by Thomas Hardy
“What! don’t you know me?” said he.
She had some dim recollection of his face, but said that she was not acquainted with him.
“Why, your witness to be sure, ma’am. Don’t you mind the man that was mending the church window when you and your intended husband walked up to be made one; and the clerk called me down from the ladder, and I came and did my part by writing my name and occupation?”
Baptista glanced quickly around; her husband was out of earshot. That would have been of less importance but for the fact that the wedding witnessed by this personage had not been the wedding with Mr. Heddegan, but the one on the day previous.
“I’ve had a misfortune since then, that’s pulled me under, continued her friend. “But don’t let me damp yer wedded joy by naming the particulars. Yes, I’ve seen changes since; though ‘tis but a short time ago — let me see, only a month next week, I think; for ‘twere the first or second day in August.”
“Yes — that’s when it was,” said another man, a sailor, who had come up with a pipe in his mouth, and felt it necessary to join in (Baptista having receded to escape further speech). “For that was the first time I set foot in Giant’s Town; and her husband took her to him the same day.”
A dialogue then proceeded between the two men outside the wall, which Baptista could not help hearing.
“Ay, I signed the book that made her one flesh,” repeated the decayed glazier. “Where’s her goodman?”
“About the premises somewhere; but you don’t see ‘em together much,” replied the sailor in an undertone. “You see, he’s older than she.”
“Older? I should never have thought it from my own observation,” said the glazier. “He was a remarkably handsome man.”
“Handsome? Well, there he is — we can see for ourselves.”
David Heddegan had, indeed, just shown himself at the upper end of the garden, and the glazier, looking in bewilderment from the husband to the wife, saw the latter turn pale.
Now that decayed glazier was a far-seeing and cunning man — too far-seeing and cunning to allow himself to thrive by simple and straightforward means — and he held his peace, till he could read more plainly the meaning of this riddle, merely adding carelessly, “Well — marriage do alter a man, ‘tis true. I should never ha’ knowed him!”
He then stared oddly at the disconcerted Baptista, and moving on to where he could again address her, asked her to do him a good turn, since he once had done the same for her. Understanding that he meant money, she handed him some, at which he thanked her, and instantly went away.
VII
She had escaped exposure on this occasion; but the incident had been an awkward one, and should have suggested to Baptista that sooner or later the secret must leak out. As it was, she suspected that at any rate she had not heard the last of the glazier.
In a day or two, when her husband had gone to the old town on the other side of the island, there came a gentle tap at the door, and the worthy witness of her first marriage made his appearance a second time.
“It took me hours to get to the bottom of the mystery — hours!” he said with a gaze of deep confederacy which offended her pride very deeply. “But thanks to a good intellect I’ve done it. Now, ma’am, I’m not a man to tell tales, even when a tale would be so good as this. But I’m going back to the mainland again, and a little assistance would be as rain on thirsty ground.”
“I helped you two days ago,” began Baptista.
“Yes — but what was that, my good lady? Not enough to pay my passage to Pen-zephyr. I came over on your account, for I thought there was a mystery somewhere. Now I must go back on my own. Mind this — ’twould be very awkward for you if your old man were to know. He’s a queer temper, though he may be fond.”
She knew as well as her visitor how awkward it would be; and the hush-money she paid was heavy that day. She had, however, the satisfaction of watching the man to the steamer, and seeing him diminish out of sight. But Baptista perceived that the system into which she had been led of purchasing silence thus was one fatal to her peace of mind, particularly if it had to be continued.
Hearing no more from the glazier she hoped the difficulty was past. But another week only had gone by, when, as she was pacing the Giant’s Walk (the name given to the promenade), she met the same personage in the company of a fat woman carrying a bundle.
“This is the lady, my dear,” he said to his companion. “This, ma’am, is my wife. We’ve come to settle in the town for a time, if so be we can find room.”
“That you won’t do,” said she. “Nobody can live here who is not privileged.”
“I am privileged,” said the glazier, “by my trade.”
Baptista went on, but in the afternoon she received a visit from the man’s wife. This honest woman began to depict, in forcible colours, the necessity for keeping up the concealment.
“I will intercede with my husband, ma’am,” she said. “He’s a true man if rightly managed; and I’ll beg him to consider your position. ‘Tis a very nice house you’ve got here,” she added, glancing round, “and well worth a little sacrifice to keep it.”
The unlucky Baptista staved off the danger on this third occasion as she had done on the previous two. But she formed a resolve that, if the attack were once more to be repeated she would face a revelation — worse though that must now be than before she had attempted to purchase silence by bribes. Her tormentors, never believing her capable of acting upon such an intention, came again; but she shut the door in their faces. They retreated, muttering something; but she went to the back of the house, where David Heddegan was.
She looked at him, unconscious of all. The case was serious; she knew that well. and all the more serious in that she liked him better now than she had done at first. Yet, as she herself began to see, the secret was one that was sure to disclose itself. Her name and Charles’s stood indelibly written in the registers; and though a month only had passed as yet it was a wonder that his clandestine union with her had not already been discovered by his friends. Thus spurring herself to the inevitable, she spoke to Heddegan.
“David, come indoors. I have something to tell you.”
He hardly regarded her at first. She had discerned that during the last week or two he had seemed preoccupied, as if some private business harassed him. She repeated her request. He replied with a sigh, “Yes, certainly, mee deer.”
When they had reached the sitting room and shut the door she repeated, faintly, “David, I have something to tell you — a sort of tragedy I have concealed. You will hate me for having so far deceived you; but perhaps my telling you voluntarily will make you think a little better of me than you would do otherwise.”
“Tragedy?” he said, awakening to interest. “Much you can know about tragedies, mee deer, that have been in the world so short a time!”
She saw that he suspected nothing, and it made her task the harder. But on she went steadily. “It is about something that happened before we were married,” she said.
“Indeed!”
“Not a very long time before — a short time. And it is about a lover,” she faltered.
“I don’t much mind that,” he said mildly. “In truth, I was in hopes ‘twas more.”
“In hopes!”
“Well, yes.”
This screwed her up to the necessary effort. “I met my old sweetheart. He scorned me, chid me, dared me, and I went and married him. We were coming straight here to tell you all what we had done; but he was drowned; and I thought I would say nothing about him: and I married you, David, for the sake of peace and quietness. I’ve tried to keep it from you, but have found I cannot. There — that’s the substance of it, and you can never, never forgive me, I am sure!”
She spoke desperately. But the old man, instead of turning black or blue, or slaying her in his indignation, jumped up from his chair, and began to caper around the room in quite an ecstatic emotion. “O, happy thing! How well it falls out!” he e
xclaimed, snapping his fingers over his head. “Ha — ha — the knot is cut — I see a way out of my trouble — ha — ha!”
She looked at him without uttering a sound, till, as he still continued smiling joyfully, she said, “O — what do you mean? Is it done to torment me?”
“No — no! O, mee deer, your story helps me out of the most heart-aching quandary a poor man ever found himself in! You see, it is this — I’ve got a tragedy, too; and unless you had had one to tell, I could never have seen my way to tell mine!”
“What is yours — what is it?” she asked, with altogether a new view of things.
“Well — it is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!” said he, looking on the ground and wiping his eyes.
“Not worse than mine?”
“Well — that depends upon how you look at it. Yours had to do with the past alone; and I don’t mind it. You see, we’ve been married a month, and it don’t jar upon me as it would if we’d only been married a day or two. Now mine refers to past, present, and future; so that — ”
“Past, present, and future!” she murmured. “It never occurred to me that you had a tragedy too.”
“But I have!” he said, shaking his head. “In fact, four.”
“Then tell ‘em!” cried the young woman.
“I will — I will. But be considerate, I beg ‘ee, mee deer. Well — I wasn’t a bachelor when I married ‘ee, anymore than you were a spinster. Just as you was a widow-woman, I was a widow-man.”
“Ah!” said she, with some surprise. “But is that all? — then we are nicely balanced,” she added, relieved.
“No — it is not all. There’s the point. I am not only a widower.”
“O, David!”
“I am a widower with four tragedies — that is to say, four strapping girls — the eldest taller than you. Don’t ‘ee look so struck — dumb-like! It fell out in this way. I knew the poor woman, their mother, in Pen-zephyr for some years; and — to cut a long story short — I privately married her at last, just before she died. I kept the matter secret, but it is getting known among the people here by degrees. I’ve long felt for the children — that it is my duty to have them here, and do something for them. I have not had courage to break it to ‘ee, but I’ve seen lately that it would soon come to your ears, and that hev worried me.”
“Are they educated?” said the ex-schoolmistress.
“No. I am sorry to say they have been much neglected; in truth, they can hardly read. And so I thought that by marrying a young schoolmistress I should get some one in the house who could teach ‘em, and bring ‘em into genteel condition, all for nothing. You see, they are growed up too tall to be sent to school.”
“O, mercy!” she almost moaned. “Four great girls to teach the rudiments to, and have always in the house with me spelling over their books; and I hate teaching, it kills me. I am bitterly punished — I am, I am!”
“You’ll get used to ‘em mee deer, and the balance of secrets — mine against yours — will comfort your heart with a sense of justice. I could send for ‘em this week very well — and I will! In faith, I could send this very day.
Baptista, you have relieved me of all my difficulty!”
Thus the interview ended, so far as this matter was concerned. Baptista was too stupefied to say more, and when she went away to her room she wept from very mortification at Mr. Heddegan’s duplicity. Education, the one thing she abhorred; the shame of it to delude a young wife so!
The next meal came round. As they sat, Baptista would not suffer her eyes to turn toward him. He did not attempt to intrude upon her reserve, but every now and then looked under the table and chuckled with satisfaction at the aspect of affairs. “How very well matched we be!” he said, comfortably.
Next day, when the steamer came in, Baptista saw her husband rush down to meet it; and soon after there appeared at her door four tall, hipless, shoulderless girls, dwindling in height and size from the eldest to the youngest, like a row of Pan pipes; at the head of them standing Heddegan. He smiled pleasantly through the gray fringe of his whiskers and beard, and turning to the girls said, “Now come forrard, and shake hands properly with your stepmother.”
Thus she made their acquaintance, and he went out, leaving them together. On examination the poor girls turned out to be not only plain-looking, which she could have forgiven, but to have such a lamentably meager intellectual equipment as to be hopelessly inadequate as companions. Even the eldest, almost her own age, could only read with difficulty words of two syllables; and taste in dress was beyond their comprehension. In the long vista of future years she saw nothing but dreary drudgery at her detested old trade without prospect of reward.
She went about quite despairing during the next few days — an unpromising, unfortunate mood for a woman who had not been married six weeks. From her parents she concealed everything. They had been amongst the few acquaintances of Heddegan who knew nothing of his secret, and were indignant enough when they saw such a ready-made household foisted upon their only child. But she would not support them in their remonstrances.
“No, you don’t yet know all,” she said.
Thus Baptista had sense enough to see the retributive fairness of this issue. For some time, whenever conversation arose between her and Heddegan, which was not often, she always said, “I am miserable, and you know it. Yet I don’t wish things to be otherwise.”
But one day when he asked, “How do you like ‘em now?” her answer was unexpected. “Much better than I did,” she said, quietly. “I may like them very much someday.”
This was the beginning of a serener season for the chastened spirit of Baptista Heddegan. She had, in truth, discovered, underneath the crust of uncouthness and meager articulation which was due to their Troglodytean existence, that her unwelcomed daughters had natures that were unselfish almost to sublimity. The harsh discipline accorded to their young lives before their mother’s wrong had been righted, had operated less to crush them than to lift them above all personal ambition. They considered the world and its contents in a purely objective way, and their own lot seemed only to affect them as that of certain human beings among the rest, whose troubles they knew rather than suffered.
This was such an entirely new way of regarding life to a woman of Baptista’s nature, that her attention, from being first arrested by it, became deeply interested. By imperceptible pulses her heart expanded in sympathy with theirs. The sentences of her tragicomedy, her life, confused till now, became clearer daily. That in humanity, as exemplified by these girls, there was nothing to dislike, but infinitely much to pity, she learnt with the lapse of each week in their company. She grew to like the girls of unpromising exterior, and from liking she got to love them; till they formed an unexpected point of junction between her own and her husband’s interests, generating a sterling friendship at least, between a pair in whose existence there had threatened to be neither friendship nor love.
October 1885.
A Tryst At An Ancient Earthwork
At one’s every step forward it rises higher against the south sky, with an obtrusive personality that compels the senses to regard it and consider. The eyes may bend in another direction, but never without the consciousness of its heavy, high-shouldered presence at its point of vantage. Across the intervening levels the gale races in a straight line from the fort, as if breathed out of it hitherward. With the shifting of the clouds the faces of the steeps vary in colour and in shade, broad lights appearing where mist and vagueness had prevailed, dissolving in their turn into melancholy grey, which spreads over and eclipses the luminous bluffs. In this so-thought immutable spectacle all is change.
Out of the invisible marine region on the other side birds soar suddenly into the air, and hang over the summits of the heights with the indifference of long familiarity. Their forms are white against the tawny concave of cloud, and the curves they exhibit in their floating signify that they are sea-gulls which have journeyed inland from expected stress of weather.
As the birds rise behind the fort, so do the clouds rise behind the birds, almost, as it seems, stroking with their bagging bosoms the uppermost flyers.
The profile of the whole stupendous ruin, as seen at a distance of a mile eastward, is cleanly cut as that of a marble inlay. It is varied with protuberances, which from hereabouts have the animal aspect of warts, wens, knuckles, and hips. It may indeed be likened to an enormous many-limbed organism of an antediluvian time — partaking of the cephalopod in shape — lying lifeless, and covered with a thin green cloth, which hides its substance, while revealing its contour. This dull green mantle of herbage stretches down towards the levels, where the ploughs have essayed for centuries to creep up near and yet nearer to the base of the castle, but have always stopped short before reaching it. The furrows of these environing attempts show themselves distinctly, bending to the incline as they trench upon it; mounting in steeper curves, till the steepness baffles them, and their parallel threads show like the striae of waves pausing on the curl. The peculiar place of which these are some of the features is “Mai-Dun,” “The Castle of the Great Hill,” said to be the Dunium of Ptolemy, the capital of the Durotriges, which eventually came into Roman occupation, and was finally deserted on their withdrawal from the island.
The evening is followed by a night on which an invisible moon bestows a subdued, yet pervasive light — without radiance, as without blackness. From the spot whereon I am ensconced in a cottage, a mile away, the fort has now ceased to be visible; yet, as by day, to anybody whose thoughts have been engaged with it and its barbarous grandeurs of past time the form asserts its existence behind the night gauzes as persistently as if it had a voice. Moreover, the southwest wind continues to feed the intervening arable flats with vapours brought directly from its sides.