by Thomas Hardy
The note, the accounts, the rosebud, and his own photograph, he restored to their places again. The other photograph he took between his finger and thumb, and held it towards the bars of the grate. There he held it for half-a-minute or more, meditating.
‘It is a great risk to run, even for such an end,’ he muttered.
Suddenly, impregnated with a bright idea, he jumped up and left the office for the front parlour. Taking up an album of portraits, which lay on the table, he searched for three or four likenesses of the lady who had so lately displaced Cytherea, which were interspersed among the rest of the collection, and carefully regarded them. They were taken in different attitudes and styles, and he compared each singly with that he held in his hand. One of them, the one most resembling that abstracted from the letter in general tone, size, and attitude, he selected from the rest, and returned with it to his office.
Pouring some water into a plate, he set the two portraits afloat upon it, and sitting down tried to read.
At the end of a quarter of an hour, after several ineffectual attempts, he found that each photograph would peel from the card on which it was mounted. This done, he threw into the fire the original likeness and the recent card, stuck upon the original card the recent likeness from the album, dried it before the fire, and placed it in the envelope with the other scraps.
The result he had obtained, then, was this: in the envelope were now two photographs, both having the same photographer’s name on the back and consecutive numbers attached. At the bottom of the one which showed his own likeness, his own name was written down; on the other his wife’s name was written; whilst the central feature, and whole matter to which this latter card and writing referred, the likeness of a lady mounted upon it, had been changed.
Mrs. Manston entered the room, and begged him to come to breakfast. He followed her and they sat down. During the meal he told her what he had done, with scrupulous regard to every detail, and showed her the result.
‘It is indeed a great risk to run,’ she said, sipping her tea.
‘But it would be a greater not to do it.’
‘Yes.’
The envelope was again fastened up as before, and Manston put it in his pocket and went out. Shortly afterwards he was seen, on horseback, riding in a direction towards Tolchurch. Keeping to the fields, as well as he could, for the greater part of the way, he dropped into the road by the vicarage letter-box, and looking carefully about, to ascertain that no person was near, he restored the letter to its nook, placed the key in its hiding-place, as he had promised the postman, and again rode homewards by a roundabout way.
3. AFTERNOON
The letter was brought to Owen Graye, the same afternoon, by one of the vicar’s servants who had been to the box with a duplicate key, as usual, to leave letters for the evening post. The man found that the index had told falsely that morning for the first time within his recollection; but no particular attention was paid to the mistake, as it was considered. The contents of the envelope were scrutinized by Owen and flung aside as useless.
The next morning brought Springrove’s second letter, the existence of which was unknown to Manston. The sight of Edward’s handwriting again raised the expectations of brother and sister, till Owen had opened the envelope and pulled out the twig and verse.
‘Nothing that’s of the slightest use, after all,’ he said to her; ‘we are as far as ever from the merest shadow of legal proof that would convict him of what I am morally certain he did, marry you, suspecting, if not knowing, her to be alive all the time.’
‘What has Edward sent?’ said Cytherea.
‘An old amatory verse in Manston’s writing. Fancy,’ he said bitterly, ‘this is the strain he addressed her in when they were courting — as he did you, I suppose.’
He handed her the verse and she read —
‘EUNICE.
‘Whoso for hours or lengthy days
Shall catch her aspect’s changeful rays,
Then turn away, can none recall
Beyond a galaxy of all
In hazy portraiture;
Lit by the light of azure eyes
Like summer days by summer skies:
Her sweet transitions seem to be
A kind of pictured melody,
And not a set contour.
‘AE. M.’
A strange expression had overspread Cytherea’s countenance. It rapidly increased to the most death-like anguish. She flung down the paper, seized Owen’s hand tremblingly, and covered her face.
‘Cytherea! What is it, for Heaven’s sake?’
‘Owen — suppose — O, you don’t know what I think.’
‘What?’
‘“The light of azure eyes,”‘ she repeated with ashy lips.
‘Well, “the light of azure eyes”?’ he said, astounded at her manner.
‘Mrs. Morris said in her letter to me that her eyes are black!’
‘H’m. Mrs. Morris must have made a mistake — nothing likelier.’
‘She didn’t.’
‘They might be either in this photograph,’ said Owen, looking at the card bearing Mrs. Manston’s name.
‘Blue eyes would scarcely photograph so deep in tone as that,’ said Cytherea. ‘No, they seem black here, certainly.’
‘Well, then, Manston must have blundered in writing his verses.’
‘But could he? Say a man in love may forget his own name, but not that he forgets the colour of his mistress’s eyes. Besides she would have seen the mistake when she read them, and have had it corrected.’
‘That’s true, she would,’ mused Owen. ‘Then, Cytherea, it comes to this — you must have been misinformed by Mrs. Morris, since there is no other alternative.’
‘I suppose I must.’
Her looks belied her words.
‘What makes you so strange — ill?’ said Owen again.
‘I can’t believe Mrs. Morris wrong.’
‘But look at this, Cytherea. If it is clear to us that the woman had blue eyes two years ago, she must have blue eyes now, whatever Mrs. Morris or anybody else may fancy. Any one would think that Manston could change the colour of a woman’s eyes to hear you.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and paused.
‘You say yes, as if he could,’ said Owen impatiently.
‘By changing the woman herself,’ she exclaimed. ‘Owen, don’t you see the horrid — what I dread? — that the woman he lives with is not Mrs. Manston — that she was burnt after all — and that I am his wife!’
She tried to support a stoicism under the weight of this new trouble, but no! The unexpected revulsion of ideas was so overwhelming that she crept to him and leant against his breast.
Before reflecting any further upon the subject Graye led her upstairs and got her to lie down. Then he went to the window and stared out of it up the lane, vainly endeavouring to come to some conclusion upon the fantastic enigma that confronted him. Cytherea’s new view seemed incredible, yet it had such a hold upon her that it would be necessary to clear it away by positive proof before contemplation of her fear should have preyed too deeply upon her.
‘Cytherea,’ he said, ‘this will not do. You must stay here alone all the afternoon whilst I go to Carriford. I shall know all when I return.’
‘No, no, don’t go!’ she implored.
‘Soon, then, not directly.’ He saw her subtle reasoning — that it was folly to be wise.
Reflection still convinced him that good would come of persevering in his intention and dispelling his sister’s idle fears. Anything was better than this absurd doubt in her mind. But he resolved to wait till Sunday, the first day on which he might reckon upon seeing Mrs. Manston without suspicion. In the meantime he wrote to Edward Springrove, requesting him to go again to Mrs. Manston’s former lodgings.
XVIII. THE EVENTS OF THREE DAYS
1. MARCH THE EIGHTEENTH
Sunday morning had come, and Owen was trudging over the six miles of hill and dale that lay betwe
en Tolchurch and Carriford.
Edward Springrove’s answer to the last letter, after expressing his amazement at the strange contradiction between the verses and Mrs. Morris’s letter, had been to the effect that he had again visited the neighbour of the dead Mr. Brown, and had received as near a description of Mrs. Manston as it was possible to get at second-hand, and by hearsay. She was a tall woman, wide at the shoulders, and full-chested, and she had a straight and rather large nose. The colour of her eyes the informant did not know, for she had only seen the lady in the street as she went in or out. This confusing remark was added. The woman had almost recognized Mrs. Manston when she had called with her husband lately, but she had kept her veil down. Her residence, before she came to Hoxton, was quite unknown to this next-door neighbour, and Edward could get no manner of clue to it from any other source.
Owen reached the church-door a few minutes before the bells began chiming. Nobody was yet in the church, and he walked round the aisles. From Cytherea’s frequent description of how and where herself and others used to sit, he knew where to look for Manston’s seat; and after two or three errors of examination he took up a prayer-book in which was written ‘Eunice Manston.’ The book was nearly new, and the date of the writing about a month earlier. One point was at any rate established: that the woman living with Manston was presented to the world as no other than his lawful wife.
The quiet villagers of Carriford required no pew-opener in their place of worship: natives and in-dwellers had their own seats, and strangers sat where they could. Graye took a seat in the nave, on the north side, close behind a pillar dividing it from the north aisle, which was completely allotted to Miss Aldclyffe, her farmers, and her retainers, Manston’s pew being in the midst of them. Owen’s position on the other side of the passage was a little in advance of Manston’s seat, and so situated that by leaning forward he could look directly into the face of any person sitting there, though, if he sat upright, he was wholly hidden from such a one by the intervening pillar.
Aiming to keep his presence unknown to Manston if possible, Owen sat, without once turning his head, during the entrance of the congregation. A rustling of silk round by the north passage and into Manston’s seat, told him that some woman had entered there, and as it seemed from the accompaniment of heavier footsteps, Manston was with her.
Immediately upon rising up, he looked intently in that direction, and saw a lady standing at the end of the seat nearest himself. Portions of Manston’s figure appeared on the other side of her. In two glances Graye read thus many of her characteristics, and in the following order: —
She was a tall woman.
She was broad at the shoulders.
She was full-bosomed.
She was easily recognizable from the photograph but nothing could be discerned of the colour of her eyes.
With a preoccupied mind he withdrew into his nook, and heard the service continued — only conscious of the fact that in opposition to the suspicion which one odd circumstance had bred in his sister concerning this woman, all ostensible and ordinary proofs and probabilities tended to the opposite conclusion. There sat the genuine original of the portrait — could he wish for more? Cytherea wished for more. Eunice Manston’s eyes were blue, and it was necessary that this woman’s eyes should be blue also.
Unskilled labour wastes in beating against the bars ten times the energy exerted by the practised hand in the effective direction. Owen felt this to be the case in his own and Edward’s attempts to follow up the clue afforded them. Think as he might, he could not think of a crucial test in the matter absorbing him, which should possess the indispensable attribute — a capability of being applied privately; that in the event of its proving the lady to be the rightful owner of the name she used, he might recede without obloquy from an untenable position.
But to see Mrs. Manston’s eyes from where he sat was impossible, and he could do nothing in the shape of a direct examination at present. Miss Aldclyffe had possibly recognized him, but Manston had not, and feeling that it was indispensable to keep the purport of his visit a secret from the steward, he thought it would be as well, too, to keep his presence in the village a secret from him; at any rate, till the day was over.
At the first opening of the doors, Graye left the church and wandered away into the fields to ponder on another scheme. He could not call on Farmer Springrove, as he had intended, until this matter was set at rest. Two hours intervened between the morning and afternoon services.
This time had nearly expired before Owen had struck out any method of proceeding, or could decide to run the risk of calling at the Old House and asking to see Mrs. Manston point-blank. But he had drawn near the place, and was standing still in the public path, from which a partial view of the front of the building could be obtained, when the bells began chiming for afternoon service. Whilst Graye paused, two persons came from the front door of the half-hidden dwelling whom he presently saw to be Manston and his wife. Manston was wearing his old garden-hat, and carried one of the monthly magazines under his arm. Immediately they had passed the gateway he branched off and went over the hill in a direction away from the church, evidently intending to ramble along, and read as the humour moved him. The lady meanwhile turned in the other direction, and went into the church path.
Owen resolved to make something of this opportunity. He hurried along towards the church, doubled round a sharp angle, and came back upon the other path, by which Mrs. Manston must arrive.
In about three minutes she appeared in sight without a veil. He discovered, as she drew nearer, a difficulty which had not struck him at first — that it is not an easy matter to particularize the colour of a stranger’s eyes in a merely casual encounter on a path out of doors. That Mrs. Manston must be brought close to him, and not only so, but to look closely at him, if his purpose were to be accomplished.
He shaped a plan. It might by chance be effectual; if otherwise, it would not reveal his intention to her. When Mrs. Manston was within speaking distance, he went up to her and said —
‘Will you kindly tell me which turning will take me to Casterbridge?’
‘The second on the right,’ said Mrs. Manston.
Owen put on a blank look: he held his hand to his ear — conveying to the lady the idea that he was deaf.
She came closer and said more distinctly —
‘The second turning on the right.’
Owen flushed a little. He fancied he had beheld the revelation he was in search of. But had his eyes deceived him?
Once more he used the ruse, still drawing nearer and intimating by a glance that the trouble he gave her was very distressing to him.
‘How very deaf!’ she murmured. She exclaimed loudly —
‘The second turning to the right.’
She had advanced her face to within a foot of his own, and in speaking mouthed very emphatically, fixing her eyes intently upon his. And now his first suspicion was indubitably confirmed. Her eyes were as black as midnight.
All this feigning was most distasteful to Graye. The riddle having been solved, he unconsciously assumed his natural look before she had withdrawn her face. She found him to be peering at her as if he would read her very soul — expressing with his eyes the notification of which, apart from emotion, the eyes are more capable than any other — inquiry.
Her face changed its expression — then its colour. The natural tint of the lighter portions sank to an ashy gray; the pink of her cheeks grew purpler. It was the precise result which would remain after blood had left the face of one whose skin was dark, and artificially coated with pearl-powder and carmine.
She turned her head and moved away, murmuring a hasty reply to Owen’s farewell remark of ‘Good-day,’ and with a kind of nervous twitch lifting her hand and smoothing her hair, which was of a light-brown colour.
‘She wears false hair,’ he thought, ‘or has changed its colour artificially. Her true hair matched her eyes.’
And now, in spite of wh
at Mr. Brown’s neighbours had said about nearly recognizing Mrs. Manston on her recent visit — which might have meant anything or nothing; in spite of the photograph, and in spite of his previous incredulity; in consequence of the verse, of her silence and backwardness at the visit to Hoxton with Manston, and of her appearance and distress at the present moment, Graye had a conviction that the woman was an impostor.
What could be Manston’s reason for such an astounding trick he could by no stretch of imagination divine.
He changed his direction as soon as the woman was out of sight, and plodded along the lanes homeward to Tolchurch.
One new idea was suggested to him by his desire to allay Cytherea’s dread of being claimed, and by the difficulty of believing that the first Mrs. Manston lost her life as supposed, notwithstanding the inquest and verdict. Was it possible that the real Mrs. Manston, who was known to be a Philadelphian by birth, had returned by the train to London, as the porter had said, and then left the country under an assumed name, to escape that worst kind of widowhood — the misery of being wedded to a fickle, faithless, and truant husband?
In her complicated distress at the news brought by her brother, Cytherea’s thoughts at length reverted to her friend, the Rector of Carriford. She told Owen of Mr. Raunham’s warm-hearted behaviour towards herself, and of his strongly expressed wish to aid her.
‘He is not only a good, but a sensible man. We seem to want an old head on our side.’
‘And he is a magistrate,’ said Owen in a tone of concurrence. He thought, too, that no harm could come of confiding in the rector, but there was a difficulty in bringing about the confidence. He wished that his sister and himself might both be present at an interview with Mr. Raunham, yet it would be unwise for them to call on him together, in the sight of all the servants and parish of Carriford.
There could be no objection to their writing him a letter.
No sooner was the thought born than it was carried out. They wrote to him at once, asking him to have the goodness to give them some advice they sadly needed, and begging that he would accept their assurance that there was a real justification for the additional request they made — that instead of their calling upon him, he would any evening of the week come to their cottage at Tolchurch.
