Desperate Remedies
‘Certainly,’ said the other, without hesitation; ‘though I am afraid
I haven’t much beyond what we printed at the time. Let me see--my old
note-books are in my drawer at the office of the paper: if you will
come with me I can refer to them there.’ His wife and family were at tea
inside the room, and with the timidity of decent poverty everywhere he
seemed glad to get a stranger out of his domestic groove.
They crossed the street, entered the office, and went thence to an
inner room. Here, after a short search, was found the book required. The
precise address, not given in the condensed report that was printed, but
written down by the reporter, was as follows:--
‘ABRAHAM BROWN,
LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER,
41 CHARLES SQUARE,
HOXTON.’
Owen copied it, and gave the reporter a small fee. ‘I want to keep
this inquiry private for the present,’ he said hesitatingly. ‘You will
perhaps understand why, and oblige me.’
The reporter promised. ‘News is shop with me,’ he said, ‘and to escape
from handling it is my greatest social enjoyment.’
It was evening, and the outer room of the publishing-office was lighted
up with flaring jets of gas. After making the above remark, the reporter
came out from the inner apartment in Graye’s company, answering an
expression of obligation from Owen with the words that it was no
trouble. At the moment of his speech, he closed behind him the door
between the two rooms, still holding his note-book in his hand.
Before the counter of the front room stood a tall man, who was also
speaking, when they emerged. He said to the youth in attendance, ‘I will
take my paper for this week now I am here, so that you needn’t post it
to me.’
The stranger then slightly turned his head, saw Owen, and recognized
him. Owen passed out without recognizing the other as Manston.
Manston then looked at the reporter, who, after walking to the door with
Owen, had come back again to lock up his books. Manston did not need to
be told that the shabby marble-covered book which he held in his
hand, opening endways and interleaved with blotting-paper, was an
old reporting-book. He raised his eyes to the reporter’s face, whose
experience had not so schooled his features but that they betrayed a
consciousness, to one half initiated as the other was, that his late
proceeding had been connected with events in the life of the steward.
Manston said no more, but, taking his newspaper, followed Owen from the
office, and disappeared in the gloom of the street.
Edward Springrove was now in London again, and on this same evening,
before leaving Casterbridge, Owen wrote a careful letter to him, stating
therein all the facts that had come to his knowledge, and begging
him, as he valued Cytherea, to make cautious inquiries. A tall man
was standing under the lamp-post, about half-a-dozen yards above the
post-office, when he dropped the letter into the box.
That same night, too, for a reason connected with the rencounter with
Owen Graye, the steward entertained the idea of rushing off suddenly to
London by the mail-train, which left Casterbridge at ten o’clock.
But remembering that letters posted after the hour at which Owen had
obtained his information--whatever that was--could not be delivered
in London till Monday morning, he changed his mind and went home to
Knapwater. Making a confidential explanation to his wife, arrangements
were set on foot for his departure by the mail on Sunday night.
3. MARCH THE ELEVENTH
Starting for church the next morning several minutes earlier than was
usual with him, the steward intentionally loitered along the road from
the village till old Mr. Springrove overtook him. Manston spoke very
civilly of the morning, and of the weather, asking how the farmer’s
barometer stood, and when it was probable that the wind might change. It
was not in Mr. Springrove’s nature--going to church as he was, too--to
return anything but a civil answer to such civil questions, however his
feelings might have been biassed by late events. The conversation was
continued on terms of greater friendliness.
‘You must be feeling settled again by this time, Mr. Springrove, after
the rough turn-out you had on that terrible night in November.’
‘Ay, but I don’t know about feeling settled, either, Mr. Manston. The
old window in the chimney-corner of the old house I shall never forget.
No window in the chimney-corner where I am now, and I had been used to
it for more than fifty years. Ted says ‘tis a great loss to me, and he
knows exactly what I feel.’
‘Your son is again in a good situation, I believe?’ said Manston,
imitating that inquisitiveness into the private affairs of the natives
which passes for high breeding in country villages.
‘Yes, sir. I hope he’ll keep it, or do something else and stick to it.’
‘’Tis to be hoped he’ll be steady now.’
‘He’s always been that, I assure ‘ee,’ said the old man tartly.
‘Yes--yes--I mean intellectually steady. Intellectual wild oats will
thrive in a soil of the strictest morality.’
‘Intellectual gingerbread! Ted’s steady enough--that’s all I know about
it.’
‘Of course--of course. Has he respectable lodgings? My own experience
has shown me that that’s a great thing to a young man living alone in
London.’
‘Warwick Street, Charing Cross--that’s where he is.’
‘Well, to be sure--strange! A very dear friend of mine used to live at
number fifty-two in that very same street.’
‘Edward lives at number forty-nine--how very near being the same house!’
said the old farmer, pleased in spite of himself.
‘Very,’ said Manston. ‘Well, I suppose we had better step along a little
quicker, Mr. Springrove; the parson’s bell has just begun.’
‘Number forty-nine,’ he murmured.
4. MARCH THE TWELFTH
Edward received Owen’s letter in due time, but on account of his daily
engagements he could not attend to any request till the clock had struck
five in the afternoon. Rushing then from his office in Westminster, he
called a hansom and proceeded to Hoxton. A few minutes later he knocked
at the door of number forty-one, Charles Square, the old lodging of Mrs.
Manston.
A tall man who would have looked extremely handsome had he not been
clumsily and closely wrapped up in garments that were much too elderly
in style for his years, stood at the corner of the quiet square at the
same instant, having, too, alighted from a cab, that had been driven
along Old Street in Edward’s rear. He smiled confidently when Springrove
knocked.
Nobody came to the door. Springrove knocked again.
This brought out two people--one at the door he had been knocking upon,
the other from the next on the right.
‘Is Mr. Brown at home?’ said Springrove.
‘No, sir.’
‘When will he be in?’
‘Quite uncertain.’
‘Can you tell me where I may find him?’
‘No. O, here he is coming, sir. That’s Mr. Brown.’
Edward looked down the pavement in the direction pointed out by the
woman, and saw a man approaching. He proceeded a few steps to meet him.
Edward was impatient, and to a certain extent still a countryman, who
had not, after the manner of city men, subdued the natural impulse to
speak out the ruling thought without preface. He said in a quiet tone to
the stranger, ‘One word with you--do you remember a lady lodger of yours
of the name of Mrs. Manston?’
Mr. Brown half closed his eyes at Springrove, somewhat as if he were
looking into a telescope at the wrong end.
‘I have never let lodgings in my life,’ he said, after his survey.
‘Didn’t you attend an inquest a year and a half ago, at Carriford?’
‘Never knew there was such a place in the world, sir; and as to
lodgings, I have taken acres first and last during the last thirty
years, but I have never let an inch.’
‘I suppose there is some mistake,’ Edward murmured, and turned away. He
and Mr. Brown were now opposite the door next to the one he had knocked
at. The woman who was still standing there had heard the inquiry and the
result of it.
‘I expect it is the other Mr. Brown, who used to live there, that you
want, sir,’ she said. ‘The Mr. Brown that was inquired for the other
day?’
‘Very likely that is the man,’ said Edward, his interest reawakening.
‘He couldn’t make a do of lodging-letting here, and at last he went to
Cornwall, where he came from, and where his brother still lived, who
had often asked him to come home again. But there was little luck in the
change; for after London they say he couldn’t stand the rainy west winds
they get there, and he died in the December following. Will you step
into the passage?’
‘That’s unfortunate,’ said Edward, going in. ‘But perhaps you remember a
Mrs. Manston living next door to you?’
‘O yes,’ said the landlady, closing the door. ‘The lady who was supposed
to have met with such a horrible fate, and was alive all the time. I saw
her the other day.’
‘Since the fire at Carriford?’
‘Yes. Her husband came to ask if Mr. Brown was still living here--just
as you might. He seemed anxious about it; and then one evening, a week
or fortnight afterwards, when he came again to make further inquiries,
she was with him. But I did not speak to her--she stood back, as if she
were shy. I was interested, however, for old Mr. Brown had told me all
about her when he came back from the inquest.’
‘Did you know Mrs. Manston before she called the other day?’
‘No. You see she was only Mr. Brown’s lodger for two or three weeks,
and I didn’t know she was living there till she was near upon leaving
again--we don’t notice next-door people much here in London. I much
regretted I had not known her when I heard what had happened. It led
me and Mr. Brown to talk about her a great deal afterwards. I little
thought I should see her alive after all.’
‘And when do you say they came here together?’
‘I don’t exactly remember the day--though I remember a very beautiful
dream I had that same night--ah, I shall never forget it! Shoals of
lodgers coming along the square with angels’ wings and bright golden
sovereigns in their hands wanting apartments at West End prices. They
would not give any less; no, not if you--’
‘Yes. Did Mrs. Manston leave anything, such as papers, when she left
these lodgings originally?’ said Edward, though his heart sank as he
asked. He felt that he was outwitted. Manston and his wife had been
there before him, clearing the ground of all traces.
‘I have always said “No” hitherto,’ replied the woman, ‘considering I
could say no more if put upon my oath, as I expected to be. But speaking
in a common everyday way now the occurrence is past, I believe a few
things of some kind (though I doubt if they were papers) were left in
a workbox she had, because she talked about it to Mr. Brown, and was
rather angry at what occurred--you see, she had a temper by all account,
and so I didn’t like to remind the lady of this workbox when she came
the other day with her husband.’
‘And about the workbox?’
‘Well, from what was casually dropped, I think Mrs. Manston had a few
articles of furniture she didn’t want, and when she was leaving they
were put in a sale just by. Amongst her things were two workboxes very
much alike. One of these she intended to sell, the other she didn’t, and
Mr. Brown, who collected the things together, took the wrong one to the
sale.’
‘What was in it?’
‘O, nothing in particular, or of any value--some accounts, and her usual
sewing materials I think--nothing more. She didn’t take much trouble
to get it back--she said the bills were worth nothing to her or anybody
else, but that she should have liked to keep the box because her husband
gave it her when they were first married, and if he found she had parted
with it, he would be vexed.’
‘Did Mrs. Manston, when she called recently with her husband, allude to