Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (774 page)

Nor had she any reason to. The letter came prompt to the day. It was short, tender, and to the point. Events had shaped themselves so fortunately that he was able to say he would return and marry her before the time named for the family’s departure for Queensland.

She danced about for joy. But there was a postscript to the effect that she might as well keep this promise a secret for the present, if she conveniently could, that his intention might not become a public talk in Cloton. Agatha knew that he was a rising and aristocratic young man, and saw at once how proper this was.

So she met Mr Lovill with a simple flat refusal, at which her uncle was extremely angry, and her disclosure to him afterward of the arrival of the letter went but a little way in pacifying him. Farmer Lovill would put in upon him for the debt, he said, unless she could manage to please him for a short time.

“I don’t want to please him,” said Agatha.

“It is wrong to encourage him if I don’t mean it.”

“Will you behave toward him as the Parson advises you?”

The Parson! That was a new idea, and, from her uncle, unexpected.

“I will agree to what Mr Davids advises about my mere daily behaviour before Oswald comes, but nothing more,” she said. “That is, I will if you know for certain that he’s a good man, who fears God and keeps the commandments.”

“Mr Davids fears God, for sartin, for he never ventures to name Him outside the pulpit — and as for the commandments, ‘tis knowed how he swore at the church-restorers for taking them away from the chancel.”

“Uncle, you always jest when I am serious.”

“Well, well! at any rate his advice on a matter of this sort is good.”

“How is it you think of referring me to him?” she asked, in perplexity; “you so often speak slightingly of him.”

“Oh — well,” said Humphrey, with a faintly perceptible desire to parry the question, “I have spoken roughly about him once now and then; but perhaps I was wrong. Will ye go?”

“Yes, I don’t mind,” she said, languidly.

When she reached the Vicar’s study Agatha began her story with reserve, and said nothing about the correspondence with Oswald; yet an intense longing to find a friend and confidant led her to indulge in more feeling than she had intended and as a finale she wept. The genial incumbent, however, remained quite cool, the secret being that his heart was involved a little in another direction — one, perhaps, not quite in harmony with Agatha’s interests — of which more anon.

“So the difficulty is,” he said to her, “how to behave in this trying time of waiting for Mr Winwood, that you may please parties all round and give offence to none.”

“Yes, Sir, that’s it,” sobbed Agatha, wondering how he could have realised her position so readily. “And uncle wants to go to Australia.

“One thing is certain,” said the Vicar; “you must not hurt the feelings of Mr Lovill. Wonderfully sensitive man — a man I respect much as a godly doer.”

“Do you, Sir?”

“I do. His earnestness is remarkable.”

“Yes, in courting.”

“The cue is: treat Mr Lovill gently — gently as a babe! Love opposed, especially an old man’s, gets all the stronger. It is your policy to give him seeming encouragement, and so let his feelings expend themselves and die away.”

“How am I to? To advise is so easy.”

“Not by acting untruthfully, of course. You say your lover is sure to come back before your uncle leaves England,”

“I know he will.”

“Then pacify old Mr Lovill in this way: Tell him you’ll marry him when your uncle wants to go, if Winwood doesn’t come for you before that time. That will quite content Mr Lovill, for he doesn’t in the least expect Oswald to return, and you’ll see that his persecution will cease at once.”

“Yes; I’ll agree to it,” said Agatha promptly.

Mr Davids had refrained from adding that neither did he expect Oswald to come, and hence his advice. Agatha on her part too refrained from stating the good reasons she had for the contrary expectation, and hence her assent. Without the last letter perhaps even her faith would hardly have been bold enough to allow this palpable driving of her into a corner.

“It would be as well to write Mr Lovill a little note, saying you agree to what I have advised,” said the Parson evasively.

“I don’t like writing.”

“There’s no harm. ‘If Mr Winwood doesn’t come I’ll marry you,’ &c. Poor Mr Lovill will be content, thinking Oswald will not come; you will be content, knowing he will come; your uncle will be content being indifferent which of two rich men has you and relieves him of his difficulties. Then, if it’s the will of Providence, you’ll be left in peace. Here’s a pen and ink; you can do it at once.”

Thus tempted, Agatha wrote the note with a trembling hand. It really did seem upon the whole a nicely strategic thing to do in her present environed situation. Mr Davids took the note with the air of a man who did not wish to take it in the least, and placed it on the mantle-piece.

“I’ll send it down to him by one of the children,” said Aggy, looking wistfully at her note with a little feeling that she should like to have it back again.

“Oh, no, it is not necessary,” said her pleasant adviser. He had rung the bell; the servant now came, and the note was sent off in a trice.

When Agatha got into the open air again her confidence returned, and it was with a mischievous sense of enjoyment that she considered how she was duping her persecutors by keeping secret Oswald’s intention of a speedy return. If they only knew what a firm foundation she had for her belief in what they all deemed but an improbable contingency, what a life they would lead her; how the old man would worry her uncle for payment, and what general confusion there would be. Mr Davids’ advice was very shrewd, she thought, and she was glad she had called upon him.

Old Lovill came that very afternoon. He was delighted, and danced a few bars of a hornpipe in entering the room. So lively was the antique boy that Agatha was rather alarmed at her own temerity when she considered what was the basis of his gaiety; wishing she could get from him some such writing as he had got from her, that the words of her promise might not in any way be tampered with, or the conditions ignored.

“I only accept you conditionally, mind,” she anxiously said. “That is distinctly understood.”

“Yes, yes,” said the yeoman. “I am not so young as I was, little dear, and beggars musn’t be choosers. With my ra-ta-ta — say, dear, shall it be the first of November?”

“It will really never be.”

“But if he doesn’t come, it shall be the first of November?”

She slightly nodded her head.

“Clk! — l think she likes me!” said the old man aside to Aggy’s uncle, which aside was distinctly heard by Aggy.

One of the younger children was in the room, drawing idly on a slate. Agatha at this moment took the slate from the child, and scribbled something on it.

“Now you must please me by just writing your name here,” she saidin a voice of playful indifference.

“What is it?” said Lovill, looking over and reading. “‘If Oswald Winwood comes to marry Agatha Pollin before November, I agree to give her up to him without objection.’ Well, that is cool for a young lady under six feet, upon my word — hee-hee!” He passed the slate to the miller, who read the writing and passed it back again.

“Sign — just in courtesy,” she coaxed.

“I don’t see why — “

“I do it to test your faith in me; and now I find you have none. Don’t you think I should have rubbed it out instantly? Ah, perhaps I can be obstinate too!”

He wrote his name then. “Now I have done it, and shown my faith,” he said, and at once raised his fingers as if to rub it out again. But with hands that moved like lightning she snatched up the slate, flew up stairs, locked it in her box, and came down again.

“Souls of men — that’s sharp practice,” said the old gentleman.

“Oh, it is only a whim — a mere memorandum,” said she. “You had my promise, but I had not yours.”

“Ise wants my slate,” cried the child.

“I’ll buy you a new one, dear,” said Agatha, and soothed her.

When she had left the room old Lovill spoke to her uncle somewhat uneasily of the event, which, childish as it had been, discomposed him for the moment.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Miller Pollin assuringly; “only play — only play. She’s a mere child in nater, even now, and she did it only to tease ye. Why, she overheard your whisper that you thought she liked ye, and that was her playful way of punishing ye for your confidence. You’ll have to put up with these worries, farmer. Considering the difference in your ages, she is sure to play pranks. You’ll get to like ‘em in time.”

“Ay, ay, faith, so I shall! I was always a Turk for sprees! — eh, Pollin? hee-hee!” And the suitor was merry again.

VII

Her life was certainly much pleasanter now. The old man treated her well, and was almost silent on the subject nearest his heart. She was obliged to be very stealthy in receiving letters from Oswald, and on this account was bound to meet the postman, let the weather be what it would. These transactions were easily kept secret from people out of the house, but it was a most difficult task to hide her movements from her uncle. And one day brought utter failure.

“How’s this — out already, Agatha?” he said, meeting her in the lane at dawn on a foggy morning. She was actually reading a letter just received, and there was no disguising the truth.

“I’ve been for a letter from Oswald.”

“Well, but that won’t do. Since he don’t come for ye, ye must think no more about him.”

“But he’s coming in six weeks. He tells me all about it in this very letter.”

“What — really to marry you?” said her uncle incredulously.

“Yes, certainly.”

“But I hear that he’s wonderfully well off.”

“Of course he is; that’s why he’s coming. He’ll agree in a moment to be your surety for the debt to Mr Lovill.”

“Has he said so?”

“Not yet; but he will.”

“I’ll believe it when I see him and he tells me so. It is very odd, if he means so much, that he hev never wrote a line to me.”

“We thought — you would force me to have the other at once if he wrote to you,” she murmured.

“Not I, if he comes rich. But it is rather a cock-and-bull story, and since he didn’t make up his mind before now, I can’t say I be much in his favour. Agatha, you had better not say a word to Mr Lovill about these letters; it will make things deuced unpleasant if he hears of such goings on. You are to reckon yourself bound by your word. Oswald won’t hold water, I’m afeard. But I’ll be fair. If he do come, proves his income, marries ye willy-nilly, I’ll let it be, and the old man and I must do as we can. But barring that — you keep your promise to the letter.”

“That’s what it will be, uncle. Oswald will come.”

“Write you must not. Lovill will smell it out, and he’ll be sharper than you will like. ‘Tis not to be supposed that you are to send love-letters to one man as if nothing was going to happen between ye and another man. The first of November is drawing nearer every day. And be sure and keep this a secret from Lovill for your own sake.

The more clearly that Agatha began to perceive the entire contrast of expectation as to issue between herself and the other party to the covenant, the more alarmed she became. She had not anticipated such an arrowing of courses as had occurred. A malign influence seemed to be at work without any visible human agency. The critical time drew nearer, and, though no ostensible preparation for the wedding was made, it was evident to all that Lovill was painting and papering his house for somebody’s reception. He made a lawn where there had existed a nook of refuse; he bought furniture for a woman’s room. The greatest horror was that he insisted upon her taking his arm one day, and there being no help for it she assented, though her distaste was unutterable. She felt the skinny arm through his sleeve, saw over the wry shoulders, looked upon the knobby feet, and shuddered. What if Oswald should not come; the time for her uncle’s departure was really getting near. When she reached home she ran up to her bedroom.

On recovering from her dreads a little, Agatha looked from the window. The deaf lad John, who assisted in the mill, was quietly glancing toward her, and a gleam of friendship passed over his kindly face as he caught sight of her form. This reminded her that she had, after all, some sort of friend close at hand. The lad knew pretty well how events stood in Agatha’s life, and he was always ready to do on her part whatever lay in his power. Agatha felt stronger, and resolved to bear up.

VIII

Heavens! how anxious she was! It actually wanted only ten days to the first of November, and no new letter had come from Oswald.

Her uncle was married, and Frances was in the house, and the preliminary steps for emigration to Queensland had been taken. Agatha surreptitiously obtained newspapers, scanned the Indian shipping news till her eyes ached, but all to no purpose, for she knew nothing either of route or vessel by which Oswald would return. He had mentioned nothing more than the month of his coming, and she had no way of making that single scrap of information the vehicle for obtaining more.

“In ten days, Agatha,” said the old farmer. “There is to be no show or fuss of any kind; the wedding will be quite private, in consideration of your feelings and wishes. We’ll go to church as if we were taking a morning walk, and nobody will be there to disturb you. Tweedledee!” He held up his arm and crossed it with his walking-stick, as if he were playing the fiddle, at the same time cutting a caper.

“He will come, and then I shan’t be able to marry you, even th — th — though I may wish to ever so much,” she faltered, shivering. “I have promised him, and I must have him, you know, and you have agreed to let me.”

“Yes, yes,” said Farmer Lovill, pleasantly. “But that’s a misfortune you need not fear at all, my dear; he won’t come at this late day and compel you to marry him in spite of your attachment to me. But, ah — it is only a joke to tease me, you little rogue! Your uncle says so.”

“Agatha, come, cheer up, and think no more of that fellow,” said her uncle when they chanced to be alone together. “‘Tis ridiculous, you know. We always knew he wouldn’t come.”