Desperate Remedies, The Hand of Ethelberta & A Laodicean: Complete Illustrated Trilogy. Томас Харди

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      ‘Do you believe in such odd coincidences?’ said Cytherea.

      ‘How do you mean, believe in them? They occur sometimes.’

      ‘Yes, one will occur often enough — that is, two disconnected events will fall strangely together by chance, and people scarcely notice the fact beyond saying, “Oddly enough it happened that so and so were the same,” and so on. But when three such events coincide without any apparent reason for the coincidence, it seems as if there must be invisible means at work. You see, three things falling together in that manner are ten times as singular as two cases of coincidence which are distinct.’

      ‘Well, of course: what a mathematical head you have, Cytherea! But I don’t see so much to marvel at in our case. That the man who kept the public-house in which Miss Aldclyffe fainted, and who found out her name and position, lives in this neighbourhood, is accounted for by the fact that she got him the berth to stop his tongue. That you came here was simply owing to Springrove.’

      ‘Ah, but look at this. Miss Aldclyffe is the woman our father first loved, and I have come to Miss Aldclyffe’s; you can’t get over that.’

      From these premises, she proceeded to argue like an elderly divine on the designs of Providence which were apparent in such conjunctures, and went into a variety of details connected with Miss Aldclyffe’s history.

      ‘Had I better tell Miss Aldclyffe that I know all this?’ she inquired at last.

      ‘What’s the use?’ he said. ‘Your possessing the knowledge does no harm; you are at any rate comfortable here, and a confession to Miss Aldclyffe might only irritate her. No, hold your tongue, Cytherea.’

      ‘I fancy I should have been tempted to tell her too,’ Cytherea went on, ‘had I not found out that there exists a very odd, almost imperceptible, and yet real connection of some kind between her and Mr. Manston, which is more than that of a mutual interest in the estate.’

      ‘She is in love with him!’ exclaimed Owen; ‘fancy that!’

      ‘Ah — that’s what everybody says who has been keen enough to notice anything. I said so at first. And yet now I cannot persuade myself that she is in love with him at all.’

      ‘Why can’t you?’

      ‘She doesn’t act as if she were. She isn’t — you will know I don’t say it from any vanity, Owen — she isn’t the least jealous of me.’

      ‘Perhaps she is in some way in his power.’

      ‘No — she is not. He was openly advertised for, and chosen from forty or fifty who answered the advertisement, without knowing whose it was. And since he has been here, she has certainly done nothing to compromise herself in any way. Besides, why should she have brought an enemy here at all?’

      ‘Then she must have fallen in love with him. You know as well as I do, Cyth, that with women there’s nothing between the two poles of emotion towards an interesting male acquaintance. ’Tis either love or aversion.’

      They walked for a few minutes in silence, when Cytherea’s eyes accidentally fell upon her brother’s feet.

      ‘Owen,’ she said, ‘do you know that there is something unusual in your manner of walking?’

      ‘What is it like?’ he asked.

      ‘I can’t quite say, except that you don’t walk so regularly as you used to.’

      The woman behind the hedge, who had still continued to dog their footsteps, made an impatient movement at this change in their conversation, and looked at her watch again. Yet she seemed reluctant to give over listening to them.

      ‘Yes,’ Owen returned with assumed carelessness, ‘I do know it. I think the cause of it is that mysterious pain which comes just above my ankle sometimes. You remember the first time I had it? That day we went by steam-packet to Lulstead Cove, when it hindered me from coming back to you, and compelled me to sleep with the gateman we have been talking about.’

      ‘But is it anything serious, dear Owen?’ Cytherea exclaimed, with some alarm.

      ‘O, nothing at all. It is sure to go off again. I never find a sign of it when I sit in the office.’

      Again their unperceived companion made a gesture of vexation, and looked at her watch as if time were precious. But the dialogue still flowed on upon this new subject, and showed no sign of returning to its old channel.

      Gathering up her skirt decisively she renounced all further hope, and hurried along the ditch till she had dropped into a valley, and came to a gate which was beyond the view of those coming behind. This she softly opened, and came out upon the road, following it in the direction of the railway station.

      Presently she heard Owen Graye’s footsteps in her rear, his quickened pace implying that he had parted from his sister. The woman thereupon increased her rapid walk to a run, and in a few minutes safely distanced her fellow-traveller.

      The railway at Carriford Road consisted only of a single line of rails; and the short local down-train by which Owen was going to Budmouth was shunted on to a siding whilst the first up-train passed. Graye entered the waiting-room, and the door being open he listlessly observed the movements of a woman wearing a long grey cloak, and closely hooded, who had asked for a ticket for London.

      He followed her with his eyes on to the platform, saw her waiting there and afterwards stepping into the train: his recollection of her ceasing with the perception.

      4. Eight To Ten O’clock A.m.

      Mrs. Crickett, twice a widow, and now the parish clerk’s wife, a fine-framed, scandal-loving woman, with a peculiar corner to her eye by which, without turning her head, she could see what people were doing almost behind her, lived in a cottage standing nearer to the old manor-house than any other in the village of Carriford, and she had on that account been temporarily engaged by the steward, as a respectable kind of charwoman and general servant, until a settled arrangement could be made with some person as permanent domestic.

      Every morning, therefore, Mrs. Crickett, immediately she had lighted the fire in her own cottage, and prepared the breakfast for herself and husband, paced her way to the Old House to do the same for Mr. Manston. Then she went home to breakfast; and when the steward had eaten his, and had gone out on his rounds, she returned again to clear away, make his bed, and put the house in order for the day.

      On the morning of Owen Graye’s departure, she went through the operations of her first visit as usual — proceeded home to breakfast, and went back again, to perform those of the second.

      Entering Manston’s empty bedroom, with her hands on her hips, she indifferently cast her eyes upon the bed, previously to dismantling it.

      Whilst she looked, she thought in an inattentive manner, ‘What a remarkably quiet sleeper Mr. Manston must be!’ The upper bed-clothes were flung back, certainly, but the bed was scarcely disarranged. ‘Anybody would almost fancy,’ she thought, ‘that he had made it himself after rising.’

      But these evanescent thoughts vanished as they had come, and Mrs. Crickett set to work; she dragged off the counterpane, blankets and sheets, and stooped to lift the СКАЧАТЬ