Desperate Remedies
generations, stood four or five feet above the level of the road, and
almost even with the top of the low wall dividing one from the other.
The headstones stood forth whitely against the dark grass and yews,
their brightness being repeated on the white smock-frocks of some of the
labourers, and in a mellower, ruddier form on their faces and hands, on
those of the grinning gargoyles, and on other salient stonework of the
weather-beaten church in the background.
The rector had decided that, under the distressing circumstances of
the case, there would be no sacrilege in placing in the church, for the
night, the pieces of furniture and utensils which had been saved from
the several houses. There was no other place of safety for them, and
they accordingly were gathered there.
6. HALF-PAST TWELVE TO ONE A.M.
Manston, when he retired to meditate, had walked round the churchyard,
and now entered the opened door of the building.
He mechanically pursued his way round the piers into his own seat in
the north aisle. The lower atmosphere of this spot was shaded by its own
wall from the shine which streamed in over the window-sills on the
same side. The only light burning inside the church was a small tallow
candle, standing in the font, in the opposite aisle of the building to
that in which Manston had sat down, and near where the furniture was
piled. The candle’s mild rays were overpowered by the ruddier light from
the ruins, making the weak flame to appear like the moon by day.
Sitting there he saw Farmer Springrove enter the door, followed by his
son Edward, still carrying his travelling-bag in his hand. They
were speaking of the sad death of Mrs. Manston, but the subject was
relinquished for that of the houses burnt.
This row of houses, running from the inn eastward, had been built under
the following circumstances:--
Fifty years before this date, the spot upon which the cottages
afterwards stood was a blank strip, along the side of the village
street, difficult to cultivate, on account of the outcrop thereon of a
large bed of flints called locally a ‘lanch’ or ‘lanchet.’
The Aldclyffe then in possession of the estate conceived the idea that
a row of cottages would be an improvement to the spot, and accordingly
granted leases of portions to several respectable inhabitants. Each
lessee was to be subject to the payment of a merely nominal rent for
the whole term of lives, on condition that he built his own cottage, and
delivered it up intact at the end of the term.
Those who had built had, one by one, relinquished their indentures,
either by sale or barter, to Farmer Springrove’s father. New lives were
added in some cases, by payment of a sum to the lord of the manor, etc.,
and all the leases were now held by the farmer himself, as one of the
chief provisions for his old age.
The steward had become interested in the following conversation:--
‘Try not to be so depressed, father; they are all insured.’
The words came from Edward in an anxious tone.
‘You mistake, Edward; they are not insured,’ returned the old man
gloomily.
‘Not?’ the son asked.
‘Not one!’ said the farmer.
‘In the Helmet Fire Office, surely?’
‘They were insured there every one. Six months ago the office, which had
been raising the premiums on thatched premises higher for some years,
gave up insuring them altogether, as two or three other fire-offices had
done previously, on account, they said, of the uncertainty and
greatness of the risk of thatch undetached. Ever since then I have been
continually intending to go to another office, but have never gone. Who
expects a fire?’
‘Do you remember the terms of the leases?’ said Edward, still more
uneasily.
‘No, not particularly,’ said his father absently.
‘Where are they?’
‘In the bureau there; that’s why I tried to save it first, among other
things.’
‘Well, we must see to that at once.’
‘What do you want?’
‘The key.’
They went into the south aisle, took the candle from the font, and then
proceeded to open the bureau, which had been placed in a corner under
the gallery. Both leant over upon the flap; Edward holding the candle,
whilst his father took the pieces of parchment from one of the drawers,
and spread the first out before him.
‘You read it, Ted. I can’t see without my glasses. This one will be
sufficient. The terms of all are the same.’
Edward took the parchment, and read quickly and indistinctly for some
time; then aloud and slowly as follows:--
‘And the said John Springrove for himself his heirs executors and
administrators doth covenant and agree with the said Gerald Fellcourt
Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns that he the said John Springrove his
heirs and assigns during the said term shall pay unto the said Gerald
Fellcourt Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns the clear yearly rent of ten
shillings and sixpence.... at the several times hereinbefore appointed
for the payment thereof respectively. And also shall and at all times
during the said term well and sufficiently repair and keep the said
Cottage or Dwelling-house and all other the premises and all houses or
buildings erected or to be erected thereupon in good and proper repair
in every respect without exception and the said premises in such good
repair upon the determination of this demise shall yield up unto the
said Gerald Fellcourt Aldclyffe his heirs and assigns.’
They closed the bureau and turned towards the door of the church without
speaking.
Manston also had come forward out of the gloom. Notwithstanding the
farmer’s own troubles, an instinctive respect and generous sense of
sympathy with the steward for his awful loss caused the old man to step
aside, that Manston might pass out without speaking to them if he chose
to do so.
‘Who is he?’ whispered Edward to his father, as Manston approached.
‘Mr. Manston, the steward.’
Manston came near, and passed down the aisle on the side of the younger
man. Their faces came almost close together: one large flame, which
still lingered upon the ruins outside, threw long dancing shadows of
each across the nave till they bent upwards against the aisle wall, and
also illuminated their eyes, as each met those of the other. Edward had
learnt, by a letter from home, of the steward’s passion for Cytherea,
and his mysterious repression of it, afterwards explained by his
marriage. That marriage was now nought. Edward realized the man’s newly
acquired freedom, and felt an instinctive enmity towards him--he would
hardly own to himself why. The steward, too, knew Cytherea’s attachment
to Edward, and looked keenly and inscrutably at him.
7. ONE TO TWO A.M.
Manston went homeward alone, his heart full of strange emotions.
Entering the house, and dismissing the woman to her own home, he at once
proceeded upstairs to his bedroom.
Reasoning worldliness, especially when allied with sensuousness, cannot
repress on some extreme occasions the human instinct to pour out the
soul to some Being or Personality, who in frigid moments is dismissed
with the title of Chance, or at most Law. Manston was selfishly and
inhumanly, but honestly and unutterably, thankful for the recent
catastrophe. Beside his bed, for that first time during a period
of nearly twenty years, he fell down upon his knees in a passionate
outburst of feeling.
Many minutes passed before he arose. He walked to the window, and then
seemed to remember for the first time that some action on his part was
necessary in connection with the sad circumstance of the night.
Leaving the house at once, he went to the scene of the fire, arriving
there in time to hear the rector making an arrangement with a certain
number of men to watch the spot till morning. The ashes were still
red-hot and flaming. Manston found that nothing could be done towards
searching them at that hour of the night. He turned homeward again, in
the company of the rector, who had considerately persuaded him to retire
from the scene for a while, and promised that as soon as a man could
live amid the embers of the Three Tranters Inn, they should be carefully
searched for the remains of his unfortunate wife.
Manston then went indoors, to wait for morning.
XI. THE EVENTS OF FIVE DAYS
1. NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-NINTH
The search began at dawn, but a quarter past nine o’clock came without
bringing any result. Manston ate a little breakfast, and crossed
the hollow of the park which intervened between the old and modern
manor-houses, to ask for an interview with Miss Aldclyffe.
He met her midway. She was about to pay him a visit of condolence, and
to place every man on the estate at his disposal, that the search
for any relic of his dead and destroyed wife might not be delayed an
instant.
He accompanied her back to the house. At first they conversed as if the
death of the poor woman was an event which the husband must of necessity
deeply lament; and when all under this head that social form seemed to
require had been uttered, they spoke of the material damage done, and of
the steps which had better be taken to remedy it.
It was not till both were shut inside her private room that she spoke
to him in her blunt and cynical manner. A certain newness of bearing in
him, peculiar to the present morning, had hitherto forbidden her this
tone: the demeanour of the subject of her favouritism had altered, she
could not tell in what way. He was entirely a changed man.
‘Are you really sorry for your poor wife, Mr. Manston?’ she said.
‘Well, I am,’ he answered shortly.
‘But only as for any human being who has met with a violent death?’
He confessed it--‘For she was not a good woman,’ he added.
‘I should be sorry to say such a thing now the poor creature is dead,’
Miss Aldclyffe returned reproachfully.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why should I praise her if she doesn’t deserve it? I
say exactly what I have often admired Sterne for saying in one of his
letters--that neither reason nor Scripture asks us to speak nothing but
good of the dead. And now, madam,’ he continued, after a short interval
of thought, ‘I may, perhaps, hope that you will assist me, or rather not
thwart me, in endeavouring to win the love of a young lady living about
you, one in whom I am much interested already.’
‘Cytherea!’
‘Yes, Cytherea.’
‘You have been loving Cytherea all the while?’
‘Yes.’
Surprise was a preface to much agitation in her, which caused her
to rise from her seat, and pace to the side of the room. The steward
quietly looked on and added, ‘I have been loving and still love her.’
She came close up to him, wistfully contemplating his face, one hand
moving indecisively at her side.
‘And your secret marriage was, then, the true and only reason for that
backwardness regarding the courtship of Cytherea, which, they tell
me, has been the talk of the village; not your indifference to her
attractions.’ Her voice had a tone of conviction in it, as well as of
inquiry; but none of jealousy.
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘and not a dishonourable one. What held me back was just
that one thing--a sense of morality that perhaps, madam, you did not
give me credit for.’ The latter words were spoken with a mien and tone
of pride.
Miss Aldclyffe preserved silence.
‘And now,’ he went on, ‘I may as well say a word in vindication of my
conduct lately, at the risk, too, of offending you. My actual motive in
submitting to your order that I should send for my late wife, and live
with her, was not the mercenary policy of wishing to retain an office
which brings me greater comforts than any I have enjoyed before, but
this unquenchable passion for Cytherea. Though I saw the weakness,
folly, and even wickedness of it continually, it still forced me to try
to continue near her, even as the husband of another woman.’