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.’
‘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 realize 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 find 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.
‘When Cytherea’s brother made his appearance at the hotel in
Southampton, bearing his strange evidence of the porter’s disclosure, I
was staggered beyond expression. I thought they had found the body.
“Am I to be apprehended and to lose her even now?” I mourned. I saw
my error, and instantly saw, too, that I must act externally like an
honourable man. So at his request I yielded her up to him, and meditated
on several schemes for enabling me to claim the woman I had a legal
right to claim as my wife, without disclosing the reason why I knew
myself to have it.
‘I went home to Knapwater the next day, and for nearly a week lived in
a state of indecision. I could not hit upon a scheme for proving my wife
dead without compromising myself.
‘Mr. Raunham hinted that I should take steps to discover her whereabouts
by advertising. I had no energy for the farce. But one evening I chanced
to enter the Rising Sun Inn. Two notorious poachers were sitting in
the settle, which screened my entrance. They were half drunk--their
conversation was carried on in the solemn and emphatic tone common to
that stage of intoxication, and I myself was the subject of it.
‘The following was the substance of their disjointed remarks: On the
night of the great fire at Carriford, one of them was sent to meet
me, and break the news of the death of my wife to me. This he did;
but because I would not pay him for his news, he left me in a mood
of vindictiveness. When the fire was over, he joined his comrade. The
favourable hour of the night suggested to them the possibility of some
unlawful gain before daylight came. My fowlhouse stood in a tempting
position, and still resenting his repulse during the evening, one of
them proposed to operate upon my birds. I was believed to have gone to
the rectory with Mr. Raunham. The other was disinclined to go, and the
first went off alone.
‘It was now about three o’clock. He had advanced as far as the
shrubbery, which grows near the north wall of the house, when he fancied
he heard, above the rush of the waterfall, noises on the other side
of the building. He described them in these words, “Ghostly mouths
talking--then a fall--then a groan--then the rush of the water and creak
of the engine as before.” Only one explanation occurred to him; the
house was haunted. And, whether those of the living or the dead, voices
of any kind were inimical to one who had come on such an errand. He
stealthily crept home.
‘His unlawful purpose in being behind the house led him to conceal
his adventure. No suspicion of the truth entered his mind till the
railway-porter had startled everybody by his strange announcement. Then
he asked himself, had the horrifying sounds of that night been really an
enactment in the flesh between me and my wife?
‘The words of the other man were:
‘“Why don’t he try to find her if she’s alive?”
‘“True,” said the first. “Well, I don’t forget what I heard, and if she
don’t turn up alive my mind will be as sure as a Bible upon her
murder, and the parson shall know it, though I do get six months on the
treadmill for being where I was.”
‘“And if she should turn up alive?”
‘“Then I shall know that I am wrong, and believing myself a fool as well
as a rogue, hold my tongue.”
‘I glided out of the house in a cold sweat. The only pressure in heaven
or earth which could have forced me to renounce Cytherea was now put
upon me--the dread of a death upon the gallows.
‘I sat all that night weaving strategy of various kinds. The only
effectual remedy for my hazardous standing that I could see was a
simple one. It was to substitute another woman for my wife before the
suspicions of that one easily-hoodwinked man extended further.
‘The only difficulty was to find a practicable substitute.
‘The one woman at all available for the purpose was a friendless,
innocent creature, named Anne Seaway, whom I had known in my youth,
and who had for some time been the housekeeper of a lady in London. On
account of this lady’s sudden death, Anne stood in rather a precarious
position, as regarded her future subsistence. She was not the best kind
of woman for the scheme; but there was no alternative. One quality of
hers was valuable; she was not a talker. I went to London the very next
day, called at the Hoxton lodging of my wife (the only place at
which she had been known as Mrs. Manston), and found that no great
difficulties stood in the way of a personation. And thus favouring
circumstances determined my course. I visited Anne Seaway, made love to
her, and propounded my plan.
* * * * *
‘We lived quietly enough until the Sunday before my apprehension. Anne
came home from church that morning, and told me of the suspicious way in
which a young man had looked at her there. Nothing could be done beyond
waiting the issue of events. Then the letter came from Raunham. For the
first time in my life I was half indifferent as to what fate awaited me.
During the succeeding day I thought once or twice of running away, but
could not quite make up my mind. At any rate it would be best to bury
the body of my wife, I thought, for the oven might be opened at any
time. I went to Casterbridge and made some arrangements. In the evening
Miss Aldclyffe (who is united to me by a common secret which I have no
right or wish to disclose) came to my house, and alarmed me still more.
She said that she could tell by Mr. Raunham’s manner that evening, that
he kept back from her a suspicion of more importance even than the one
he spoke of, and that strangers were in his house even then.
‘I guessed what this further suspicion was, and resolved to enlighten
her to a certain extent, and so secure her assistance. I said that I
killed my wife by an accident on the night of the fire, dwelling upon
the advantage to her of the death of the only woman who knew her secret.
‘Her terror, and fears for my fate, led her to watch the rectory
that evening. She saw the detective leave it, and followed him to my
residence. This she told me hurriedly when I perceived her after digging
my wife’s grave in the plantation. She did not suspect what the sack
contained.
‘I am now about to enter on my normal condition. For people are almost
always in their graves. When we survey the long race of men, it is
strange and still more strange to find that they are mainly dead men,
who have scarcely ever been otherwise.
‘AENEAS MANSTON.’
The steward’s confession, aided by circumstantial evidence of various
kinds, was the means of freeing both Anne Seaway and Miss Aldclyffe from
all suspicion of complicity with the murderer.