Desperate Remedies
If he had entered the thicket on a search unaided, Manston might have
stepped unobserved from behind a bush and murdered him with the
greatest ease. Indeed, there were such strong reasons for the exploit in
Manston’s circumstances at that moment that without showing cowardice,
his pursuer felt it hazardous to remain any longer where he stood.
He hastily tied the head of Manston’s horse to the back of his own
vehicle, that the steward might be deprived of the use of any means of
escape other than his own legs, and drove on thus with his prisoner to
the county-town. Arrived there, he lodged her in the police-station, and
then took immediate steps for the capture of Manston.
XX. THE EVENTS OF THREE HOURS
1. MARCH THE TWENTY-THIRD. MIDDAY
Thirty-six hours had elapsed since Manston’s escape.
It was market-day at the county-town. The farmers outside and inside
the corn-exchange looked at their samples of wheat, and poured them
critically as usual from one palm to another, but they thought and spoke
of Manston. Grocers serving behind their counters, instead of using
their constant phrase, ‘The next article, please?’ substituted, ‘Have
you heard if he’s caught?’ Dairymen and drovers standing beside the
sheep and cattle pens, spread their legs firmly, readjusted their hats,
thrust their hands into the lowest depths of their pockets, regarded the
animals with the utmost keenness of which the eye was capable, and said,
‘Ay, ay, so’s: they’ll have him avore night.’
Later in the day Edward Springrove passed along the street hurriedly and
anxiously. ‘Well, have you heard any more?’ he said to an acquaintance
who accosted him.
‘They tracked him in this way,’ said the other young man. ‘A vagrant
first told them that Manston had passed a rick at daybreak, under
which this man was lying. They followed the track he pointed out
and ultimately came to a stile. On the other side was a heap of
half-hardened mud, scraped from the road. On the surface of the heap,
where it had been smoothed by the shovel, was distinctly imprinted the
form of a man’s hand, the buttons of his waistcoat, and his watch-chain,
showing that he had stumbled in hurrying over the stile, and fallen
there. The pattern of the chain proved the man to have been Manston.
They followed on till they reached a ford crossed by stepping-stones--on
the further bank were the same footmarks that had shown themselves
beside the stile. The whole of this course had been in the direction
of Budmouth. On they went, and the next clue was furnished them by a
shepherd. He said that wherever a clear space three or four yards wide
ran in a line through a flock of sheep lying about a ewe-lease, it was a
proof that somebody had passed there not more than half-an-hour earlier.
At twelve o’clock that day he had noticed such a feature in his flock.
Nothing more could be heard of him, and they got into Budmouth. The
steam-packet to the Channel Islands was to start at eleven last night,
and they at once concluded that his hope was to get to France by way
of Jersey and St. Malo--his only chance, all the railway-stations being
watched.
‘Well, they went to the boat: he was not on board then. They went again
at half-past ten: he had not come. Two men now placed themselves under
the lamp immediately beside the gangway. Another stayed by the office
door, and one or two more up Mary Street--the straight cut to the quay.
At a quarter to eleven the mail-bags were put on board. Whilst the
attention of the idlers was directed to the mails, down Mary Street
came a man as boldly as possible. The gait was Manston’s, but not the
clothes. He passed over to the shaded part of the street: heads were
turned. I suppose this warned him, for he never emerged from the shadow.
They watched and waited, but the steward did not reappear. The alarm
was raised--they searched the town high and low--no Manston. All
this morning they have been searching, but there’s not a sign of him
anywhere. However, he has lost his last chance of getting across
the Channel. It is reported that he has since changed clothes with a
labourer.’
During this narration, Edward, lost in thought, had let his eyes follow
a shabby man in a smock-frock, but wearing light boots--who was stalking
down the street under a bundle of straw which overhung and concealed
his head. It was a very ordinary circumstance for a man with a bundle
of straw on his shoulders and overhanging his head, to go down the High
Street. Edward saw him cross the bridge which divided the town from the
country, place his shaggy encumbrance by the side of the road, and leave
it there.
Springrove now parted from his acquaintance, and went also in the
direction of the bridge, and some way beyond it. As far as he could see
stretched the turnpike road, and, while he was looking, he noticed a man
to leap from the hedge at a point two hundred, or two hundred and fifty
yards ahead, cross the road, and go through a wicket on the other side.
This figure seemed like that of the man who had been carrying the bundle
of straw. He looked at the straw: it still stood alone.
The subjoined facts sprang, as it were, into juxtaposition in his
brain:--
Manston had been seen wearing the clothes of a labouring man--a brown
smock-frock. So had this man, who seemed other than a labourer, on
second thoughts: and he had concealed his face by his bundle of straw
with the greatest ease and naturalness.
The path the man had taken led, among other places, to Tolchurch, where
Cytherea was living.
If Mrs. Manston was murdered, as some said, on the night of the fire,
Cytherea was the steward’s lawful wife. Manston at bay, and reckless of
results, might rush to his wife and harm her.
It was a horrible supposition for a man who loved Cytherea to entertain;
but Springrove could not resist its influence. He started off for
Tolchurch.
2. ONE TO TWO O’CLOCK P.M.
On that self-same mid-day, whilst Edward was proceeding to Tolchurch by
the footpath across the fields, Owen Graye had left the village and
was riding along the turnpike road to the county-town, that he might
ascertain the exact truth of the strange rumour which had reached him
concerning Manston. Not to disquiet his sister, he had said nothing to
her of the matter.
She sat by the window reading. From her position she could see up the
lane for a distance of at least a hundred yards. Passers-by were so rare
in this retired nook, that the eyes of those who dwelt by the wayside
were invariably lifted to every one on the road, great and small, as to
a novelty.
A man in a brown smock-frock turned the corner and came towards the
house. It being market-day at Casterbridge, the village was nearly
deserted, and more than this, the old farm-house in which Owen and his
sister were staying, stood, as has been stated, apart from the body of
cottages. The man did not look respectable; Cytherea arose and bolted
the door.
Unfortunately he was near enough to see her cross the room. He advanced
to the door, knocked, and, receiving no answer, came to the window; he
next pressed his face against the glass, peering in.
Cytherea’s experience at that moment was probably as trying a one as
ever fell to the lot of a gentlewoman to endure. She recognized in the
peering face that of the man she had married.
But not a movement was made by her, not a sound escaped her. Her fear
was great; but had she known the truth--that the man outside, feeling
he had nothing on earth to lose by any act, was in the last stage of
recklessness, terrified nature must have given way.
‘Cytherea,’ he said, ‘let me come in: I am your husband.’
‘No,’ she replied, still not realizing the magnitude of her peril. ‘If
you want to speak to us, wait till my brother comes.’
‘O, he’s not at home? Cytherea, I can’t live without you! All my sin has
been because I love you so! Will you fly with me? I have money enough
for us both--only come with me.’
‘Not now--not now.’
‘I am your husband, I tell you, and I must come in.’
‘You cannot,’ she said faintly. His words began to terrify her.
‘I will, I say!’ he exclaimed. ‘Will you let me in, I ask once more?’
‘No--I will not,’ said Cytherea.
‘Then I will let myself in!’ he answered resolutely. ‘I will, if I die
for it!’
The windows were glazed in lattice panes of leadwork, hung in casements.
He broke one of the panes with a stone, thrust his hand through the
hole, unfastened the latch which held the casement close, and began
opening the window.
Instantly the shutters flew together with a slam, and were barred with
desperate quickness by Cytherea on the inside.
‘Damn you!’ he exclaimed.
He ran round to the back of the house. His impatience was greater now:
he thrust his fist through the pantry window at one blow, and opened
it in the same way as the former one had been opened, before the
terror-stricken girl was aware that he had gone round. In an instant
he stood in the pantry, advanced to the front room where she was, flung
back the shutters, and held out his arms to embrace her.
In extremely trying moments of bodily or mental pain, Cytherea either
flushed hot or faded pale, according to the state of her constitution
at the moment. Now she burned like fire from head to foot, and this
preserved her consciousness.
Never before had the poor child’s natural agility served her in such
good stead as now. A heavy oblong table stood in the middle of the room.
Round this table she flew, keeping it between herself and Manston, her
large eyes wide open with terror, their dilated pupils constantly fixed
upon Manston’s, to read by his expression whether his next intention was
to dart to the right or the left.
Even he, at that heated moment, could not endure the expression of
unutterable agony which shone from that extraordinary gaze of hers.
It had surely been given her by God as a means of defence. Manston
continued his pursuit with a lowered eye.
The panting and maddened desperado--blind to everything but the capture
of his wife--went with a rush under the table: she went over it like
a bird. He went heavily over it: she flew under it, and was out at the
other side.
‘One on her youth and pliant limbs relies,
One on his sinews and his giant size.’
But his superior strength was sure to tire her down in the long-run.
She felt her weakness increasing with the quickness of her breath; she
uttered a wild scream, which in its heartrending intensity seemed to
echo for miles.
At the same juncture her hair became unfastened, and rolled down about
her shoulders. The least accident at such critical periods is sufficient
to confuse the overwrought intelligence. She lost sight of his intended
direction for one instant, and he immediately outmanoeuvred her.
‘At last! my Cytherea!’ he cried, overturning the table, springing over
it, seizing one of the long brown tresses, pulling her towards him, and
clasping her round. She writhed downwards between his arms and breast,
and fell fainting on the floor. For the first time his action was
leisurely. He lifted her upon the sofa, exclaiming, ‘Rest there for a
while, my frightened little bird!’
And then there was an end of his triumph. He felt himself clutched by
the collar, and whizzed backwards with the force of a battering-ram
against the fireplace. Springrove, wild, red, and breathless, had sprung
in at the open window, and stood once more between man and wife.
Manston was on his legs again in an instant. A fiery glance on the one
side, a glance of pitiless justice on the other, passed between them.
It was again the meeting in the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite: ‘Hast
thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because
thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.’