The inquest was to be held at the "Blue Bell" inn. And after the
inquest, the dust of the Honourable Castalia Errington was to be laid
beneath the turf of the humble village churchyard, amidst less noble
dust, with the daisies growing impartially above all, and spreading
their pink-edged petals over the just and the unjust alike.
It was now currently reported that the thefts at the post-office had
been Castalia's doing. Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Dockett had been "sure of it
all along"--so they said, and so they really imagined now. The story of
the mysterious notes paid to Ravell, the draper, was in every mouth.
Roger Heath went about saying that Mr. Errington ought to make _his_
loss good out of his own pocket, if he had any feelings of honour. But
all the people who had not lost any money in the post-office were
disgusted at Roger Heath's hardness and avarice, and asked indignantly
if that was the moment to speak of such things? For the tragedy of
Castalia's death had produced a strong effect in Whitford. Perhaps there
was not one human being in the town who grieved that she was gone; but
many were oppressed by the manner of her going. People had an uneasy
feeling in remembering how much they had disliked her; almost as if
their dislike made them guilty of her death in some vague, far-off,
inexplicable way. They told themselves and each other that though "her
manners had been repellent, poor thing," yet for their part they had
always felt sorry for her, and had long perceived that her mind was
astray, and that she was falling into a low melancholy state, that was
likely to lead to some terrible catastrophe. By this time scarcely any
one in Whitford entertained a doubt as to Castalia's having destroyed
herself. And the social verdict, "Temporary insanity," was pronounced in
assured anticipation that the legal verdict would be to that effect
also.
There were two men who did not mystify themselves by conjuring up any
factitious tenderness about Castalia's memory, and who gave way to no
superstitious uneasiness of conscience as to their dislike of her when
she was alive. One of these men was Jonathan Maxfield; the other was the
dead woman's husband.
Maxfield had no retrospective softness on the subject. He, indeed, being
accustomed to take certain passages of the Old Testament very seriously
and literally, and having fed his mind almost exclusively upon those
passages, was of opinion that Castalia's tragic fate had been brought
about by a direct interposition of Providence as a judgment on her for
her bad behaviour to himself and his daughter. And if this opinion on
Maxfield's part should appear incredibly monstrous, let it be remembered
that in his own mind "the godly" were typified by the Maxfield family,
and "the ungodly" by the enemies of that family.
As to Algernon--harassed, anxious, and doubtful of the future as he
might be, he was glad that his wife was dead, and he knew that he was
glad. Her death made a way out--apparently the only possible way out--of
a labyrinth of troubles, and relieved Algernon from the apprehension of
an exposure which it made him sick to think of. He had not meant to kill
her, he said to himself. He had certainly laid no deliberate plan to do
so. Had he, in truth, been the cause of her death? In the state of mind
she was in, would she not have thrown herself into the river, or
otherwise put an end to herself, without that touch from him which he
had given, he knew not how?
It all seemed unreal to him when he thought of it--the leaden water,
the grey sky and meadows, and the slippery bank with its tufts of
blackberry bushes. He went over and over again in his mind the words
that had passed between himself and Castalia; her violence, and her wild
jealousy and suspicions, and her allusion to her uncle's letter, and to
what Gibbs had told her, and then her fierce threat that she would not
spare him! She had become utterly unmanageable--mad, in fact. She had
resolved to die. She had a suicidal mania. That scrap of writing would
suffice to prove it. To be sure he had found it and put it in his
pocket-book weeks ago, although he told the servant that he had picked
it up off the floor that morning of his return from London. But that
only indicated that the idea had long been rooted in her mind. And
besides, the paper bore no date. There was nothing to show how long it
had been written.
No, it was not he who had killed Castalia. She had gone down willingly
to death. She had uttered no sound, no cry. He should have heard a cry
all across the silent meadows. He had not looked back. He had fled away
from the river at his topmost speed after he saw her slip, and stagger,
and fall heavily into the black water under the shadow of the bank. Had
she risen again to the surface? It was said that drowning persons always
rose three times. But she had made no sound. Surely she would have
cried out if she had longed for life. Ugh! It was horrible to imagine
her white face and staring eyes rising above the strong dragging current
and looking for help. That was all very ghastly, very hideous. He would
not think of it. It was over. Castalia was dead. And although he would
have given much that she should have died in any other way, yet he was
glad that she was dead, and he knew that he was glad.
He made no pretence to himself of a factitious tenderness about her. She
had been thoroughly antagonistic and distasteful to him of late. She had
been the bitter drop flavouring every action, every hope, every minute
of his life. He had been the victim of a hard fate, and of the false
promises (implied, if not expressed) of Lord Seely. Those paltry
sums--those notes that he had taken--he had been driven into committing
that action altogether by stress of circumstances. It was strange to
himself to think of the light that action would appear in to other
people. To his own mind, knowing how it had come to pass in an instant,
by the tug of a sudden impulse, it seemed so clear that there was no
real ground for blaming him in the matter! He had felt the difficulty of
getting money with a severity which the rest of the world probably could
not conceive. He was absolutely indifferent to the question of abstract
right or wrong, justice or injustice, in the case. But the concrete
hardship to himself of being poor he had keenly felt to be undeserved.
And now, if it were not for one thing, he should begin to breathe more
freely. The one thing that weighed on him with a gloomy, though formless
foreboding, was the inquest. He had been obliged to go to Duckwell Farm.
He had been asked to look at Castalia's dead body. He had not dared to
refuse to do so; but he had requested to be shown into the room where
she lay, alone and without witnesses. The room was that sunny parlour
where Rhoda Maxfield had sat on many a summer evening, and where the
neighbours had discussed the news of his own marriage less than a year
ago. But Algernon's imagination did not wander very far from the
present. He walked to the window and looked out through the black
trellis-work of leafless vine branches. Then he stared at the prints on
the walls, and the gay china vases filled with winter nosegays of
trembling grass and chrysanthemums. And then his eyes, which had
wandered in every other direction, were compelled to turn towards the
broad, old-fashioned sofa covered with fair white linen, under which the
outlines of a human shape revealed themselves.
Was that stiff, white, silent thing Castalia? He could not realise it.
He would scarcely have started if the door had opened and his wife had
walked into the room in her ordinary dress, and with her ordinary gait.
He had seen her last full of passionate excitement. That stiff, white,
silent thing could not be she. He would not lift the coverlet, though,
nor look on that which lay beneath. But he stood and gazed at it until
the heap beneath the linen sheet seemed to stir and change its outlines.
Then he turned away shuddering to the window, and looked at his watch to
see whether he might venture to leave the room yet. Would the people
think he had been there too short a time? He came out at length, looking
pale and depressed enough to excite a good deal of sympathy in the
breast of Mrs. Seth Maxfield. And with his usual quick susceptibility to
the impression he produced on others, he was fully aware of this, and
gratified by it, despite the chill vision of the still white heap under
the coverlet which persistently haunted his memory. He saw looks of
pity; he heard whispered exclamations of admiration, and they did more
than gratify, they reassured him. It had entered into nobody's mind to
conceive that he had been the cause of his wife's death. Into whose
head, indeed, should it enter? or how? He remembered the last
lightning-quick glance he had cast over the wide meadows, and how it had
shown them to him empty and bare of any living thing for as far as his
eye could reach. No; he was safe from suspicion. Of course he was safe
from suspicion! And yet--he would have given a year of his life to have
the inquest over, and the dead woman safely put away beneath the daisies
in Duckwell churchyard.
Meanwhile the mortal frame that had so throbbed and suffered for his
sake, lay there lonely and neglected. Strangers' hands had composed it
decently; a stranger's roof sheltered it. It was to lie in a stranger's
grave. Only one woman came and stood beside the couch in the sunny
parlour, and looked on the dead shape with eyes full of compassionate
tears; and, before going away, laid some sprays of fern and delicate
hothouse blossoms on the quiet breast, and fastened there a curl of
light hair. The hair had been cut jestingly from Algernon Errington's
head when he was a school-boy, and then put away and forgotten for
years. It now lay above his dead wife's heart. "She was so fond of him,
poor soul!" said the compassionate woman. It was Minnie Bodkin.