Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (43 page)

‘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,’ returned Owen coldly. ‘Mr. Manston is an honourable man, and I had much better see him myself.’

‘There is no doubt,’ said Mr. Raunham, ‘that the death of his wife was fully believed in by himself.’

‘None whatever,’ said Owen; ‘and the news must be broken to him, and the question of other proofs asked, in a friendly way. It would not do for Mr. Springrove to appear in the case at all.’ He still spoke rather coldly; the recollection of the attachment between his sister and Edward was not a pleasant one to him.

‘You will never find them,’ said Edward. ‘You have never been to Southampton, and I know every house there.’

‘That makes little difference,’ said the rector; ‘he will have a cab. Certainly Mr. Graye is the proper man to go on the errand.’

‘Stay; I’ll telegraph to ask them to meet me when I arrive at the terminus,’ said Owen; ‘that is, if their train has not already arrived.’

Mr. Raunham pulled out his pocket-book again. ‘The two-thirty train reached Southampton a quarter of an hour ago,’ he said.

It was too late to catch them at the station. Nevertheless, the rector suggested that it would be worth while to direct a message to ‘all the respectable hotels in Southampton,’ on the chance of its finding them, and thus saving a deal of personal labour to Owen in searching about the place.

‘I’ll go and telegraph, whilst you return to the man,’ said Edward — an offer which was accepted. Graye and the rector then turned off in the direction of the porter’s cottage.

Edward, to despatch the message at once, hurriedly followed the road towards the station, still restlessly thinking. All Owen’s proceedings were based on the assumption, natural under the circumstances, of Manston’s good faith, and that he would readily acquiesce in any arrangement which should clear up the mystery. ‘But,’ thought Edward, ‘suppose — and Heaven forgive me, I cannot help supposing it — that Manston is not that honourable man, what will a young and inexperienced fellow like Owen do? Will he not be hoodwinked by some specious story or another, framed to last till Manston gets tired of poor Cytherea? And then the disclosure of the truth will ruin and blacken both their futures irremediably.’

However, he proceeded to execute his commission. This he put in the form of a simple request from Owen to Manston, that Manston would come to the Southampton platform, and wait for Owen’s arrival, as he valued his reputation. The message was directed as the rector had suggested, Edward guaranteeing to the clerk who sent it off that every expense connected with the search would be paid.

No sooner had the telegram been despatched than his heart sank within him at the want of foresight shown in sending it. Had Manston, all the time, a knowledge that his first wife lived, the telegram would be a forewarning which might enable him to defeat Owen still more signally.

Whilst the machine was still giving off its multitudinous series of raps, Edward heard a powerful rush under the shed outside, followed by a long sonorous creak. It was a train of some sort, stealing softly into the station, and it was an up-train. There was the ring of a bell. It was certainly a passenger train.

Yet the booking-office window was closed.

‘Ho, ho, John, seventeen minutes after time and only three stations up the line. The incline again?’ The voice was the stationmaster’s, and the reply seemed to come from the guard.

‘Yes, the other side of the cutting. The thaw has made it all in a perfect cloud of fog, and the rails are as slippery as glass. We had to bring them through the cutting at twice.’

‘Anybody else for the four-forty-five express?’ the voice continued. The few passengers, having crossed over to the other side long before this time, had taken their places at once.

A conviction suddenly broke in upon Edward’s mind; then a wish overwhelmed him. The conviction — as startling as it was sudden — was that Manston was a villain, who at some earlier time had discovered that his wife lived, and had bribed her to keep out of sight, that he might possess Cytherea. The wish was — to proceed at once by this very train that was starting, find Manston before he would expect from the words of the telegram (if he got it) that anybody from Carriford could be with him — charge him boldly with the crime, and trust to his consequent confusion (if he were guilty) for a solution of the extraordinary riddle, and the release of Cytherea!

The ticket-office had been locked up at the expiration of the time at which the train was due. Rushing out as the guard blew his whistle, Edward opened the door of a carriage and leapt in. The train moved along, and he was soon out of sight.

Springrove had long since passed that peculiar line which lies across the course of falling in love — if, indeed, it may not be called the initial itself of the complete passion — a longing to cherish; when the woman is shifted in a man’s mind from the region of mere admiration to the region of warm fellowship. At this assumption of her nature, she changes to him in tone, hue, and expression. All about the loved one that said ‘She’ before, says ‘We’ now. Eyes that were to be subdued become eyes to be feared for: a brain that was to be probed by cynicism becomes a brain that is to be tenderly assisted; feet that were to be tested in the dance become feet that are not to be distressed; the once-criticized accent, manner, and dress, become the clients of a special pleader.

6. FIVE TO EIGHT O’CLOCK P.M.

Now that he was fairly on the track, and had begun to cool down, Edward remembered that he had nothing to show — no legal authority whatever to question Manston or interfere between him and Cytherea as husband and wife. He now saw the wisdom of the rector in obtaining a signed confession from the porter. The document would not be a death-bed confession — perhaps not worth anything legally — but it would be held by Owen; and he alone, as Cytherea’s natural guardian, could separate them on the mere ground of an unproved probability, or what might perhaps be called the hallucination of an idiot. Edward himself, however, was as firmly convinced as the rector had been of the truth of the man’s story, and paced backward and forward the solitary compartment as the train wound through the dark heathery plains, the mazy woods, and moaning coppices, as resolved as ever to pounce on Manston, and charge him with the crime during the critical interval between the reception of the telegram and the hour at which Owen’s train would arrive — trusting to circumstances for what he should say and do afterwards, but making up his mind to be a ready second to Owen in any emergency that might arise.

At thirty-three minutes past seven he stood on the platform of the station at Southampton — a clear hour before the train containing Owen could possibly arrive.

Making a few inquiries here, but too impatient to pursue his investigation carefully and inductively, he went into the town.

At the expiration of another half-hour he had visited seven hotels and inns, large and small, asking the same questions at each, and always receiving the same reply — nobody of that name, or answering to that description, had been there. A boy from the telegraph-office had called, asking for the same persons, if they recollected rightly.

He reflected awhile, struck again by a painful thought that they might possibly have decided to cross the Channel by the night-boat. Then he hastened off to another quarter of the town to pursue his inquiries among hotels of the more old-fashioned and quiet class. His stained and weary appearance obtained for him but a modicum of civility, wherever he went, which made his task yet more difficult. He called at three several houses in this neighbourhood, with the same result as before. He entered the door of the fourth house whilst the clock of the nearest church was striking eight.

‘Have a tall gentleman named Manston, and a young wife arrived here this evening?’ he asked again, in words which had grown odd to his ears from very familiarity.

‘A new-married couple, did you say?’

‘They are, though I didn’t say so.’

‘They have taken a sitting-room and bedroom, number thirteen.’

‘Are they indoors?’

‘I don’t know. Eliza!’

‘Yes, m’m.’

‘See if number thirteen is in — that gentleman and his wife.’

‘Yes, m’m.’

‘Has any telegram come for them?’ said Edward, when the maid had gone on her errand.

‘No — nothing that I know of.’

‘Somebody did come and ask if a Mr. and Mrs. Masters, or some such name, were here this evening,’ said another voice from the back of the bar-parlour.

‘And did they get the message?’

‘Of course they did not — they were not here — they didn’t come till half-an-hour after that. The man who made inquiries left no message. I told them when they came that they, or a name something like theirs, had been asked for, but they didn’t seem to understand why it should be, and so the matter dropped.’

The chambermaid came back. ‘The gentleman is not in, but the lady is. Who shall I say?’

‘Nobody,’ said Edward. For it now became necessary to reflect upon his method of proceeding. His object in finding their whereabouts — apart from the wish to assist Owen — had been to see Manston, ask him flatly for an explanation, and confirm the request of the message in the presence of Cytherea — so as to prevent the possibility of the steward’s palming off a story upon Cytherea, or eluding her brother when he came. But here were two important modifications of the expected condition of affairs. The telegram had not been received, and Cytherea was in the house alone.

He hesitated as to the propriety of intruding upon her in Manston’s absence. Besides, the women at the bottom of the stairs would see him — his intrusion would seem odd — and Manston might return at any moment. He certainly might call, and wait for Manston with the accusation upon his tongue, as he had intended. But it was a doubtful course. That idea had been based upon the assumption that Cytherea was not married. If the first wife were really dead after all — and he felt sick at the thought — Cytherea as the steward’s wife might in after-years — perhaps, at once — be subjected to indignity and cruelty on account of an old lover’s interference now.

Yes, perhaps the announcement would come most properly and safely for her from her brother Owen, the time of whose arrival had almost expired.

But, on turning round, he saw that the staircase and passage were quite deserted. He and his errand had as completely died from the minds of the attendants as if they had never been. There was absolutely nothing between him and Cytherea’s presence. Reason was powerless now; he must see her — right or wrong, fair or unfair to Manston — offensive to her brother or no. His lips must be the first to tell the alarming story to her. Who loved her as he! He went back lightly through the hall, up the stairs, two at a time, and followed the corridor till he came to the door numbered thirteen.

He knocked softly: nobody answered.

There was no time to lose if he would speak to Cytherea before Manston came. He turned the handle of the door and looked in. The lamp on the table burned low, and showed writing materials open beside it; the chief light came from the fire, the direct rays of which were obscured by a sweet familiar outline of head and shoulders — still as precious to him as ever.

7. A QUARTER-PAST EIGHT O’CLOCK P.M.

There is an attitude — approximatively called pensive — in which the soul of a human being, and especially of a woman, dominates outwardly and expresses its presence so strongly, that the intangible essence seems more apparent than the body itself. This was Cytherea’s expression now. What old days and sunny eves at Budmouth Bay was she picturing? Her reverie had caused her not to notice his knock.

‘Cytherea!’ he said softly.

She let drop her hand, and turned her head, evidently thinking that her visitor could be no other than Manston, yet puzzled at the voice.

There was no preface on Springrove’s tongue; he forgot his position — hers — that he had come to ask quietly if Manston had other proofs of being a widower — everything — and jumped to a conclusion.