by Thomas Hardy
Mrs. Hall was actually lifting coals with the tongs, as she had used to do.
‘Five years ago this very night, if I am not mistaken — ’ she said, laying on an ember.
‘Not this very night — though ‘twas one night this week,’ said the correct Sally.
‘Well, ‘tis near enough. Five years ago Mr. Darton came to marry you, and my poor boy Phil came home to die.’ She sighed. ‘Ah, Sally,’ she presently said, ‘if you had managed well Mr. Darton would have had you, Helena or none.’
‘Don’t be sentimental about that, mother,’ begged Sally. ‘I didn’t care to manage well in such a case. Though I liked him, I wasn’t so anxious. I would never have married the man in the midst of such a hitch as that was,’ she added with decision; ‘and I don’t think I would if he were to ask me now.’
‘I am not sure about that, unless you have another in your eye.’
‘I wouldn’t; and I’ll tell you why. I could hardly marry him for love at this time o’ day. And as we’ve quite enough to live on if we give up the dairy to-morrow, I should have no need to marry for any meaner reason . . . I am quite happy enough as I am, and there’s an end of it.’
Now it was not long after this dialogue that there came a mild rap at the door, and in a moment there entered Rebekah, looking as though a ghost had arrived. The fact was that that accomplished skimmer and churner (now a resident in the house) had overheard the desultory observations between mother and daughter, and on opening the door to Mr. Darton thought the coincidence must have a grisly meaning in it. Mrs. Hall welcomed the farmer with warm surprise, as did Sally, and for a moment they rather wanted words.
‘Can you push up the chimney-crook for me, Mr Darton? the notches hitch,’ said the matron. He did it, and the homely little act bridged over the awkward consciousness that he had been a stranger for four years.
Mrs. Hall soon saw what he had come for, and left the principals together while she went to prepare him a late tea, smiling at Sally’s recent hasty assertions of indifference, when she saw how civil Sally was. When tea was ready she joined them. She fancied that Darton did not look so confident as when he had arrived; but Sally was quite light-hearted, and the meal passed pleasantly.
About seven he took his leave of them. Mrs. Hall went as far as the door to light him down the slope. On the doorstep he said frankly — ’I came to ask your daughter to marry me; chose the night and everything, with an eye to a favourable answer. But she won’t.’
‘Then she’s a very ungrateful girl!’ emphatically said Mrs. Hall.
Darton paused to shape his sentence, and asked, ‘I — I suppose there’s nobody else more favoured?’
‘I can’t say that there is, or that there isn’t,’ answered Mrs. Hall. ‘She’s private in some things. I’m on your side, however, Mr. Darton, and I’ll talk to her.’
‘Thank ‘ee, thank ‘ee!’ said the farmer in a gayer accent; and with this assurance the not very satisfactory visit came to an end. Darton descended the roots of the sycamore, the light was withdrawn, and the door closed. At the bottom of the slope he nearly ran against a man about to ascend.
‘Can a jack-o’-lent believe his few senses on such a dark night, or can’t he?’ exclaimed one whose utterance Darton recognized in a moment, despite its unexpectedness. ‘I dare not swear he can, though I fain would!’ The speaker was Johns.
Darton said he was glad of this opportunity, bad as it was, of putting an end to the silence of years, and asked the dairyman what he was travelling that way for.
Japheth showed the old jovial confidence in a moment. ‘I’m going to see your — relations — as they always seem to me,’ he said — ’Mrs. Hall and Sally. Well, Charles, the fact is I find the natural barbarousness of man is much increased by a bachelor life, and, as your leavings were always good enough for me, I’m trying civilization here.’ He nodded towards the house.
‘Not with Sally — to marry her?’ said Darton, feeling something like a rill of ice water between his shoulders.
‘Yes, by the help of Providence and my personal charms. And I think I shall get her. I am this road every week — my present dairy is only four miles off, you know, and I see her through the window. ‘Tis rather odd that I was going to speak practical to-night to her for the first time. You’ve just called?’
‘Yes, for a short while. But she didn’t say a word about you.’
‘A good sign, a good sign. Now that decides me. I’ll swing the mallet and get her answer this very night as I planned.’
A few more remarks, and Darton, wishing his friend joy of Sally in a slightly hollow tone of jocularity, bade him good-bye. Johns promised to write particulars, and ascended, and was lost in the shade of the house and tree. A rectangle of light appeared when Johns was admitted, and all was dark again.
‘Happy Japheth!’ said Darton. ‘This then is the explanation!’
He determined to return home that night. In a quarter of an hour he passed out of the village, and the next day went about his swede-lifting and storing as if nothing had occurred.
He waited and waited to hear from Johns whether the wedding-day was fixed: but no letter came. He learnt not a single particular till, meeting Johns one day at a horse-auction, Darton exclaimed genially — rather more genially than he felt — ’When is the joyful day to be?’
To his great surprise a reciprocity of gladness was not conspicuous in Johns. ‘Not at all,’ he said, in a very subdued tone. ‘‘Tis a bad job; she won’t have me.’
Darton held his breath till he said with treacherous solicitude, ‘Try again — ’tis coyness.’
‘O no,’ said Johns decisively. ‘There’s been none of that. We talked it over dozens of times in the most fair and square way. She tells me plainly, I don’t suit her. ‘Twould be simply annoying her to ask her again. Ah, Charles, you threw a prize away when you let her slip five years ago.’
‘I did — I did,’ said Darton.
He returned from that auction with a new set of feelings in play. He had certainly made a surprising mistake in thinking Johns his successful rival. It really seemed as if he might hope for Sally after all.
This time, being rather pressed by business, Darton had recourse to pen-and-ink, and wrote her as manly and straightforward a proposal as any woman could wish to receive. The reply came promptly:-
‘DEAR MR. DARTON, — I am as sensible as any woman can be of the goodness that leads you to make me this offer a second time. Better women than I would be proud of the honour, for when I read your nice long speeches on mangold-wurzel, and such like topics, at the Casterbridge Farmers’ Club, I do feel it an honour, I assure you. But my answer is just the same as before. I will not try to explain what, in truth, I cannot explain — my reasons; I will simply say that I must decline to be married to you. With good wishes as in former times, I am, your faithful friend,
‘SALLY HALL.’
Darton dropped the letter hopelessly. Beyond the negative, there was just a possibility of sarcasm in it — ’nice long speeches on mangold-wurzel’ had a suspicious sound. However, sarcasm or none, there was the answer, and he had to be content.
He proceeded to seek relief in a business which at this time engrossed much of his attention — that of clearing up a curious mistake just current in the county, that he had been nearly ruined by the recent failure of a local bank. A farmer named Darton had lost heavily, and the similarity of name had probably led to the error. Belief in it was so persistent that it demanded several days of letter-writing to set matters straight, and persuade the world that he was as solvent as ever he had been in his life. He had hardly concluded this worrying task when, to his delight, another letter arrived in the handwriting of Sally.
Darton tore it open; it was very short.
‘DEAR MR. DARTON, — We have been so alarmed these last few days by the report that you were ruined by the stoppage of — ’s Bank, that, now it is contradicted I hasten, by my mother’s wish, to say how truly glad we are to find
there is no foundation for the report. After your kindness to my poor brother’s children, I can do no less than write at such a moment. We had a letter from each of them a few days ago. — Your faithful friend,
‘SALLY HALL.’
‘Mercenary little woman!’ said Darton to himself with a smile. ‘Then that was the secret of her refusal this time — she thought I was ruined.’
Now, such was Darton, that as hours went on he could not help feeling too generously towards Sally to condemn her in this. What did he want in a wife? he asked himself. Love and integrity. What next? Worldly wisdom. And was there really more than worldly wisdom in her refusal to go aboard a sinking ship? She now knew it was otherwise. ‘Begad,’ he said, ‘I’ll try her again.’
The fact was he had so set his heart upon Sally, and Sally alone, that nothing was to be allowed to baulk him; and his reasoning was purely formal.
Anniversaries having been unpropitious, he waited on till a bright day late in May — a day when all animate nature was fancying, in its trusting, foolish way, that it was going to bask out of doors for evermore. As he rode through Long-Ash Lane it was scarce recognizable as the track of his two winter journeys. No mistake could be made now, even with his eyes shut. The cuckoo’s note was at its best, between April tentativeness and midsummer decrepitude, and the reptiles in the sun behaved as winningly as kittens on a hearth. Though afternoon, and about the same time as on the last occasion, it was broad day and sunshine when he entered Hintock, and the details of the Knap dairy-house were visible far up the road. He saw Sally in the garden, and was set vibrating. He had first intended to go on to the inn; but ‘No,’ he said; ‘I’ll tie my horse to the garden-gate. If all goes well it can soon be taken round: if not, I mount and ride away’
The tall shade of the horseman darkened the room in which Mrs. Hall sat, and made her start, for he had ridden by a side path to the top of the slope, where riders seldom came. In a few seconds he was in the garden with Sally.
Five — ay, three minutes — did the business at the back of that row of bees. Though spring had come, and heavenly blue consecrated the scene, Darton succeeded not. ‘No,’ said Sally firmly. ‘I will never, never marry you, Mr. Darton. I would have done it once; but now I never can.’
‘But!’ — implored Mr. Darton. And with a burst of real eloquence he went on to declare all sorts of things that he would do for her. He would drive her to see her mother every week — take her to London — settle so much money upon her — Heaven knows what he did not promise, suggest, and tempt her with. But it availed nothing. She interposed with a stout negative, which closed the course of his argument like an iron gate across a highway. Darton paused.
‘Then,’ said he simply, ‘you hadn’t heard of my supposed failure when you declined last time?’
‘I had not,’ she said. ‘But if I had ‘twould have been all the same.’
‘And ‘tis not because of any soreness from my slighting you years ago?’
‘No. That soreness is long past.’
‘Ah — then you despise me, Sally?’
‘No,’ she slowly answered. ‘I don’t altogether despise you. I don’t think you quite such a hero as I once did — that’s all. The truth is, I am happy enough as I am; and I don’t mean to marry at all. Now, may I ask a favour, sir?’ She spoke with an ineffable charm, which, whenever he thought of it, made him curse his loss of her as long as he lived.
‘To any extent.’
‘Please do not put this question to me any more. Friends as long as you like, but lovers and married never.’
‘I never will,’ said Darton. ‘Not if I live a hundred years.’
And he never did. That he had worn out his welcome in her heart was only too plain.
When his step-children had grown up, and were placed out in life, all communication between Darton and the Hall family ceased. It was only by chance that, years after, he learnt that Sally, notwithstanding the solicitations her attractions drew down upon her, had refused several offers of marriage, and steadily adhered to her purpose of leading a single life
May 1884.
THE DISTRACTED PREACHER
CHAPTER I — HOW HIS COLD WAS CURED
Something delayed the arrival of the Wesleyan minister, and a young man came temporarily in his stead. It was on the thirteenth of January 183- that Mr. Stockdale, the young man in question, made his humble entry into the village, unknown, and almost unseen. But when those of the inhabitants who styled themselves of his connection became acquainted with him, they were rather pleased with the substitute than otherwise, though he had scarcely as yet acquired ballast of character sufficient to steady the consciences of the hundred-and-forty Methodists of pure blood who, at this time, lived in Nether-Moynton, and to give in addition supplementary support to the mixed race which went to church in the morning and chapel in the evening, or when there was a tea — as many as a hundred-and-ten people more, all told, and including the parish-clerk in the winter-time, when it was too dark for the vicar to observe who passed up the street at seven o’clock — which, to be just to him, he was never anxious to do.
It was owing to this overlapping of creeds that the celebrated population-puzzle arose among the denser gentry of the district around Nether-Moynton: how could it be that a parish containing fifteen score of strong full-grown Episcopalians, and nearly thirteen score of well-matured Dissenters, numbered barely two-and-twenty score adults in all?
The young man being personally interesting, those with whom he came in contact were content to waive for a while the graver question of his sufficiency. It is said that at this time of his life his eyes were affectionate, though without a ray of levity; that his hair was curly, and his figure tall; that he was, in short, a very lovable youth, who won upon his female hearers as soon as they saw and heard him, and caused them to say, ‘Why didn’t we know of this before he came, that we might have gied him a warmer welcome!’
The fact was that, knowing him to be only provisionally selected, and expecting nothing remarkable in his person or doctrine, they and the rest of his flock in Nether-Moynton had felt almost as indifferent about his advent as if they had been the soundest church-going parishioners in the country, and he their true and appointed parson. Thus when Stockdale set foot in the place nobody had secured a lodging for him, and though his journey had given him a bad cold in the head, he was forced to attend to that business himself. On inquiry he learnt that the only possible accommodation in the village would be found at the house of one Mrs. Lizzy Newberry, at the upper end of the street.
It was a youth who gave this information, and Stockdale asked him who Mrs. Newberry might be.
The boy said that she was a widow-woman, who had got no husband, because he was dead. Mr. Newberry, he added, had been a well-to-do man enough, as the saying was, and a farmer; but he had gone off in a decline. As regarded Mrs. Newberry’s serious side, Stockdale gathered that she was one of the trimmers who went to church and chapel both.
‘I’ll go there,’ said Stockdale, feeling that, in the absence of purely sectarian lodgings, he could do no better.
‘She’s a little particular, and won’t hae gover’ment folks, or curates, or the pa’son’s friends, or such like,’ said the lad dubiously.
‘Ah, that may be a promising sign: I’ll call. Or no; just you go up and ask first if she can find room for me. I have to see one or two persons on another matter. You will find me down at the carrier’s.’
In a quarter of an hour the lad came back, and said that Mrs. Newberry would have no objection to accommodate him, whereupon Stockdale called at the house.
It stood within a garden-hedge, and seemed to be roomy and comfortable. He saw an elderly woman, with whom he made arrangements to come the same night, since there was no inn in the place, and he wished to house himself as soon as possible; the village being a local centre from which he was to radiate at once to the different small chapels in the neighbourhood. He forthwith sent his luggage to Mrs.
Newberry’s from the carrier’s, where he had taken shelter, and in the evening walked up to his temporary home.
As he now lived there, Stockdale felt it unnecessary to knock at the door; and entering quietly he had the pleasure of hearing footsteps scudding away like mice into the back quarters. He advanced to the parlour, as the front room was called, though its stone floor was scarcely disguised by the carpet, which only over-laid the trodden areas, leaving sandy deserts under the bulging mouldings of the table-legs, playing with brass furniture. But the room looked snug and cheerful. The firelight shone out brightly, trembling on the knobs and handles, and lurking in great strength on the under surface of the chimney-piece. A deep arm-chair, covered with horsehair, and studded with a countless throng of brass nails, was pulled up on one side of the fireplace. The tea-things were on the table, the teapot cover was open, and a little hand-bell had been laid at that precise point towards which a person seated in the great chair might be expected instinctively to stretch his hand.
Stockdale sat down, not objecting to his experience of the room thus far, and began his residence by tinkling the bell. A little girl crept in at the summons, and made tea for him. Her name, she said, was Marther Sarer, and she lived out there, nodding towards the road and village generally. Before Stockdale had got far with his meal, a tap sounded on the door behind him, and on his telling the inquirer to come in, a rustle of garments caused him to turn his head. He saw before him a fine and extremely well-made young woman, with dark hair, a wide, sensible, beautiful forehead, eyes that warmed him before he knew it, and a mouth that was in itself a picture to all appreciative souls.
‘Can I get you anything else for tea?’ she said, coming forward a step or two, an expression of liveliness on her features, and her hand waving the door by its edge.
‘Nothing, thank you,’ said Stockdale, thinking less of what he replied than of what might be her relation to the household.