XVII. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY
1. MARCH THE THIRTEENTH. THREE TO SIX O'CLOCK A.M.
They entered Anglebury Station in the dead, still time of early
morning, the clock over the booking-office pointing to twenty-five
minutes to three. Manston lingered on the platform and saw the
mail-bags brought out, noticing, as a pertinent pastime, the many
shabby blotches of wax from innumerable seals that had been set upon
their mouths. The guard took them into a fly, and was driven down
the road to the post-office.
It was a raw, damp, uncomfortable morning, though, as yet, little
rain was falling. Manston drank a mouthful from his flask and
walked at once away from the station, pursuing his way through the
gloom till he stood on the side of the town adjoining, at a distance
from the last house in the street of about two hundred yards.
The station road was also the turnpike-road into the country, the
first part of its course being across a heath. Having surveyed the
highway up and down to make sure of its bearing, Manston
methodically set himself to walk backwards and forwards a stone's
throw in each direction. Although the spring was temperate, the
time of day, and the condition of suspense in which the steward
found himself, caused a sensation of chilliness to pervade his frame
in spite of the overcoat he wore. The drizzling rain increased, and
drops from the trees at the wayside fell noisily upon the hard road
beneath them, which reflected from its glassy surface the faint halo
of light hanging over the lamps of the adjacent town.
Here he walked and lingered for two hours, without seeing or hearing
a living soul. Then he heard the market-house clock strike five,
and soon afterwards, quick hard footsteps smote upon the pavement of
the street leading towards him. They were those of the postman for
the Tolchurch beat. He reached the bottom of the street, gave his
bags a final hitch-up, stepped off the pavement, and struck out for
the country with a brisk shuffle.
Manston then turned his back upon the town, and walked slowly on.
In two minutes a flickering light shone upon his form, and the
postman overtook him.
The new-comer was a short, stooping individual of above five-and-
forty, laden on both sides with leather bags large and small, and
carrying a little lantern strapped to his breast, which cast a tiny
patch of light upon the road ahead.
'A tryen mornen for travellers!' the postman cried, in a cheerful
voice, without turning his head or slackening his trot.
'It is, indeed,' said Manston, stepping out abreast of him. 'You
have a long walk every day.'
'Yes--a long walk--for though the distance is only sixteen miles on
the straight--that is, eight to the furthest place and eight back,
what with the ins and outs to the gentlemen's houses, it makes two-
and-twenty for my legs. Two-and-twenty miles a day, how many a
year? I used to reckon it, but I never do now. I don't care to
think o' my wear and tear, now it do begin to tell upon me.'
Thus the conversation was begun, and the postman proceeded to
narrate the different strange events that marked his experience.
Manston grew very friendly.
'Postman, I don't know what your custom is,' he said, after a while;
'but between you and me, I always carry a drop of something warm in
my pocket when I am out on such a morning as this. Try it.' He
handed the bottle of brandy.
'If you'll excuse me, please. I haven't took no stimmilents these
five years.'
''Tis never too late to mend.'
'Against the regulations, I be afraid.'
'Who'll know it?'
'That's true--nobody will know it. Still, honesty's the best
policy.'
'Ah--it is certainly. But, thank God, I've been able to get on
without it yet. You'll surely drink with me?'
'Really, 'tis a'most too early for that sort o' thing--however, to
oblige a friend, I don't object to the faintest shadder of a drop.'
The postman drank, and Manston did the same to a very slight degree.
Five minutes later, when they came to a gate, the flask was pulled
out again.
'Well done!' said the postman, beginning to feel its effect; 'but
guide my soul, I be afraid 'twill hardly do!'
'Not unless 'tis well followed, like any other line you take up,'
said Manston. 'Besides, there's a way of liking a drop of liquor,
and of being good--even religious--at the same time.'
'Ay, for some thimble-and-button in-an-out fellers; but I could
never get into the knack o' it; not I.'
'Well, you needn't be troubled; it isn't necessary for the higher
class of mind to be religious--they have so much common-sense that
they can risk playing with fire.'
'That hits me exactly.'
'In fact, a man I know, who always had no other god but "Me;" and
devoutly loved his neighbour's wife, says now that believing is a
mistake.'
'Well, to be sure! However, believing in God is a mistake made by
very few people, after all.'
'A true remark.'
'Not one Christian in our parish would walk half a mile in a rain
like this to know whether the Scripture had concluded him under sin
or grace.'
'Nor in mine.'
'Ah, you may depend upon it they'll do away wi' Goddymity altogether
afore long, although we've had him over us so many years.'
'There's no knowing.'
'And I suppose the Queen 'ill be done away wi' then. A pretty
concern that'll be! Nobody's head to put on your letters; and then
your honest man who do pay his penny will never be known from your
scamp who don't. O, 'tis a nation!'
'Warm the cockles of your heart, however. Here's the bottle
waiting.'
'I'll oblige you, my friend.'
The drinking was repeated. The postman grew livelier as he went on,
and at length favoured the steward with a song, Manston himself
joining in the chorus.
'He flung his mallet against the wall,
Said, "The Lord make churches and chapels to fall,
And there'll be work for tradesmen all!"
When Joan's ale was new,
My boys,
When Joan's ale was new.'
'You understand, friend,' the postman added, 'I was originally a
mason by trade: no offence to you if you be a parson?'
'None at all,' said Manston.
The rain now came down heavily, but they pursued their path with
alacrity, the produce of the several fields between which the lane
wound its way being indicated by the peculiar character of the sound
emitted by the falling drops. Sometimes a soaking hiss proclaimed
that they were passing by a pasture, then a patter would show that
the rain fell upon some large-leafed root crop, then a paddling
plash announced the naked arable, the low sound of the wind in their
ears rising and falling with each pace they took.
Besides the small private bags of the county families, which were
all locked, the postman bore the large general budget for the
remaining inhabitants along his beat. At each village or hamlet
they came to, the postman searched for the packet of letters
destined for that place, and thrust it into an ordinary letter-hole
cut in the door of the receiver's cottage--the village post-offices
being mostly kept by old women who had not yet risen, though lights
moving in other cottage windows showed that such people as carters,
woodmen, and stablemen had long been stirring.
The postman had by this time become markedly unsteady, but he still
continued to be too conscious of his duties to suffer the steward to
search the bag. Manston was perplexed, and at lonely points in the
road cast his eyes keenly upon the short bowed figure of the man
trotting through the mud by his side, as if he were half inclined to
run a very great risk indeed.
It frequently happened that the houses of farmers, clergymen, etc.,
lay a short distance up or down a lane or path branching from the
direct track of the postman's journey. To save time and distance,
at the point of junction of some of these paths with the main road,
the gate-post was hollowed out to form a letter-box, in which the
postman deposited his missives in the morning, looking in the box
again in the evening to collect those placed there for the return
post. Tolchurch Vicarage and Farmstead, lying back from the village
street, were served on this principle. This fact the steward now
learnt by conversing with the postman, and the discovery relieved
Manston greatly, making his intentions much clearer to himself than
they had been in the earlier stages of his journey.
They had reached the outskirts of the village. Manston insisted
upon the flask being emptied before they proceeded further. This
was done, and they approached the church, the vicarage, and the
farmhouse in which Owen and Cytherea were living.
The postman paused, fumbled in his bag, took out by the light of his
lantern some half-dozen letters, and tried to sort them. He could
not perform the task.
'We be crippled disciples a b'lieve,' he said, with a sigh and a
stagger.
'Not drunk, but market-merry,' said Manston cheerfully.
'Well done! If I baint so weak that I can't see the clouds--much
less letters. Guide my soul, if so be anybody should tell the
Queen's postmaster-general of me! The whole story will have to go
through Parliament House, and I shall be high-treasoned--as safe as
houses--and be fined, and who'll pay for a poor martel! O, 'tis a
world!'
'Trust in the Lord--he'll pay.'
'He pay a b'lieve! why should he when he didn't drink the drink? He
pay a b'lieve! D'ye think the man's a fool?'
'Well, well, I had no intention of hurting your feelings--but how
was I to know you were so sensitive?'
'True--you were not to know I was so sensitive. Here's a caddle wi'
these letters! Guide my soul, what will Billy do!'
Manston offered his services.
'They are to be divided,' the man said.
'How?' said Manston.
'These, for the village, to be carried on into it: any for the
vicarage or vicarage farm must be left in the box of the gate-post
just here. There's none for the vicarage-house this mornen, but I
saw when I started there was one for the clerk o' works at the new
church. This is it, isn't it?'
He held up a large envelope, directed in Edward Springrove's
handwriting:--
'MR. O. GRAYE,
CLERK OF WORKS,
TOLCHURCH,
NEAR ANGLEBURY.'
The letter-box was scooped in an oak gate-post about a foot square.
There was no slit for inserting the letters, by reason of the
opportunity such a lonely spot would have afforded mischievous
peasant-boys of doing damage had such been the case; but at the side
was a small iron door, kept close by an iron reversible strap locked
across it. One side of this strap was painted black, the other
white, and white or black outwards implied respectively that there
were letters inside, or none.
The postman had taken the key from his pocket and was attempting to
insert it in the keyhole of the box. He touched one side, the
other, above, below, but never made a straight hit.
'Let me unlock it,' said Manston, taking the key from the postman.
He opened the box and reached out with his other hand for Owen's
letter.
'No, no. O no--no,' the postman said. 'As one of--Majesty's
servants--care--Majesty's mails--duty--put letters--own hands.' He
slowly and solemnly placed the letter in the small cavity.
'Now lock it,' he said, closing the door.
The steward placed the bar across, with the black side outwards,
signifying 'empty,' and turned the key.
'You've put the wrong side outwards!' said the postman. ''Tisn't
empty.'
'And dropped the key in the mud, so that I can't alter it,' said the
steward, letting something fall.
'What an awkward thing!'
'It is an awkward thing.'
They both went searching in the mud, which their own trampling had
reduced to the consistency of pap, the postman unstrapping his
little lantern from his breast, and thrusting it about, close to the
ground, the rain still drizzling down, and the dawn so tardy on
account of the heavy clouds that daylight seemed delayed
indefinitely. The rays of the lantern were rendered individually
visible upon the thick mist, and seemed almost tangible as they
passed off into it, after illuminating the faces and knees of the
two stooping figures dripping with wet; the postman's cape and
private bags, and the steward's valise, glistening as if they had
been varnished.
'It fell on the grass,' said the postman.
'No; it fell in the mud,' said Manston. They searched again.
'I'm afraid we shan't find it by this light,' said the steward at
length, washing his muddy fingers in the wet grass of the bank.
'I'm afraid we shan't,' said the other, standing up.
'I'll tell you what we had better do,' said Manston. 'I shall be
back this way in an hour or so, and since it was all my fault, I'll
look again, and shall be sure to find it in the daylight. And I'll
hide the key here for you.' He pointed to a spot behind the post.
'It will be too late to turn the index then, as the people will have
been here, so that the box had better stay as it is. The letter
will only be delayed a day, and that will not be noticed; if it is,
you can say you placed the iron the wrong way without knowing it,
and all will be well.'
This was agreed to by the postman as the best thing to be done under
the circumstances, and the pair went on. They had passed the
village and come to a crossroad, when the steward, telling his
companion that their paths now diverged, turned off to the left
towards Carriford.
No sooner was the postman out of sight and hearing than Manston
stalked back to the vicarage letter-box by keeping inside a fence,
and thus avoiding the village; arrived here, he took the key from
his pocket, where it had been concealed all the time, and abstracted
Owen's letter. This done, he turned towards home, by the help of
what he carried in his valise adjusting himself to his ordinary
appearance as he neared the quarter in which he was known.
An hour and half's sharp walking brought him to his own door in
Knapwater Park.
2. EIGHT O'CLOCK A.M.
Seated in his private office he wetted the flap of the stolen
letter, and waited patiently till the adhesive gum could be
loosened. He took out Edward's note, the accounts, the rosebud, and
the photographs, regarding them with the keenest interest and
anxiety.
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.
