1. MARCH THE EIGHTEENTH
Sunday morning had come, and Owen was trudging over the six miles of
hill and dale that lay between Tolchurch and Carriford.
Edward Springrove's answer to the last letter, after expressing
his amazement at the strange contradiction between the verses and
Mrs. Morris's letter, had been to the effect that he had again
visited the neighbour of the dead Mr. Brown, and had received as
near a description of Mrs. Manston as it was possible to get at
second-hand, and by hearsay. She was a tall woman, wide at the
shoulders, and full-chested, and she had a straight and rather
large nose. The colour of her eyes the informant did not know, for she had only seen the lady in the street as she went in or out. This confusing remark was added. The woman had almost recognized Mrs. Manston when she had called with her husband lately, but she had kept her veil down. Her residence, before she came to Hoxton, was quite unknown to this next-door neighbour, and Edward could get no manner of clue to it from any other source.
Owen reached the church-door a few minutes before the bells began
chiming. Nobody was yet in the church, and he walked round the
aisles. From Cytherea's frequent description of how and where
herself and others used to sit, he knew where to look for Manston's
seat; and after two or three errors of examination he took up a
prayer-book in which was written 'Eunice Manston.' The book was
nearly new, and the date of the writing about a month earlier. One
point was at any rate established: that the woman living with
Manston was presented to the world as no other than his lawful wife.
The quiet villagers of Carriford required no pew-opener in their
place of worship: natives and in-dwellers had their own seats, and
strangers sat where they could. Graye took a seat in the nave, on
the north side, close behind a pillar dividing it from the north
aisle, which was completely allotted to Miss Aldclyffe, her farmers, and her retainers, Manston's pew being in the midst of them. Owen's position on the other side of the passage was a little in advance of Manston's seat, and so situated that by leaning forward he could look directly into the face of any person sitting there, though, if he sat upright, he was wholly hidden from such a one by the intervening pillar.
Aiming to keep his presence unknown to Manston if possible, Owen
sat, without once turning his head, during the entrance of the
congregation. A rustling of silk round by the north passage and
into Manston's seat, told him that some woman had entered there, and
as it seemed from the accompaniment of heavier footsteps, Manston
was with her.
Immediately upon rising up, he looked intently in that direction, and saw a lady standing at the end of the seat nearest himself. Portions of Manston's figure appeared on the other side of her. In two glances Graye read thus many of her characteristics, and in the following order:--
She was a tall woman.
She was broad at the shoulders.
She was full-bosomed.
She was easily recognizable from the photograph but nothing could be
discerned of the colour of her eyes.
With a preoccupied mind he withdrew into his nook, and heard the
service continued--only conscious of the fact that in opposition to
the suspicion which one odd circumstance had bred in his sister
concerning this woman, all ostensible and ordinary proofs and
probabilities tended to the opposite conclusion. There sat the
genuine original of the portrait--could he wish for more? Cytherea
wished for more. Eunice Manston's eyes were blue, and it was
necessary that this woman's eyes should be blue also.
Unskilled labour wastes in beating against the bars ten times the
energy exerted by the practised hand in the effective direction. Owen felt this to be the case in his own and Edward's attempts to follow up the clue afforded them. Think as he might, he could not think of a crucial test in the matter absorbing him, which should possess the indispensable attribute--a capability of being applied privately; that in the event of its proving the lady to be the rightful owner of the name she used, he might recede without obloquy from an untenable position.