by Thomas Hardy
‘Then it was very unmannerly of him to trifle with her so,’ said Mrs. Loveday warmly. ‘Who did he give her up to?’
Festus replied with hesitation, ‘He gave her up to John.’
‘To John? How could he give her up to a man already over head and ears in love with that actress woman?’
‘O? You surprise me. Which actress is it?’
‘That Miss Johnson. Anne tells me that he loves her hopelessly.’
Festus arose. Miss Johnson seemed suddenly to acquire high value as a sweetheart at this announcement. He had himself felt a nameless attractiveness in her, and John had done likewise. John crossed his path in all possible ways.
Before the yeoman had replied somebody opened the door, and the firelight shone upon the uniform of the person they discussed. Festus nodded on recognizing him, wished Mrs. Loveday good evening, and went out precipitately.
‘So Bob told you he meant to break off with my Anne when he went away?’ Mrs. Loveday remarked to the trumpet-major. ‘I wish I had known of it before.’
John appeared disturbed at the sudden charge. He murmured that he could not deny it, and then hastily turned from her and followed Derriman, whom he saw before him on the bridge.
‘Derriman!’ he shouted.
Festus started and looked round. ‘Well, trumpet-major,’ he said blandly.
‘When will you have sense enough to mind your own business, and not come here telling things you have heard by sneaking behind people’s backs?’ demanded John hotly. ‘If you can’t learn in any other way, I shall have to pull your ears again, as I did the other day!’
‘You pull my ears? How can you tell that lie, when you know ‘twas somebody else pulled ‘em?’
‘O no, no. I pulled your ears, and thrashed you in a mild way.’
‘You’ll swear to it? Surely ‘twas another man?’
‘It was in the parlour at the public-house; you were almost in the dark.’ And John added a few details as to the particular blows, which amounted to proof itself.
‘Then I heartily ask your pardon for saying ‘twas a lie!’ cried Festus, advancing with extended hand and a genial smile. ‘Sure, if I had known ‘twas you, I wouldn’t have insulted you by denying it.’
‘That was why you didn’t challenge me, then?’
‘That was it! I wouldn’t for the world have hurt your nice sense of honour by letting ‘ee go unchallenged, if I had known! And now, you see, unfortunately I can’t mend the mistake. So long a time has passed since it happened that the heat of my temper is gone off. I couldn’t oblige ‘ee, try how I might, for I am not a man, trumpet-major, that can butcher in cold blood — no, not I, nor you neither, from what I know of ‘ee. So, willy-nilly, we must fain let it pass, eh?’
‘We must, I suppose,’ said John, smiling grimly. ‘Who did you think I was, then, that night when I boxed you all round?’
‘No, don’t press me,’ replied the yeoman. ‘I can’t reveal; it would be disgracing myself to show how very wide of the truth the mockery of wine was able to lead my senses. We will let it be buried in eternal mixens of forgetfulness.’
‘As you wish,’ said the trumpet-major loftily. ‘But if you ever should think you knew it was me, why, you know where to find me?’ And Loveday walked away.
The instant that he was gone Festus shook his fist at the evening star, which happened to lie in the same direction as that taken by the dragoon.
‘Now for my revenge! Duels? Lifelong disgrace to me if ever I fight with a man of blood below my own! There are other remedies for upper-class souls!. . . Matilda — that’s my way.’
Festus strode along till he reached the Hall, where Cripplestraw appeared gazing at him from under the arch of the porter’s lodge. Derriman dashed open the entrance-hurdle with such violence that the whole row of them fell flat in the mud.
‘Mercy, Maister Festus!’ said Cripplestraw. ‘“Surely,” I says to myself when I see ye a-coming, “surely Maister Festus is fuming like that because there’s no chance of the enemy coming this year after all.”‘
‘Cr-r-ripplestraw! I have been wounded to the heart,’ replied Derriman, with a lurid brow.
‘And the man yet lives, and you wants yer horse-pistols instantly? Certainly, Maister F — -’
‘No, Cripplestraw, not my pistols, but my new-cut clothes, my heavy gold seals, my silver-topped cane, and my buckles that cost more money than he ever saw! Yes, I must tell somebody, and I’ll tell you, because there’s no other fool near. He loves her heart and soul. He’s poor; she’s tip-top genteel, and not rich. I am rich, by comparison. I’ll court the pretty play-actress, and win her before his eyes.’
‘Play-actress, Maister Derriman?’
‘Yes. I saw her this very day, met her by accident, and spoke to her. She’s still in the town — perhaps because of him. I can meet her at any hour of the day — But I don’t mean to marry her; not I. I will court her for my pastime, and to annoy him. It will be all the more death to him that I don’t want her. Then perhaps he will say to me, “You have taken my one ewe lamb” — meaning that I am the king, and he’s the poor man, as in the church verse; and he’ll beg for mercy when ‘tis too late — unless, meanwhile, I shall have tired of my new toy. Saddle the horse, Cripplestraw, to-morrow at ten.’
Full of this resolve to scourge John Loveday to the quick through his passion for Miss Johnson, Festus came out booted and spurred at the time appointed, and set off on his morning ride.
Miss Johnson’s theatrical engagement having long ago terminated, she would have left the Royal watering-place with the rest of the visitors had not matrimonial hopes detained her there. These had nothing whatever to do with John Loveday, as may be imagined, but with a stout, staid boat-builder in Cove Row by the quay, who had shown much interest in her impersonations. Unfortunately this substantial man had not been quite so attentive since the end of the season as his previous manner led her to expect; and it was a great pleasure to the lady to see Mr. Derriman leaning over the harbour bridge with his eyes fixed upon her as she came towards it after a stroll past her elderly wooer’s house.
‘Od take it, ma’am, you didn’t tell me when I saw you last that the tooting man with the blue jacket and lace was yours devoted?’ began Festus.
‘Who do you mean?’ In Matilda’s ever-changing emotional interests, John Loveday was a stale and unprofitable personality.
‘Why, that trumpet-major man.’
‘O! What of him?’
‘Come; he loves you, and you know it, ma’am.’
She knew, at any rate, how to take the current when it served. So she glanced at Festus, folded her lips meaningly, and nodded.
‘I’ve come to cut him out.’
She shook her head, it being unsafe to speak till she knew a little more of the subject.
‘What!’ said Festus, reddening, ‘do you mean to say that you think of him seriously — you, who might look so much higher?’
‘Constant dropping will wear away a stone; and you should only hear his pleading! His handsome face is impressive, and his manners are — O, so genteel! I am not rich; I am, in short, a poor lady of decayed family, who has nothing to boast of but my blood and ancestors, and they won’t find a body in food and clothing! — I hold the world but as the world, Derrimanio — a stage where every man must play a part, and mine a sad one!’ She dropped her eyes thoughtfully and sighed.
‘We will talk of this,’ said Festus, much affected. ‘Let us walk to the Look-out.’
She made no objection, and said, as they turned that way, ‘Mr. Derriman, a long time ago I found something belonging to you; but I have never yet remembered to return it.’ And she drew from her bosom the paper which Anne had dropped in the meadow when eluding the grasp of Festus on that summer day.
‘Zounds, I smell fresh meat!’ cried Festus when he had looked it over. ‘‘Tis in my uncle’s writing, and ‘tis what I heard him singing on the day the French didn’t come, and afterwards saw him marking in the r
oad. ‘Tis something he’s got hid away. Give me the paper, there’s a dear; ‘tis worth sterling gold!’
‘Halves, then?’ said Matilda tenderly.
‘Gad, yes — anything!’ replied Festus, blazing into a smile, for she had looked up in her best new manner at the possibility that he might be worth the winning. They went up the steps to the summit of the cliff, and dwindled over it against the sky.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
REACTION
There was no letter from Bob, though December had passed, and the new year was two weeks old. His movements were, however, pretty accurately registered in the papers, which John still brought, but which Anne no longer read. During the second week in December the Victory sailed for Sheerness, and on the 9th of the following January the public funeral of Lord Nelson took place in St. Paul’s.
Then there came a meagre line addressed to the family in general. Bob’s new Portsmouth attachment was not mentioned, but he told them he had been one of the eight-and-forty seamen who walked two-and-two in the funeral procession, and that Captain Hardy had borne the banner of emblems on the same occasion. The crew was soon to be paid off at Chatham, when he thought of returning to Portsmouth for a few days to see a valued friend. After that he should come home.
But the spring advanced without bringing him, and John watched Anne Garland’s desolation with augmenting desire to do something towards consoling her. The old feelings, so religiously held in check, were stimulated to rebelliousness, though they did not show themselves in any direct manner as yet.
The miller, in the meantime, who seldom interfered in such matters, was observed to look meaningly at Anne and the trumpet-major from day to day; and by-and-by he spoke privately to John.
His words were short and to the point: Anne was very melancholy; she had thought too much of Bob. Now ‘twas plain that they had lost him for many years to come. Well; he had always felt that of the two he would rather John married her. Now John might settle down there, and succeed where Bob had failed. ‘So if you could get her, my sonny, to think less of him and more of thyself, it would be a good thing for all.’
An inward excitement had risen in John; but he suppressed it and said firmly —
‘Fairness to Bob before everything!’
‘He hev forgot her, and there’s an end on’t.’
‘She’s not forgot him.’
‘Well, well; think it over.’
This discourse was the cause of his penning a letter to his brother. He begged for a distinct statement whether, as John at first supposed, Bob’s verbal renunciation of Anne on the quay had been only a momentary ebullition of friendship, which it would be cruel to take literally; or whether, as seemed now, it had passed from a hasty resolve to a standing purpose, persevered in for his own pleasure, with not a care for the result on poor Anne.
John waited anxiously for the answer, but no answer came; and the silence seemed even more significant than a letter of assurance could have been of his absolution from further support to a claim which Bob himself had so clearly renounced. Thus it happened that paternal pressure, brotherly indifference, and his own released impulse operated in one delightful direction, and the trumpet-major once more approached Anne as in the old time.
But it was not till she had been left to herself for a full five months, and the blue-bells and ragged-robins of the following year were again making themselves common to the rambling eye, that he directly addressed her. She was tying up a group of tall flowering plants in the garden: she knew that he was behind her, but she did not turn. She had subsided into a placid dignity which enabled her when watched to perform any little action with seeming composure — very different from the flutter of her inexperienced days.
‘Are you never going to turn round?’ he at length asked good-humouredly.
She then did turn, and looked at him for a moment without speaking; a certain suspicion looming in her eyes, as if suggested by his perceptible want of ease.
‘How like summer it is getting to feel, is it not?’ she said.
John admitted that it was getting to feel like summer: and, bending his gaze upon her with an earnestness which no longer left any doubt of his subject, went on to ask —
‘Have you ever in these last weeks thought of how it used to be between us?’
She replied quickly, ‘O, John, you shouldn’t begin that again. I am almost another woman now!’
‘Well, that’s all the more reason why I should, isn’t it?’
Anne looked thoughtfully to the other end of the garden, faintly shaking her head; ‘I don’t quite see it like that,’ she returned.
‘You feel yourself quite free, don’t you?’
‘Quite free!’ she said instantly, and with proud distinctness; her eyes fell, and she repeated more slowly, ‘Quite free.’ Then her thoughts seemed to fly from herself to him. ‘But you are not?’
‘I am not?’
‘Miss Johnson!’
‘O — that woman! You know as well as I that was all make-up, and that I never for a moment thought of her.’
‘I had an idea you were acting; but I wasn’t sure.’
‘Well, that’s nothing now. Anne, I want to relieve your life; to cheer you in some way; to make some amends for my brother’s bad conduct. If you cannot love me, liking will be well enough. I have thought over every side of it so many times — for months have I been thinking it over — and I am at last sure that I do right to put it to you in this way. That I don’t wrong Bob I am quite convinced. As far as he is concerned we be both free. Had I not been sure of that I would never have spoken. Father wants me to take on the mill, and it will please him if you can give me one little hope; it will make the house go on altogether better if you can think o’ me.’
‘You are generous and good, John,’ she said, as a big round tear bowled helter-skelter down her face and hat-strings.
‘I am not that; I fear I am quite the opposite,’ he said, without looking at her. ‘It would be all gain to me — But you have not answered my question.’
She lifted her eyes. ‘John, I cannot!’ she said, with a cheerless smile. ‘Positively I cannot. Will you make me a promise?’
‘What is it?’
‘I want you to promise first — Yes, it is dreadfully unreasonable,’ she added, in a mild distress. ‘But do promise!’
John by this time seemed to have a feeling that it was all up with him for the present. ‘I promise,’ he said listlessly.
‘It is that you won’t speak to me about this for ever so long,’ she returned, with emphatic kindliness.
‘Very good,’ he replied; ‘very good. Dear Anne, you don’t think I have been unmanly or unfair in starting this anew?’
Anne looked into his face without a smile. ‘You have been perfectly natural,’ she murmured. ‘And so I think have I.’
John, mournfully: ‘You will not avoid me for this, or be afraid of me? I will not break my word. I will not worry you any more.’
‘Thank you, John. You need not have said worry; it isn’t that.’
‘Well, I am very blind and stupid. I have been hurting your heart all the time without knowing it. It is my fate, I suppose. Men who love women the very best always blunder and give more pain than those who love them less.’
Anne laid one of her hands on the other as she softly replied, looking down at them, ‘No one loves me as well as you, John; nobody in the world is so worthy to be loved; and yet I cannot anyhow love you rightly.’ And lifting her eyes, ‘But I do so feel for you that I will try as hard as I can to think about you.’
‘Well, that is something,’ he said, smiling. ‘You say I must not speak about it again for ever so long; how long?’
‘Now that’s not fair,’ Anne retorted, going down the garden, and leaving him alone.
About a week passed. Then one afternoon the miller walked up to Anne indoors, a weighty topic being expressed in his tread.
‘I was so glad, my honey,’ he began, with a knowing smile, �
��to see that from the mill-window last week.’ He flung a nod in the direction of the garden.
Anne innocently inquired what it could be.
‘Jack and you in the garden together,’ he continued laying his hand gently on her shoulder and stroking it. ‘It would so please me, my dear little girl, if you could get to like him better than that weathercock, Master Bob.’
Anne shook her head; not in forcible negation, but to imply a kind of neutrality.
‘Can’t you? Come now,’ said the miller.
She threw back her head with a little laugh of grievance. ‘How you all beset me!’ she expostulated. ‘It makes me feel very wicked in not obeying you, and being faithful — faithful to — ’ But she could not trust that side of the subject to words. ‘Why would it please you so much?’ she asked.
‘John is as steady and staunch a fellow as ever blowed a trumpet. I’ve always thought you might do better with him than with Bob. Now I’ve a plan for taking him into the mill, and letting him have a comfortable time o’t after his long knocking about; but so much depends upon you that I must bide a bit till I see what your pleasure is about the poor fellow. Mind, my dear, I don’t want to force ye; I only just ask ye.’
Anne meditatively regarded the miller from under her shady eyelids, the fingers of one hand playing a silent tattoo on her bosom. ‘I don’t know what to say to you,’ she answered brusquely, and went away.
But these discourses were not without their effect upon the extremely conscientious mind of Anne. They were, moreover, much helped by an incident which took place one evening in the autumn of this year, when John came to tea. Anne was sitting on a low stool in front of the fire, her hands clasped across her knee. John Loveday had just seated himself on a chair close behind her, and Mrs. Loveday was in the act of filling the teapot from the kettle which hung in the chimney exactly above Anne. The kettle slipped forward suddenly, whereupon John jumped from the chair and put his own two hands over Anne’s just in time to shield them, and the precious knee she clasped, from the jet of scalding water which had directed itself upon that point. The accidental overflow was instantly checked by Mrs. Loveday; but what had come was received by the devoted trumpet-major on the back of his hands.