Desperate Remedies
Manston’s evidence that the watch was his wife’s.’
‘He was sure of that, wasn’t he?’
‘I believe he said he was certain of it.’
‘It might have been hers--left behind in her perturbation, as they say
it was--impossible as that seems at first sight. Yes--on the whole, he
might have believed in her death.’
‘I know by several proofs that then, and at least for some time after,
he had no other thought than that she was dead. I now think that before
the porter’s confession he knew something about her--though not that she
lived.’
‘Why do you?’
‘From what he said to me on the evening of the wedding-day, when I had
fastened myself in the room at the hotel, after Edward’s visit. He must
have suspected that I knew something, for he was irritated, and in a
passion of uneasy doubt. He said, “You don’t suppose my first wife is
come to light again, madam, surely?” Directly he had let the remark slip
out, he seemed anxious to withdraw it.’
‘That’s odd,’ said Owen.
‘I thought it very odd.’
‘Still we must remember he might only have hit upon the thought by
accident, in doubt as to your motive. Yes, the great point to discover
remains the same as ever--did he doubt his first impression of her death
_before_ he married you. I can’t help thinking he did, although he was
so astounded at our news that night. Edward swears he did.’
‘It was perhaps only a short time before,’ said Cytherea; ‘when he could
hardly recede from having me.’
‘Seasoning justice with mercy as usual, Cytherea. ‘Tis unfair to
yourself to talk like that. If I could only bring him to ruin as a
bigamist--supposing him to be one--I should die happy. That’s what we
must find out by fair means or foul--was he a wilful bigamist?’
‘It is no use trying, Owen. You would have to employ a solicitor, and
how can you do that?’
‘I can’t at all--I know that very well. But neither do I altogether wish
to at present--a lawyer must have a case--facts to go upon, that means.
Now they are scarce at present--as scarce as money is with us, and till
we have found more money there is no hurry for a lawyer. Perhaps by the
time we have the facts we shall have the money. The only thing we lose
in working alone in this way, is time--not the issue: for the fruit that
one mind matures in a twelvemonth forms a more perfectly organized whole
than that of twelve minds in one month, especially if the interests of
the single one are vitally concerned, and those of the twelve are only
hired. But there is not only my mind available--you are a shrewd woman,
Cythie, and Edward is an earnest ally. Then, if we really get a sure
footing for a criminal prosecution, the Crown will take up the case.’
‘I don’t much care to press on in the matter,’ she murmured. ‘What good
can it do us, Owen, after all?’
‘Selfishly speaking, it will do this good--that all the facts of your
journey to Southampton will become known, and the scandal will die.
Besides, Manston will have to suffer--it’s an act of justice to you and
to other women, and to Edward Springrove.’
He now thought it necessary to tell her of the real nature of the
Springroves’ obligation to Miss Aldclyffe--and their nearly certain
knowledge that Manston was the prime mover in effecting their
embarrassment. Her face flushed as she listened.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘our first undertaking is to find out where Mrs.
Manston lived during the separation; next, when the first communications
passed between them after the fire.’
‘If we only had Miss Aldclyffe’s countenance and assistance as I used to
have them,’ Cytherea returned, ‘how strong we should be! O, what power
is it that he exercises over her, swaying her just as he wishes! She
loves me now. Mrs. Morris in her letter said that Miss Aldclyffe prayed
for me--yes, she heard her praying for me, and crying. Miss Aldclyffe
did not mind an old friend like Mrs. Morris knowing it, either. Yet in
opposition to this, notice her dead silence and inaction throughout this
proceeding.’
‘It is a mystery; but never mind that now,’ said Owen impressively.
‘About where Mrs. Manston has been living. We must get this part of
it first--learn the place of her stay in the early stage of their
separation, during the period of Manston’s arrival here, and so on, for
that was where she was first communicated with on the subject of coming
to Knapwater, before the fire; and that address, too, was her point
of departure when she came to her husband by stealth in the night--you
know--the time I visited you in the evening and went home early in the
morning, and it was found that he had been visited too. Ah! couldn’t
we inquire of Mrs. Leat, who keeps the post-office at Carriford, if she
remembers where the letters to Mrs. Manston were directed?’
‘He never posted his letters to her in the parish--it was remarked at
the time. I was thinking if something relating to her address might not
be found in the report of the inquest in the Casterbridge Chronicle of
the date. Some facts about the inquest were given in the papers to a
certainty.’
Her brother caught eagerly at the suggestion. ‘Who has a file of the
Chronicles?’ he said.
‘Mr. Raunham used to file them,’ said Cytherea. ‘He was rather
friendly-disposed towards me, too.’
Owen could not, on any consideration, escape from his attendance at the
church-building till Saturday evening; and thus it became necessary,
unless they actually wasted time, that Cytherea herself should assist.
‘I act under your orders, Owen,’ she said.
XVI. THE EVENTS OF ONE WEEK
1. MARCH THE SIXTH
The next morning the opening move of the game was made. Cytherea, under
cover of a thick veil, hired a conveyance and drove to within a mile or
so of Carriford. It was with a renewed sense of depression that she
saw again the objects which had become familiar to her eye during her
sojourn under Miss Aldclyffe’s roof--the outline of the hills, the
meadow streams, the old park trees. She hastened by a lonely path to the
rectory-house, and asked if Mr. Raunham was at home.
Now the rector, though a solitary bachelor, was as gallant and courteous
to womankind as an ancient Iberian; and, moreover, he was Cytherea’s
friend in particular, to an extent far greater than she had ever
surmised. Rarely visiting his relative, Miss Aldclyffe, except on parish
matters, more rarely still being called upon by Miss Aldclyffe, Cytherea
had learnt very little of him whilst she lived at Knapwater. The
relationship was on the impecunious paternal side, and for this branch
of her family the lady of the estate had never evinced much sympathy. In
looking back upon our line of descent it is an instinct with us to feel
that all our vitality was drawn from the richer party to any unequal
marriage in the chain.
Since the death of the old captain, the rector’s bearing in Knapwater
House had been almost that of a stranger, a circumstance which
he himself was the last man in the world to regret. This polite
indifference was so frigid on both sides that the rector did not concern
himself to preach at her, which was a great deal in a rector; and she
did not take the trouble to think his sermons poor stuff, which in a
cynical woman was a great deal more.
Though barely fifty years of age, his hair was as white as snow,
contrasting strangely with the redness of his skin, which was as fresh
and healthy as a lad’s. Cytherea’s bright eyes, mutely and demurely
glancing up at him Sunday after Sunday, had been the means of driving
away many of the saturnine humours that creep into an empty heart during
the hours of a solitary life; in this case, however, to supplant them,
when she left his parish, by those others of a more aching nature
which accompany an over-full one. In short, he had been on the verge
of feeling towards her that passion to which his dignified self-respect
would not give its true name, even in the privacy of his own thought.
He received her kindly; but she was not disposed to be frank with him.
He saw her wish to be reserved, and with genuine good taste and good
nature made no comment whatever upon her request to be allowed to see
the Chronicle for the year before the last. He placed the papers before
her on his study table, with a timidity as great as her own, and then
left her entirely to herself.
She turned them over till she came to the first heading connected
with the subject of her search--‘Disastrous Fire and Loss of Life at
Carriford.’
The sight, and its calamitous bearing upon her own life, made her so
dizzy that she could, for a while, hardly decipher the letters. Stifling
recollection by an effort she nerved herself to her work, and carefully
read the column. The account reminded her of no other fact than was
remembered already.
She turned on to the following week’s report of the inquest. After a
miserable perusal she could find no more pertaining to Mrs. Manston’s
address than this:--
‘ABRAHAM BROWN, of Hoxton, London, at whose house the deceased woman had
been living, deposed,’ etc.
Nobody else from London had attended the inquest. She arose to depart,
first sending a message of thanks to Mr. Raunham, who was out of doors
gardening.
He stuck his spade into the ground, and accompanied her to the gate.
‘Can I help you in anything, Cytherea?’ he said, using her Christian
name by an intuition that unpleasant memories might be revived if he
called her Miss Graye after wishing her good-bye as Mrs. Manston at
the wedding. Cytherea saw the motive and appreciated it, nevertheless
replying evasively--
‘I only guess and fear.’
He earnestly looked at her again.
‘Promise me that if you want assistance, and you think I can give it,
you will come to me.’
‘I will,’ she said.
The gate closed between them.
‘You don’t want me to help you in anything now, Cytherea?’ he repeated.
If he had spoken what he felt, ‘I want very much to help you, Cytherea,
and have been watching Manston on your account,’ she would gladly have
accepted his offer. As it was, she was perplexed, and raised her eyes to
his, not so fearlessly as before her trouble, but as modestly, and with
still enough brightness in them to do fearful execution as she said over
the gate--
‘No, thank you.’
She returned to Tolchurch weary with her day’s work. Owen’s greeting was
anxious--
‘Well, Cytherea?’
She gave him the words from the report of the inquest, pencilled on a
slip of paper.
‘Now to find out the name of the street and number,’ Owen remarked.
‘Owen,’ she said, ‘will you forgive me for what I am going to say? I
don’t think I can--indeed I don’t think I can--take any further steps
towards disentangling the mystery. I still think it a useless task, and
it does not seem any duty of mine to be revenged upon Mr. Manston in any
way.’ She added more gravely, ‘It is beneath my dignity as a woman to
labour for this; I have felt it so all day.’
‘Very well,’ he said, somewhat shortly; ‘I shall work without you then.
There’s dignity in justice.’ He caught sight of her pale tired face, and
the dilated eye which always appeared in her with weariness. ‘Darling,’
he continued warmly, and kissing her, ‘you shall not work so hard
again--you are worn out quite. But you must let me do as I like.’
2. MARCH THE TENTH
On Saturday evening Graye hurried off to Casterbridge, and called at the
house of the reporter to the Chronicle. The reporter was at home, and
came out to Graye in the passage. Owen explained who and what he was,
and asked the man if he would oblige him by turning to his notes of
the inquest at Carriford in the December of the year preceding the
last--just adding that a family entanglement, of which the reporter
probably knew something, made him anxious to ascertain some additional
details of the event, if any existed.