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A Changed Man and Other Tales

Thomas Hardy

CHAPTER IV


'O, the pity of it!  Such a dashing soldier--so popular--such an
acquisition to the town--the soul of social life here!  And now! . . .
One should not speak ill of the dead, but that dreadful Mr. Sainway--it
was too cruel of him!'

This is a summary of what was said when Captain, now the Reverend, John
Maumbry was enabled by circumstances to indulge his heart's desire of
returning to the scene of his former exploits in the capacity of a
minister of the Gospel.  A low-lying district of the town, which at that
date was crowded with impoverished cottagers, was crying for a curate,
and Mr. Maumbry generously offered himself as one willing to undertake
labours that were certain to produce little result, and no thanks,
credit, or emolument.

Let the truth be told about him as a clergyman; he proved to be anything
but a brilliant success.  Painstaking, single-minded, deeply in earnest
as all could see, his delivery was laboured, his sermons were dull to
listen to, and alas, too, too long.  Even the dispassionate judges who
sat by the hour in the bar-parlour of the White Hart--an inn standing at
the dividing line between the poor quarter aforesaid and the fashionable
quarter of Maumbry's former triumphs, and hence affording a position of
strict impartiality--agreed in substance with the young ladies to the
westward, though their views were somewhat more tersely expressed:
'Surely, God A'mighty spwiled a good sojer to make a bad pa'son when He
shifted Cap'n Ma'mbry into a sarpless!'

The latter knew that such things were said, but he pursued his daily'
labours in and out of the hovels with serene unconcern.

It was about this time that the invalid in the oriel became more than a
mere bowing acquaintance of Mrs. Maumbry's.  She had returned to the town
with her husband, and was living with him in a little house in the centre
of his circle of ministration, when by some means she became one of the
invalid's visitors.  After a general conversation while sitting in his
room with a friend of both, an incident led up to the matter that still
rankled deeply in her soul.  Her face was now paler and thinner than it
had been; even more attractive, her disappointments having inscribed
themselves as meek thoughtfulness on a look that was once a little
frivolous.  The two ladies had called to be allowed to use the window for
observing the departure of the Hussars, who were leaving for barracks
much nearer to London.

The troopers turned the corner of Barrack Road into the top of High
Street, headed by their band playing 'The girl I left behind me' (which
was formerly always the tune for such times, though it is now nearly
disused).  They came and passed the oriel, where an officer or two,
looking up and discovering Mrs. Maumbry, saluted her, whose eyes filled
with tears as the notes of the band waned away.  Before the little group
had recovered from that sense of the romantic which such spectacles
impart, Mr. Maumbry came along the pavement.  He probably had bidden his
former brethren-in-arms a farewell at the top of the street, for he
walked from that direction in his rather shabby clerical clothes, and
with a basket on his arm which seemed to hold some purchases he had been
making for his poorer parishioners.  Unlike the soldiers he went along
quite unconscious of his appearance or of the scene around.

The contrast was too much for Laura.  With lips that now quivered, she
asked the invalid what he thought of the change that had come to her.

It was difficult to answer, and with a wilfulness that was too strong in
her she repeated the question.

'Do you think,' she added, 'that a woman's husband has a right to do such
a thing, even if he does feel a certain call to it?'

Her listener sympathized too largely with both of them to be anything but
unsatisfactory in his reply.  Laura gazed longingly out of the window
towards the thin dusty line of Hussars, now smalling towards the
Mellstock Ridge.  'I,' she said, 'who should have been in their van on
the way to London, am doomed to fester in a hole in Durnover Lane!'

Many events had passed and many rumours had been current concerning her
before the invalid saw her again after her leave-taking that day.



CHAPTER V


Casterbridge had known many military and civil episodes; many happy
times, and times less happy; and now came the time of her visitation.  The
scourge of cholera had been laid on the suffering country, and the low-
lying purlieus of this ancient borough had more than their share of the
infliction.  Mixen Lane, in the Durnover quarter, and in Maumbry's
parish, was where the blow fell most heavily.  Yet there was a certain
mercy in its choice of a date, for Maumbry was the man for such an hour.

The spread of the epidemic was so rapid that many left the town and took
lodgings in the villages and farms.  Mr. Maumbry's house was close to the
most infected street, and he himself was occupied morn, noon, and night
in endeavours to stamp out the plague and in alleviating the sufferings
of the victims.  So, as a matter of ordinary precaution, he decided to
isolate his wife somewhere away from him for a while.

She suggested a village by the sea, near Budmouth Regis, and lodgings
were obtained for her at Creston, a spot divided from the Casterbridge
valley by a high ridge that gave it quite another atmosphere, though it
lay no more than six miles off.

Thither she went.  While she was rusticating in this place of safety, and
her husband was slaving in the slums, she struck up an acquaintance with
a lieutenant in the ---st Foot, a Mr. Vannicock, who was stationed with
his regiment at the Budmouth infantry barracks.  As Laura frequently sat
on the shelving beach, watching each thin wave slide up to her, and
hearing, without heeding, its gnaw at the pebbles in its retreat, he
often took a walk that way.

The acquaintance grew and ripened.  Her situation, her history, her
beauty, her age--a year or two above his own--all tended to make an
impression on the young man's heart, and a reckless flirtation was soon
in blithe progress upon that lonely shore.

It was said by her detractors afterwards that she had chosen her lodging
to be near this gentleman, but there is reason to believe that she had
never seen him till her arrival there.  Just now Casterbridge was so
deeply occupied with its own sad affairs--a daily burying of the dead and
destruction of contaminated clothes and bedding--that it had little
inclination to promulgate such gossip as may have reached its ears on the
pair.  Nobody long considered Laura in the tragic cloud which overhung
all.

Meanwhile, on the Budmouth side of the hill the very mood of men was in
contrast.  The visitation there had been slight and much earlier, and
normal occupations and pastimes had been resumed.  Mr. Maumbry had
arranged to see Laura twice a week in the open air, that she might run no
risk from him; and, having heard nothing of the faint rumour, he met her
as usual one dry and windy afternoon on the summit of the dividing hill,
near where the high road from town to town crosses the old Ridge-way at
right angles.

He waved his hand, and smiled as she approached, shouting to her: 'We
will keep this wall between us, dear.'  (Walls formed the field-fences
here.)  'You mustn't be endangered.  It won't be for long, with God's
help!'

'I will do as you tell me, Jack.  But you are running too much risk
yourself, aren't you?  I get little news of you; but I fancy you are.'

'Not more than others.'

Thus somewhat formally they talked, an insulating wind beating the wall
between them like a mill-weir.

'But you wanted to ask me something?' he added.

'Yes.  You know we are trying in Budmouth to raise some money for your
sufferers; and the way we have thought of is by a dramatic performance.
They want me to take a part.'

His face saddened.  'I have known so much of that sort of thing, and all
that accompanies it!  I wish you had thought of some other way.'

She said lightly that she was afraid it was all settled.  'You object to
my taking a part, then?  Of course--'

He told her that he did not like to say he positively objected.  He
wished they had chosen an oratorio, or lecture, or anything more in
keeping with the necessity it was to relieve.

'But,' said she impatiently, 'people won't come to oratorios or lectures!
They will crowd to comedies and farces.'

'Well, I cannot dictate to Budmouth how it shall earn the money it is
going to give us.  Who is getting up this performance?'

'The boys of the ---st.'

'Ah, yes; our old game!' replied Mr. Maumbry.  'The grief of Casterbridge
is the excuse for their frivolity.  Candidly, dear Laura, I wish you
wouldn't play in it.  But I don't forbid you to.  I leave the whole to
your judgment.'

The interview ended, and they went their ways northward and southward.
Time disclosed to all concerned that Mrs. Maumbry played in the comedy as
the heroine, the lover's part being taken by Mr. Vannicock.



CHAPTER VI


Thus was helped on an event which the conduct of the mutually-attracted
ones had been generating for some time.

It is unnecessary to give details.  The ---st Foot left for Bristol, and
this precipitated their action.  After a week of hesitation she agreed to
leave her home at Creston and meet Vannicock on the ridge hard by, and to
accompany him to Bath, where he had secured lodgings for her, so that she
would be only about a dozen miles from his quarters.

Accordingly, on the evening chosen, she laid on her dressing-table a note
for her husband, running thus:-

   DEAR JACK--I am unable to endure this life any longer, and I have
   resolved to put an end to it.  I told you I should run away if you
   persisted in being a clergyman, and now I am doing it.  One cannot
   help one's nature.  I have resolved to throw in my lot with Mr.
   Vannicock, and I hope rather than expect you will forgive me.--L.

Then, with hardly a scrap of luggage, she went, ascending to the ridge in
the dusk of early evening.  Almost on the very spot where her husband had
stood at their last tryst she beheld the outline of Vannicock, who had
come all the way from Bristol to fetch her.

'I don't like meeting here--it is so unlucky!' she cried to him.  'For
God's sake let us have a place of our own.  Go back to the milestone, and
I'll come on.'

He went back to the milestone that stands on the north slope of the
ridge, where the old and new roads diverge, and she joined him there.

She was taciturn and sorrowful when he asked her why she would not meet
him on the top.  At last she inquired how they were going to travel.

He explained that he proposed to walk to Mellstock Hill, on the other
side of Casterbridge, where a fly was waiting to take them by a cross-cut
into the Ivell Road, and onward to that town.  The Bristol railway was
open to Ivell.

This plan they followed, and walked briskly through the dull gloom till
they neared Casterbridge, which place they avoided by turning to the
right at the Roman Amphitheatre and bearing round to Durnover Cross.
Thence the way was solitary and open across the moor to the hill whereon
the Ivell fly awaited them.

'I have noticed for some time,' she said, 'a lurid glare over the
Durnover end of the town.  It seems to come from somewhere about Mixen
Lane.'

'The lamps,' he suggested.

'There's not a lamp as big as a rushlight in the whole lane.  It is where
the cholera is worst.'

By Standfast Corner, a little beyond the Cross, they suddenly obtained an
end view of the lane.  Large bonfires were burning in the middle of the
way, with a view to purifying the air; and from the wretched tenements
with which the lane was lined in those days persons were bringing out
bedding and clothing.  Some was thrown into the fires, the rest placed in
wheel-barrows and wheeled into the moor directly in the track of the
fugitives.

They followed on, and came up to where a vast copper was set in the open
air.  Here the linen was boiled and disinfected.  By the light of the
lanterns Laura discovered that her husband was standing by the copper,
and that it was he who unloaded the barrow and immersed its contents.  The
night was so calm and muggy that the conversation by the copper reached
her ears.

'Are there many more loads to-night?'

'There's the clothes o' they that died this afternoon, sir.  But that
might bide till to-morrow, for you must be tired out.'

'We'll do it at once, for I can't ask anybody else to undertake it.
Overturn that load on the grass and fetch the rest.'

The man did so and went off with the barrow.  Maumbry paused for a moment
to wipe his face, and resumed his homely drudgery amid this squalid and
reeking scene, pressing down and stirring the contents of the copper with
what looked like an old rolling-pin.  The steam therefrom, laden with
death, travelled in a low trail across the meadow.

Laura spoke suddenly: 'I won't go to-night after all.  He is so tired,
and I must help him.  I didn't know things were so bad as this!'

Vannicock's arm dropped from her waist, where it had been resting as they
walked.  'Will you leave?' she asked.

'I will if you say I must.  But I'd rather help too.'  There was no
expostulation in his tone.

Laura had gone forward.  'Jack,' she said, 'I am come to help!'

The weary curate turned and held up the lantern.  'O--what, is it you,
Laura?' he asked in surprise.  'Why did you come into this?  You had
better go back--the risk is great.'

'But I want to help you, Jack.  Please let me help!  I didn't come by
myself--Mr. Vannicock kept me company.  He will make himself useful too,
if he's not gone on.  Mr. Vannicock!'

The young lieutenant came forward reluctantly.  Mr. Maumbry spoke
formally to him, adding as he resumed his labour, 'I thought the ---st
Foot had gone to Bristol.'

'We have.  But I have run down again for a few things.'

The two newcomers began to assist, Vannicock placing on the ground the
small bag containing Laura's toilet articles that he had been carrying.
The barrowman soon returned with another load, and all continued work for
nearly a half-hour, when a coachman came out from the shadows to the
north.

'Beg pardon, sir,' he whispered to Vannicock, 'but I've waited so long on
Mellstock hill that at last I drove down to the turnpike; and seeing the
light here, I ran on to find out what had happened.'

Lieutenant Vannicock told him to wait a few minutes, and the last barrow-
load was got through.  Mr. Maumbry stretched himself and breathed
heavily, saying, 'There; we can do no more.'

As if from the relaxation of effort he seemed to be seized with violent
pain.  He pressed his hands to his sides and bent forward.

'Ah!  I think it has got hold of me at last,' he said with difficulty.  'I
must try to get home.  Let Mr. Vannicock take you back, Laura.'

He walked a few steps, they helping him, but was obliged to sink down on
the grass.

'I am--afraid--you'll have to send for a hurdle, or shutter, or
something,' he went on feebly, 'or try to get me into the barrow.'

But Vannicock had called to the driver of the fly, and they waited until
it was brought on from the turnpike hard by.  Mr. Maumbry was placed
therein.  Laura entered with him, and they drove to his humble residence
near the Cross, where he was got upstairs.

Vannicock stood outside by the empty fly awhile, but Laura did not
reappear.  He thereupon entered the fly and told the driver to take him
back to Ivell.



CHAPTER VII


Mr. Maumbry had over-exerted himself in the relief of the suffering poor,
and fell a victim--one of the last--to the pestilence which had carried
off so many.  Two days later he lay in his coffin.

Laura was in the room below.  A servant brought in some letters, and she
glanced them over.  One was the note from herself to Maumbry, informing
him that she was unable to endure life with him any longer and was about
to elope with Vannicock.  Having read the letter she took it upstairs to
where the dead man was, and slipped it into his coffin.  The next day she
buried him.

She was now free.

She shut up his house at Durnover Cross and returned to her lodgings at
Creston.  Soon she had a letter from Vannicock, and six weeks after her
husband's death her lover came to see her.

'I forgot to give you back this--that night,' he said presently, handing
her the little bag she had taken as her whole luggage when leaving.

Laura received it and absently shook it out.  There fell upon the carpet
her brush, comb, slippers, nightdress, and other simple necessaries for a
journey.  They had an intolerably ghastly look now, and she tried to
cover them.

'I can now,' he said, 'ask you to belong to me legally--when a proper
interval has gone--instead of as we meant.'

There was languor in his utterance, hinting at a possibility that it was
perfunctorily made.  Laura picked up her articles, answering that he
certainly could so ask her--she was free.  Yet not her expression either
could be called an ardent response.  Then she blinked more and more
quickly and put her handkerchief to her face.  She was weeping violently.

He did not move or try to comfort her in any way.  What had come between
them?  No living person.  They had been lovers.  There was now no
material obstacle whatever to their union.  But there was the insistent
shadow of that unconscious one; the thin figure of him, moving to and fro
in front of the ghastly furnace in the gloom of Durnover Moor.

Yet Vannicock called upon Laura when he was in the neighbourhood, which
was not often; but in two years, as if on purpose to further the marriage
which everybody was expecting, the ---st Foot returned to Budmouth Regis.

Thereupon the two could not help encountering each other at times.  But
whether because the obstacle had been the source of the love, or from a
sense of error, and because Mrs. Maumbry bore a less attractive look as a
widow than before, their feelings seemed to decline from their former
incandescence to a mere tepid civility.  What domestic issues supervened
in Vannicock's further story the man in the oriel never knew; but Mrs.
Maumbry lived and died a widow.

1900.
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