art. In fact, his knowledge isn't nearly so exclusive as
most professional men's.'

'That's a great deal to say of an architect, for of all professional
men they are, as a rule, the most professional.'

'Yes; perhaps they are. This man is rather of a melancholy turn of
mind, I think.'

'Has the managing clerk any family?' she mildly asked, after a
while, pouring out some more tea.

'Family; no!'

'Well, dear Owen, how should I know?'

'Why, of course he isn't married. But there happened to be a
conversation about women going on in the office, and I heard him say
what he should wish his wife to be like.'

'What would he wish his wife to be like?' she said, with great
apparent lack of interest.

'O, he says she must be girlish and artless: yet he would be loth
to do without a dash of womanly subtlety, 'tis so piquant. Yes, he
said, that must be in her; she must have womanly cleverness. "And
yet I should like her to blush if only a cock-sparrow were to look
at her hard," he said, "which brings me back to the girl again: and
so I flit backwards and forwards. I must have what comes, I
suppose," he said, "and whatever she may be, thank God she's no
worse. However, if he might give a final hint to Providence," he
said, "a child among pleasures, and a woman among pains was the
rough outline of his requirement."'

'Did he say that? What a musing creature he must be.'

'He did, indeed.'

3. FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE FIFTEENTH OF JULY

As is well known, ideas are so elastic in a human brain, that they
have no constant measure which may be called their actual bulk. Any
important idea may be compressed to a molecule by an unwonted
crowding of others; and any small idea will expand to whatever
length and breadth of vacuum the mind may be able to make over to
it. Cytherea's world was tolerably vacant at this time, and the
young architectural designer's image became very pervasive. The
next evening this subject was again renewed.

'His name is Springrove,' said Owen, in reply to her. 'He is a
thorough artist, but a man of rather humble origin, it seems, who
has made himself so far. I think he is the son of a farmer, or
something of the kind.'

'Well, he's none the worse for that, I suppose.'

'None the worse. As we come down the hill, we shall be continually
meeting people going up.' But Owen had felt that Springrove was a
little the worse nevertheless.

'Of course he's rather old by this time.'

'O no. He's about six-and-twenty--not more.'

'Ah, I see. . . . What is he like, Owen?'

'I can't exactly tell you his appearance: 'tis always such a
difficult thing to do.'

'A man you would describe as short? Most men are those we should
describe as short, I fancy.'

'I should call him, I think, of the middle height; but as I only see
him sitting in the office, of course I am not certain about his form
and figure.'

'I wish you were, then.'

'Perhaps you do. But I am not, you see.'

'Of course not, you are always so provoking. Owen, I saw a man in
the street to-day whom I fancied was he--and yet, I don't see how it
could be, either. He had light brown hair, a snub nose, very round
face, and a peculiar habit of reducing his eyes to straight lines
when he looked narrowly at anything.'

'O no. That was not he, Cytherea.'

'Not a bit like him in all probability.'

'Not a bit. He has dark hair--almost a Grecian nose, regular teeth,
and an intellectual face, as nearly as I can recall to mind.'

'Ah, there now, Owen, you _have_ described him! But I suppose
he's not generally called pleasing, or--'

'Handsome?'

'I scarcely meant that. But since you have said it, is he
handsome?'

'Rather.'

'His tout ensemble is striking?'

'Yes--O no, no--I forgot: it is not. He is rather untidy in his
waistcoat, and neck-ties, and hair.'

'How vexing! . . . it must be to himself, poor thing.'

'He's a thorough bookworm--despises the pap-and-daisy school of
verse--knows Shakespeare to the very dregs of the foot-notes.
Indeed, he's a poet himself in a small way.'

'How delicious!' she said. 'I have never known a poet.'

'And you don't know him,' said Owen dryly.

She reddened. 'Of course I don't. I know that.'

'Have you received any answer to your advertisement?' he inquired.

'Ah--no!' she said, and the forgotten disappointment which had
showed itself in her face at different times during the day, became
visible again.

Another day passed away. On Thursday, without inquiry, she learnt
more of the head draughtsman. He and Graye had become very
friendly, and he had been tempted to show her brother a copy of some
poems of his--some serious and sad--some humorous--which had
appeared in the poets' corner of a magazine from time to time. Owen
showed them now to Cytherea, who instantly began to read them
carefully and to think them very beautiful.

'Yes--Springrove's no fool,' said Owen sententiously.

'No fool!--I should think he isn't, indeed,' said Cytherea, looking
up from the paper in quite an excitement: 'to write such verses as
these!'

'What logic are you chopping, Cytherea? Well, I don't mean on
account of the verses, because I haven't read them; but for what he
said when the fellows were talking about falling in love.'

'Which you will tell me?'

'He says that your true lover breathlessly finds himself engaged to
a sweetheart, like a man who has caught something in the dark. He
doesn't know whether it is a bat or a bird, and takes it to the
light when he is cool to learn what it is. He looks to see if she
is the right age, but right age or wrong age, he must consider her a
prize. Sometime later he ponders whether she is the right kind of
prize for him. Right kind or wrong kind--he has called her his, and
must abide by it. After a time he asks himself, "Has she the
temper, hair, and eyes I meant to have, and was firmly resolved not
to do without?" He finds it is all wrong, and then comes the
tussle--'

'Do they marry and live happily?'

'Who? O, the supposed pair. I think he said--well, I really forget
what he said.'

'That _is_ stupid of you!' said the young lady with dismay.

'Yes.'

'But he's a satirist--I don't think I care about him now.'

'There you are just wrong. He is not. He is, as I believe, an
impulsive fellow who has been made to pay the penalty of his
rashness in some love affair.'

Thus ended the dialogue of Thursday, but Cytherea read the verses
again in private. On Friday her brother remarked that Springrove
had informed him he was going to leave Mr. Gradfield's in a
fortnight to push his fortunes in London.

An indescribable feeling of sadness shot through Cytherea's heart.
Why should she be sad at such an announcement as that, she thought,
concerning a man she had never seen, when her spirits were elastic
enough to rebound after hard blows from deep and real troubles as if
she had scarcely known them? Though she could not answer this
question, she knew one thing, she was saddened by Owen's news.

4. JULY THE TWENTY-FIRST

A very popular local excursion by steamboat to Lulstead Cove was
announced through the streets of Budmouth one Thursday morning by
the weak-voiced town-crier, to start at six o'clock the same day.
The weather was lovely, and the opportunity being the first of the
kind offered to them, Owen and Cytherea went with the rest.

They had reached the Cove, and had walked landward for nearly an
hour over the hill which rose beside the strand, when Graye
recollected that two or three miles yet further inland from this
spot was an interesting mediaeval ruin. He was already familiar
with its characteristics through the medium of an archaeological
work, and now finding himself so close to the reality, felt inclined
to verify some theory he had formed respecting it. Concluding that
there would be just sufficient time for him to go there and return
before the boat had left the shore, he parted from Cytherea on the
hill, struck downwards, and then up a heathery valley.

She remained on the summit where he had left her till the time of
his expected return, scanning the details of the prospect around.
Placidly spread out before her on the south was the open Channel,
reflecting a blue intenser by many shades than that of the sky
overhead, and dotted in the foreground by half-a-dozen small craft
of contrasting rig, their sails graduating in hue from extreme
whiteness to reddish brown, the varying actual colours varied again
in a double degree by the rays of the declining sun.

Presently 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.