Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)

by Thomas Hardy

  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.’

  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.’

&n
bsp; ‘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 realise 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 was prepared for me.

  ‘To unfix this cupboard and pull out the bricks was the work of a few minutes. Then, bearing in mind that I should have to remove the body again the next night, I placed it in a sack, pushed it into the oven, packed in the bricks, and replaced the cupboard.

  ‘I then went to bed. In bed, I thought whether there were any very remote possibilities that might lead to the supposition that my wife was not consumed by the flames of the burning house. The thing which struck me most forcibly was this, that the searchers might think it odd that no remains whatever should be found.

  ‘The clinching and triumphant deed would be to take the body and place it among the ruins of the destroyed house. But I could not do this, on account of the men who were watching against an outbreak of the fire. One remedy remained.

  ‘I arose again, dressed myself, and went down to the outhouse. I must take down the cupboard again. I did take it down. I pulled out the bricks, pulled out the sack, pulled out the corpse, and took her keys from her pocket and the watch from her side.

  ‘I then replaced everything as before.

  ‘With these articles in my pocket I went out of the yard, and took my way through the withy copse to the churchyard, entering it from the back. Here I felt my way carefully along till I came to the nook where pieces of bones from newly-dug graves are sometimes piled behind the laurel-bushes. I had been earnestly hoping to fi
nd a skull among these old bones; but though I had frequently seen one or two in the rubbish here, there was not one now. I then groped in the other corner with the same result — nowhere could I find a skull. Three or four fragments of leg and back-bones were all I could collect, and with these I was forced to be content.

  ‘Taking them in my hand, I crossed the road, and got round behind the inn, where the couch heap was still smouldering. Keeping behind the hedge, I could see the heads of the three or four men who watched the spot.

  ‘Standing in this place I took the bones, and threw them one by one over the hedge and over the men’s heads into the smoking embers. When the bones had all been thrown, I threw the keys; last of all I threw the watch.

  ‘I then returned home as I had gone, and went to bed once more, just as the dawn began to break. I exulted — ”Cytherea is mine again!”

  ‘At breakfast-time I thought, “Suppose the cupboard should by some unlikely chance get moved to-day!”

  ‘I went to the mason’s yard hard by, while the men were at breakfast, and brought away a shovelful of mortar. I took it into the outhouse, again shifted the cupboard, and plastered over the mouth of the oven behind. Simply pushing the cupboard back into its place, I waited for the next night that I might bury the body, though upon the whole it was in a tolerably safe hiding-place.

  ‘When the night came, my nerves were in some way weaker than they had been on the previous night. I felt reluctant to touch the body. I went to the outhouse, but instead of opening the oven, I firmly drove in the shoulder-nails that held the cupboard to the wall. “I will bury her to-morrow night, however,” I thought.

  ‘But the next night I was still more reluctant to touch her. And my reluctance increased, and there the body remained. The oven was, after all, never likely to be opened in my time.

  ‘I married Cytherea Graye, and never did a bridegroom leave the church with a heart more full of love and happiness, and a brain more fixed on good intentions, than I did on that morning.