by Thomas Hardy
“None.”
Next day the mother put a clean shirt on the boy and started him off for Holmstoke Church. He reached the ancient little pile, when the door was just being opened, and he was the first to enter.
Taking his seat by the front, he watched all the parishioners file in. The well-to-do Farmer Lodge came nearly last; and his young wife, who accompanied him, walked up the aisle with the shyness natural to a modest woman who had appeared thus for the first time. As all other eyes were fixed upon her, the youth’s stare was not noticed now.
When he reached home his mother said “Well?” before he had entered the room.
“She is not tall. She is rather short,” he replied.
“Ah!” said his mother, with satisfaction.
“But she’s very pretty — very. In fact, she’s lovely.” The youthful freshness of the yeoman’s wife had evidently made an impression even on the somewhat hard nature of the boy.
“That’s all I want to hear,” said his mother, quickly. “Now spread the tablecloth. The hare you caught is very tender; but mind that nobody catches you. You’ve never told me what sort of hands she had.”
“I have never seen ‘em. She never took off her gloves.”
“What did she wear this morning?”
“A white bonnet and a silver-coloured gown. It whewed and whistled so loud when it rubbed against the pews that the lady coloured up more than ever for very shame at the noise, and pulled it in to keep it from touching; but when she pushed into her seat it whewed more than ever. Mr. Lodge, he seemed pleased, and his waistcoat stuck out, and his great golden seals hung like a lord’s; but she seemed to wish her noisy gownd anywhere but on her.”
“Not she! However, that will do now.”
These descriptions of the newly-married couple were continued from time to time by the boy at his mother’s request, after any chance encounter he had had with them. But Rhoda Brook, though she might easily have seen young Mrs. Lodge for herself by walking a couple of miles, would never attempt an excursion toward the quarter where the farmhouse lay. Neither did she, at the daily milking in the dairyman’s yard on Lodge’s outlying second farm ever speak on the subject of the recent marriage. The dairyman, who rented the cows of Lodge, and knew perfectly the tall milkmaid’s history, with manly kindliness always kept the gossip in the cow-barton from annoying Rhoda. But the atmosphere thereabout was full of the subject during the first days of Mrs. Lodge’s arrival; and from her boy’s description and the casual words of the other milkers Rhoda Brook could raise a mental image of the unconscious Mrs. Lodge that was realistic as a photograph.
III
A VISION
One night, two or three weeks after the bridal return, when the boy was gone to bed, Rhoda sat a long time over the turf-ashes that she had raked out in front of her to extinguish them. She contemplated so intently the new wife, as presented to her in her mind’s eye over the embers, that she forgot the lapse of time. At last, wearied with her day’s work, she, too, retired.
But the figure which had occupied her so much during this and the previous days was not to be banished at night. For the first time Gertrude Lodge visited the supplanted woman in her dreams. Rhoda Brook dreamed — since her assertion that she really saw, before falling asleep, was not to be believed — that the young wife, in the pale silk dress and white bonnet, but with features shockingly distorted, and wrinkled as by age, was sitting upon her chest as she lay. The pressure of Mrs. Lodge’s person grew heavier; the blue eyes peered cruelly into her face; and then the figure thrust forward its left hand mockingly, so as to make the wedding-ring it wore glitter in Rhoda’s eyes. Maddened mentally, and nearly suffocated by pressure, the sleeper struggled; the incubus, still regarding her, withdrew to the foot of the bed, only, however, to come forward by degrees, resume her seat, and flash her left hand as before.
Gasping for breath, Rhoda, in a last desperate effort, swung out her right hand, seized the confronting specter by its obtrusive left arm, and whirled it backward to the floor, starting up herself, as she did so, with a low cry.
“Oh, merciful Heaven!” she cried, sitting on the edge of the bed in a cold sweat, “that was not a dream — she was here!”
She could feel her antagonist’s arm within her grasp even now — the very flesh and bone of it, as it seemed. She looked on the floor whither she had whirled the specter, but there was nothing to be seen.
Rhoda Brook slept no more that night, and when she went milking at the next dawn they noticed how pale and haggard she looked. The milk that she drew quivered into the pail; her hand had not calmed even yet, and still retained the feel of the arm. She came home to breakfast as wearily as if it had been supper-time.
“What was that noise in your chimmer, mother, last night?” said her son. “You fell off the bed, surely?”
“Did you hear anything fall? At what time?”
“Just when the clock struck two.”
She could not explain, and when the meal was done went silently about her household work, the boy assisting her, for he hated going afield on the farms, and she indulged his reluctance. Between eleven and twelve the garden gate clicked, and she lifted her eyes to the window. At the bottom of the garden, within the gate, stood the woman of her vision, Rhoda seemed transfixed.
“Ah, she said she would come!” exclaimed the boy, also observing her.
“Said so — when? How does she know us?”
“I have seen and spoken to her. I talked to her yesterday.”
“I told you,” said the mother, flushing indignantly, “never to speak to anybody in that house, or go near the place.”
“I did not speak to her till she spoke to me. And I did not go near the place. I met her in the road.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing. She said: ‘Are you the poor boy who had to bring the heavy load from market? And she looked at my boots, and said they would not keep my feet dry if it came on wet, because they were so cracked. I told her I lived with my mother, and we had enough to do to keep ourselves, and that’s how it was; and she said then: ‘I’ll come and bring you some better boots, and see your mother.’ She gives away things to other folks in the meads besides us.”
Mrs. Lodge was by this time close to the door not in her silk, as Rhoda had seen her in the bedchamber, but in a morning hat, and gown of common light material, which became her better than silk. On her arm she carried a basket.
The impression remaining from the night’s experience was still strong. Rhoda Brook had almost expected to see the wrinkles, the scorn, and the cruelty on her visitor’s face. She would have escaped an interview had escape been possible. There was, however, no back door to the cottage, and in an instant the boy had lifted the latch to Mrs. Lodge’s gentle knock.
“I see I have come to the right house.” said she, glancing at the lad, and smiling. “But I was not sure till you opened the door.”
The figure and action were those of the phantom; but her voice was so indescribably sweet, her glance so winning, her smile so tender, so unlike that of Rhoda’s midnight visitant, that the latter could hardly believe the evidence of her senses.
She was truly glad that she had not hidden away in sheer aversion, as she had been inclined to do. In her basket Mrs. Lodge brought the pair of boots that she had promised to the boy, and other useful articles.
At these proofs of a kindly feeling toward her and hers, Rhoda’s heart reproached her bitterly. This innocent young thing should have her blessing and not her curse.
When she left them, a light seemed gone from the dwelling. Two days later she came again to know if the boots fitted; and less than a fortnight after that paid Rhoda another call. On this occasion the boy was absent.
“I walk a good deal,” said Mrs. Lodge, “and your house is the nearest outside our own parish. I hope you are well. You don’t look quite well.”
Rhoda said she was well enough; and indeed, though the paler of the two, there was more of th
e strength that endures in her well-defined features and large frame than in the soft-cheeked young woman before her. The conversation became quite confidential as regarded their powers and weaknesses; and when Mrs. Lodge was leaving, Rhoda said: “I hope you will find this air agree with you, ma’am, and not suffer from the damp of the water-meads.”
The younger one replied that there was not much doubt of it, her general health being usually good. “Though, now you remind me,” she added, “I have one little ailment which puzzles me. It is nothing serious, but I cannot make it out.”
She uncovered her left hand and arm; and their outline confronted Rhoda’s gaze as the exact original of the limb she had beheld and seized in her dream. Upon the pink round surface of the arm were faint marks of an unhealthy colour, as if produced by a rough grasp. Rhoda’s eyes became riveted on the discolourations; she fancied that she discerned in them the shape of her own four fingers.
“How did it happen?” she said, mechanically.
“I cannot tell,” replied Mrs. Lodge, shaking her head. “One night when l was sound asleep, dreaming I was away in some strange place, a pain suddenly shot into my arm there, and was so keen as to awaken me. I must have struck it in the daytime, I suppose, though I don’t remember doing so.” She added, laughing: “I tell my dear husband that it looks just as if he had flown into a rage and struck me there. Oh, I dare say it will soon disappear.”
“Ha, ha! Yes! On what night did it come?”
Mrs. Lodge considered, and said it would be a fortnight ago on the morrow.
“When I awoke I could not remember where I was,” she added, ‘till the clock striking two reminded me.”
She had named the night and the hour of Rhoda’s spectral encounter, and Brook felt like a guilty thing. The artless disclosure startled her; she did not reason on the freaks of coincidence; and all the scenery of that ghastly night returned with double vividness to her mind.
“Oh, can it be,” she said to herself, when her visitor had departed, “that I exercise a malignant power over people against my own will?” She knew that she had been slyly called a witch since her fall; but never having understood why that particular stigma had been attached to her, it had passed disregarded. Could this be the explanation, and had such things as this ever happened before?
IV
A SUGGESTION
The summer drew on, and Rhoda Brook almost dreaded to meet Mrs. Lodge again, notwithstanding that her feeling for the young wife amounted wellnigh to affection. Something in her own individuality seemed to convict Rhoda of crime. Yet a fatality sometimes would direct the steps of the latter to the outskirts of Holmstoke whenever she left her house for any other purpose than her daily work; and hence it happened that their next encounter was out-of-doors. Rhoda could not avoid the subject which had so mystified her, and after the first few words she stammered: “I hope your — arm is well again, ma’am?” She had perceived with consternation that Gertrude Lodge carried her left arm stiffly.
“No, it is not quite well. Indeed, it is no better at all; it is rather worse. It pails me dreadfully sometimes.”
“Perhaps you had better go to a doctor, ma’am.”
She replied that she had already seen a doctor. Her husband had insisted upon her going to one. But the surgeon had not seemed to understand the afflicted limb at all; he had told her to bathe it in hot water, and she had bathed it, but the treatment had done no good.
“Will you let me see it?” said the milkwoman.
Mrs. Lodge pushed up her sleeve and disclosed the place, which was a few inches above the wrist. As soon as Rhoda Brook saw it she could hardly preserve her composure. There was nothing of the nature of a wound, but the arm at that point had a shriveled look, and the outline of the four fingers appeared more distinct than at the former time. Moreover, she fancied that they were imprinted in precisely the relative position of her clutch upon the arm in the trance; the first finger toward Gertrude’s wrist, and the fourth toward her elbow.
What the impress resembled seemed to have struck Gertrude herself since their last meeting. “It looks almost like finger-marks,” she said; adding, with a faint laugh: “My husband says it is as if some witch, or the devil himself, had taken hold of me there and blasted the flesh.”
Rhoda shivered. “That’s fancy,” she said, hurriedly. “I wouldn’t mind it, if I were you.”
“I shouldn’t so much mind it,” said the younger, with hesitation, “if — if I hadn’t a notion that it makes my husband — dislike me — no, love me less. Men think so much of personal appearance.”
“Some do — he for one.”
“Yes; and he was very proud of mine, at first.”
“Keep your arm covered from his sight.”
“Ah, he knows the disfigurement is there!” She tried to hide the tears that filled her eyes.
“Well, ma’am, I earnestly hope it will go away soon.”
And so the milkwoman’s mind was chained anew to the subject by a horrid sort of spell as she returned home. The sense of having been guilty of an act of malignity increased, affect as she might to ridicule her superstition. In her secret heart Rhoda did not altogether object to a slight diminution of her successor’s beauty, by whatever means it had come about; but she did not wish to inflict upon her physical pain. For though this pretty young woman had rendered impossible any reparation which Lodge might have made Rhoda for his past conduct, everything like resentment at the unconscious usurpation had quite passed away from the elder’s mind.
If the sweet and kindly Gertrude Lodge only knew of the scene in the bedchamber, what would she think? Not to inform her of it seemed treachery in the presence of her friendliness; but tell she could not of her own accord, neither could she devise a remedy.
She mused upon the matter the greater part of the night; and the next day, after the morning milking, set out to obtain another glimpse of Gertrude Lodge if she could, being held to her by a grewsome fascination. By watching the house from a distance the milkmaid was presently able to discern the farmer’s wife in a ride she was taking alone — probably to join her husband in some distant field. Mrs. Lodge perceived her, and cantered in her direction.
“Good-morning, Rhoda!” Gertrude said, when she had come up, “I was going to call.”
Rhoda noticed that Mrs. Lodge held the reins with some difficulty.
“I hope — the bad arm,” said Rhoda.
“They tell me there is possibly one way by which I might be able to find out the cause, and so perhaps the cure of it,” replied the other, anxiously. “It is by going to some clever man over in Egdon Heath. They did not know if he was still alive — and I cannot remember his name at this moment; but they said that you knew more of his movements than anybody else hereabout, and could tell me if he were still to be consulted. Dear me — what was his name? But you know.”
“Not Conjurer Trendle?” said her thin companion, turning pale.
“Trendle — yes, Is he alive?”
“I believe so,” said Rhoda, with reluctance.
“Why do you call him conjurer?”
“Well — they say — they used to say he was a — he had powers that other folks have not.”
“Oh, how could my People be so superstitious as to recommend a man of that sort! I thought they meant some medical man. I shall think no more of him.”
Rhoda looked relieved, and Mrs. Lodge rode on. The milkwoman had inwardly seen, from the moment she heard of her having been mentioned as a reference for this man, that there must exist a sarcastic feeling among the workfolk that a sorceress would know the whereabouts of the exorcist. They suspected her, then. A short time ago this would have given no concern to a woman of her common sense. But she had a haunting reason to be superstitious, now; and she had been seized with sudden dread that this Conjurer Trendle might name her, as the malignant influence which was blasting the fair person of Gertrude, and so lead her friend to hate her forever, and to treat her as some fiend in human shape.
But all was not over. Two days after, a shadow intruded into the window-pattern thrown on Rhoda Brook’s floor by the afternoon sun. The woman opened the door at once, almost breathlessly.
“Are you alone?” said Gertrude. She seemed to be no less harassed and anxious than Brook herself.
“Yes,” said Rhoda.
“The place on my arm seems worse, and troubles me!” the farmer’s young wife went on. “It is so mysterious! I do hope it will not be a permanent blemish. I have again been thinking of what they said about Conjurer Trendle. I don’t really believe in such men, but I should not mind just visiting him, from curiosity — though on no account must my husband know. Is it far to where he lives?”
“Yes — five miles,” said Rhoda, backwardly. “In the heart of Egdon.”
“Well, I should have to walk. Could not you go with me to show me the way — say to-morrow afternoon?”
“Oh, not I — that is,” the milkwoman murmured, with a start of dismay. Again the dread seized her that something to do with her act in the dream might be revealed, and her character in the eyes of the most useful friend she had ever had be ruined irretrievably.
Mrs. Lodge urged, and Rhoda finally assented, though with much misgiving. Sad as the journey would be to her, she could not conscientiously stand in the way of a possible remedy for her patron’s strange affliction. It was agreed that, to escape suspicion of their mystic intent, they should meet at the edge of the heath, at the corner of a plantation which was visible from the spot where they now stood.
V
CONJURER TRENDLE
By the next afternoon Rhoda would have done anything to escape this inquiry. But she had promised to go. Moreover, there was a horrid fascination at times in becoming instrumental in throwing such possible light on her own character as would reveal her to be something greater in the occult world than she had ever herself suspected.
She started just before the time of day mentioned between them, and half an hour’s brisk walking brought her to the southeastern extension of the Egdon tract of country, where the fir plantation was. A slight figure, cloaked and veiled, was already there. Rhoda recognized, almost with a shudder, that Mrs. Lodge bore her left arm in a sling.
