by Thomas Hardy
Among these heavy yeomen a feminine figure glided, the single one of her sex that the room contained. She was prettily and even daintily dressed. She moved between them as a chaise between carts, was heard after them as a romance after sermons, was felt among them like a breeze among furnaces. It had required a little determination — far more than she had at first imagined — to take up a position here, for at her first entry the lumbering dialogues had ceased, nearly every face had been turned towards her, and those that were already turned rigidly fixed there.
Two or three only of the farmers were personally known to Bathsheba, and to these she had made her way. But if she was to be the practical woman she had intended to show herself, business must be carried on, introductions or none, and she ultimately acquired confidence enough to speak and reply boldly to men merely known to her by hearsay. Bathsheba too had her sample-bags, and by degrees adopted the professional pour into the hand — holding up the grains in her narrow palm for inspection, in perfect Casterbridge manner.
Something in the exact arch of her upper unbroken row of teeth, and in the keenly pointed corners of her red mouth when, with parted lips, she somewhat defiantly turned up her face to argue a point with a tall man, suggested that there was potentiality enough in that lithe slip of humanity for alarming exploits of sex, and daring enough to carry them out. But her eyes had a softness — invariably a softness — which, had they not been dark, would have seemed mistiness; as they were, it lowered an expression that might have been piercing to simple clearness.
Strange to say of a woman in full bloom and vigor, she always allowed her interlocutors to finish their statements before rejoining with hers. In arguing on prices, she held to her own firmly, as was natural in a dealer, and reduced theirs persistently, as was inevitable in a woman. But there was an elasticity in her firmness which removed it from obstinacy, as there was a naïveté in her cheapening which saved it from meanness.
Those of the farmers with whom she had no dealings (by far the greater part) were continually asking each other, “Who is she?” The reply would be —
“Farmer Everdene’s niece; took on Weatherbury Upper Farm; turned away the baily, and swears she’ll do everything herself.”
The other man would then shake his head.
“Yes, ‘tis a pity she’s so headstrong,” the first would say. “But we ought to be proud of her here — she lightens up the old place. ‘Tis such a shapely maid, however, that she’ll soon get picked up.”
It would be ungallant to suggest that the novelty of her engagement in such an occupation had almost as much to do with the magnetism as had the beauty of her face and movements. However, the interest was general, and this Saturday’s début in the forum, whatever it may have been to Bathsheba as the buying and selling farmer, was unquestionably a triumph to her as the maiden. Indeed, the sensation was so pronounced that her instinct on two or three occasions was merely to walk as a queen among these gods of the fallow, like a little sister of a little 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.”
A large red seal was duly affixed. Bathsheba looked closely at the hot wax to discover the words.
“Capital!” she exclaimed, throwing down the letter frolicsomely. “‘Twould upset the solemnity of a parson and clerke too.”
Liddy looked at the words of the seal, and read —
“Marry Me.”
The same evening the letter was sent, and was duly sorted in Casterbridge post-office that night, to be returned to Weatherbury again in the morning.
So very idly and unreflectingly was this deed done. Of love as a spectacle Bathsheba had a fair knowledge; but of love subjectively she knew nothing.
CHAPTER XIV
EFFECT OF THE LETTER — SUNRISE
At dusk, on the evening of St. Valentine’s Day, Boldwood sat down to supper as usual, by a beaming fire of aged logs. Upon the mantel-shelf before him was a time-pi
ece, surmounted by a spread eagle, and upon the eagle’s wings was the letter Bathsheba had sent. Here the bachelor’s gaze was continually fastening itself, till the large red seal became as a blot of blood on the retina of his eye; and as he ate and drank he still read in fancy the words thereon, although they were too remote for his sight —
“Marry Me.”
The pert injunction was like those crystal substances which, colourless themselves, assume the tone of objects about them. Here, in the quiet of Boldwood’s parlour, where everything that was not grave was extraneous, and where the atmosphere was that of a Puritan Sunday lasting all the week, the letter and its dictum changed their tenor from the thoughtlessness of their origin to a deep solemnity, imbibed from their accessories now.
Since the receipt of the missive in the morning, Boldwood had felt the symmetry of his existence to be slowly getting distorted in the direction of an ideal passion. The disturbance was as the first floating weed to Columbus — the contemptibly little suggesting possibilities of the infinitely great.
The letter must have had an origin and a motive. That the latter was of the smallest magnitude compatible with its existence at all, Boldwood, of course, did not know. And such an explanation did not strike him as a possibility even. It is foreign to a mystified condition of mind to realise of the mystifier that the processes of approving a course suggested by circumstance, and of striking out a course from inner impulse, would look the same in the result. The vast difference between starting a train of events, and directing into a particular groove a series already started, is rarely apparent to the person confounded by the issue.