Desperate Remedies
an old inhabitant of the district, or a countryman used to forming
such judgments; whilst the brilliancy of the light shortened its real
remoteness to an apparent distance of not more than half: it seemed so
near that he again stopped his horse, this time to listen; but he could
hear no sound.
Entering now a narrow valley, the sides of which obscured the sky to an
angle of perhaps thirty or forty degrees above the mathematical horizon,
he was obliged to suspend his judgment till he was in possession of
further knowledge, having however assumed in the interim, that the fire
was somewhere between Carriford Road Station and the village.
The self-same glare had just arrested the eyes of another man. He was
at that minute gliding along several miles to the east of the steward’s
position, but nearing the same point as that to which Manston tended.
The younger Edward Springrove was returning from London to his father’s
house by the identical train which the steward was expecting to bring
his wife, the truth being that Edward’s lateness was owing to the
simplest of all causes, his temporary want of money, which led him to
make a slow journey for the sake of travelling at third-class fare.
Springrove had received Cytherea’s bitter and admonitory letter, and he
was clearly awakened to a perception of the false position in which
he had placed himself, by keeping silence at Budmouth on his long
engagement. An increasing reluctance to put an end to those few days of
ecstasy with Cytherea had overruled his conscience, and tied his tongue
till speaking was too late.
‘Why did I do it? how could I dream of loving her?’ he asked himself as
he walked by day, as he tossed on his bed by night: ‘miserable folly!’
An impressionable heart had for years--perhaps as many as six or seven
years--been distracting him, by unconsciously setting itself to yearn
for somebody wanting, he scarcely knew whom. Echoes of himself, though
rarely, he now and then found. Sometimes they were men, sometimes women,
his cousin Adelaide being one of these; for in spite of a fashion which
pervades the whole community at the present day--the habit of exclaiming
that woman is not undeveloped man, but diverse, the fact remains that,
after all, women are Mankind, and that in many of the sentiments of life
the difference of sex is but a difference of degree.
But the indefinable helpmate to the remoter sides of himself still
continued invisible. He grew older, and concluded that the ideas, or
rather emotions, which possessed him on the subject, were probably too
unreal ever to be found embodied in the flesh of a woman. Thereupon,
he developed a plan of satisfying his dreams by wandering away to the
heroines of poetical imagination, and took no further thought on the
earthly realization of his formless desire, in more homely matters
satisfying himself with his cousin.
Cytherea appeared in the sky: his heart started up and spoke:
‘Tis She, and here
Lo! I unclothe and clear
My wishes’ cloudy character.’
Some women kindle emotion so rapidly in a man’s heart that the judgment
cannot keep pace with its rise, and finds, on comprehending the
situation, that faithfulness to the old love is already treachery to the
new. Such women are not necessarily the greatest of their sex, but there
are very few of them. Cytherea was one.
On receiving the letter from her he had taken to thinking over these
things, and had not answered it at all. But ‘hungry generations’ soon
tread down the muser in a city. At length he thought of the strong
necessity of living. After a dreary search, the negligence of which was
ultimately overcome by mere conscientiousness, he obtained a situation
as assistant to an architect in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross: the
duties would not begin till after the lapse of a month.
He could not at first decide whither he should go to spend the
intervening time; but in the midst of his reasonings he found himself
on the road homeward, impelled by a secret and unowned hope of getting a
last glimpse of Cytherea there.
5. MIDNIGHT
It was a quarter to twelve when Manston drove into the station-yard.
The train was punctual, and the bell, announcing its arrival, rang as he
crossed the booking-office to go out upon the platform.
The porter who had accompanied Mrs. Manston to Carriford, and had
returned to the station on his night duty, recognized the steward as he
entered, and immediately came towards him.
‘Mrs. Manston came by the nine o’clock train, sir,’ he said.
The steward gave vent to an expression of vexation.
‘Her luggage is here, sir,’ the porter said.
‘Put it up behind me in the gig if it is not too much,’ said Manston.
‘Directly this train is in and gone, sir.’
The man vanished and crossed the line to meet the entering train.
‘Where is that fire?’ Manston said to the booking-clerk.
Before the clerk could speak, another man ran in and answered the
question without having heard it.
‘Half Carriford is burnt down, or will be!’ he exclaimed. ‘You can’t see
the flames from this station on account of the trees, but step on the
bridge--‘tis tremendous!’
He also crossed the line to assist at the entry of the train, which came
in the next minute.
The steward stood in the office. One passenger alighted, gave up his
ticket, and crossed the room in front of Manston: a young man with a
black bag and umbrella in his hand. He passed out of the door, down the
steps, and struck out into the darkness.
‘Who was that young man?’ said Manston, when the porter had returned.
The young man, by a kind of magnetism, had drawn the steward’s thoughts
after him.
‘He’s an architect.’
‘My own old profession. I could have sworn it by the cut of him,’
Manston murmured. ‘What’s his name?’ he said again.
‘Springrove--Farmer Springrove’s son, Edward.’
‘Farmer Springrove’s son, Edward,’ the steward repeated to himself, and
considered a matter to which the words had painfully recalled his mind.
The matter was Miss Aldclyffe’s mention of the young man as Cytherea’s
lover, which, indeed, had scarcely ever been absent from his thoughts.
‘But for the existence of my wife that man might have been my rival,’ he
pondered, following the porter, who had now come back to him, into the
luggage-room. And whilst the man was carrying out and putting in one
box, which was sufficiently portable for the gig, Manston still thought,
as his eyes watched the process--
‘But for my wife, Springrove might have been my rival.’
He examined the lamps of his gig, carefully laid out the reins, mounted
the seat and drove along the turnpike-road towards Knapwater Park.
The exact locality of the fire was plain to him as he neared home.
He soon could hear the shout of men, the flapping of the flames,
the crackling of burning wood, and could smell the smoke from the
conflagration.
Of a sudden, a few yards ahead, within the compass of the rays from the
right-hand lamp, burst forward the figure of a man. Having been walking
in darkness the newcomer raised his hands to his eyes, on approaching
nearer, to screen them from the glare of the reflector.
Manston saw that he was one of the villagers: a small farmer originally,
who had drunk himself down to a day-labourer and reputed poacher.
‘Hoy!’ cried Manston, aloud, that the man might step aside out of the
way.
‘Is that Mr. Manston?’ said the man.
‘Yes.’
‘Somebody ha’ come to Carriford: and the rest of it may concern you,
sir.’
‘Well, well.’
‘Did you expect Mrs. Manston to-night, sir?’
‘Yes, unfortunately she’s come, I know, and asleep long before this
time, I suppose.’
The labourer leant his elbow upon the shaft of the gig and turned his
face, pale and sweating from his late work at the fire, up to Manston’s.
‘Yes, she did come,’ he said.... ‘I beg pardon, sir, but I should be
glad of--of--’
‘What?’
‘Glad of a trifle for bringen ye the news.’
‘Not a farthing! I didn’t want your news, I knew she was come.’
‘Won’t you give me a shillen, sir?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Then will you lend me a shillen, sir? I be tired out, and don’t know
what to do. If I don’t pay you back some day I’ll be d--d.’
‘The devil is so cheated that perdition isn’t worth a penny as a
security.’
‘Oh!’
‘Let me go on,’ said Manston.
‘Thy wife is _dead_; that’s the rest o’ the news,’ said the labourer
slowly. He waited for a reply; none came.
‘She went to the Three Tranters, because she couldn’t get into thy
house, the burnen roof fell in upon her before she could be called up,
and she’s a cinder, as thou’lt be some day.’
‘That will do, let me drive on,’ said the steward calmly.
Expectation of a concussion may be so intense that its failure strikes
the brain with more force than its fulfilment. The labourer sank back
into the ditch. Such a Cushi could not realize the possibility of such
an unmoved David as this.
Manston drove hastily to the turning of the road, tied his horse, and
ran on foot to the site of the fire.
The stagnation caused by the awful accident had been passed through,
and all hands were helping to remove from the remaining cottage what
furniture they could lay hold of; the thatch of the roofs being already
on fire. The Knapwater fire-engine had arrived on the spot, but it was
small, and ineffectual. A group was collected round the rector, who in a
coat which had become bespattered, scorched, and torn in his exertions,
was directing on one hand the proceedings relative to the removal of
goods into the church, and with the other was pointing out the spot
on which it was most desirable that the puny engines at their disposal
should be made to play. Every tongue was instantly silent at the sight
of Manston’s pale and clear countenance, which contrasted strangely with
the grimy and streaming faces of the toiling villagers.
‘Was she burnt?’ he said in a firm though husky voice, and stepping into
the illuminated area. The rector came to him, and took him aside. ‘Is
she burnt?’ repeated Manston.
‘She is dead: but thank God, she was spared the horrid agony of
burning,’ the rector said solemnly; ‘the roof and gable fell in upon
her, and crushed her. Instant death must have followed.’
‘Why was she here?’ said Manston.
‘From what we can hurriedly collect, it seems that she found the door
of your house locked, and concluded that you had retired, the fact being
that your servant, Mrs. Crickett, had gone out to supper. She then came
back to the inn and went to bed.’
‘Where’s the landlord?’ said Manston.
Mr. Springrove came up, walking feebly, and wrapped in a cloak, and
corroborated the evidence given by the rector.
‘Did she look ill, or annoyed, when she came?’ said the steward.
‘I can’t say. I didn’t see; but I think--’
‘What do you think?’
‘She was much put out about something.’
‘My not meeting her, naturally,’ murmured the other, lost in reverie.
He turned his back on Springrove and the rector, and retired from the
shining light.
Everything had been done that could be done with the limited means
at their disposal. The whole row of houses was destroyed, and each
presented itself as one stage of a series, progressing from smoking
ruins at the end where the inn had stood, to a partly flaming
mass--glowing as none but wood embers will glow--at the other.
A feature in the decline of town fires was noticeably absent
here--steam. There was present what is not observable in
towns--incandescence.
The heat, and the smarting effect upon their eyes of the strong smoke
from the burning oak and deal, had at last driven the villagers back
from the road in front of the houses, and they now stood in groups
in the churchyard, the surface of which, raised by the interments of