Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (188 page)

“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.”