Far from the Madding Crowd

by Pan Zador

  “And ruin her.”

  “Save her.”

  “Oh, how can she be saved now, unless I marry her?”

  Boldwood groaned. He reluctantly released the soldier, and flung him back against the hedge. “Devil, you torture me!” said he.

  Troy rebounded like a ball, and was about to make a dash at the farmer; but he checked himself, saying lightly —

  “It is not worthwhile to measure my strength with you. Indeed it is a barbarous way of settling a quarrel. I shall shortly leave the army because of the same conviction. Now after that revelation of how the land lies with Bathsheba, ‘twould be a mistake to kill me, would it not?”

  “’Twould be a mistake to kill you,” repeated Boldwood, mechanically, with a bowed head.

  “Better kill yourself.”

  “Far better.”

  “I’m glad you see it.”

  “Troy, make her your wife, and don’t act upon what I arranged just now. The alternative is dreadful, but take Bathsheba; I give her up! She must love you indeed to sell soul and body to you so utterly as she has done. Wretched woman — deluded woman. O Bathsheba!”

  “But about Fanny?”

  “Bathsheba is a woman well to do,” continued Boldwood, in nervous anxiety, and, Troy, she will make a good wife; and, indeed, she is worth your hastening on your marriage with her!”

  “But she has a will — not to say a temper, and I shall be a mere slave to her. I could do anything with poor Fanny Robin.”

  “Troy,” said Boldwood, imploringly, “I’ll do anything for you, only don’t desert her; pray don’t desert her, Troy.”

  “Which, poor Fanny?”

  “No; Bathsheba Everdene. Love her best! Love her tenderly! How shall I get you to see how advantageous it will be to you to secure her at once?”

  “I don’t wish to secure her in any new way.”

  Boldwood’s arm moved spasmodically towards Troy’s person again. He repressed the instinct, and his form drooped as with pain.

  Troy went on —

  “I shall soon purchase my discharge, and then — ”

  “But I wish you to hasten on this marriage! It will be better for you both. You love each other, and you must let me help you to do it.”

  “How?”

  “Why, by settling the five hundred on Bathsheba instead of Fanny, to enable you to marry at once. No; she wouldn’t have it of me. I’ll pay it down to you on the wedding-day.”

  Troy paused in secret amazement at Boldwood’s wild infatuation. He carelessly said, “And am I to have anything now?”

  “Yes, if you wish to. But I have not much additional money with me. I did not expect this; but all I have is yours.”

  Boldwood, more like a somnambulist than a wakeful man, pulled out the large canvas bag he carried by way of a purse, and searched it.

  “I have twenty-one pounds more with me,” he said. “Two notes and a sovereign. But before I leave you I must have a paper signed — ”

  “Pay me the money, and we’ll go straight to her parlour, and make any arrangement you please to secure my compliance with your wishes. But she must know nothing of this cash business.”

  “Nothing, nothing,” said Boldwood, hastily. “Here is the sum, and if you’ll come to my house we’ll write out the agreement for the remainder, and the terms also.”

  “First we’ll call upon her.”

  “But why? Come with me to-night, and go with me to-morrow to the surrogate’s.”

  “But she must be consulted; at any rate informed.”

  “Very well; go on.”

  They went up the hill to Bathsheba’s house. When they stood at the entrance, Troy said, “Wait here a moment.” Opening the door, he glided inside, leaving the door ajar.

  Boldwood waited. In two minutes a light appeared in the passage. Boldwood then saw that the chain had been fastened across the door. Troy appeared inside, carrying a bedroom candlestick.

  “What, did you think I should break in?” said Boldwood, contemptuously.

  “Oh, no, it is merely my humour to secure things. Will you read this a moment? I’ll hold the light.”

  Troy handed a folded newspaper through the slit between door and doorpost, and put the candle close. “That’s the paragraph,” he said, placing his finger on a line.

  Boldwood looked and read —

  Marriages. On the 17th inst., at St. Ambrose’s Church, Bath, by the Rev. G. Mincing, B.A., Francis Troy, only son of the late Edward Troy, Esq., M.D., of Weatherbury, and sergeant with Dragoon Guards, to Bathsheba, only surviving daughter of the late Mr. John Everdene, of Casterbridge.

  “This may be called Fort meeting Feeble, hey, Boldwood?” said Troy. A low gurgle of derisive laughter followed the words.

  The paper fell from Boldwood’s hands. Troy continued —

  “Fifty pounds to marry Fanny. Good. Twenty-one pounds not to marry Fanny, but Bathsheba. Good. Finale: already Bathsheba’s husband. Now, Boldwood, yours is the ridiculous fate which always attends interference between a man and his wife. And another word. Bad as I am, I am not such a villain as to make the marriage or misery of any woman a matter of huckster and sale. Fanny has long ago left me. I don’t know where she is. I have searched everywhere. Another word yet. You say you love Bathsheba; yet on the merest apparent evidence you instantly believe in her dishonour. A fig for such love! And now, let me teach you something. See this? Mark its dimensions well, for ‘tis my marriage dowry to Bathsheba, and, since you seem to be so curious for her welfare, let me assure you that my dearest weapon is ever alert and ready to pleasure and satisfy her.”

  And Troy unbuttoned his breeches and drew forth his impressive instrument, fondling it with his hand as it twitched in lazy anticipation of another fondling at another, softer hand as soon as its master should enter the house. “Have you anything to equal this?” said Troy coolly. ‘If so, unbutton and let us duel it out, man to man.”

  For answer, Boldwood turned away, utterly defeated by the sight and size of his rival’s tackle. His very manhood was under attack, and he had nothing to defend it, for his tool, though respectable in its proportions, was nothing special as to size. Troy, all unbuttoned, with his cock hanging loose, laughed at Boldwood’s discomfiture.

  “Now that I’ve taught you a lesson, take your money back again. Anyhow I won’t have it,” said Troy, contemptuously. He wrapped the packet of gold in the notes, and threw the whole into the road.

  Boldwood shook his clenched fist at him. “You juggler of Satan! You black hound! But I’ll punish you yet; mark me, I’ll punish you yet!”

  Another peal of laughter. Troy then buttoned his breeches, closed the door, and locked himself in.

  Throughout the whole of that night Boldwood’s dark form might have been seen walking about the hills and downs of Weatherbury like an unhappy Shade in the Mournful Fields by Acheron.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  AT AN UPPER WINDOW

  It was very early the next morning — a time of sun and dew. The confused beginnings of many birds’ songs spread into the healthy air, and the wan blue of the heaven was here and there coated with thin webs of incorporeal cloud which were of no effect in obscuring day. All the lights in the scene were yellow as to colour, and all the shadows were attenuated as to form. The creeping plants about the old manor-house were bowed with rows of heavy water drops, which had upon objects behind them the effect of minute lenses of high magnifying power.

  Just before the clock struck five Gabriel Oak and Coggan passed the village cross, and went on together to the fields. They were yet barely in view of their mistress’s house, when Oak fancied he saw the opening of a casement in one of the upper windows. The two men were at this moment partially screened by an elder bush, now beginning to be enriched with black bunches of fruit, and the
y paused before emerging from its shade.

  A handsome man leaned idly from the lattice. He looked east and then west, in the manner of one who makes a first morning survey. The man was Sergeant Troy. His red jacket was loosely thrown on, but not buttoned, and he had altogether the relaxed bearing of a soldier taking his ease.

  Coggan spoke first, looking quietly at the window.

  “She has married him!” he said.

  Gabriel had previously beheld the sight, and he now stood with his back turned, making no reply.

  “I fancied we should know something to-day,” continued Coggan. “I heard wheels pass my door just after dark — you were out somewhere.” He glanced round upon Gabriel. “Good heavens above us, Oak, how white your face is; you look like a corpse!”

  “Do I?” said Oak, with a faint smile.

  “Lean on the gate: I’ll wait a bit.”

  “All right, all right.”

  They stood by the gate awhile, Gabriel listlessly staring at the ground. His mind sped into the future, and saw there enacted in years of leisure the scenes of repentance that would ensue from this work of haste. That they were married he had instantly decided. Why had it been so mysteriously managed? It had become known that she had had a fearful journey to Bath, owing to her miscalculating the distance: that the horse had broken down, and that she had been more than two days getting there. It was not Bathsheba’s way to do things furtively. With all her faults, she was candour itself. Could she have been entrapped? The union was not only an unutterable grief to him: it amazed him, notwithstanding that he had passed the preceding week in a suspicion that such might be the issue of Troy’s meeting her away from home. Her quiet return with Liddy had to some extent dispersed the dread. Just as that imperceptible motion which appears like stillness is infinitely divided in its properties from stillness itself, so had his hope undistinguishable from despair differed from despair indeed.

  In a few minutes they moved on again towards the house. The sergeant still looked from the window.

  “Morning, comrades!” he shouted, in a cheery voice, when they came up.

  Coggan replied to the greeting. “Bain’t ye going to answer the man?” he then said to Gabriel. “I’d say good morning — you needn’t spend a hapenny of meaning upon it, and yet keep the man civil.”

  Gabriel soon decided too that, since the deed was done, to put the best face upon the matter would be the greatest kindness to her he loved.

  “Good morning, Sergeant Troy,” he returned, in a ghastly voice.

  “A rambling, gloomy house this,” said Troy, smiling.

  “Why — they may not be married!” suggested Coggan. “Perhaps she’s not there.”

  Gabriel shook his head. The soldier turned a little towards the east, and the sun kindled his scarlet coat to an orange glow.

  “But it is a nice old house,” responded Gabriel.

  “Yes — I suppose so; but I feel like new wine in an old bottle here. My notion is that sash-windows should be put throughout, and these old wainscoted walls brightened up a bit; or the oak cleared quite away, and the walls papered.”

  “It would be a pity, I think.”

  “Well, no. A philosopher once said in my hearing that the old builders, who worked when art was a living thing, had no respect for the work of builders who went before them, but pulled down and altered as they thought fit; and why shouldn’t we? ‘Creation and preservation don’t do well together,’ says he, ‘and a million of antiquarians can’t invent a style.’ My mind exactly. I am for making this place more modern, that we may be cheerful whilst we can.”

  The military man turned and surveyed the interior of the room, to assist his ideas of improvement in this direction. Gabriel and Coggan began to move on.

  “Oh, Coggan,” said Troy, as if inspired by a recollection “do you know if insanity has ever appeared in Mr. Boldwood’s family?”

  Jan reflected for a moment.

  “I once heard that an uncle of his was queer in his head, but I don’t know the rights o’t,” he said.

  “It is of no importance,” said Troy, lightly. “Well, I shall be down in the fields with you some time this week; but I have a few matters to attend to first. So good-day to you. We shall, of course, keep on just as friendly terms as usual. I’m not a proud man: nobody is ever able to say that of Sergeant Troy. However, what is must be, and here’s half-a-crown to drink my health, men.”

  Troy threw the coin dexterously across the front plot and over the fence towards Gabriel, who shunned it in its fall, his face turning to an angry red. Coggan twirled his eye, edged forward, and caught the money in its ricochet upon the road.

  “Very well — you keep it, Coggan,” said Gabriel with disdain and almost fiercely. “As for me, I’ll do without gifts from him!”

  “Don’t show it too much,” said Coggan, musingly. “For if he’s married to her, mark my words, he’ll buy his discharge and be our master here. Therefore ‘tis well to say ‘Friend’ outwardly, though you say ‘Troublehouse’ within.”

  “Well — perhaps it is best to be silent; but I can’t go further than that. I can’t flatter, and if my place here is only to be kept by smoothing him down, my place must be lost.”

  A horseman, whom they had for some time seen in the distance, now appeared close beside them.

  “There’s Mr. Boldwood,” said Oak. “I wonder what Troy meant by his question.”

  Coggan and Oak nodded respectfully to the farmer, just checked their paces to discover if they were wanted, and finding they were not stood back to let him pass on.

  The only signs of the terrible sorrow Boldwood had been combating through the night, and was combating now, were the want of colour in his well-defined face, the enlarged appearance of the veins in his forehead and temples, and the sharper lines about his mouth. The horse bore him away, and the very step of the animal seemed significant of dogged despair. Gabriel, for a minute, rose above his own grief in noticing Boldwood’s. He saw the square figure sitting erect upon the horse, the head turned to neither side, the elbows steady by the hips, the brim of the hat level and undisturbed in its onward glide, until the keen edges of Boldwood’s shape sank by degrees over the hill. To one who knew the man and his story there was something more striking in this immobility than in a collapse. The clash of discord between mood and matter here was forced painfully home to the heart; and, as in laughter there are more dreadful phases than in tears, so was there in the steadiness of this agonized man an expression deeper than a cry.

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  WEALTH IN JEOPARDY — THE REVEL

  One night, at the end of August, when Bathsheba’s experiences as a married woman were still new, and when the weather was yet dry and sultry, a man stood motionless in the stockyard of Weatherbury Upper Farm, looking at the moon and sky.

  The night had a sinister aspect. A heated breeze from the south slowly fanned the summits of lofty objects, and in the sky dashes of buoyant cloud were sailing in a course at right angles to that of another stratum, neither of them in the direction of the breeze below. The moon, as seen through these films, had a lurid metallic look. The fields were sallow with the impure light, and all were tinged in monochrome, as if beheld through stained glass. The same evening the sheep had trailed homeward head to tail, the behaviour of the rooks had been confused, and the horses had moved with timidity and caution.

  Thunder was imminent, and, taking some secondary appearances into consideration, it was likely to be followed by one of the lengthened rains which mark the close of dry weather for the season. Before twelve hours had passed a harvest atmosphere would be a bygone thing.

  Oak gazed with misgiving at eight naked and unprotected ricks, massive and heavy with the rich produce of one-half the farm for that year. He went on to the barn.

  This was the night which had been selec
ted by Sergeant Troy — ruling now in the room of his wife — for giving the harvest supper and dance. As Oak approached the building the sound of violins and a tambourine, and the regular jigging of many feet, grew more distinct. He came close to the large doors, one of which stood slightly ajar, and looked in.

  The central space, together with the recess at one end, was emptied of all incumbrances, and this area, covering about two-thirds of the whole, was appropriated for the gathering, the remaining end, which was piled to the ceiling with oats, being screened off with sail-cloth. Tufts and garlands of green foliage decorated the walls, beams, and extemporized chandeliers, and immediately opposite to Oak a rostrum had been erected, bearing a table and chairs. Here sat three fiddlers, and beside them stood a frantic man with his hair on end, perspiration streaming down his cheeks, and a tambourine quivering in his hand.

  The dance ended, and on the black oak floor in the midst a new row of couples formed for another.

  “Now, ma’am, and no offence I hope, I ask what dance you would like next?” said the first violin.

  “Really, it makes no difference,” said the clear voice of Bathsheba, who stood at the inner end of the building, observing the scene from behind a table covered with cups and viands. Troy was lolling beside her.

  “Then,” said the fiddler, “I’ll venture to name that the right and proper thing is ‘The Soldier’s Joy’ — there being a gallant soldier married into the farm — hey, my sonnies, and gentlemen all?”

  “It shall be ‘The Soldier’s Joy,’” exclaimed a chorus.

  “Thanks for the compliment,” said the sergeant gaily, taking Bathsheba by the hand and leading her to the top of the dance. “For though I have purchased my discharge from Her Most Gracious Majesty’s regiment of cavalry the 11th Dragoon Guards, to attend to the new duties awaiting me here, I shall continue a soldier in spirit and feeling as long as I live.”

  So the dance began. As to the merits of “The Soldier’s Joy,” there cannot be, and never were, two opinions. It has been observed in the musical circles of Weatherbury and its vicinity that this melody, at the end of three-quarters of an hour of thunderous footing, still possesses more stimulative properties for the heel and toe than the majority of other dances at their first opening. “The Soldier’s Joy” has, too, an additional charm, in being so admirably adapted to the tambourine aforesaid — no mean instrument in the hands of a performer who understands the proper convulsions, spasms, St. Vitus’s dances, and fearful frenzies necessary when exhibiting its tones in their highest perfection.