Far from the Madding Crowd Page 33

  Here she lay, a shapeless heap, for ten minutes and more. The morning wind began to boom dully over the flats, and to move afresh dead leaves which had lain still since yesterday. The woman desperately turned round upon her knees, and next rose to her feet. Steadying herself by the help of one crutch, she essayed a step, then another, then a third, using the crutches now as walking-sticks only. Thus she progressed till descending Mellstock Hill another milestone appeared, and soon the beginning of an iron-railed fence came into view. She staggered across to the first post, clung to it, and looked around.

  The Casterbridge lights were now individually visible, It was getting towards morning, and vehicles might be hoped for, if not expected soon. She listened. There was not a sound of life save that acme and sublimation of all dismal sounds, the bark of a fox, its three hollow notes being rendered at intervals of a minute with the precision of a funeral bell.

  “Less than a mile!” the woman murmured. “No; more,” she added, after a pause. “The mile is to the county hall, and my resting-place is on the other side Casterbridge. A little over a mile, and there I am!” After an interval she again spoke. “Five or six steps to a yard — six perhaps. I have to go seventeen hundred yards. A hundred times six, six hundred. Seventeen times that. O pity me, Lord!”

  Holding to the rails, she advanced, thrusting one hand forward upon the rail, then the other, then leaning over it whilst she dragged her feet on beneath.

  This woman was not given to soliloquy; but extremity of feeling lessens the individuality of the weak, as it increases that of the strong. She said again in the same tone, “I’ll believe that the end lies five posts forward, and no further, and so get strength to pass them.”

  This was a practical application of the principle that a half-feigned and fictitious faith is better than no faith at all.

  She passed five posts and held on to the fifth.

  “I’ll pass five more by believing my longed-for spot is at the next fifth. I can do it.”

  She passed five more.

  “It lies only five further.”

  She passed five more.

  “But it is five further.”

  She passed them.

  “That stone bridge is the end of my journey,” she said, when the bridge over the Froom was in view.

  She crawled to the bridge. During the effort each breath of the woman went into the air as if never to return again.

  “Now for the truth of the matter,” she said, sitting down. “The truth is, that I have less than half a mile.” Self-beguilement with what she had known all the time to be false had given her strength to come over half a mile that she would have been powerless to face in the lump. The artifice showed that the woman, by some mysterious intuition, had grasped the paradoxical truth that blindness may operate more vigorously than prescience, and the short-sighted effect more than the far-seeing; that limitation, and not comprehensiveness, is needed for striking a blow.

  The half-mile stood now before the sick and weary woman like a stolid Juggernaut. It was an impassive King of her world. The road here ran across Durnover Moor, open to the road on either side. She surveyed the wide space, the lights, herself, sighed, and lay down against a guard-stone of the bridge.

  Never was ingenuity exercised so sorely as the traveller here exercised hers. Every conceivable aid, method, stratagem, mechanism, by which these last desperate eight hundred yards could be overpassed by a human being unperceived, was revolved in her busy brain, and dismissed as impracticable. She thought of sticks, wheels, crawling — she even thought of rolling. But the exertion demanded by either of these latter two was greater than to walk erect. The faculty of contrivance was worn out. Hopelessness had come at last.

  “No further!” she whispered, and closed her eyes.

  From the stripe of shadow on the opposite side of the bridge a portion of shade seemed to detach itself and move into isolation upon the pale white of the road. It glided noiselessly towards the recumbent woman.

  She became conscious of something touching her hand; it was softness and it was warmth. She opened her eyes, and the substance touched her face. A dog was licking her cheek.

  He was a huge, heavy, and quiet creature, standing darkly against the low horizon, and at least two feet higher than the present position of her eyes. Whether Newfoundland, mastiff, bloodhound, or what not, it was impossible to say. He seemed to be of too strange and mysterious a nature to belong to any variety among those of popular nomenclature. Being thus assignable to no breed, he was the ideal embodiment of canine greatness — a generalization from what was common to all. Night, in its sad, solemn, and benevolent aspect, apart from its stealthy and cruel side, was personified in this form. Darkness endows the small and ordinary ones among mankind with poetical power, and even the suffering woman threw her idea into figure.

  In her reclining position she looked up to him just as in earlier times she had, when standing, looked up to a man. The animal, who was as homeless as she, respectfully withdrew a step or two when the woman moved, and, seeing that she did not repulse him, he licked her hand again.

  A thought moved within her like lightning. “Perhaps I can make use of him — I might do it then!”

  She pointed in the direction of Casterbridge, and the dog seemed to misunderstand: he trotted on. Then, finding she could not follow, he came back and whined.

  The ultimate and saddest singularity of woman’s effort and invention was reached when, with a quickened breathing, she rose to a stooping posture, and, resting her two little arms upon the shoulders of the dog, leant firmly thereon, and murmured stimulating words. Whilst she sorrowed in her heart she cheered with her voice, and what was stranger than that the strong should need encouragement from the weak was that cheerfulness should be so well stimulated by such utter dejection. Her friend moved forward slowly, and she with small mincing steps moved forward beside him, half her weight being thrown upon the animal.

  Sometimes she sank as she had sunk from walking erect, from the crutches, from the rails. The dog, who now thoroughly understood her desire and her incapacity, was frantic in his distress on these occasions; he would tug at her dress and run forward. She always called him back, and it was now to be observed that the woman listened for human sounds only to avoid them. It was evident that she had an object in keeping her presence on the road and her forlorn state unknown.

  Their progress was necessarily very slow. They reached the bottom of the town, and the Casterbridge lamps lay before them like fallen Pleiads as they turned to the left into the dense shade of a deserted avenue of chestnuts, and so skirted the borough. Thus the town was passed, and the goal was reached.

  On this much-desired spot outside the town rose a picturesque building. Originally it had been a mere case to hold people. The shell had been so thin, so devoid of excrescence, and so closely drawn over the accommodation granted, that the grim character of what was beneath showed through it, as the shape of a body is visible under a winding-sheet.

  Then Nature, as if offended, lent a hand. Masses of ivy grew up, completely covering the walls, till the place looked like an abbey; and it was discovered that the view from the front, over the Casterbridge chimneys, was one of the most magnificent in the county. A neighbouring earl once said that he would give up a year’s rental to have at his own door the view enjoyed by the inmates from theirs — and very probably the inmates would have given up the view for his year’s rental.

  This stone edifice consisted of a central mass and two wings, whereon stood as sentinels a few slim chimneys, now gurgling sorrowfully to the slow wind. In the wall was a gate, and by the gate a bellpull formed of a hanging wire. The woman raised herself as high as possible upon her knees, and could just reach the handle. She moved it and fell forwards in a bowed attitude, her face upon her bosom.

  It was getting on towards six o’clock, and sounds o
f movement were to be heard inside the building which was the haven of rest to this wearied soul. A little door by the large one was opened, and a man appeared inside. He discerned the panting heap of clothes, went back for a light, and came again. He entered a second time, and returned with two women.

  These lifted the prostrate figure and assisted her in through the doorway. The man then closed the door.

  “How did she get here?” said one of the women.

  “The Lord knows,” said the other.

  “There is a dog outside,” murmured the overcome traveller. “Where is he gone? He helped me.”

  “I stoned him away,” said the man.

  The little procession then moved forward — the man in front bearing the light, the two bony women next, supporting between them the small and supple one. Thus they entered the house and disappeared.

  CHAPTER XLI

  SUSPICION — FANNY IS SENT FOR

  Bathsheba said very little to her husband all that evening of their return from market, and he was not disposed to say much to her. He exhibited the unpleasant combination of a restless condition with a silent tongue. They retired to bed, and though her pride detested her need, she found herself wanting him, essayed to rouse him with her hand, but he pushed aside her advances, turning himself away from her, to sleep, as she thought — but alas! sleep did not come easily to Troy or his wife that night.

  The next day, which was Sunday, passed nearly in the same manner as regarded their taciturnity, Bathsheba going to church both morning and afternoon. This was the day before the Budmouth races. In the evening Troy said, suddenly —

  “Bathsheba, could you let me have twenty pounds?”

  Her countenance instantly sank. “Twenty pounds?” she said.

  “The fact is, I want it badly.” The anxiety upon Troy’s face was unusual and very marked. It was a culmination of the mood he had been in all the day.

  “Ah! for those races to-morrow.”

  Troy for the moment made no reply. Her mistake had its advantages to a man who shrank from having his mind inspected as he did now. “Well, suppose I do want it for races?” he said, at last.

  “Oh, Frank!” Bathsheba replied, and there was such a volume of entreaty in the words. “Only such a few weeks ago you said that I was far sweeter than all your other pleasures put together, and that you would give them all up for me; and now, won’t you give up this one, which is more a worry than a pleasure? Do, Frank. Come, let me fascinate you by all I can do — by pretty words and pretty looks, and everything I can think of — to stay at home. Say yes to your wife — say yes!”

  The tenderest and softest phases of Bathsheba’s nature were prominent now — advanced impulsively for his acceptance, without any of the disguises and defences which the wariness of her character when she was cool too frequently threw over them. Few men could have resisted the arch yet dignified entreaty of the beautiful face, thrown a little back and sideways in the well known attitude that expresses more than the words it accompanies, and which seems to have been designed for these special occasions. Had the woman not been his wife, Troy would have succumbed instantly; as it was, he thought he would not deceive her longer.

  “The money is not wanted for racing debts at all,” he said.

  “What is it for?” she asked. “You worry me a great deal by these mysterious responsibilities, Frank.”

  Troy hesitated. He did not now love her enough to allow himself to be carried too far by her ways. Yet it was necessary to be civil. “You wrong me by such a suspicious manner,” he said. “Such strait-waistcoating as you treat me to is not becoming in you at so early a date.”

  “I think that I have a right to grumble a little if I pay,” she said, with features between a smile and a pout.

  “Exactly; and, the former being done, suppose we proceed to the latter. Bathsheba, fun is all very well, but don’t go too far, or you may have cause to regret something.”

  She reddened. “I do that already,” she said, quickly.

  “What do you regret?”

  “That my romance has come to an end.”

  “All romances end at marriage.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. You grieve me to my soul by being smart at my expense.”

  “You are dull enough at mine. I believe you hate me.”

  “Not you — only your faults. I do hate them.”

  “’Twould be much more becoming if you set yourself to cure them. Come, let’s strike a balance with the twenty pounds, and be friends.”

  She gave a sigh of resignation. “I have about that sum here for household expenses. If you must have it, take it.”

  “Very good. Thank you. I expect I shall have gone away before you are in to breakfast to-morrow.”

  “And must you go? Ah! there was a time, Frank, when it would have taken a good many promises to other people to drag you away from me. You used to call me darling, then. But it doesn’t matter to you how my days are passed now.”

  “I must go, in spite of sentiment.” Troy, as he spoke, looked at his watch, and, apparently actuated by a spirit of contrariness, opened the case at the back, revealing, snugly stowed within it, a small coil of hair.

  Bathsheba’s eyes had been accidentally lifted at that moment, and she saw the action and saw the hair. She flushed in pain and surprise, and some words escaped her before she had thought whether or not it was wise to utter them. “A woman’s curl of hair!” she said. “Oh, Frank, whose is that?”

  Troy had instantly closed his watch. He carelessly replied, as one who cloaked some feelings that the sight had stirred. “Why, yours, of course. Whose should it be? I had quite forgotten that I had it.”

  “What a dreadful fib, Frank!”

  “I tell you I had forgotten it!” he said, loudly.

  “I don’t mean that — it was yellow hair.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “That’s insulting me. I know it was yellow. Now whose was it? I want to know.”

  “Very well — I’ll tell you, so make no more ado. It is the hair of a young woman I was going to marry before I knew you.”

  “You ought to tell me her name, then.”

  “I cannot do that.”

  “Is she married yet?”

  “No.”

  “Is she alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is wonderful how she can be, poor thing, under such an awful affliction!”

  “Affliction — what affliction?” he inquired, quickly.

  “Having hair of that dreadful colour.”

  “Oh — ho — I like that!” said Troy, recovering himself. “Why, her hair has been admired by everybody who has seen her since she has worn it loose, which has not been long. It is beautiful hair. People used to turn their heads to look at it, poor girl!”

  “Pooh! that’s nothing — that’s nothing!” she exclaimed, in incipient accents of pique. “If I cared for your love as much as I used to, I could say people had turned to look at mine.”

  “Bathsheba, don’t be so fitful and jealous. You knew what married life would be like, and shouldn’t have entered it if you feared these contingencies.”

  Troy had by this time driven her to bitterness: her heart was big in her throat, and the ducts to her eyes were painfully full. Ashamed as she was to show emotion, at last she burst out, “This is all I get for loving you so well! Ah! When I married you your life was dearer to me than my own. I would have died for you — how truly I can say that I would have died for you! And now you sneer at my foolishness in marrying you. O! Is it kind to me to throw my mistake in my face? Whatever opinion you may have of my wisdom, you should not tell me of it so mercilessly, now that I am in your power.”

  “I can’
t help how things fall out,” said Troy; “upon my heart, women will be the death of me!”

  “Well you shouldn’t keep people’s hair. You’ll burn it, won’t you, Frank?”

  Frank went on as if he had not heard her. “There are considerations even before my consideration for you; reparations to be made — ties you know nothing of. If you repent of marrying, so do I.”

  Trembling now, she put her hand upon his arm, saying, in mingled tones of wretchedness and coaxing, “I only repent it if you don’t love me better than any woman in the world! I don’t otherwise, Frank. You don’t repent because you already love somebody better than you love me, do you?”

  “I don’t know. Why do you say that?”

  “You won’t burn that curl. You like the woman who owns that pretty hair — yes; it is pretty — more beautiful than my miserable black mane! Well, it is no use; I can’t help being ugly. You must like her best, if you will!”

  “Until to-day, when I took it from a drawer, I have never looked upon that bit of hair for several months — that I am ready to swear.”

  “But just now you said ‘ties’; and then — that woman we met?”

  “’Twas the meeting with her that reminded me of the hair.”

  “Is it hers, then?”

  “Yes. There, now that you have wormed it out of me, I hope you are content.”

  “And what are the ties?”

  “Oh! that meant nothing — a mere jest.”

  “A mere jest!” she said, in mournful astonishment. “Can you jest when I am so wretchedly in earnest? Tell me the truth, Frank. I am not a fool, you know, although I am a woman, and have my woman’s moments. Come! treat me fairly,” she said, looking honestly and fearlessly into his face. “I don’t want much; bare justice — that’s all! Ah! once I felt I could be content with nothing less than the highest homage from the husband I should choose. Now, anything short of cruelty will content me. Yes! the independent and spirited Bathsheba is come to this!”