Far from the Madding Crowd Read online

“No; nobody knew it. I believe he was higher in rank than a private.”

  Gabriel remained musing and said nothing, for he was in doubt. The young woman he had met on his first night of employment had seemed to him to be far too weak and sickly to have run after her lover.

  “Well, we are not likely to know more to-night, at any rate,” said Bathsheba. “But one of you had better run across to Farmer Boldwood’s and tell him that much.”

  She then rose; but before retiring, addressed a few words to them with a pretty dignity, to which her mourning dress added a soberness that was hardly to be found in the words themselves.

  “Now mind, you have a mistress instead of a master. I don’t yet know my powers or my talents in farming; but I shall do my best, and if you serve me well, so shall I serve you. Don’t any unfair ones among you (if there are any such, but I hope not) suppose that because I’m a woman I don’t understand the difference between bad goings-on and good.”

  (All.) “No’m!”

  (Liddy.) “Excellent well said.”

  “I shall be up before you are awake; I shall be afield before you are up; and I shall have breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all.”

  (All.) “Yes’m!”

  “And so good-night.”

  (All.) “Good-night, ma’am.”

  Then this small domestic magistrate stepped from the table, and surged out of the hall, her black silk dress licking up a few straws and dragging them along with a scratching noise upon the floor. Liddy, elevating her feelings to the occasion from a sense of grandeur, floated off behind Bathsheba with a milder dignity not entirely free from travesty, and the door was closed.

  The men drew away, some to waste their new coins at the maltster’s, and some, like Laban Tall, to be promptly marched home, undressed and bedded by their possessive spouses.

  Maryann, arms akimbo, surveyed the field, like a colonel taking a roll call of her remaining troops. Her eye lighted on the new man, who stood with his hat in his hand, undecided whether to go with his fellows or seek his rest.

  “Well, well, Andrew Randle,” she greeted him, “and are you a married man?”

  “Nnn-no mem.”

  “Be there any young lady you walk out with on summer evenings?” pursued his questioner, drawing closer and allowing him a generous glimpse of her stocking as she pretended to remove a straw from her dress.

  For answer, he only shook his head, and this mild exertion caused him to drop the hat he had held so nervously in front of him. Maryann moved to him as quickly and as smoothly as an adder in summer, to bend and pick up the hat, and offer it to him — only for him to find, as he reached towards it, that she skipped girlishly away. He followed — she retreated. He followed her yet closer, and finding himself among the hay bales with his quarry cornered, thought to have his property returned, but, as the last light of day faded, she grasped the edge of his shepherd’s smock and fell upon her back, pulling him down upon her and holding his head hard between her sinewy fingers, pressing upon him lingering kisses that with their desperate heat and urgency played instant havoc with his swelling manhood.

  “You are new to this sport, shepherd?” she panted, wriggling out from beneath him, lifting her shift to reveal no undergarments, but white legs and a whiter belly, between which that dark triangle and all its mysteries were revealed. Luckily for Andrew, she had no need of an answer; his very ignorance aroused her and sent her the more swiftly to her work of seducing and possessing him. Words had long ago deserted him; he felt a drowsy numbness where his conscience had been but a moment before, and it was easy to lie down and let be, allowing his trousers to be unbuttoned, his arching manhood to be exposed, and his thudding heart to rise to a gallop as she slid herself sinously down his body, to take in her expert mouth his straining cock, gently nipping and teasing at its delicate tip until he felt he must explode with the force of his need; only then, at the last minute, did she open her wet purse to him, pulling him deep into her, moving her bony hips against his, bucking as he arched and thrust, and drawing forth from him endless convulsions of joy.

  They fell apart, and yet she still panted, moving amongst the hay bales with her hand between her legs. A few brief seconds she lay thus, while he came to himself, and began to frame in his slow mind some suitable conversation; but she, this formidable mistress of pleasure, suddenly stunned him to silence by her own long, aching cry of release. It was not like any human cry he had ever heard — rather it was the weird wailing of the vixen seeking her mate on a winter night, and its unearthly force made the small hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention.

  “Why, Andrew,” said this terrifying chameleon creature, leaning upon her elbow, smiling and stroking his shrinking cock, that withdrew into itself like a hermit crab as her long fingers once again advanced upon it with but one purpose, “are you to be satisfied with that mere prelude? A proper man! I have known some do it three or four times in a row, and still come back for more. Have you no manhood, no muscle down there?”

  This appeal to manhood stirred him — but not to further amorous exploration. She had taken advantage of his good nature, and he felt a justified anger in repelling her advances. Stumbling to his feet, clutching his garments, his hat forgotten, he mumbled his goodnights and left her to her thoughts.

  Maryann sighed as she picked herself up from the tumbled hay bale and wondered once again why it was that her eagerness, her undoubted skill, and her good will towards men should always have the same unsatisfactory outcome.

  CHAPTER XI

  OUTSIDE THE BARRACKS — SNOW — A MEETING

  For dreariness nothing could surpass a prospect in the outskirts of a certain town and military station, many miles north of Weatherbury, at a later hour on this same snowy evening — if that may be called a prospect of which the chief constituent was darkness.

  It was a night when sorrow may come to the brightest without causing any great sense of incongruity: when, with impressible persons, love becomes solicitousness, hope sinks to misgiving, and faith to hope: when the exercise of memory does not stir feelings of regret at opportunities for ambition that have been passed by, and anticipation does not prompt to enterprise.

  The scene was a public path, bordered on the left hand by a river, behind which rose a high wall. On the right was a tract of land, partly meadow and partly moor, reaching, at its remote verge, to a wide undulating upland.

  The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on spots of this kind than amid woodland scenery. Still, to a close observer, they are just as perceptible; the difference is that their media of manifestation are less trite and familiar than such well-known ones as the bursting of the buds or the fall of the leaf. Many are not so stealthy and gradual as we may be apt to imagine in considering the general torpidity of a moor or waste. Winter, in coming to the country hereabout, advanced in well-marked stages, wherein might have been successively observed the retreat of the snakes, the transformation of the ferns, the filling of the pools, a rising of fogs, the embrowning by frost, the collapse of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow.

  This climax of the series had been reached to-night on the aforesaid moor, and for the first time in the season its irregularities were forms without features; suggestive of anything, proclaiming nothing, and without more character than that of being the limit of something else — the lowest layer of a firmament of snow. From this chaotic skyful of crowding flakes the mead and moor momentarily received additional clothing, only to appear momentarily more naked thereby. The vast arch of cloud above was strangely low, and formed as it were the roof of a large dark cavern, gradually sinking in upon its floor; for the instinctive thought was that the snow lining the heavens and that encrusting the earth would soon unite into one mass without any intervening stratum of air at all.

  We turn our attention to the left-hand characteristics; which
were flatness in respect of the river, verticality in respect of the wall behind it, and darkness as to both. These features made up the mass. If anything could be darker than the sky, it was the wall, and if anything could be gloomier than the wall it was the river beneath. The indistinct summit of the facade was notched and pronged by chimneys here and there, and upon its face were faintly signified the oblong shapes of windows, though only in the upper part. Below, down to the water’s edge, the flat was unbroken by hole or projection.

  An indescribable succession of dull blows, perplexing in their regularity, sent their sound with difficulty through the fluffy atmosphere. It was a neighbouring clock striking ten. The bell was in the open air, and being overlaid with several inches of muffling snow, had lost its voice for the time.

  About this hour the snow abated: ten flakes fell where twenty had fallen, then one had the room of ten. Not long after a form moved by the brink of the river.

  By its outline upon the colourless background, a close observer might have seen that it was small. This was all that was positively discoverable, though it seemed human.

  The shape went slowly along, but without much exertion, for the snow, though sudden, was not as yet more than two inches deep. At this time some words were spoken aloud. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”

  Between each utterance the little shape advanced about half a dozen yards. It was evident now that the windows high in the wall were being counted. The word “Five” represented the fifth window from the end of the wall.

  Here the spot stopped, and dwindled smaller. The figure was stooping. Then a morsel of snow flew across the river towards the fifth window. It smacked against the wall at a point several yards from its mark. The throw was the idea of a man conjoined with the execution of a woman. No man who had ever seen bird, rabbit, or squirrel in his childhood, could possibly have thrown with such utter imbecility as was shown here.

  Another attempt, and another; till by degrees the wall must have become pimpled with the adhering lumps of snow. At last one fragment struck the fifth window.

  The river would have been seen by day to be of that deep smooth sort which races middle and sides with the same gliding precision, any irregularities of speed being immediately corrected by a small whirlpool. Nothing was heard in reply to the signal but the gurgle and cluck of one of these invisible wheels — together with a few small sounds which a sad man would have called moans, and a happy man laughter — caused by the flapping of the waters against trifling objects in other parts of the stream.

  The window was struck again in the same manner.

  Then a noise was heard, apparently produced by the opening of the window. This was followed by a voice from the same quarter.

  “Who’s there?”

  The tones were masculine, and not those of surprise. The high wall being that of a barrack, and marriage being looked upon with disfavour in the army, assignations and communications had probably been made across the river before to-night.

  “Is it Sergeant Troy?” said the blurred spot in the snow, tremulously.

  This person was so much like a mere shade upon the earth, and the other speaker so much a part of the building, that one would have said the wall was holding a conversation with the snow.

  “Yes,” came suspiciously from the shadow. “What girl are you?”

  “Oh, Frank — don’t you know me?” said the spot. “Your wife — Fanny Robin.”

  “Fanny!” said the wall, in utter astonishment.

  “Yes,” said the girl, with a half-suppressed gasp of emotion.

  There was something in the woman’s tone which is not that of the wife, and there was a manner in the man which is rarely a husband’s. The dialogue went on:

  “How did you come here?”

  “I asked which was your window. Forgive me!”

  “I did not expect you to-night. Indeed, I did not think you would come at all. It was a wonder you found me here. I am orderly to-morrow.”

  “You said I was to come.”

  “Well — I said that you might.”

  “Yes, I mean that I might. You are glad to see me, Frank?”

  “Oh yes — of course.”

  “Can you — come to me!”

  My dear Fan, no! The bugle has sounded, the barrack gates are closed, and I have no leave. We are all of us as good as in the county gaol till to-morrow morning.”

  “Then I shan’t see you till then!” The words were in a faltering tone of disappointment.

  “How did you get here from Weatherbury?”

  “I walked — some part of the way — the rest by the carriers.”

  “I am surprised.”

  “Yes — so am I. And Frank, when will it be?”

  “What?”

  “That you promised.”

  “I don’t quite recollect.”

  “O, you do! Don’t speak like that. It weighs me to the earth. It makes me say what ought to be said first by you.”

  “Never mind — say it.”

  “O, must I? — it is, when shall we be married, Frank?”

  “Oh, I see. Well — you have to get proper clothes.”

  “I have money put by for them. Will it be by banns or license?”

  “Banns, I should think.”

  “And we live in two parishes.”

  “Do we? What then?”

  “My lodgings are in St. Mary’s, and this is not. So they will have to be published in both.”

  “Is that the law?”

  “Yes. O Frank — you think me forward, I am afraid! Don’t, dear Frank — will you — for I love you so. And you said lots of times you would marry me, and — and — I — I — I — ”

  “Don’t cry, now! It is foolish. If I said so, of course I will.”

  “And shall I put up the banns in my parish, and will you in yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “To-morrow?”

  “Not to-morrow. We’ll settle in a few days.”

  “You have the permission of the officers?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “O — how is it? You said you almost had before you left Casterbridge.”

  “The fact is, I forgot to ask. Your coming like this is so sudden and unexpected.”

  “Yes — yes — it is. It was wrong of me to worry you. I’ll go away now. Will you come and see me to-morrow, at Mrs. Twills’s, in North Street? I don’t like to come to the Barracks. There are bad women about, and they think me one.”

  “Quite, so. I’ll come to you, my dear. Good-night.”

  “Good-night, Frank — good-night!”

  And the noise was again heard of a window closing. The little spot moved away. When she passed the corner a subdued exclamation was heard inside the wall.

  “Ho — ho — Sergeant — ho — ho!” An expostulation followed, but it was indistinct; and it became lost amid a low peal of laughter, which was hardly distinguishable from the gurgle of the tiny whirlpools outside.

  Poor Fanny had long dreamed of this night’s encounter, hoping that his desire and honest love for her would in an instant overcome all obstacles; but she returned alone to Mrs Twill’s, and having no money to spare for fuel, resolved to manage without a fire, but to draw the thin quilt over her and keep herself warm with remembrances. Her material for such reminiscence was meagre enough, but she seized on it as eagerly as a child, embroidering the sparse tissues with all the colours of her impressionable mind. That first meeting, in Weatherbury, when he had carried her basket for her; a walk in the meadow behind the farm at Yarlbury, when she had first felt the pangs of love — o, and the sweetness of that first lingering kiss, when he had offered her his sword, to plunge into his bosom if he did not speak true, that she was his sweetheart? All these warmed Fanny’s tender heart, as
she shivered beneath the quilt, and like a greedy child with a fistful of bonbons, she could not stop, but eagerly devoured the memories as they came into her head.

  That first time he had loved her, her deflowering; how could she have resisted him a moment longer? And, having once given herself so freely and entirely to him, what harm to profess her feelings? Had he not, in between his burning kisses and endearments, sworn in return that he loved her too, and that, having no wish to disgrace her, they would be married as soon as he was on furlough?

  Her cheeks grew warm with the remembrance of his questing mouth, the heat of his darting tongue, the manly passions of his naked embrace. She bethought herself of how he had wound a small lock of her golden hair round his finger, kissing it a hundred times, and, lifting her face to his, had kissed her passionately, deeply, sincerely, as she, with her bodice undone and her breasts quite exposed, strained towards him, all maidenly modesty laid aside.

  And Fanny remembered with shivering joy another time, when he had promised to show her his skill with the sword, in the fresh open air, with the birds singing, and herself the only audience. How he had moved her with his exquisite swordplay! He had seemed almost godlike. And had he not promised that he would keep forever next to his heart that lock of her hair he had so skilfully stolen with one keen stroke of his blade? Had he, she wondered, kept that lock of hair, and did he wear it still?

  How wonderful, and how terrible it had been that first time, to feel she held all his force, his power, his happiness in her small hand. How intense his look of joy, as he pierced her to her core, and how she, a modest young woman, raised to a height of ecstasy she had never thought possible, had cried aloud for pleasure; how gratified he had been to hear her say she wished for no other lover, no other husband, but him. She was his, now, till death should part them, and all she desired was to hold him close, and express her devotion, by her words, her deeds, and her yielding body.

  And Troy? Did he think as much and as fondly of her? Indeed, the image of her eager face and soft limbs came to him with the force of a dream as he lay on his hard soldier’s pallet, thinking of the morrow. She wanted only to be his wife before God — and was not that a small price to pay for her constancy and adoration? Fanny was true of heart, but better yet, she was all softness, yielding, and gentleness — rare qualities in any woman — and if he was guilty of her ruin, why then, nothing for it but to pay the price. Tomorrow night she would stand, silent and compliant before him, naked in the candlelight, and he would give himself to her, to seal their troth, and by God! he would marry her, and henceforth fuck only her, ceasing to be distracted by other beauties.