Far from the Madding Crowd
Meanwhile Boldwood said, taking up the note from her lap—
“Don’t you wish to read it, Mrs. Troy? If not, I’ll destroy it.”
“Oh, well,” said Bathsheba, carelessly, “perhaps it is unjust not to
read it; but I can guess what it is about. He wants me to recommend
him, or it is to tell me of some little scandal or another connected
with my work-people. He’s always doing that.”
Bathsheba held the note in her right hand. Boldwood handed towards her
a plate of cut bread-and-butter; when, in order to take a slice, she
put the note into her left hand, where she was still holding the purse,
and then allowed her hand to drop beside her close to the canvas. The
moment had come for saving his game, and Troy impulsively felt that he
would play the card. For yet another time he looked at the fair hand,
and saw the pink finger-tips, and the blue veins of the wrist,
encircled by a bracelet of coral chippings which she wore: how familiar
it all was to him! Then, with the lightning action in which he was such
an adept, he noiselessly slipped his hand under the bottom of the
tent-cloth, which was far from being pinned tightly down, lifted it a
little way, keeping his eye to the hole, snatched the note from her
fingers, dropped the canvas, and ran away in the gloom towards the bank
and ditch, smiling at the scream of astonishment which burst from her.
Troy then slid down on the outside of the rampart, hastened round in
the bottom of the entrenchment to a distance of a hundred yards,
ascended again, and crossed boldly in a slow walk towards the front
entrance of the tent. His object was now to get to Pennyways, and
prevent a repetition of the announcement until such time as he should
choose.
Troy reached the tent door, and standing among the groups there
gathered, looked anxiously for Pennyways, evidently not wishing to make
himself prominent by inquiring for him. One or two men were speaking of
a daring attempt that had just been made to rob a young lady by lifting
the canvas of the tent beside her. It was supposed that the rogue had
imagined a slip of paper which she held in her hand to be a bank note,
for he had seized it, and made off with it, leaving her purse behind.
His chagrin and disappointment at discovering its worthlessness would
be a good joke, it was said. However, the occurrence seemed to have
become known to few, for it had not interrupted a fiddler, who had
lately begun playing by the door of the tent, nor the four bowed old
men with grim countenances and walking-sticks in hand, who were dancing
“Major Malley’s Reel” to the tune. Behind these stood Pennyways. Troy
glided up to him, beckoned, and whispered a few words; and with a
mutual glance of concurrence the two men went into the night together.
CHAPTER LI
BATHSHEBA TALKS WITH HER OUTRIDER
The arrangement for getting back again to Weatherbury had been that Oak
should take the place of Poorgrass in Bathsheba’s conveyance and drive
her home, it being discovered late in the afternoon that Joseph was
suffering from his old complaint, a multiplying eye, and was,
therefore, hardly trustworthy as coachman and protector to a woman. But
Oak had found himself so occupied, and was full of so many cares
relative to those portions of Boldwood’s flocks that were not disposed
of, that Bathsheba, without telling Oak or anybody, resolved to drive
home herself, as she had many times done from Casterbridge Market, and
trust to her good angel for performing the journey unmolested. But
having fallen in with Farmer Boldwood accidentally (on her part at
least) at the refreshment-tent, she found it impossible to refuse his
offer to ride on horseback beside her as escort. It had grown twilight
before she was aware, but Boldwood assured her that there was no cause
for uneasiness, as the moon would be up in half-an-hour.
Immediately after the incident in the tent, she had risen to go—now
absolutely alarmed and really grateful for her old lover’s
protection—though regretting Gabriel’s absence, whose company she would
have much preferred, as being more proper as well as more pleasant,
since he was her own managing-man and servant. This, however, could not
be helped; she would not, on any consideration, treat Boldwood harshly,
having once already ill-used him, and the moon having risen, and the
gig being ready, she drove across the hilltop in the wending way’s
which led downwards—to oblivious obscurity, as it seemed, for the moon
and the hill it flooded with light were in appearance on a level, the
rest of the world lying as a vast shady concave between them. Boldwood
mounted his horse, and followed in close attendance behind. Thus they
descended into the lowlands, and the sounds of those left on the hill
came like voices from the sky, and the lights were as those of a camp
in heaven. They soon passed the merry stragglers in the immediate
vicinity of the hill, traversed Kingsbere, and got upon the high road.
The keen instincts of Bathsheba had perceived that the farmer’s staunch
devotion to herself was still undiminished, and she sympathized deeply.
The sight had quite depressed her this evening; had reminded her of her
folly; she wished anew, as she had wished many months ago, for some
means of making reparation for her fault. Hence her pity for the man
who so persistently loved on to his own injury and permanent gloom had
betrayed Bathsheba into an injudicious considerateness of manner, which
appeared almost like tenderness, and gave new vigour to the exquisite
dream of a Jacob’s seven years service in poor Boldwood’s mind.
He soon found an excuse for advancing from his position in the rear,
and rode close by her side. They had gone two or three miles in the
moonlight, speaking desultorily across the wheel of her gig concerning
the fair, farming, Oak’s usefulness to them both, and other indifferent
subjects, when Boldwood said suddenly and simply—
“Mrs. Troy, you will marry again some day?”
This point-blank query unmistakably confused her, and it was not till a
minute or more had elapsed that she said, “I have not seriously thought
of any such subject.”
“I quite understand that. Yet your late husband has been dead nearly
one year, and—”
“You forget that his death was never absolutely proved, and may not
have taken place; so that I may not be really a widow,” she said,
catching at the straw of escape that the fact afforded.
“Not absolutely proved, perhaps, but it was proved circumstantially. A
man saw him drowning, too. No reasonable person has any doubt of his
death; nor have you, ma’am, I should imagine.”
“I have none now, or I should have acted differently,” she said,
gently. “I certainly, at first, had a strange unaccountable feeling
that he could not have perished, but I have been able to explain that
in several ways since. But though I am fully persuaded that I shall see
him no more, I am far from thinking of marriage with another. I should
be very contemptible to indulge in such a thought.”
They were silent now awhile, and having struck into an unfrequented
track across a common, the creaks of Boldwood’s saddle and her gig
springs were all the sounds to be heard. Boldwood ended the pause.
“Do you remember when I carried you fainting in my arms into the King’s
Arms, in Casterbridge? Every dog has his day: that was mine.”
“I know—I know it all,” she said, hurriedly.
“I, for one, shall never cease regretting that events so fell out as to
deny you to me.”
“I, too, am very sorry,” she said, and then checked herself. “I mean,
you know, I am sorry you thought I—”
“I have always this dreary pleasure in thinking over those past times
with you—that I was something to you before _he_ was anything, and that
you belonged _almost_ to me. But, of course, that’s nothing. You never
liked me.”
“I did; and respected you, too.”
“Do you now?”
“Yes.”
“Which?”
“How do you mean which?”
“Do you like me, or do you respect me?”
“I don’t know—at least, I cannot tell you. It is difficult for a woman
to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to
express theirs. My treatment of you was thoughtless, inexcusable,
wicked! I shall eternally regret it. If there had been anything I could
have done to make amends I would most gladly have done it—there was
nothing on earth I so longed to do as to repair the error. But that was
not possible.”
“Don’t blame yourself—you were not so far in the wrong as you suppose.
Bathsheba, suppose you had real complete proof that you are what, in
fact, you are—a widow—would you repair the old wrong to me by marrying
me?”
“I cannot say. I shouldn’t yet, at any rate.”
“But you might at some future time of your life?”
“Oh yes, I might at some time.”
“Well, then, do you know that without further proof of any kind you may
marry again in about six years from the present—subject to nobody’s
objection or blame?”
“Oh yes,” she said, quickly. “I know all that. But don’t talk of
it—seven or six years—where may we all be by that time?”
“They will soon glide by, and it will seem an astonishingly short time
to look back upon when they are past—much less than to look forward to
now.”
“Yes, yes; I have found that in my own experience.”
“Now listen once more,” Boldwood pleaded. “If I wait that time, will
you marry me? You own that you owe me amends—let that be your way of
making them.”
“But, Mr. Boldwood—six years—”
“Do you want to be the wife of any other man?”
“No indeed! I mean, that I don’t like to talk about this matter now.
Perhaps it is not proper, and I ought not to allow it. Let us drop it.
My husband may be living, as I said.”
“Of course, I’ll drop the subject if you wish. But propriety has
nothing to do with reasons. I am a middle-aged man, willing to protect
you for the remainder of our lives. On your side, at least, there is no
passion or blamable haste—on mine, perhaps, there is. But I can’t help
seeing that if you choose from a feeling of pity, and, as you say, a
wish to make amends, to make a bargain with me for a far-ahead time—an
agreement which will set all things right and make me happy, late
though it may be—there is no fault to be found with you as a woman.
Hadn’t I the first place beside you? Haven’t you been almost mine once
already? Surely you can say to me as much as this, you will have me
back again should circumstances permit? Now, pray speak! O Bathsheba,
promise—it is only a little promise—that if you marry again, you will
marry me!”
His tone was so excited that she almost feared him at this moment, even
whilst she sympathized. It was a simple physical fear—the weak of the
strong; there was no emotional aversion or inner repugnance. She said,
with some distress in her voice, for she remembered vividly his
outburst on the Yalbury Road, and shrank from a repetition of his
anger:—
“I will never marry another man whilst you wish me to be your wife,
whatever comes—but to say more—you have taken me so by surprise—”
“But let it stand in these simple words—that in six years’ time you
will be my wife? Unexpected accidents we’ll not mention, because those,
of course, must be given way to. Now, this time I know you will keep
your word.”
“That’s why I hesitate to give it.”
“But do give it! Remember the past, and be kind.”
She breathed; and then said mournfully: “Oh what shall I do? I don’t
love you, and I much fear that I never shall love you as much as a
woman ought to love a husband. If you, sir, know that, and I can yet
give you happiness by a mere promise to marry at the end of six years,
if my husband should not come back, it is a great honour to me. And if
you value such an act of friendship from a woman who doesn’t esteem
herself as she did, and has little love left, why I—I will—”
“Promise!”