Desperate Remedies
the leases. Your brother-in-law, the steward, had a hand in making
it light for us, I know, and I heartily thank him for it.’ He ceased
speaking, and looked round at the sky.
‘Have you heard o’ what’s happened?’ he said suddenly; ‘I was just
coming out to learn about it.’
‘I haven’t heard of anything.’
‘It is something very serious, though I don’t know what. All I know is
what I heard a man call out bynow--that it very much concerns somebody
who lives in the parish.’
It seems singular enough, even to minds who have no dim beliefs in
adumbration and presentiment, that at that moment not the shadow of a
thought crossed Owen’s mind that the somebody whom the matter concerned
might be himself, or any belonging to him. The event about to transpire
was as portentous to the woman whose welfare was more dear to him than
his own, as any, short of death itself, could possibly be; and ever
afterwards, when he considered the effect of the knowledge the next
half-hour conveyed to his brain, even his practical good sense could not
refrain from wonder that he should have walked toward the village after
hearing those words of the farmer, in so leisurely and unconcerned a
way. ‘How unutterably mean must my intelligence have appeared to the eye
of a foreseeing God,’ he frequently said in after-time. ‘Columbus on the
eve of his discovery of a world was not so contemptibly unaware.’
After a few additional words of common-place the farmer left him, and,
as has been said, Owen proceeded slowly and indifferently towards the
village.
The labouring men had just left work, and passed the park gate, which
opened into the street as Owen came down towards it. They went along in
a drift, earnestly talking, and were finally about to turn in at their
respective doorways. But upon seeing him they looked significantly at
one another, and paused. He came into the road, on that side of the
village-green which was opposite the row of cottages, and turned round
to the right. When Owen turned, all eyes turned; one or two men went
hurriedly indoors, and afterwards appeared at the doorstep with their
wives, who also contemplated him, talking as they looked. They seemed
uncertain how to act in some matter.
‘If they want me, surely they will call me,’ he thought, wondering
more and more. He could no longer doubt that he was connected with the
subject of their discourse.
The first who approached him was a boy.
‘What has occurred?’ said Owen.
‘O, a man ha’ got crazy-religious, and sent for the pa’son.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes, sir. He wished he was dead, he said, and he’s almost out of his
mind wi’ wishen it so much. That was before Mr. Raunham came.’
‘Who is he?’ said Owen.
‘Joseph Chinney, one of the railway-porters; he used to be
night-porter.’
‘Ah--the man who was ill this afternoon; by the way, he was told to come
to the Old House for something, but he hasn’t been. But has anything
else happened--anything that concerns the wedding to-day?’
‘No, sir.’
Concluding that the connection which had seemed to be traced between
himself and the event must in some way have arisen from Cytherea’s
friendliness towards the man, Owen turned about and went homewards in
a much quieter frame of mind--yet scarcely satisfied with the solution.
The route he had chosen led through the dairy-yard, and he opened the
gate.
Five minutes before this point of time, Edward Springrove was looking
over one of his father’s fields at an outlying hamlet of three or four
cottages some mile and a half distant. A turnpike-gate was close by the
gate of the field.
The carrier to Casterbridge came up as Edward stepped into the road, and
jumped down from the van to pay toll. He recognized Springrove. ‘This is
a pretty set-to in your place, sir,’ he said. ‘You don’t know about it,
I suppose?’
‘What?’ said Springrove.
The carrier paid his dues, came up to Edward, and spoke ten words in a
confidential whisper: then sprang upon the shafts of his vehicle, gave a
clinching nod of significance to Springrove, and rattled away.
Edward turned pale with the intelligence. His first thought was, ‘Bring
her home!’
The next--did Owen Graye know what had been discovered? He probably
did by that time, but no risks of probability must be run by a woman
he loved dearer than all the world besides. He would at any rate make
perfectly sure that her brother was in possession of the knowledge, by
telling it him with his own lips.
Off he ran in the direction of the old manor-house.
The path was across arable land, and was ploughed up with the rest of
the field every autumn, after which it was trodden out afresh. The thaw
had so loosened the soft earth, that lumps of stiff mud were lifted
by his feet at every leap he took, and flung against him by his rapid
motion, as it were doggedly impeding him, and increasing tenfold the
customary effort of running,
But he ran on--uphill, and downhill, the same pace alike--like the
shadow of a cloud. His nearest direction, too, like Owen’s, was through
the dairy-barton, and as Owen entered it he saw the figure of Edward
rapidly descending the opposite hill, at a distance of two or three
hundred yards. Owen advanced amid the cows.
The dairyman, who had hitherto been talking loudly on some absorbing
subject to the maids and men milking around him, turned his face towards
the head of the cow when Owen passed, and ceased speaking.
Owen approached him and said--
‘A singular thing has happened, I hear. The man is not insane, I
suppose?’
‘Not he--he’s sensible enough,’ said the dairyman, and paused. He was a
man noisy with his associates--stolid and taciturn with strangers.
‘Is it true that he is Chinney, the railway-porter?’
‘That’s the man, sir.’ The maids and men sitting under the cows were all
attentively listening to this discourse, milking irregularly, and softly
directing the jets against the sides of the pail.
Owen could contain himself no longer, much as his mind dreaded anything
of the nature of ridicule. ‘The people all seem to look at me, as if
something seriously concerned me; is it this stupid matter, or what is
it?’
‘Surely, sir, you know better than anybody else if such a strange thing
concerns you.’
‘What strange thing?’
‘Don’t you know! His confessing to Parson Raunham.’
‘What did he confess? Tell me.’
‘If you really ha’n’t heard, ‘tis this. He was as usual on duty at the
station on the night of the fire last year, otherwise he wouldn’t ha’
known it.’
‘Known what? For God’s sake tell, man!’
But at this instant the two opposite gates of the dairy-yard, one on the
east, the other on the west side, slammed almost simultaneously.
The rector from one, Springrove from the other, came striding across the
barton.
Edward was nearest, and spoke first. He said in a low voice: ‘Your
sister is not legally married! His first wife is still living! How it
comes out I don’t know!’
‘O, here you are at last, Mr. Graye, thank Heaven!’ said the rector
breathlessly. ‘I have been to the Old House, and then to Miss
Aldclyffe’s looking for you--something very extraordinary.’ He beckoned
to Owen, afterwards included Springrove in his glance, and the three
stepped aside together.
‘A porter at the station. He was a curious nervous man. He had been in a
strange state all day, but he wouldn’t go home. Your sister was kind
to him, it seems, this afternoon. When she and her husband had gone, he
went on with his work, shifting luggage-vans. Well, he got in the way,
as if he were quite lost to what was going on, and they sent him home at
last. Then he wished to see me. I went directly. There was something
on his mind, he said, and told it. About the time when the fire of last
November twelvemonth was got under, whilst he was by himself in the
porter’s room, almost asleep, somebody came to the station and tried to
open the door. He went out and found the person to be the lady he had
accompanied to Carriford earlier in the evening, Mrs. Manston. She
asked, when would be another train to London? The first the next
morning, he told her, was at a quarter-past six o’clock from Budmouth,
but that it was express, and didn’t stop at Carriford Road--it didn’t
stop till it got to Anglebury. “How far is it to Anglebury?” she said.
He told her, and she thanked him, and went away up the line. In a short
time she ran back and took out her purse. “Don’t on any account say
a word in the village or anywhere that I have been here, or a single
breath about me--I’m ashamed ever to have come.” He promised; she took
out two sovereigns. “Swear it on the Testament in the waiting-room,” she
said, “and I’ll pay you these.” He got the book, took an oath upon it,
received the money, and she left him. He was off duty at half-past
five. He has kept silence all through the intervening time till now, but
lately the knowledge he possessed weighed heavily upon his conscience
and weak mind. Yet the nearer came the wedding-day, the more he feared
to tell. The actual marriage filled him with remorse. He says your
sister’s kindness afterwards was like a knife going through his heart.
He thought he had ruined her.’
‘But whatever can be done? Why didn’t he speak sooner?’ cried Owen.
‘He actually called at my house twice yesterday,’ the rector continued,
‘resolved, it seems, to unburden his mind. I was out both times--he
left no message, and, they say, he looked relieved that his object was
defeated. Then he says he resolved to come to you at the Old House last
night--started, reached the door, and dreaded to knock--and then went
home again.’
‘Here will be a tale for the newsmongers of the county,’ said Owen
bitterly. ‘The idea of his not opening his mouth sooner--the criminality
of the thing!’
‘Ah, that’s the inconsistency of a weak nature. But now that it is put
to us in this way, how much more probable it seems that she should have
escaped than have been burnt--’
‘You will, of course, go straight to Mr. Manston, and ask him what it
all means?’ Edward interrupted.
‘Of course I shall! Manston has no right to carry off my sister unless
he’s her husband,’ said Owen. ‘I shall go and separate them.’
‘Certainly you will,’ said the rector.
‘Where’s the man?’
‘In his cottage.’
‘’Tis no use going to him, either. I must go off at once and overtake
them--lay the case before Manston, and ask him for additional and
certain proofs of his first wife’s death. An up-train passes soon, I
think.’
‘Where have they gone?’ said Edward.
‘To Paris--as far as Southampton this afternoon, to proceed to-morrow
morning.’
‘Where in Southampton?’
‘I really don’t know--some hotel. I only have their Paris address. But I
shall find them by making a few inquiries.’
The rector had in the meantime been taking out his pocket-book, and now
opened it at the first page, whereon it was his custom every month to
gum a small railway time-table--cut from the local newspaper.
‘The afternoon express is just gone,’ he said, holding open the page,
‘and the next train to Southampton passes at ten minutes to six o’clock.
Now it wants--let me see--five-and-forty minutes to that time. Mr.
Graye, my advice is that you come with me to the porter’s cottage, where
I will shortly write out the substance of what he has said, and get
him to sign it. You will then have far better grounds for interfering
between Mr. and Mrs. Manston than if you went to them with a mere
hearsay story.’
The suggestion seemed a good one. ‘Yes, there will be time before the
train starts,’ said Owen.
Edward had been musing restlessly.
‘Let me go to Southampton in your place, on account of your lameness?’
he said suddenly to Graye.
‘I am much obliged to you, but I think I can scarcely accept the offer,’