Desperate Remedies
A desperate wrestle now began between the two men. Manston was the
taller, but there was in Edward much hard tough muscle which the
delicate flesh of the steward lacked. They flew together like the jaws
of a gin. In a minute they were both on the floor, rolling over and
over, locked in each other’s grasp as tightly as if they had been one
organic being at war with itself--Edward trying to secure Manston’s arms
with a small thong he had drawn from his pocket, Manston trying to reach
his knife.
Two characteristic noises pervaded the apartment through this momentous
space of time. One was the sharp panting of the two combatants, so
similar in each as to be undistinguishable; the other was the stroke
of their heels and toes, as they smote the floor at every contortion of
body or limbs.
Cytherea had not lost consciousness for more than half-a-minute. She
had then leapt up without recognizing that Edward was her deliverer,
unfastened the door, and rushed out, screaming wildly, ‘Come! Help! O,
help!’
Three men stood not twenty yards off, looking perplexed. They dashed
forward at her words. ‘Have you seen a shabby man with a smock-frock on
lately?’ they inquired. She pointed to the door, and ran on the same as
before.
Manston, who had just loosened himself from Edward’s grasp, seemed
at this moment to renounce his intention of pushing the conflict to a
desperate end. ‘I give it all up for life--dear life!’ he cried, with a
hoarse laugh. ‘A reckless man has a dozen lives--see how I’ll baffle you
all yet!’
He rushed out of the house, but no further. The boast was his last. In
one half-minute more he was helpless in the hands of his pursuers.
Edward staggered to his feet, and paused to recover breath. His thoughts
had never forsaken Cytherea, and his first act now was to hasten up the
lane after her. She had not gone far. He found her leaning upon a bank
by the roadside, where she had flung herself down in sheer exhaustion.
He ran up and lifted her in his arms, and thus aided she was enabled
to stand upright--clinging to him. What would Springrove have given to
imprint a kiss upon her lips then!
They walked slowly towards the house. The distressing sensation of whose
wife she was could not entirely quench the resuscitated pleasure he felt
at her grateful recognition of him, and her confiding seizure of his arm
for support. He conveyed her carefully into the house.
A quarter of an hour later, whilst she was sitting in a partially
recovered, half-dozing state in an arm-chair, Edward beside her waiting
anxiously till Graye should arrive, they saw a spring-cart pass the
door. Old and dry mud-splashes from long-forgotten rains disfigured its
wheels and sides; the varnish and paint had been scratched and dimmed;
ornament had long been forgotten in a restless contemplation of use.
Three men sat on the seat, the middle one being Manston. His hands
were bound in front of him, his eyes were set directly forward, his
countenance pallid, hard, and fixed.
Springrove had told Cytherea of Manston’s crime in a few short words. He
now said solemnly, ‘He is to die.’
‘And I cannot mourn for him,’ she replied with a shudder, leaning back
and covering her face with her hands.
In the silence that followed the two short remarks, Springrove watched
the cart round the corner, and heard the rattle of its wheels gradually
dying away as it rolled in the direction of the county-town.
XXI. THE EVENTS OF EIGHTEEN HOURS
1. MARCH THE TWENTY-NINTH. NOON
Exactly seven days after Edward Springrove had seen the man with the
bundle of straw walking down the streets of Casterbridge, old Farmer
Springrove was standing on the edge of the same pavement, talking to his
friend, Farmer Baker.
There was a pause in their discourse. Mr. Springrove was looking down
the street at some object which had attracted his attention. ‘Ah, ‘tis
what we shall all come to!’ he murmured.
The other looked in the same direction. ‘True, neighbour Springrove;
true.’
Two men, advancing one behind the other in the middle of the road, were
what the farmers referred to. They were carpenters, and bore on their
shoulders an empty coffin, covered by a thin black cloth.
‘I always feel a satisfaction at being breasted by such a sight as
that,’ said Springrove, still regarding the men’s sad burden. ‘I call it
a sort of medicine.’
‘And it is medicine.... I have not heard of any body being ill up this
way lately? D’seem as if the person died suddenly.’
‘May be so. Ah, Baker, we say sudden death, don’t we? But there’s no
difference in their nature between sudden death and death of any other
sort. There’s no such thing as a random snapping off of what was laid
down to last longer. We only suddenly light upon an end--thoughtfully
formed as any other--which has been existing at that very same point
from the beginning, though unseen by us to be so soon.’
‘It is just a discovery to your own mind, and not an alteration in the
Lord’s.’
‘That’s it. Unexpected is not as to the thing, but as to our sight.’
‘Now you’ll hardly believe me, neighbour, but this little scene in front
of us makes me feel less anxious about pushing on wi’ that threshing and
winnowing next week, that I was speaking about. Why should we not stand
still, says I to myself, and fling a quiet eye upon the Whys and
the Wherefores, before the end o’ it all, and we go down into the
mouldering-place, and are forgotten?’
‘’Tis a feeling that will come. But ‘twont bear looking into. There’s a
back’ard current in the world, and we must do our utmost to advance in
order just to bide where we be. But, Baker, they are turning in here
with the coffin, look.’
The two carpenters had borne their load into a narrow way close at hand.
The farmers, in common with others, turned and watched them along the
way.
‘’Tis a man’s coffin, and a tall man’s, too,’ continued Farmer
Springrove. ‘His was a fine frame, whoever he was.’
‘A very plain box for the poor soul--just the rough elm, you see.’ The
corner of the cloth had blown aside.
‘Yes, for a very poor man. Well, death’s all the less insult to him. I
have often thought how much smaller the richer class are made to look
than the poor at last pinches like this. Perhaps the greatest of all
the reconcilers of a thoughtful man to poverty--and I speak from
experience--is the grand quiet it fills him with when the uncertainty of
his life shows itself more than usual.’
As Springrove finished speaking, the bearers of the coffin went across
a gravelled square facing the two men and approached a grim and heavy
archway. They paused beneath it, rang a bell, and waited.
Over the archway was written in Egyptian capitals,
‘COUNTY GAOL.’
The small rectangular wicket, which was constructed in one of the
two iron-studded doors, was opened from the inside. The men severally
stepped over the threshold, the coffin dragged its melancholy length
through the aperture, and both entered the court, and were covered from
sight.
‘Somebody in the gaol, then?’
‘Yes, one of the prisoners,’ said a boy, scudding by at the moment, who
passed on whistling.
‘Do you know the name of the man who is dead?’ inquired Baker of a third
bystander.
‘Yes, ‘tis all over town--surely you know, Mr. Springrove? Why, Manston,
Miss Aldclyffe’s steward. He was found dead the first thing this
morning. He had hung himself behind the door of his cell, in some way,
by a handkerchief and some strips of his clothes. The turnkey says his
features were scarcely changed, as he looked at ‘em with the early sun
a-shining in at the grating upon him. He has left a full account of the
murder, and all that led to it. So there’s an end of him.’
It was perfectly true: Manston was dead.
The previous day he had been allowed the use of writing-materials, and
had occupied himself for nearly seven hours in preparing the following
confession:--
‘LAST WORDS.
‘Having found man’s life to be a wretchedly conceived scheme, I renounce
it, and, to cause no further trouble, I write down the facts connected
with my past proceedings.
‘After thanking God, on first entering my house, on the night of the
fire at Carriford, for my release from bondage to a woman I detested,
I went, a second time, to the scene of the disaster, and, finding that
nothing could be done by remaining there, shortly afterwards I returned
home again in the company of Mr. Raunham.
‘He parted from me at the steps of my porch, and went back towards
the rectory. Whilst I still stood at the door, musing on my strange
deliverance, I saw a figure advance from beneath the shadow of the park
trees. It was the figure of a woman.
‘When she came near, the twilight was sufficient to show me her attire:
it was a cloak reaching to the bottom of her dress, and a thick veil
covering her face. These features, together with her size and gait,
aided also by a flash of perception as to the chain of events which had
saved her life, told me that she was my wife Eunice.
‘I gnashed my teeth in a frenzy of despair; I had lost Cytherea; I had
gained one whose beauty had departed, whose utterance was complaint,
whose mind was shallow, and who drank brandy every day. The revulsion
of feeling was terrible. Providence, whom I had just thanked, seemed a
mocking tormentor laughing at me. I felt like a madman.
‘She came close--started at seeing me outside--then spoke to me. Her
first words were reproof for what I had unintentionally done, and
sounded as an earnest of what I was to be cursed with as long as we both
lived. I answered angrily; this tone of mine changed her complaints
to irritation. She taunted me with a secret she had discovered, which
concerned Miss Aldclyffe and myself. I was surprised to learn it--more
surprised that she knew it, but concealed my feeling.
‘“How could you serve me so?” she said, her breath smelling of spirits
even then. “You love another woman--yes, you do. See how you drive me
about! I have been to the station, intending to leave you for ever, and
yet I come to try you once more.”
‘An indescribable exasperation had sprung up in me as she talked--rage
and regret were all in all. Scarcely knowing what I did, I furiously
raised my hand and swung it round with my whole force to strike her. She
turned quickly--and it was the poor creature’s end. By her movement my
hand came edgewise exactly in the nape of the neck--as men strike a hare
to kill it. The effect staggered me with amazement. The blow must have
disturbed the vertebrae; she fell at my feet, made a few movements, and
uttered one low sound.
‘I ran indoors for water and some wine, I came out and lanced her arm
with my penknife. But she lay still, and I found that she was dead.
‘It was a long time before I could realize my horrible position. For
several minutes I had no idea of attempting to escape the consequences
of my deed. Then a light broke upon me. Had anybody seen her since she
left the Three Tranters? Had they not, she was already believed by the
parishioners to be dust and ashes. I should never be found out.
‘Upon this I acted.
‘The first question was how to dispose of the body. The impulse of the
moment was to bury her at once in the pit between the engine-house and
waterfall; but it struck me that I should not have time. It was now four
o’clock, and the working-men would soon be stirring about the place. I
would put off burying her till the next night. I carried her indoors.
‘In turning the outhouse into a workshop, earlier in the season, I
found, when driving a nail into the wall for fixing a cupboard, that the
wall sounded hollow. I examined it, and discovered behind the plaster an
old oven which had long been disused, and was bricked up when the house