The Withered Arm
I
A LORN MILKMAID
It was an eighty-cow dairy, and the troop
of milkers, regular and supernumerary, were all at
work; for, though the time of the year was as yet but early April, the feed lay
entirely in water-meadows, and the cows were 'in full pail.' The hour was about
six in the evening, and three fourths of the large, red, rectangular animals having been finished off, there was opportunity for a little
conversation.
"He brings home his bride to-morrow, I
hear. They've come as far as Anglebury to-day."
The voice seemed to proceed from the belly
of the cow called Cherry, but the speaker was a milking-woman, whose face was buried in the flank of that motionless beast.
"Has anybody seen her?" said
another.
There was a negative response from the
first. "Though they say she's a rosy-cheeked, tisty-tosty
little body enough," she added; and as the milkmaid spoke she turned her
face so that she could glance past her cow's tail to the other side of the barton, where a thin, faded woman
of thirty milked somewhat apart from the rest.
"Years younger than he, they
say," continued the second, with also a glance of reflectiveness
in the same direction.
"How old do you call him, then?"
"Thirty or so."
"More like forty," broke in an
old milkman, near, in a long white pinafore or 'wropper,'
and with the brim of his hat tied down so that he looked like a woman. " 'A was born before our Great Weir was builded, and I hadn't man's wages when I laved water
there."
The discussion waxed so warm that the purr
of the milk-streams became jerky, till a voice from another cow's belly cried
with authority, "Now then, what the Turk do it matter to us about Farmer
Lodge's age, or Farmer Lodge's new mis'ess! I shall have to pay him nine pound a year for the rent of
every one of these milchers, whatever his age or
hers. Get on with your work, or 'twill be dark before we have done. The evening
is pinking in a'ready." This speaker was the
dairyman himself, by whom the milkmaids and men were employed.
Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer
Lodge's wedding, but the first woman murmured under her cow to her next
neighbor, " 'Tis hard
for she," signifying the thin, worn milkmaid aforesaid
"Oh no," said the second.
"He hasn't spoke to Rhoda Brook for years."
When the milking was done
they washed their pails and hung them on a many-forked stand made of the peeled
limb of an oak-tree, set upright in the earth, and resembling a colossal
antlered horn. The majority then dispersed in various directions homeward. The
thin woman who had not spoken was joined by a boy of twelve or thereabout, and
the twain went away up the field also.
Their course lay apart from that of the
others, to a lonely spot high above the water-meads, and not far from the
border of Egdon Heath, whose dark countenance was
visible in the distance as they drew nigh to their home.
"They've just been saying down in barton that your father brings his young wife home from Anglebury tomorrow," the woman observed. "I shall
want to send you for a few things to market, and you'll be pretty sure to meet
'em."
"Yes, mother," said the boy.
"Is father married, then?"
"Yes.... You can give her a look, and
tell me what she's like, if you do see her."
"Yes, mother."
"If she's dark or fair,
and if she's tall — as tall as I. And if she seems like a woman who has ever worked
for a living, or one that has been always well off, and has never done
anything, and shows marks of the lady on her, as I expect she do."
"Yes."
They crept up the hill in the twilight, and
entered the cottage. It was thatched, and built of mud-walls, the surface of
which had been washed by many rains into channels and
depressions that left none of the original flat face visible; while here and
there a rafter showed like a bone protruding through the skin.
She was kneeling down in the chimney-corner, before two pieces of turf laid together with
the heather inward, blowing at the red-hot ashes with her breath till the turfs
flamed. The radiance lit her pale cheek, and made her dark
eyes, that had once been handsome, seem handsome anew.
"Yes," she resumed, "see if she is dark or fair; and if you can,
notice if her hands are white; if not, see if they look as though she had ever
done housework, or are milker's hands like
mine."
The boy again promised, inattentively this
time, his mother not observing that he was cutting a notch with his pocket-knife in the beech-backed chair.
II
THE YOUNG WIFE
The road from Anglebury
to Holmstoke is in general level; but there is one place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony.
Farmers homeward-bound from the former market-town,
who trot all the rest of the way, walk their horses up this short incline.
The next evening, while the sun was yet
bright, a handsome new gig, with a lemon-colored body and red wheels, was
spinning westward along the level highway at the heels of a powerful mare. The
driver was a yeoman in the prime of life, cleanly shaven like an actor, his
face being toned to that bluish-vermilion hue which so
often graces a thriving farmer's features when returning home after successful
dealings in the town. Beside him sat a woman, many years his junior — almost,
indeed, a girl. Her face, too, was fresh in color, but it was of a totally different quality — soft and evanescent, like
the light under a heap of rose-petals.
Few people traveled this
way, for it was not a turnpike-road; and the long white ribbon of gravel that
stretched before them was empty, save of one small scarce-moving speck, which
presently resolved itself into the figure of a boy, who was creeping on at a
snail's pace, and continually looking behind him — the heavy bundle he carried
being some excuse for, if not the reason of, his dilatoriness. When the bouncing gig-party slowed at the bottom of
the incline before mentioned, the pedestrian was only a few yards in front.
Supporting the large bundle by putting one
hand on his hip, he turned and looked straight at the farmer's wife as though
he would read her through and through, pacing along abreast of the horse.
The low sun was full in her face, rendering
every feature, shade, and — contour distinct, from the curve of her little
nostril to the color of her eyes. The farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the
boy's persistent presence, did not order him to get out of the way; and thus
the lad preceded them, his hard gaze never leaving her, till they reached the
top of the ascent, when the farmer trotted on with relief in his lineament — having
taken no outward notice of the boy whatever.
"How that poor lad stared at me!"
said the young wife.
"Yes, dear, I saw that he did."
"He is one of the village,
I suppose?"
"One of the
neighborhood. I think he lives
with his mother a mile or two off."
"He knows who we are, no doubt?"
"Oh yes. You must expect to be stared
at just at first, my Pretty Gertrude."
"I do — though I think the poor boy
may have looked at us in the hope that we might relieve him of his heavy load,
rather than from curiosity."
"Oh no," said her husband,
off-handedly. "These country lads will carry a hundred-weight once they
get it on their backs; besides, his pack had more size than weight in it. Now,
then, another mile and I shall be able to show you our house in the distance —
if it is not too dark before we get there." The wheels spun round, and
particles flew from their periphery as before, till a
white house of ample dimensions revealed itself, with farm-buildings and ricks at the back.
Meanwhile the boy had quickened his pace, and
turning up a by-lane some mile and a half short of the white farmstead,
ascended toward the leaner pastures, and so on to the cottage of his mother.
She had reached home after her day's milking at the outlying dairy, and was washing cabbage
at the doorway in the declining light. "Hold up the net a moment" she
said, without preface, as the boy came up.
He flung down his bundle, held the edge of
the cabbage-net, and as she filled its meshes with the dripping leaves she went on: "Well, did you see her?"
"Yes; quite plain."
"Is she lady-like?"
"Yes; and more. A lady complete."
"Is she young?"
"Well, she's growed
up, and her ways are quite a woman's."
"Of course. What color is her hair and face?"
"Her hair is lightish,
and her face as comely as a live doll's."
"Her eyes, then, are not dark like
mine?"
"No — of a bluish turn; and her mouth
is very nice and red, and when she smiles her teeth show white."
"Is she tall?" said the woman,
sharply.
"I couldn't see. She was sitting
down."
"Then do you go to
"Very well, mother. But why don't you
go and see for yourself?"
"I go to see her! I wouldn't
look up at her if she were to pass my window this instant. She was with Mr.
Lodge, of course? What did he say or do?"
"Just the same as
usual."
"Took no notice of you?"
"None."
Next day the mother put a clean shirt on
the boy and started him off for
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-colored gown. It whewed and whistled so loud when it rubbed against the pews
that the lady colored 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
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 the 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 color, as if produced by a rough grasp. Rhoda's
eyes became riveted on the discolorations; 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.
They hardly spoke to each other, and
immediately set out on their climb into the interior of this solemn country,
which stood high above the rich alluvial soil they had left half an hour
before. It was a long walk; thick clouds made the atmosphere dark, though it
was as yet only early afternoon; and the wind howled dismally over the hills of
the heath — not improbably the same heath which had witnessed the agony of the Wessex King Ina, presented to after-ages as Lear. Gertrude
Lodge talked most, Rhoda replying with monosyllabic preoccupation. She had a
strange dislike to walking on the side of her companion where hung the
afflicted arm, moving round to the other when inadvertently near it. Much
heather had been brushed by their feet when they descended upon a
cart-track, beside which stood the house of the man they
sought.
He did not profess his remedial practices
openly, or care anything about their continuance, his direct interests being
those of a dealer in furze, turf, 'sharp sand,' and other local products. Indeed,
he affected not to believe largely in his own powers, and when warts that had been shown him for cure miraculously disappeared — which
it must be owned they infallibly did — he would say lightly, "Oh, I only
drink a glass of grog upon 'em — perhaps it's all
chance," and immediately turn the subject.
He was at home when they arrived, having,
in fact, seen them descending into his valley. He was a gray-bearded man, with
a reddish face, and he looked singularly at Rhoda the first moment he beheld
her. Mrs. Lodge told him her errand, and then with words of self-disparagement
he examined her arm.
"Medicine can't cure it," he
said, promptly. " 'Tis
the work of an enemy."
Rhoda shrank into herself and drew back.
"An enemy? What enemy?" asked Mrs. Lodge.
He shook his head. "That's best known
to yourself," he said. "If you like l can
show the person to you, though I shall not myself know who it is. I can do no
more, and don't wish to do that."
She pressed him; on which he told Rhoda to
wait outside where she stood, and took Mrs. Lodge into the room. It opened
immediately from the door; and, as the latter remained ajar, Rhoda Brook could
see the proceedings without taking part in them. He brought a tumbler from the
dresser, nearly filled it with water, and fetching an egg, prepared it in some
private way; after which he broke it on the edge of
the glass, so that the white went in and the yelk
remained. As it was getting gloomy, he took the glass and its contents to the
window, and told Gertrude to watch them closely. They leaned over the table
together, and the milkwoman could see the opaline hue of the egg-fluid changing form as it sank in
the water, but she was not near enough to define the shape that it assumed.
"Do you catch the likeness of any face
or figure as you look?" demanded the conjurer of the young woman.
She murmured a reply, in tones so low as to
be inaudible to Rhoda, and continued to gaze intently into the glass. Rhoda
turned, and walked a few steps away.
When Mrs. Lodge came out, and her face was
met by the light, it appeared exceedingly pale — as pale as Rhoda's — against
the sad dun shades of the upland's garniture. Trendle
shut the door behind her, and they at once started homeward
together. But Rhoda perceived that
her companion had quite changed.
"Did he charge much?" she asked,
tentatively.
"Oh no — nothing. He would not take a farthing," said Gertrude.
"And what did you see?" inquired
Rhoda.
"Nothing I — care
to speak of." The constraint in her manner was remarkable; her face was so
rigid as to wear an oldened aspect, faintly
suggestive of the face in Rhoda's bedchamber.
"Was it you who first proposed coming
here?" Mrs. Lodge suddenly inquired, after a long pause. "How very
odd, if you did!"
"No. But I am not sorry we have come,
all things considered," she replied. For the first time a sense of triumph
possessed her, and she did not altogether deplore that the young thing at her
side should learn that their lives had been antagonized
by other influences than their own.
The subject was no more
alluded to during the long and dreary walk home. But
in some way or other a story was whispered about the many dairied
VI
A SECOND ATTEMPT
Half dozen years passed away, and Mr. and
Mrs. Lodge's married experience sank into prosiness,
and worse. The farmer was usually gloomy and silent: the woman whom he had
wooed for her grace and beauty was contorted and disfigured in the left limb;
moreover, she had brought him no child, which rendered it likely that he would
be the last of a family who had occupied that valley for some two hundred
years. He thought of Rhoda Brook and her son, and feared this might be a judgment
from Heaven upon him.
The once blithe-hearted and enlightened
Gertrude was changing into an irritable, superstitious woman, whose whole time was given to experimenting upon her ailment with every quack
remedy she came across. She was honestly attached to
her husband, and was ever secretly hoping against hope to win back his heart
again by regaining some at least of her personal beauty. Hence
it arose that her closet was lined with bottles, packets, and ointment-pots of
every description — nay, bunches of mystic herbs, charms, and books of
necromancy, which in her school-girl time she would have
ridiculed as folly.
"D—d if you won't poison yourself with
these apothecary messes and witch mixtures some time or other," said her
husband, when his eye chanced to fall upon the multitudinous array.
She did not reply, but turned her sad, soft
glance upon him in such heart-swollen reproach that he looked sorry for his
words, and added, "I only meant it for your good, you know,
Gertrude."
"I'll clear out the whole lot, and
destroy them," said she, huskily, "and attempt such remedies no
more!"
"You want somebody to cheer you,"
he observed. "I once thought of adopting a boy; but he is too old now. And
he is gone away I don't know where."
She guessed to whom he alluded;
for Rhoda Brook's story had in the course of years become known to her; though
not a word had ever passed between her husband and herself on the subject. Neither had she ever spoken to him of her visit to Conjurer Trendle, and of what was revealed to her, or she
thought was revealed to her, by that solitary heath-man.
She was now five-and-twenty; but she seemed
older. "Six years of marriage, and only a few months of love, " she sometimes whispered to herself. And then she thought of the apparent cause, and said, with a
tragic glance at her withering limb, "If I could only again be as I was
when he first saw me!"
She obediently destroyed her nostrums and
charms; but there remained a hankering wish to try something else — some other
sort of cure altogether. She had never revisited Trendle
since she had been conducted to the house of the solitary by
Rhoda against her will; but it now suddenly occurred to Gertrude that
she would, in a last desperate effort at deliverance from this seeming curse,
again seek out the man, if he yet lived. He was entitled to a
certain credence, for the indistinct form he had raised in the glass had
undoubtedly resembled the only woman in the world who — as she now knew, though
not then — could have a reason for bearing her ill-will. The visit should be paid.
This time she went alone, though she nearly
got lost on the heath, and roamed a considerable distance out of her way. Trendle's house was reached at last, however; he was not
indoors, and instead of waiting at the cottage she
went to where his bent figure was pointed out to her at work a long way off. Trendle remembered her, and laying down the handful of
furze-root which he was gathering and throwing into a heap,
he offered to accompany her in her homeward direction, as the distance
was considerable and the days were short. So they
walked together, his head bowed nearly to the earth, and his form of a color
with it.
"You can send away warts and other excrescenses, I know," she said; "why can't you
send away this?" And the arm was uncovered.
"You think too much of my
powers!" said Trendle; "and I am old and
weak now, too. No, no; it is too much for me to
attempt in my own person. What have ye tried?"
She named to him some of the hundred
medicaments and counter-spells which she had adopted
from time to time. He shook his head.
"Some were good enough," he said,
approvingly; "but not many of them for such as
this. This is of the nature of a blight, not of the
nature of a wound; and if you ever do throw it off, it will be all at once."
"If I only
could!"
"There is only one chance of doing it
known to me. It has never failed in kindred afflictions — that l can declare.
But it is hard to carry out, and especially for a woman."
"Tell me!" said she.
"You must touch with the limb the neck
of a man who's been hanged."
She started a little at the image he had
raised.
"Before he's cold — just after he's
cut down," continued the conjurer, impassively.
"How can that do good?"
"It will turn the blood and change the
constitution; But, as I say, to do it is hard. You
must get into jail, and wait for him when he's brought
off the gallows. Lots have done it, though perhaps not such pretty women as
you. I used to send dozens for skin complaints. But that was in former times. The last I sent was in '13 —
near twenty years ago."
He had no more to tell her; and, when he
had put her into a straight track homeward, turned and left her, refusing all
money, as at first.
VII
A RIDE
The communication sank deep into Gertrude's
mind. Her nature was rather a timid one; and probably of all remedies
that the white wizard could have suggested there was not one which would have
filled her with so much aversion as this, not to speak of the immense obstacles
in the way of its adoption.
Casterbridge, the county-town, was a
dozen or fifteen miles off; and though in those days, when men were executed
for horse-stealing, arson, and burglary, an assize seldom passed without a
hanging, it was not likely that she could get access to body of the criminal
unaided. And the fear of her husband's anger made her
reluctant to breathe a word of Trendle's suggestion
to him or to anybody about him.
She did nothing for months, and patiently
bore her disfigurement as before. But her woman's
nature, craving for renewed love, through the medium of renewed beauty (she was
but twenty-five), was ever stimulating her to try what, any rate, could hardly
do her any harm. "What came by a spell will go by a spell surely,"
she would say.
Whenever her imagination pictured the act she shrank in terror from the possibility of it; then
the words, of the conjurer, "It will turn your blood," were seen to
be capable of a scientific no less than a ghastly interpretation; the mastering
desire returned, and urged her on again.
There was at this time but one
county-paper, and that her husband only occasionally borrowed. But old-fashioned days had old-fashioned means and news was
extensively conveyed by word of mouth from market to market or from fair to
fair; so that, whenever such an event as an execution was about to take place,
few within a radius of twenty miles were ignorant of the coming sight; and, so
far as Holmstoke was concerned, some enthusiasts had
been known to walk all the way to Casterbridge and
back in one day, solely to witness the spectacle. The next assizes were
in March; and when Gertrude Lodge heard that they had been
held, she inquired stealthily at the inn as to the result, as soon as
she could find opportunity.
She was, however, too late. The time at
which the sentences were to be carried out had
arrived, and to make the journey and obtain admission at such short notice
required at least her husband's assistance. She dared not tell him, for she had
found by delicate experiment that these smoldering village beliefs made him
furious if mentioned, partly because he half entertained them himself. It was
therefore necessary to wait for another opportunity.
Her determination received a fillip from
learning that two epileptic children had attended from this very village of Holmstoke many years before with beneficial results, though
the experiment had been strongly condemned by the
neighboring clergy. April, May, June passed; and it is no overstatement to say
that by the end of the last-named month Gertrude well-nigh
longed for the death of a fellow-creature.
Instead of her formal prayers each night,
her unconscious prayer was, "O Lord, hang some guilty or innocent person
soon!" This time she made earlier inquiries, and was altogether more
systematic in her proceedings. Moreover, the season was summer, between the
haymaking and the harvest, and in the leisure thus afforded
her husband had been holiday-taking away from home.
The assizes were in July, and she went to
the inn as before. There was to be one execution — only one, for arson.
Her greatest problem was not how to get to Casterbridge, but what means she should adopt for obtaining
admission to the jail. Though access for such purposes had
formerly never been denied, the custom had fallen into desuetude; and in
contemplating her possible difficulties, she was again almost driven to fall
back upon her husband. But, on sounding him about the
assizes, he was so uncommunicative, so more than usually cold, that she did not
proceed, and decided that whatever she did she would do alone.
Fortune, obdurate hitherto, showed her
unexpected favor. On the Thursday before the Saturday fixed for the execution,
Lodge remarked to her that he was going away from home for another day or two
on business at a fair, and that he was sorry he could not take her with him.
She exhibited on this occasion so much
readiness to stay at home that he looked at her in surprise. Time had been when
she would have shown deep disappointment at the loss of such a jaunt. However,
he lapsed into his usual taciturnity, and on the day named left Holmstoke.
It was now her turn. She at first had
thought of driving, but on reflection held that driving would not do, since it
would necessitate her keeping to the turnpike-road, and so increase by tenfold
the risk of her ghastly errand being found out. She
decided to ride, and avoid the beaten track, notwithstanding that in her
husband's stables there was no animal just at present which
by any stretch of imagination could be considered a lady's mount, in spite of
his promise before marriage to always keep a mare for her. He had, however,
many horses, fine ones of their kind; and among the rest was a serviceable
creature, an equine Amazon, with a back as broad as a sofa, on which Gertrude
had occasionally take an airing when unwell. This horse she chose.
On Friday afternoon
one of the men brought it round. She was dressed, and before going down looked
at her shriveled arm. "Ah!" she said to it, "if it had not been
for you this terrible ordeal would have been saved me!"
When strapping up the bundle in which she
carried a few articles of clothing, she took occasion to say to the servant,
"I take these in case I should not get back to-night from the person I am
going to visit. Don't be alarmed if I am not in by
ten, and close up the house as usual. I shall be at home tomorrow for
certain." She meant then to privately tell her husband; the deed
accomplished was not like the deed projected. He would
almost certainly forgive her.
And then the pretty palpitating Gertrude Lodge went from her
husband's homestead; but though her goal was Casterbridge,
she did not take the direct route thither through Stickleford.
Her cunning course at first was in precisely the opposite direction. As soon as
she was out of sight, however, she turned to the left, by a road which led into
Egdon, and on entering the heath wheeled round, and
set out in the true course, due westerly. A more private way down the county could not be imagined; and as to direction, she had merely
to keep her horse's head to a point a little to the right of the sun. She knew
that she would light upon a furze-cutter or cottager of some sort from time to
time, from whom she might correct her bearing.
Though the date was comparatively recent, Egdon was much less fragmentary in character than now. The attempts — successful and otherwise — at cultivation on the
lower slopes, which intrude and break up the original heath into small detached
heaths, had not been carried far; Inclosure Acts had
not taken effect, and the banks and fences which now exclude the cattle of
those villagers who formerly enjoyed rights of commonage thereon, and the carts
of those who had turbary privileges which kept them
in firing all the year round, were not erected. Gertrude therefore rode
along with no other obstacles than the prickly furze-bushes, the mats of
heather, the white watercourses, and the natural steeps and declivities of the
ground.
Her horse was sure, if heavy-footed and
slow, and though a draught animal, was easy-paced; had it been otherwise, she
was not a woman who could have ventured to ride over such a bit of country with
a half-dead arm. It was therefore nearly eight o'clock when she drew rein to
breathe the mare on the last outlying high point of heath-land toward Casterbridge previous to leaving Egdon for the cultivated valleys.
She halted before a pond flanked by the
ends of two hedges; a railing ran through the center of the pond, dividing it
in half. Over the railing she saw the low green
country; over the green trees the roofs of the town; over the roofs a white,
flat facade, denoting the entrance to the county-jail. On the roof of this
front specks were moving about; they seemed to be workmen
erecting something. Her flesh crept. She descended slowly, and was soon amid
cornfields and pastures. In another half-hour, when it was almost dusk, Gertrude reached the White Hart, the first inn of the
town on that side.
Little surprise was excited by her arrival:
farmers' wives rode on horseback then more than they do now — though, for that
matter, Mrs. Lodge was not imagined to be a wife at all; the inn-keeper
supposed her some harum-scarum young woman who had come to attend 'hang-fair'
next day. Neither her husband nor herself ever dealt
in Casterbridge market, so that she was unknown.
While dismounting she beheld a crowd of boys standing at the door of a
harness-maker's shop just above the inn, looking inside it with deep interest.
"What is going on there?" she
asked of the hostler.
"Making the rope for
to-morrow."
She throbbed responsively, and contracted
her arm.
" 'Tis sold by
the inch afterward," the man continued. "I could get you a bit, miss,
for nothing, if you'd like?"
She hastily repudiated any such wish, all
the more from a curious creeping feeling that the condemned wretch's destiny
was becoming interwoven with her own; and having engaged a room for the night,
sat down to think.
Up to this time
she had formed but the vaguest notions about her means of obtaining access to
the prison. The words of the cunning man returned to her mind. He had implied
that she should use her beauty, impaired though it was, as a pass-key.
In her inexperience she knew little about jail functionaries; she had heard of
a high-sheriff and an under-sheriff, but dimly only.
She knew, however, that there must be a hangman, and to the hangman she
determined to apply.
VIII
A WATER-SIDE
HERMIT
At this date, and for several years after,
there was a hangman to almost every jail. Gertrude found, on inquiry, that the Casterbridge official dwelt in a lonely cottage by a deep,
slow river flowing under the cliff on which the prison buildings were situate —
the stream being the self-same one, though she did not know it, which watered
the Stickleford and Holmstoke
meads lower down in its course.
Having changed her dress, and before she
had eaten or drunk — for she could not take her ease till she had ascertained
some particulars — Gertrude pursued her way by a path along the waterside to
the cottage indicated. Passing thus the outskirts of the jail, she discerned on
the level roof over the gateway three rectangular lines against the sky, where
the specks had been moving in her distant view; she recognized what the
erection was, and passed quickly on. Another hundred yards brought her to the
executioner's house, which a boy pointed out. It stood close to the same
stream, and was hard by a weir, the waters of which emitted a steady roar.
While she stood hesitating
the door opened and an old man came forth, shading a candle with one hand.
Locking the door on the outside, he turned to a flight of wooden steps fixed
against the end of the cottage, and began to ascend them, this being evidently
the staircase to his bedroom. Gertrude hastened forward, but by the time she reached the foot of the ladder he was at the top.
She called to him loudly enough to be heard above the
roar of the weir; he looked down and said: "What d'ye
want here?"
"To speak to you a
minute."
The candlelight, such as it was, fell upon
her imploring, pale, upturned face, and Davies (as the hangman was called) backed down the ladder. "I was just going
to bed," he said; " 'Early to bed and early
to rise,' but I don't mind stopping a minute for such a one as you. Come into
the house." He reopened the door, and preceded her to the room within.
The implements of his daily work, which was
that of a jobbing gardener, stood in a corner, and seeing probably that she
looked rural, he said: "If you want me to undertake country work I can't
come, for I never leave Casterbridge for gentle nor
simple — not I. Though sometimes I make others leave," he added, formally.
"Yes, yes! That's
it! To-morrow!"
"Ah! I
thought so. Well, what's the matter about that? 'Tis no use to come here about the knot — folks do come
continually, but I tell 'em one knot is as merciful
as another if ye keep it under the ear. Is the unfortunate man a relation; or,
I should say, perhaps" (looking at her dress), "a person who's been
in your employ?"
"No. What time is the execution?"
"The same as usual —
"Oh — a reprieve — I hope not!"
she said, involuntarily.
"Well — he, he! — as a matter of business,
so do I! But still, if ever a young fellow deserved to
be let off, this one does; only just turned eighteen, and only present by
chance when the rick was fired. Howsoever, there's
not much risk of it, as they are obliged to make an example of him, there
having been so much destruction of property that way lately."
"I mean," she
explained, "that I want to touch him for a charm, a cure of an affliction,
by the advice of a man who has proved the virtue of the remedy."
"Oh yes, miss! Now I
understand. I've had such people come in past years. But it didn't strike me that you looked of a sort to require
blood-turning. What's the complaint? The wrong kind
for this, I'll be bound."
"My arm." She reluctantly showed the withered skin.
"Ah! 'tis all
a-scram!" said the hangman, examining it.
"Yes," said she.
"Well," he continued, with
interest, "that is the class o' subject, I'm bound to admit! I like the look of the place; it is truly as suitable for
the cure as any I ever saw.
'Twas
a knowing man that sent 'ee, whoever he was."
"You can contrive for me all that's
necessary?" she said, breathlessly.
"You should really have gone to the
governor of the jail, and your doctor with 'ee, and
given your name and address — that's how it used to be done, if I recollect.
Still, perhaps I can manage it for a trifling fee."
"Oh, thank you! I would rather do it
this way, as I should like it kept private."
"Lover not to know,
eh?"
"No — husband."
"Aha! Very well.
I'll get 'ee a touch of the
corpse."
"Where is it now?" she said,
shuddering.
"It — he, you mean; he's living yet. Just inside that little small winder up there in the glum."
He signified the jail on the cliff above.
She thought of her husband and her friends.
"Yes, of course," she said; "and how am I to proceed?"
He took her to the door. "Now, do you
be waiting at the little wicket in the wall, that
you'll find up there in the lane, not later than
She went away, and climbed the path above,
to assure herself that she would be able to find the wicket next day. Its
outline was soon visible to her — a narrow opening in the outer wall of the
prison precincts. The steep was so great that, having reached the wicket, she
stopped a moment to breathe; and looking back upon the waterside cot, saw the
hangman again ascending his outdoor staircase. He entered the loft, or chamber,
to which it led and in a few minutes extinguished his light.
The town clock struck ten, and she returned
to the White Hart as she had come.
IX
A RENCONTRE
It was
The town was thronged
and the market suspended; but Gertrude had seen scarcely a soul. Having kept her room till the hour of the appointment, she had
proceeded to the spot by a way which avoided the open space below the cliff
where the spectators had gathered; but she could, even now, hear the
multitudinous babble of their voices, out of which rose at intervals, the
hoarse croak of a single voice, uttering the words: "Last dying speech and
confession!" There had been no reprieve, and the execution was
over; but the crowd still waited to see the body taken down.
Soon the persistent girl heard a trampling
overhead, then a hand beckoned to her, and, following directions, she went out
and crossed the inner paved court beyond the gate-house,
her knees trembling so that she could scarcely walk. One of her arms was out of
its sleeve, and only covered by her shawl.
On the spot to which she had now arrived
were two trestles, and before she could think of their
purpose she heard heavy feet descending stairs somewhere at her back. Turn her
head she would not, or could not, and, rigid in this position, she was
conscious of a rough coffin passing her shoulder, borne by four men. It was
open, and in it lay the body of a young man, wearing
the smock-frock of a rustic, and fustian breeches. It had
been thrown into the coffin so hastily that the skirt of the smock-frock
was hanging over.
The burden was
temporarily deposited on the trestles.
By this time the young woman's state was
such that a gray mist seemed to float before her eyes, on
account of which, and the veil she wore, she could scarcely discern
anything; it was as though she had died but was held up by a sort of galvanism.
"Now," said a voice close at hand, and she was just conscious that it had been
addressed to her.
By a last strenuous effort she advanced, at
the same time hearings persons approaching behind her. She bared her poor
cursed arm; and Davies, uncovering the dead man's face, took her hand and held
it so that the arm lay across the neck of the corpse,
upon a line the color of an unripe blackberry which surrounded it.
Gertrude shrieked;
'the turn o' the blood,' predicted by the conjurer, had taken place. But at that moment a second shriek rent the air of the inclosure: it was not Gertrude's, and its effect upon her
was to make her start round.
Immediately behind her stood Rhoda Brook,
her face drawn and her eyes red with weeping. Behind Rhoda stood her own
husband; his countenance lined, his eyes dim, but without a tear.
"D —n you! what are you doing
here?" he said, hoarsely.
"Hussy — to come between us and our
child now!" cried Rhoda. "This is the meaning of what Satan showed me
in the vision! You are like her at last!" And
clutching the bare arm of the younger woman, she pulled her unresistingly back
against the wall.
Immediately Brook had loosened her hold the
fragile young Gertrude slid down against the feet of her husband. When he
lifted her up she was unconscious.
The mere sight of the twain had been enough
to suggest to her that the dead young man was Rhoda's son. At that time the relatives of an executed convict had the privilege
of claiming the body for burial, if they chose to do so; and it was for this
purpose that Lodge was awaiting the inquest with Rhoda. He
had been summoned by her as soon as the young man was taken in the
crime, and at different times since; and he had attended in court during the
trial. This was the 'holiday' he had been indulging in of
late. The two wretched parents had wished to avoid exposure; and hence
had come themselves for the body, a wagon and a sheet for its conveyance and
covering being in waiting outside.
Gertrude's case was so serious that it was deemed advisable to call to her the surgeon who was at
hand. She was taken out of the jail into the town; but
she never reached home alive. Her delicate vitality, sapped perhaps by the
paralyzed arm, collapsed under the double shock that followed the severe
strain, physical and mental, to which she had subjected herself during the
previous twenty-four hours. Her blood had been 'turned' indeed — too far. Her
death took place in the town three days after.
Her husband was never seen in Casterbridge again; once only in the old market-place
of Anglebury; which he had so much frequented, and
very seldom in public anywhere. Burdened at first with moodiness and remorse,
he eventually changed for the better, and appeared as a chastened and
thoughtful man. Soon after attending the funeral of his poor young wife, he
took steps toward giving up the farms in Holmstoke
and the adjoining parish, and, having sold every head of his stock, he went
away to Port-Bredy, at the other end of the county,
living there in solitary lodgings till his death, two years later, of a
painless decline. It was then found that he had
bequeathed the whole of his not inconsiderable property to a reformatory for
boys, subject to the payment of a small annuity to Rhoda Brook, if she could be
found to claim it.
For some time she could
not be found; but eventually she reappeared in her old parish —
absolutely refusing, however, to have anything to do with the provision made
for her. Her monotonous milking at the dairy was resumed, and followed for many
long years, till her form became bent and her once abundant dark hair white and
worn away at the forehead — perhaps by long pressure against the cows. Here,
sometimes, those who knew her experiences would stand and observe her, and
wonder what somber thoughts were beating inside that impassive, wrinkled brow,
to the rhythm of the alternating milk-streams.