Far from the Madding Crowd

T >> Thomas Hardy >> Far from the Madding Crowd


"O that's not necessary, thank 'ee," said Oak, hurriedly. "I must get
used to such as that; other men have, and so shall I."

Oak then left him. He was uneasy on Boldwood's account, for he saw
anew that this constant passion of the farmer made him not the man
he once had been.

As Boldwood continued awhile in his room alone--ready and dressed to
receive his company--the mood of anxiety about his appearance seemed
to pass away, and to be succeeded by a deep solemnity. He looked out
of the window, and regarded the dim outline of the trees upon the
sky, and the twilight deepening to darkness.

Then he went to a locked closet, and took from a locked drawer
therein a small circular case the size of a pillbox, and was about to
put it into his pocket. But he lingered to open the cover and take
a momentary glance inside. It contained a woman's finger-ring, set
all the way round with small diamonds, and from its appearance had
evidently been recently purchased. Boldwood's eyes dwelt upon its
many sparkles a long time, though that its material aspect concerned
him little was plain from his manner and mien, which were those of
a mind following out the presumed thread of that jewel's future
history.

The noise of wheels at the front of the house became audible.
Boldwood closed the box, stowed it away carefully in his pocket, and
went out upon the landing. The old man who was his indoor factotum
came at the same moment to the foot of the stairs.

"They be coming, sir--lots of 'em--a-foot and a-driving!"

"I was coming down this moment. Those wheels I heard--is it Mrs.
Troy?"

"No, sir--'tis not she yet."

A reserved and sombre expression had returned to Boldwood's face
again, but it poorly cloaked his feelings when he pronounced
Bathsheba's name; and his feverish anxiety continued to show its
existence by a galloping motion of his fingers upon the side of
his thigh as he went down the stairs.


VII


"How does this cover me?" said Troy to Pennyways. "Nobody would
recognize me now, I'm sure."

He was buttoning on a heavy grey overcoat of Noachian cut, with cape
and high collar, the latter being erect and rigid, like a girdling
wall, and nearly reaching to the verge of a travelling cap which was
pulled down over his ears.

Pennyways snuffed the candle, and then looked up and deliberately
inspected Troy.

"You've made up your mind to go then?" he said.

"Made up my mind? Yes; of course I have."

"Why not write to her? 'Tis a very queer corner that you have got
into, sergeant. You see all these things will come to light if you
go back, and they won't sound well at all. Faith, if I was you I'd
even bide as you be--a single man of the name of Francis. A good
wife is good, but the best wife is not so good as no wife at all.
Now that's my outspoke mind, and I've been called a long-headed
feller here and there."

"All nonsense!" said Troy, angrily. "There she is with plenty of
money, and a house and farm, and horses, and comfort, and here am I
living from hand to mouth--a needy adventurer. Besides, it is no use
talking now; it is too late, and I am glad of it; I've been seen and
recognized here this very afternoon. I should have gone back to her
the day after the fair, if it hadn't been for you talking about the
law, and rubbish about getting a separation; and I don't put it off
any longer. What the deuce put it into my head to run away at all, I
can't think! Humbugging sentiment--that's what it was. But what man
on earth was to know that his wife would be in such a hurry to get
rid of his name!"

"I should have known it. She's bad enough for anything."

"Pennyways, mind who you are talking to."

"Well, sergeant, all I say is this, that if I were you I'd go abroad
again where I came from--'tisn't too late to do it now. I wouldn't
stir up the business and get a bad name for the sake of living with
her--for all that about your play-acting is sure to come out, you
know, although you think otherwise. My eyes and limbs, there'll
be a racket if you go back just now--in the middle of Boldwood's
Christmasing!"

"H'm, yes. I expect I shall not be a very welcome guest if he has
her there," said the sergeant, with a slight laugh. "A sort of
Alonzo the Brave; and when I go in the guests will sit in silence and
fear, and all laughter and pleasure will be hushed, and the lights in
the chamber burn blue, and the worms--Ugh, horrible!--Ring for some
more brandy, Pennyways, I felt an awful shudder just then! Well,
what is there besides? A stick--I must have a walking-stick."

Pennyways now felt himself to be in something of a difficulty, for
should Bathsheba and Troy become reconciled it would be necessary
to regain her good opinion if he would secure the patronage of her
husband. "I sometimes think she likes you yet, and is a good woman
at bottom," he said, as a saving sentence. "But there's no telling
to a certainty from a body's outside. Well, you'll do as you like
about going, of course, sergeant, and as for me, I'll do as you tell
me."

"Now, let me see what the time is," said Troy, after emptying his
glass in one draught as he stood. "Half-past six o'clock. I shall
not hurry along the road, and shall be there then before nine."




CHAPTER LIII


CONCURRITUR--HORAE MOMENTO


Outside the front of Boldwood's house a group of men stood in the
dark, with their faces towards the door, which occasionally opened
and closed for the passage of some guest or servant, when a golden
rod of light would stripe the ground for the moment and vanish again,
leaving nothing outside but the glowworm shine of the pale lamp amid
the evergreens over the door.

"He was seen in Casterbridge this afternoon--so the boy said," one of
them remarked in a whisper. "And I for one believe it. His body was
never found, you know."

"'Tis a strange story," said the next. "You may depend upon't that
she knows nothing about it."

"Not a word."

"Perhaps he don't mean that she shall," said another man.

"If he's alive and here in the neighbourhood, he means mischief,"
said the first. "Poor young thing: I do pity her, if 'tis true.
He'll drag her to the dogs."

"O no; he'll settle down quiet enough," said one disposed to take a
more hopeful view of the case.

"What a fool she must have been ever to have had anything to do with
the man! She is so self-willed and independent too, that one is more
minded to say it serves her right than pity her."

"No, no. I don't hold with 'ee there. She was no otherwise than a
girl mind, and how could she tell what the man was made of? If 'tis
really true, 'tis too hard a punishment, and more than she ought to
hae.--Hullo, who's that?" This was to some footsteps that were heard
approaching.

"William Smallbury," said a dim figure in the shades, coming up and
joining them. "Dark as a hedge, to-night, isn't it? I all but missed
the plank over the river ath'art there in the bottom--never did such
a thing before in my life. Be ye any of Boldwood's workfolk?" He
peered into their faces.

"Yes--all o' us. We met here a few minutes ago."

"Oh, I hear now--that's Sam Samway: thought I knowed the voice, too.
Going in?"

"Presently. But I say, William," Samway whispered, "have ye heard
this strange tale?"

"What--that about Sergeant Troy being seen, d'ye mean, souls?" said
Smallbury, also lowering his voice.

"Ay: in Casterbridge."

"Yes, I have. Laban Tall named a hint of it to me but now--but I
don't think it. Hark, here Laban comes himself, 'a b'lieve." A
footstep drew near.

"Laban?"

"Yes, 'tis I," said Tall.

"Have ye heard any more about that?"

"No," said Tall, joining the group. "And I'm inclined to think we'd
better keep quiet. If so be 'tis not true, 'twill flurry her, and do
her much harm to repeat it; and if so be 'tis true, 'twill do no good
to forestall her time o' trouble. God send that it mid be a lie, for
though Henery Fray and some of 'em do speak against her, she's never
been anything but fair to me. She's hot and hasty, but she's a brave
girl who'll never tell a lie however much the truth may harm her, and
I've no cause to wish her evil."

"She never do tell women's little lies, that's true; and 'tis a thing
that can be said of very few. Ay, all the harm she thinks she says
to yer face: there's nothing underhand wi' her."

They stood silent then, every man busied with his own thoughts,
during which interval sounds of merriment could be heard within.
Then the front door again opened, the rays streamed out, the
well-known form of Boldwood was seen in the rectangular area of
light, the door closed, and Boldwood walked slowly down the path.

"'Tis master," one of the men whispered, as he neared them. "We'd
better stand quiet--he'll go in again directly. He would think it
unseemly o' us to be loitering here."

Boldwood came on, and passed by the men without seeing them, they
being under the bushes on the grass. He paused, leant over the gate,
and breathed a long breath. They heard low words come from him.

"I hope to God she'll come, or this night will be nothing but misery
to me! Oh my darling, my darling, why do you keep me in suspense
like this?"

He said this to himself, and they all distinctly heard it. Boldwood
remained silent after that, and the noise from indoors was again
just audible, until, a few minutes later, light wheels could be
distinguished coming down the hill. They drew nearer, and ceased at
the gate. Boldwood hastened back to the door, and opened it; and the
light shone upon Bathsheba coming up the path.

Boldwood compressed his emotion to mere welcome: the men marked her
light laugh and apology as she met him: he took her into the house;
and the door closed again.

"Gracious heaven, I didn't know it was like that with him!" said one
of the men. "I thought that fancy of his was over long ago."

"You don't know much of master, if you thought that," said Samway.

"I wouldn't he should know we heard what 'a said for the world,"
remarked a third.

"I wish we had told of the report at once," the first uneasily
continued. "More harm may come of this than we know of. Poor Mr.
Boldwood, it will be hard upon en. I wish Troy was in--Well, God
forgive me for such a wish! A scoundrel to play a poor wife such
tricks. Nothing has prospered in Weatherbury since he came here.
And now I've no heart to go in. Let's look into Warren's for a few
minutes first, shall us, neighbours?"

Samway, Tall, and Smallbury agreed to go to Warren's, and went out at
the gate, the remaining ones entering the house. The three soon drew
near the malt-house, approaching it from the adjoining orchard, and
not by way of the street. The pane of glass was illuminated as
usual. Smallbury was a little in advance of the rest when, pausing,
he turned suddenly to his companions and said, "Hist! See there."

The light from the pane was now perceived to be shining not upon the
ivied wall as usual, but upon some object close to the glass. It was
a human face.

"Let's come closer," whispered Samway; and they approached on tiptoe.
There was no disbelieving the report any longer. Troy's face was
almost close to the pane, and he was looking in. Not only was he
looking in, but he appeared to have been arrested by a conversation
which was in progress in the malt-house, the voices of the
interlocutors being those of Oak and the maltster.

"The spree is all in her honour, isn't it--hey?" said the old man.
"Although he made believe 'tis only keeping up o' Christmas?"

"I cannot say," replied Oak.

"Oh 'tis true enough, faith. I cannot understand Farmer Boldwood
being such a fool at his time of life as to ho and hanker after this
woman in the way 'a do, and she not care a bit about en."

The men, after recognizing Troy's features, withdrew across
the orchard as quietly as they had come. The air was big with
Bathsheba's fortunes to-night: every word everywhere concerned her.
When they were quite out of earshot all by one instinct paused.

"It gave me quite a turn--his face," said Tall, breathing.

"And so it did me," said Samway. "What's to be done?"

"I don't see that 'tis any business of ours," Smallbury murmured
dubiously.

"But it is! 'Tis a thing which is everybody's business," said
Samway. "We know very well that master's on a wrong tack, and that
she's quite in the dark, and we should let 'em know at once. Laban,
you know her best--you'd better go and ask to speak to her."

"I bain't fit for any such thing," said Laban, nervously. "I should
think William ought to do it if anybody. He's oldest."

"I shall have nothing to do with it," said Smallbury. "'Tis a
ticklish business altogether. Why, he'll go on to her himself in a
few minutes, ye'll see."

"We don't know that he will. Come, Laban."

"Very well, if I must I must, I suppose," Tall reluctantly answered.
"What must I say?"

"Just ask to see master."

"Oh no; I shan't speak to Mr. Boldwood. If I tell anybody, 'twill be
mistress."

"Very well," said Samway.

Laban then went to the door. When he opened it the hum of bustle
rolled out as a wave upon a still strand--the assemblage being
immediately inside the hall--and was deadened to a murmur as he
closed it again. Each man waited intently, and looked around at
the dark tree tops gently rocking against the sky and occasionally
shivering in a slight wind, as if he took interest in the scene,
which neither did. One of them began walking up and down, and then
came to where he started from and stopped again, with a sense that
walking was a thing not worth doing now.

"I should think Laban must have seen mistress by this time," said
Smallbury, breaking the silence. "Perhaps she won't come and speak
to him."

The door opened. Tall appeared, and joined them.

"Well?" said both.

"I didn't like to ask for her after all," Laban faltered out. "They
were all in such a stir, trying to put a little spirit into the
party. Somehow the fun seems to hang fire, though everything's there
that a heart can desire, and I couldn't for my soul interfere and
throw damp upon it--if 'twas to save my life, I couldn't!"

"I suppose we had better all go in together," said Samway, gloomily.
"Perhaps I may have a chance of saying a word to master."

So the men entered the hall, which was the room selected and arranged
for the gathering because of its size. The younger men and maids
were at last just beginning to dance. Bathsheba had been perplexed
how to act, for she was not much more than a slim young maid herself,
and the weight of stateliness sat heavy upon her. Sometimes she
thought she ought not to have come under any circumstances; then she
considered what cold unkindness that would have been, and finally
resolved upon the middle course of staying for about an hour only,
and gliding off unobserved, having from the first made up her mind
that she could on no account dance, sing, or take any active part in
the proceedings.

Her allotted hour having been passed in chatting and looking on,
Bathsheba told Liddy not to hurry herself, and went to the small
parlour to prepare for departure, which, like the hall, was decorated
with holly and ivy, and well lighted up.

Nobody was in the room, but she had hardly been there a moment when
the master of the house entered.

"Mrs. Troy--you are not going?" he said. "We've hardly begun!"

"If you'll excuse me, I should like to go now." Her manner was
restive, for she remembered her promise, and imagined what he was
about to say. "But as it is not late," she added, "I can walk home,
and leave my man and Liddy to come when they choose."

"I've been trying to get an opportunity of speaking to you," said
Boldwood. "You know perhaps what I long to say?"

Bathsheba silently looked on the floor.

"You do give it?" he said, eagerly.

"What?" she whispered.

"Now, that's evasion! Why, the promise. I don't want to intrude
upon you at all, or to let it become known to anybody. But do give
your word! A mere business compact, you know, between two people who
are beyond the influence of passion." Boldwood knew how false this
picture was as regarded himself; but he had proved that it was the
only tone in which she would allow him to approach her. "A promise
to marry me at the end of five years and three-quarters. You owe it
to me!"

"I feel that I do," said Bathsheba; "that is, if you demand it. But
I am a changed woman--an unhappy woman--and not--not--"

"You are still a very beautiful woman," said Boldwood. Honesty and
pure conviction suggested the remark, unaccompanied by any perception
that it might have been adopted by blunt flattery to soothe and win
her.

However, it had not much effect now, for she said, in a passionless
murmur which was in itself a proof of her words: "I have no feeling
in the matter at all. And I don't at all know what is right to do
in my difficult position, and I have nobody to advise me. But I
give my promise, if I must. I give it as the rendering of a debt,
conditionally, of course, on my being a widow."

"You'll marry me between five and six years hence?"

"Don't press me too hard. I'll marry nobody else."

"But surely you will name the time, or there's nothing in the promise
at all?"

"Oh, I don't know, pray let me go!" she said, her bosom beginning to
rise. "I am afraid what to do! I want to be just to you, and to be
that seems to be wronging myself, and perhaps it is breaking the
commandments. There is considerable doubt of his death, and then it
is dreadful; let me ask a solicitor, Mr. Boldwood, if I ought or no!"

"Say the words, dear one, and the subject shall be dismissed;
a blissful loving intimacy of six years, and then marriage--O
Bathsheba, say them!" he begged in a husky voice, unable to sustain
the forms of mere friendship any longer. "Promise yourself to me; I
deserve it, indeed I do, for I have loved you more than anybody in
the world! And if I said hasty words and showed uncalled-for heat
of manner towards you, believe me, dear, I did not mean to distress
you; I was in agony, Bathsheba, and I did not know what I said. You
wouldn't let a dog suffer what I have suffered, could you but know
it! Sometimes I shrink from your knowing what I have felt for you,
and sometimes I am distressed that all of it you never will know. Be
gracious, and give up a little to me, when I would give up my life
for you!"

The trimmings of her dress, as they quivered against the light,
showed how agitated she was, and at last she burst out crying. "And
you'll not--press me--about anything more--if I say in five or six
years?" she sobbed, when she had power to frame the words.

"Yes, then I'll leave it to time."

She waited a moment. "Very well. I'll marry you in six years from
this day, if we both live," she said solemnly.

"And you'll take this as a token from me."

Boldwood had come close to her side, and now he clasped one of her
hands in both his own, and lifted it to his breast.

"What is it? Oh I cannot wear a ring!" she exclaimed, on seeing
what he held; "besides, I wouldn't have a soul know that it's an
engagement! Perhaps it is improper? Besides, we are not engaged in
the usual sense, are we? Don't insist, Mr. Boldwood--don't!" In her
trouble at not being able to get her hand away from him at once, she
stamped passionately on the floor with one foot, and tears crowded to
her eyes again.

"It means simply a pledge--no sentiment--the seal of a practical
compact," he said more quietly, but still retaining her hand in
his firm grasp. "Come, now!" And Boldwood slipped the ring on her
finger.

"I cannot wear it," she said, weeping as if her heart would break.
"You frighten me, almost. So wild a scheme! Please let me go home!"

"Only to-night: wear it just to-night, to please me!"

Bathsheba sat down in a chair, and buried her face in her
handkerchief, though Boldwood kept her hand yet. At length she
said, in a sort of hopeless whisper--

"Very well, then, I will to-night, if you wish it so earnestly. Now
loosen my hand; I will, indeed I will wear it to-night."

"And it shall be the beginning of a pleasant secret courtship of six
years, with a wedding at the end?"

"It must be, I suppose, since you will have it so!" she said, fairly
beaten into non-resistance.

Boldwood pressed her hand, and allowed it to drop in her lap. "I am
happy now," he said. "God bless you!"

He left the room, and when he thought she might be sufficiently
composed sent one of the maids to her. Bathsheba cloaked the effects
of the late scene as she best could, followed the girl, and in a few
moments came downstairs with her hat and cloak on, ready to go. To
get to the door it was necessary to pass through the hall, and before
doing so she paused on the bottom of the staircase which descended
into one corner, to take a last look at the gathering.

There was no music or dancing in progress just now. At the lower
end, which had been arranged for the work-folk specially, a group
conversed in whispers, and with clouded looks. Boldwood was standing
by the fireplace, and he, too, though so absorbed in visions arising
from her promise that he scarcely saw anything, seemed at that moment
to have observed their peculiar manner, and their looks askance.

"What is it you are in doubt about, men?" he said.

One of them turned and replied uneasily: "It was something Laban
heard of, that's all, sir."

"News? Anybody married or engaged, born or dead?" inquired the
farmer, gaily. "Tell it to us, Tall. One would think from your
looks and mysterious ways that it was something very dreadful
indeed."

"Oh no, sir, nobody is dead," said Tall.

"I wish somebody was," said Samway, in a whisper.

"What do you say, Samway?" asked Boldwood, somewhat sharply. "If you
have anything to say, speak out; if not, get up another dance."

"Mrs. Troy has come downstairs," said Samway to Tall. "If you want
to tell her, you had better do it now."

"Do you know what they mean?" the farmer asked Bathsheba, across the
room.

"I don't in the least," said Bathsheba.

There was a smart rapping at the door. One of the men opened it
instantly, and went outside.

"Mrs. Troy is wanted," he said, on returning.

"Quite ready," said Bathsheba. "Though I didn't tell them to send."

"It is a stranger, ma'am," said the man by the door.

"A stranger?" she said.

"Ask him to come in," said Boldwood.

The message was given, and Troy, wrapped up to his eyes as we have
seen him, stood in the doorway.

There was an unearthly silence, all looking towards the newcomer.
Those who had just learnt that he was in the neighbourhood recognized
him instantly; those who did not were perplexed. Nobody noted
Bathsheba. She was leaning on the stairs. Her brow had heavily
contracted; her whole face was pallid, her lips apart, her eyes
rigidly staring at their visitor.

Boldwood was among those who did not notice that he was Troy. "Come
in, come in!" he repeated, cheerfully, "and drain a Christmas beaker
with us, stranger!"

Troy next advanced into the middle of the room, took off his cap,
turned down his coat-collar, and looked Boldwood in the face. Even
then Boldwood did not recognize that the impersonator of Heaven's
persistent irony towards him, who had once before broken in upon his
bliss, scourged him, and snatched his delight away, had come to do
these things a second time. Troy began to laugh a mechanical laugh:
Boldwood recognized him now.

Troy turned to Bathsheba. The poor girl's wretchedness at this time
was beyond all fancy or narration. She had sunk down on the lowest
stair; and there she sat, her mouth blue and dry, and her dark eyes
fixed vacantly upon him, as if she wondered whether it were not all
a terrible illusion.

Then Troy spoke. "Bathsheba, I come here for you!"

She made no reply.

"Come home with me: come!"

Bathsheba moved her feet a little, but did not rise. Troy went
across to her.

"Come, madam, do you hear what I say?" he said, peremptorily.

A strange voice came from the fireplace--a voice sounding far off
and confined, as if from a dungeon. Hardly a soul in the assembly
recognized the thin tones to be those of Boldwood. Sudden dispaire
had transformed him.

"Bathsheba, go with your husband!"

Nevertheless, she did not move. The truth was that Bathsheba was
beyond the pale of activity--and yet not in a swoon. She was in a
state of mental _gutta serena_; her mind was for the minute totally
deprived of light at the same time no obscuration was apparent from
without.

Troy stretched out his hand to pull her her towards him, when she
quickly shrank back. This visible dread of him seemed to irritate
Troy, and he seized her arm and pulled it sharply. Whether his grasp
pinched her, or whether his mere touch was the cause, was never
known, but at the moment of his seizure she writhed, and gave a
quick, low scream.

The scream had been heard but a few seconds when it was followed by
sudden deafening report that echoed through the room and stupefied
them all. The oak partition shook with the concussion, and the place
was filled with grey smoke.