Far from the Madding Crowd
Jove, and to neglect closing prices altogether.
The numerous evidences of her power to attract were only thrown into
greater relief by a marked exception. Women seem to have eyes in their
ribbons for such matters as these. Bathsheba, without looking within a
right angle of him, was conscious of a black sheep among the flock.
It perplexed her first. If there had been a respectable minority on
either side, the case would have been most natural. If nobody had
regarded her, she would have taken the matter indifferently—such cases
had occurred. If everybody, this man included, she would have taken it
as a matter of course—people had done so before. But the smallness of
the exception made the mystery.
She soon knew thus much of the recusant’s appearance. He was a
gentlemanly man, with full and distinctly outlined Roman features, the
prominences of which glowed in the sun with a bronze-like richness of
tone. He was erect in attitude, and quiet in demeanour. One
characteristic pre-eminently marked him—dignity.
Apparently he had some time ago reached that entrance to middle age at
which a man’s aspect naturally ceases to alter for the term of a dozen
years or so; and, artificially, a woman’s does likewise. Thirty-five
and fifty were his limits of variation—he might have been either, or
anywhere between the two.
It may be said that married men of forty are usually ready and generous
enough to fling passing glances at any specimen of moderate beauty they
may discern by the way. Probably, as with persons playing whist for
love, the consciousness of a certain immunity under any circumstances
from that worst possible ultimate, the having to pay, makes them unduly
speculative. Bathsheba was convinced that this unmoved person was not a
married man.
When marketing was over, she rushed off to Liddy, who was waiting for
her beside the yellow gig in which they had driven to town. The horse
was put in, and on they trotted—Bathsheba’s sugar, tea, and drapery
parcels being packed behind, and expressing in some indescribable
manner, by their colour, shape, and general lineaments, that they were
that young lady-farmer’s property, and the grocer’s and draper’s no
more.
“I’ve been through it, Liddy, and it is over. I shan’t mind it again,
for they will all have grown accustomed to seeing me there; but this
morning it was as bad as being married—eyes everywhere!”
“I knowed it would be,” Liddy said. “Men be such a terrible class of
society to look at a body.”
“But there was one man who had more sense than to waste his time upon
me.” The information was put in this form that Liddy might not for a
moment suppose her mistress was at all piqued. “A very good-looking
man,” she continued, “upright; about forty, I should think. Do you know
at all who he could be?”
Liddy couldn’t think.
“Can’t you guess at all?” said Bathsheba with some disappointment.
“I haven’t a notion; besides, ’tis no difference, since he took less
notice of you than any of the rest. Now, if he’d taken more, it would
have mattered a great deal.”
Bathsheba was suffering from the reverse feeling just then, and they
bowled along in silence. A low carriage, bowling along still more
rapidly behind a horse of unimpeachable breed, overtook and passed
them.
“Why, there he is!” she said.
Liddy looked. “That! That’s Farmer Boldwood—of course ’tis—the man you
couldn’t see the other day when he called.”
“Oh, Farmer Boldwood,” murmured Bathsheba, and looked at him as he
outstripped them. The farmer had never turned his head once, but with
eyes fixed on the most advanced point along the road, passed as
unconsciously and abstractedly as if Bathsheba and her charms were thin
air.
“He’s an interesting man—don’t you think so?” she remarked.
“O yes, very. Everybody owns it,” replied Liddy.
“I wonder why he is so wrapt up and indifferent, and seemingly so far
away from all he sees around him.”
“It is said—but not known for certain—that he met with some bitter
disappointment when he was a young man and merry. A woman jilted him,
they say.”
“People always say that—and we know very well women scarcely ever jilt
men; ’tis the men who jilt us. I expect it is simply his nature to be
so reserved.”
“Simply his nature—I expect so, miss—nothing else in the world.”
“Still, ’tis more romantic to think he has been served cruelly, poor
thing’! Perhaps, after all, he has!”
“Depend upon it he has. Oh yes, miss, he has! I feel he must have.”
“However, we are very apt to think extremes of people. I shouldn’t
wonder after all if it wasn’t a little of both—just between the
two—rather cruelly used and rather reserved.”
“Oh dear no, miss—I can’t think it between the two!”
“That’s most likely.”
“Well, yes, so it is. I am convinced it is most likely. You may take my
word, miss, that that’s what’s the matter with him.”
CHAPTER XIII
SORTES SANCTORUM—THE VALENTINE
It was Sunday afternoon in the farmhouse, on the thirteenth of
February. Dinner being over, Bathsheba, for want of a better companion,
had asked Liddy to come and sit with her. The mouldy pile was dreary in
winter-time before the candles were lighted and the shutters closed;
the atmosphere of the place seemed as old as the walls; every nook
behind the furniture had a temperature of its own, for the fire was not
kindled in this part of the house early in the day; and Bathsheba’s new
piano, which was an old one in other annals, looked particularly
sloping and out of level on the warped floor before night threw a shade
over its less prominent angles and hid the unpleasantness. Liddy, like
a little brook, though shallow, was always rippling; her presence had
not so much weight as to task thought, and yet enough to exercise it.
On the table lay an old quarto Bible, bound in leather. Liddy looking
at it said,—
“Did you ever find out, miss, who you are going to marry by means of
the Bible and key?”
“Don’t be so foolish, Liddy. As if such things could be.”
“Well, there’s a good deal in it, all the same.”
“Nonsense, child.”
“And it makes your heart beat fearful. Some believe in it; some don’t;
I do.”
“Very well, let’s try it,” said Bathsheba, bounding from her seat with
that total disregard of consistency which can be indulged in towards a
dependent, and entering into the spirit of divination at once. “Go and
get the front door key.”
Liddy fetched it. “I wish it wasn’t Sunday,” she said, on returning.
“Perhaps ’tis wrong.”
“What’s right week days is right Sundays,” replied her mistress in a
tone which was a proof in itself.
The book was opened—the leaves, drab with age, being quite worn away at
much-read verses by the forefingers of unpractised readers in former
days, where they were moved along under the line as an aid to the
vision. The special verse in the Book of Ruth was sought out by
Bathsheba, and the sublime words met her eye. They slightly thrilled
and abashed her. It was Wisdom in the abstract facing Folly in the
concrete. Folly in the concrete blushed, persisted in her intention,
and placed the key on the book. A rusty patch immediately upon the
verse, caused by previous pressure of an iron substance thereon, told
that this was not the first time the old volume had been used for the
purpose.
“Now keep steady, and be silent,” said Bathsheba.
The verse was repeated; the book turned round; Bathsheba blushed
guiltily.
“Who did you try?” said Liddy curiously.
“I shall not tell you.”
“Did you notice Mr. Boldwood’s doings in church this morning, miss?”
Liddy continued, adumbrating by the remark the track her thoughts had
taken.
“No, indeed,” said Bathsheba, with serene indifference.
“His pew is exactly opposite yours, miss.”
“I know it.”
“And you did not see his goings on!”
“Certainly I did not, I tell you.”
Liddy assumed a smaller physiognomy, and shut her lips decisively.
This move was unexpected, and proportionately disconcerting. “What did
he do?” Bathsheba said perforce.
“Didn’t turn his head to look at you once all the service.”
“Why should he?” again demanded her mistress, wearing a nettled look.
“I didn’t ask him to.”
“Oh no. But everybody else was noticing you; and it was odd he didn’t.
There, ’tis like him. Rich and gentlemanly, what does he care?”
Bathsheba dropped into a silence intended to express that she had
opinions on the matter too abstruse for Liddy’s comprehension, rather
than that she had nothing to say.
“Dear me—I had nearly forgotten the valentine I bought yesterday,” she
exclaimed at length.
“Valentine! who for, miss?” said Liddy. “Farmer Boldwood?”
It was the single name among all possible wrong ones that just at this
moment seemed to Bathsheba more pertinent than the right.
“Well, no. It is only for little Teddy Coggan. I have promised him
something, and this will be a pretty surprise for him. Liddy, you may
as well bring me my desk and I’ll direct it at once.”
Bathsheba took from her desk a gorgeously illuminated and embossed
design in post-octavo, which had been bought on the previous market-day
at the chief stationer’s in Casterbridge. In the centre was a small
oval enclosure; this was left blank, that the sender might insert
tender words more appropriate to the special occasion than any
generalities by a printer could possibly be.
“Here’s a place for writing,” said Bathsheba. “What shall I put?”
“Something of this sort, I should think,” returned Liddy promptly:—
“The rose is red,
The violet blue,
Carnation’s sweet,
And so are you.”
“Yes, that shall be it. It just suits itself to a chubby-faced child
like him,” said Bathsheba. She inserted the words in a small though
legible handwriting; enclosed the sheet in an envelope, and dipped her
pen for the direction.
“What fun it would be to send it to the stupid old Boldwood, and how he
would wonder!” said the irrepressible Liddy, lifting her eyebrows, and
indulging in an awful mirth on the verge of fear as she thought of the
moral and social magnitude of the man contemplated.
Bathsheba paused to regard the idea at full length. Boldwood’s had
begun to be a troublesome image—a species of Daniel in her kingdom who
persisted in kneeling eastward when reason and common sense said that
he might just as well follow suit with the rest, and afford her the
official glance of admiration which cost nothing at all. She was far
from being seriously concerned about his nonconformity. Still, it was
faintly depressing that the most dignified and valuable man in the
parish should withhold his eyes, and that a girl like Liddy should talk
about it. So Liddy’s idea was at first rather harassing than piquant.
“No, I won’t do that. He wouldn’t see any humour in it.”
“He’d worry to death,” said the persistent Liddy.
“Really, I don’t care particularly to send it to Teddy,” remarked her
mistress. “He’s rather a naughty child sometimes.”
“Yes—that he is.”
“Let’s toss as men do,” said Bathsheba, idly. “Now then, head,
Boldwood; tail, Teddy. No, we won’t toss money on a Sunday, that would
be tempting the devil indeed.”
“Toss this hymn-book; there can’t be no sinfulness in that, miss.”
“Very well. Open, Boldwood—shut, Teddy. No; it’s more likely to fall
open. Open, Teddy—shut, Boldwood.”
The book went fluttering in the air and came down shut.
Bathsheba, a small yawn upon her mouth, took the pen, and with off-hand
serenity directed the missive to Boldwood.
“Now light a candle, Liddy. Which seal shall we use? Here’s a unicorn’s
head—there’s nothing in that. What’s this?—two doves—no. It ought to be
something extraordinary, ought it not, Liddy? Here’s one with a motto—I
remember it is some funny one, but I can’t read it. We’ll try this, and
if it doesn’t do we’ll have another.”