At this, the eleventh hour, the postman brought a letter for Manston,
directed in a woman’s hand.
A bachelor friend of the steward’s, Mr. Dickson by name, who was
somewhat of a chatterer--plenus rimarum--and who boasted of an endless
string of acquaintances, had come over from Casterbridge the preceding
day by invitation--an invitation which had been a pleasant surprise
to Dickson himself, insomuch that Manston, as a rule, voted him a bore
almost to his face. He had stayed over the night, and was sitting at
breakfast with his host when the important missive arrived.
Manston did not attempt to conceal the subject of the letter, or the
name of the writer. First glancing the pages through, he read aloud as
follows:--
‘“MY HUSBAND,--I implore your forgiveness.
‘“During the last thirteen months I have repeated to myself a hundred
times that you should never discover what I voluntarily tell you now,
namely, that I am alive and in perfect health.
‘“I have seen all your advertisements. Nothing but your persistence
has won me round. Surely, I thought, he _must_ love me still. Why else
should he try to win back a woman who, faithful unto death as she will
be, can, in a social sense, aid him towards acquiring nothing?--rather
the reverse, indeed.
‘“You yourself state my own mind--that the only grounds upon which we
can meet and live together, with a reasonable hope of happiness, must
be a mutual consent to bury in oblivion all past differences. I heartily
and willingly forget everything--and forgive everything. You will do the
same, as your actions show.
‘“There will be plenty of opportunity for me to explain the few facts
relating to my escape on the night of the fire. I will only give the
heads in this hurried note. I was grieved at your not coming to fetch
me, more grieved at your absence from the station, most of all by your
absence from home. On my journey to the inn I writhed under a passionate
sense of wrong done me. When I had been shown to my room I waited and
hoped for you till the landlord had gone upstairs to bed. I still found
that you did not come, and then I finally made up my mind to leave. I
had half undressed, but I put on my things again, forgetting my watch
(and I suppose dropping my keys, though I am not sure where) in my
hurry, and slipped out of the house. The--“’
‘Well, that’s a rum story,’ said Mr. Dickson, interrupting.
‘What’s a rum story?’ said Manston hastily, and flushing in the face.
‘Forgetting her watch and dropping her keys in her hurry.’
‘I don’t see anything particularly wonderful in it. Any woman might do
such a thing.’
‘Any woman might if escaping from fire or shipwreck, or any such
immediate danger. But it seems incomprehensible to me that any woman
in her senses, who quietly decides to leave a house, should be so
forgetful.’
‘All that is required to reconcile your seeming with her facts is to
assume that she was not in her senses, for that’s what she did plainly,
or how could the things have been found there? Besides, she’s truthful
enough.’ He spoke eagerly and peremptorily.
‘Yes, yes, I know that. I merely meant that it seemed rather odd.’
‘O yes.’ Manston read on:--
’”--and slipped out of the house. The rubbish-heap was burning up
brightly, but the thought that the house was in danger did not strike
me; I did not consider that it might be thatched.
‘“I idled in the lane behind the wood till the last down-train had come
in, not being in a mood to face strangers. Whilst I was there the
fire broke out, and this perplexed me still more. However, I was still
determined not to stay in the place. I went to the railway-station,
which was now quiet, and inquired of the solitary man on duty there
concerning the trains. It was not till I had left the man that I saw the
effect the fire might have on my history. I considered also, though not
in any detailed manner, that the event, by attracting the attention of
the village to my former abode, might set people on my track should
they doubt my death, and a sudden dread of having to go back again
to Knapwater--a place which had seemed inimical to me from first to
last--prompted me to run back and bribe the porter to secrecy. I then
walked on to Anglebury, lingering about the outskirts of the town till
the morning train came in, when I proceeded by it to London, and then
took these lodgings, where I have been supporting myself ever since by
needlework, endeavouring to save enough money to pay my passage home to
America, but making melancholy progress in my attempt. However, all that
is changed--can I be otherwise than happy at it? Of course not. I am
happy. Tell me what I am to do, and believe me still to be your faithful
wife, EUNICE.
‘“My name here is (as before)
‘“MRS. RONDLEY, and my address,
79 ADDINGTON STREET,
LAMBETH.’”
The name and address were written on a separate slip of paper.
‘So it’s to be all right at last then,’ said Manston’s friend. ‘But
after all there’s another woman in the case. You don’t seem very
sorry for the little thing who is put to such distress by this turn of
affairs? I wonder you can let her go so coolly.’ The speaker was looking
out between the mullions of the window--noticing that some of the
lights were glazed in lozenges, some in squares--as he said the words,
otherwise he would have seen the passionate expression of agonized
hopelessness that flitted across the steward’s countenance when the
remark was made. He did not see it, and Manston answered after a short
interval. The way in which he spoke of the young girl who had believed
herself his wife, whom, a few short days ago, he had openly idolized,
and whom, in his secret heart, he idolized still, as far as such a
form of love was compatible with his nature, showed that from policy or
otherwise, he meant to act up to the requirements of the position into
which fate appeared determined to drive him.
‘That’s neither here nor there,’ he said; ‘it is a point of honour to do
as I am doing, and there’s an end of it.’
‘Yes. Only I thought you used not to care overmuch about your first
bargain.’
‘I certainly did not at one time. One is apt to feel rather weary of
wives when they are so devilish civil under all aspects, as she used to
be. But anything for a change--Abigail is lost, but Michal is recovered.
You would hardly believe it, but she seems in fancy to be quite another
bride--in fact, almost as if she had really risen from the dead, instead
of having only done so virtually.’
‘You let the young pink one know that the other has come or is coming?’
‘Cui bono?’ The steward meditated critically, showing a portion of his
intensely wide and regular teeth within the ruby lips.
‘I cannot say anything to her that will do any good,’ he resumed. ‘It
would be awkward--either seeing or communicating with her again. The
best plan to adopt will be to let matters take their course--she’ll find
it all out soon enough.’
Manston found himself alone a few minutes later. He buried his face in
his hands, and murmured, ‘O my lost one! O my Cytherea! That it should
come to this is hard for me! ‘Tis now all darkness--“a land of darkness
as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death without any order, and
where the light is as darkness.”’
Yes, the artificial bearing which this extraordinary man had adopted
before strangers ever since he had overheard the conversation at the
inn, left him now, and he mourned for Cytherea aloud.