by Pan Zador
Three weeks went on, and more evidence of his want of interest in her was forthcoming. She noticed that instead of entering the small parlour or office where the farm accounts were kept, and waiting, or leaving a memorandum as he had hitherto done during her seclusion, Oak never came at all when she was likely to be there, only entering at unseasonable hours when her presence in that part of the house was least to be expected. Whenever he wanted directions he sent a message, or note with neither heading nor signature, to which she was obliged to reply in the same offhand style. Poor Bathsheba began to suffer now from the most torturing sting of all — a sensation that she was despised.
The autumn wore away gloomily enough amid these melancholy conjectures, and Christmas-day came, completing a year of her legal widowhood, and two years and a quarter of her life alone. On examining her heart it appeared beyond measure strange that the subject of which the season might have been supposed suggestive — the event in the hall at Boldwood’s — was not agitating her at all; but instead, an agonizing conviction that everybody abjured her — for what she could not tell — and that Oak was the ringleader of the recusants. Coming out of church that day she looked round in hope that Oak, whose bass voice she had heard rolling out from the gallery overhead in a most unconcerned manner, might chance to linger in her path in the old way. There he was, as usual, coming down the path behind her. But on seeing Bathsheba turn, he looked aside, and as soon as he got beyond the gate, and there was the barest excuse for a divergence, he made one, and vanished.
The next morning brought the culminating stroke; she had been expecting it long. It was a formal notice by letter from him that he should not renew his engagement with her for the following Lady-day.
Bathsheba actually sat and cried over this letter most bitterly. She was aggrieved and wounded that the possession of hopeless love from Gabriel, which she had grown to regard as her inalienable right for life, should have been withdrawn just at his own pleasure in this way. She was bewildered too by the prospect of having to rely on her own resources again: it seemed to herself that she never could again acquire energy sufficient to go to market, barter, and sell. Since Troy’s death Oak had attended all sales and fairs for her, transacting her business at the same time with his own. What should she do now? Her life was becoming a desolation.
So desolate was Bathsheba this evening, that in an absolute hunger for pity and sympathy, and miserable in that she appeared to have outlived the only true friendship she had ever owned, she put on her bonnet and cloak and went down to Oak’s house just after sunset, guided on her way by the pale primrose rays of a crescent moon a few days old.
A lively firelight shone from the window, but nobody was visible in the room. She tapped nervously, and then thought it doubtful if it were right for a single woman to call upon a bachelor who lived alone, although he was her manager, and she might be supposed to call on business without any real impropriety. Gabriel opened the door, and the moon shone upon his forehead.
“Mr. Oak,” said Bathsheba, faintly.
“Yes; I am Mr. Oak,” said Gabriel. “Who have I the honour — O how stupid of me, not to know you, mistress!”
“I shall not be your mistress much longer, shall I Gabriel?” she said, in pathetic tones.
“Well, no. I suppose — But come in, ma’am. Oh — and I’ll get a light,” Oak replied, with some awkwardness.
“No; not on my account.”
“It is so seldom that I get a lady visitor that I’m afraid I haven’t proper accommodation. Will you sit down, please? Here’s a chair, and there’s one, too. I am sorry that my chairs all have wood seats, and are rather hard, but I — was thinking of getting some new ones.” Oak placed two or three for her.
“They are quite easy enough for me.”
So down she sat, and down sat he, the fire dancing in their faces, and upon the old furniture, ‘all a-sheenen Wi’ long years o’ handlen’, that formed Oak’s array of household possessions, which sent back a dancing reflection in reply. It was very odd to these two persons, who knew each other passing well, that the mere circumstance of their meeting in a new place and in a new way should make them so awkward and constrained. In the fields, or at her house, there had never been any embarrassment; but now that Oak had become the entertainer their lives seemed to be moved back again to the days when they were strangers.
“You’ll think it strange that I have come, but — ”
“Oh no; not at all.”
“But I thought — Gabriel, I have been uneasy in the belief that I have offended you, and that you are going away on that account. It grieved me very much and I couldn’t help coming.”
“Offended me! As if you could do that, Bathsheba!”
“Haven’t I?” she asked, gladly. “But, what are you going away for else?”
“I am not going to emigrate, you know; I wasn’t aware that you would wish me not to when I told ‘ee or I shouldn’t ha’ thought of doing it,” he said, simply. “I have arranged for Little Weatherbury Farm and shall have it in my own hands at Lady-day. You know I’ve had a share in it for some time. Still, that wouldn’t prevent my attending to your business as before, hadn’t it been that things have been said about us.”
“What?” said Bathsheba, in surprise. “Things said about you and me! What are they?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“It would be wiser if you were to, I think. You have played the part of mentor to me many times, and I don’t see why you should fear to do it now.”
“It is nothing that you have done, this time. The top and tail o’t is this — that I am sniffing about here, and waiting for poor Boldwood’s farm, with a thought of getting you some day.”
“Getting me! What does that mean?”
“Marrying of ‘ee, in plain British. You asked me to tell, so you mustn’t blame me.”
Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been discharged by her ear, which was what Oak had expected. “Marrying me! I didn’t know it was that you meant,” she said, quietly. “Such a thing as that is too absurd — too soon — to think of, by far!”
“Yes; of course, it is too absurd. I don’t desire any such thing; I should think that was plain enough by this time. Surely, surely you be the last person in the world I think of marrying. It is too absurd, as you say.”
“’Too — s-s-soon’ were the words I used.”
“I must beg your pardon for correcting you, but you said, ‘too absurd,’ and so do I.”
“I beg your pardon too!” she returned, with tears in her eyes. “’Too soon’ was what I said. But it doesn’t matter a bit — not at all — but I only meant, ‘too soon.’ Indeed, I didn’t, Mr. Oak, and you must believe me!”
Gabriel looked her long in the face, but the firelight being faint there was not much to be seen. “Bathsheba,” he said, tenderly and in surprise, and coming closer: “if I only knew one thing — whether you would allow me to love you and win you, and marry you after all — if I only knew that!”
“But you never will know,” she murmured.
“Why?”
“Because you never ask.”
“Oh — Oh!” said Gabriel, with a low laugh of joyousness. “My own dear — ” and in his joy he actually took her hand, fondled it and kissed it, and she did not withdraw it, but smiled upon him as tenderly as a mother.
“You ought not to have sent me that harsh letter this morning,” she interrupted. “It shows you didn’t care a bit about me, and were ready to desert me like all the rest of them! It was very cruel of you, considering I was the first sweetheart that you ever had, and you were the first I ever had; and I shall not forget it!”
“Now, Bathsheba, was ever anybody so provoking,” he said, laughing and letting go her hand. “You know it was purely that I, as an unmarried man, carrying on a business for you as a
very taking young woman, had a proper hard part to play — more particular that people knew I had a sort of feeling for ‘ee; and I fancied, from the way we were mentioned together, that it might injure your good name. Nobody knows the heat and fret I have been caused by it.”
“And was that all?”
“All.”
“Oh, how glad I am I came!” she exclaimed, thankfully, as she rose from her seat. “I have thought so much more of you since I fancied you did not want even to see me again. But I must be going now, or I shall be missed. Why Gabriel,” she said, with a slight laugh, as they went to the door, “it seems exactly as if I had come courting you — how dreadful!”
“And quite right too,” said Oak. “I’ve danced at your skittish heels, my beautiful Bathsheba, for many a long mile, and many a long day; and it is hard to begrudge me this one visit.”
For answer, she put her face up to his, and slowly, tenderly, hesitatingly, he bent his curly head to hers and their lips met. If ever Bathsheba had doubted that this man could light a fire in her, this kiss gave her assurance that Gabriel’s flame for her burned as brightly as ever after all these years. Indeed, she felt her breath grow short and her head grow dizzy as they sounded each other, tongues entwined, exploring and probing, till she broke off and had to sit down again to recover herself.
He accompanied her up the hill, explaining to her the details of his forthcoming tenure of the other farm. They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other’s character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality. This good-fellowship — camaraderie — usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is strong as death — that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam.
CHAPTER LVII
A FOGGY NIGHT AND MORNING — CONCLUSION
“The most private, secret, plainest wedding that it is possible to have.”
Those had been Bathsheba’s words to Oak one evening, some time after the event of the preceding chapter, and he meditated a full hour by the clock upon how to carry out her wishes to the letter.
“A license — O yes, it must be a license,” he said to himself at last. “Very well, then; first, a license.”
On a dark night, a few days later, Oak came with mysterious steps from the surrogate’s door, in Casterbridge. On the way home he heard a heavy tread in front of him, and, overtaking the man, found him to be Coggan. They walked together into the village until they came to a little lane behind the church, leading down to the cottage of Laban Tall, who had lately been installed as clerk of the parish, and was yet in mortal terror at church on Sundays when he heard his lone voice among certain hard words of the Psalms, whither no man ventured to follow him.
“Well, good-night, Coggan,” said Oak, “I’m going down this way.”
“Oh!” said Coggan, surprised; “what’s going on to-night then, make so bold Mr. Oak?”
It seemed rather ungenerous not to tell Coggan, under the circumstances, for Coggan had been true as steel all through the time of Gabriel’s unhappiness about Bathsheba, and Gabriel said, “You can keep a secret, Coggan?”
“You’ve proved me, and you know.”
“Yes, I have, and I do know. Well, then, mistress and I mean to get married to-morrow morning.”
“Heaven’s high tower! And yet I’ve thought of such a thing from time to time; true, I have. But keeping it so close! Well, there, ‘tis no consarn of of mine, and I wish ‘ee joy o’ her. Marriage, in short, is what we are all best fitted for, and I am sure you won’t have no regrets.”
“Thank you, Coggan. But I assure ‘ee that this great hush is not what I wished for at all, or what either of us would have wished if it hadn’t been for certain things that would make a gay wedding seem hardly the thing. Bathsheba has a great wish that all the parish shall not be in church, looking at her — she’s shy-like and nervous about it, in fact — so I be doing this to humour her.”
“Ay, I see: quite right, too, I suppose I must say. And you be now going down to the clerk.”
“Yes; you may as well come with me.”
“I am afeard your labour in keeping it close will be throwed away,” said Coggan, as they walked along. “Labe Tall’s old woman will horn it all over parish in half-an-hour.”
“So she will, upon my life; I never thought of that,” said Oak, pausing. “Yet I must tell him to-night, I suppose, for he’s working so far off, and leaves early.”
“I’ll tell ‘ee how we could tackle her,” said Coggan. “I’ll knock and ask to speak to Laban outside the door, you standing in the background. Then he’ll come out, and you can tell yer tale. She’ll never guess what I want en for; and I’ll make up a few words about the farm-work, as a blind.”
This scheme was considered feasible; and Coggan advanced boldly, and rapped at Mrs. Tall’s door. Mrs. Tall herself opened it.
“I wanted to have a word with Laban.”
“He’s not at home, and won’t be this side of eleven o’clock. He’ve been forced to go over to Yalbury since shutting out work. I shall do quite as well.”
“I hardly think you will. Stop a moment;” and Coggan stepped round the corner of the porch to consult Oak.
“Who’s t’other man, then?” said Mrs. Tall.
“Only a friend,” said Coggan.
“Say he’s wanted to meet mistress near church-hatch to-morrow morning at ten,” said Oak, in a whisper. “That he must come without fail, and wear his best clothes.”
“The clothes will floor us as safe as houses!” said Coggan.
“It can’t be helped,” said Oak. “Tell her.”
So Coggan delivered the message. “Mind, het or wet, blow or snow, he must come,” added Jan. “’Tis very particular, indeed. The fact is, ‘tis to witness her sign some law-work about taking shares wi’ another farmer for a long span o’ years. There, that’s what ‘tis, and now I’ve told ‘ee, Mother Tall, in a way I shouldn’t ha’ done if I hadn’t loved ‘ee so hopeless well.”
Coggan retired before she could ask any further; and next they called at the vicar’s in a manner which excited no curiosity at all. Then Gabriel went home, and prepared for the morrow.
“Liddy,” said Bathsheba, on going to bed that night, “I want you to call me at seven o’clock to-morrow, In case I shouldn’t wake.”
“But you always do wake afore then, ma’am.”
“Yes, but I have something important to do, which I’ll tell you of when the time comes, and it’s best to make sure.”
Bathsheba, however, awoke voluntarily at four, nor could she by any contrivance get to sleep again. About six, being quite positive that her watch had stopped during the night, she could wait no longer. She went and tapped at Liddy’s door, and after some labour awoke her.
“But I thought it was I who had to call you?” said the bewildered Liddy. “And it isn’t six yet.”
“Indeed it is; how can you tell such a story, Liddy? I know it must be ever so much past seven. Come to my room as soon as you can; I want you to give my hair a good brushing.”
When Liddy came to Bathsheba’s room her mistress was already waiting. Liddy could not understand this extraordinary promptness. “Whatever is going on, ma’am?” she said.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Bath
sheba, with a mischievous smile in her bright eyes. “Farmer Oak is coming here to dine with me to-day!”
“Farmer Oak — and nobody else? — you two alone?”
“Yes.”
“But is it safe, ma’am, after what’s been said?” asked her companion, dubiously. “A woman’s good name is such a perishable article that — ”
Bathsheba laughed with a flushed cheek, and whispered in Liddy’s ear, although there was nobody present. Then Liddy stared and exclaimed, “Souls alive, what news! It makes my heart go quite bumpity-bump!”
“It makes mine rather furious, too,” said Bathsheba. “However, there’s no getting out of it now!”
It was a damp disagreeable morning. Nevertheless, at twenty minutes to ten o’clock, Oak came out of his house, and
Went up the hill side
With that sort of stride
A man puts out when walking in search of a bride,
and knocked Bathsheba’s door. Ten minutes later a large and a smaller umbrella might have been seen moving from the same door, and through the mist along the road to the church. The distance was not more than a quarter of a mile, and these two sensible persons deemed it unnecessary to drive. An observer must have been very close indeed to discover that the forms under the umbrellas were those of Oak and Bathsheba, arm-in-arm for the first time in their lives, Oak in a greatcoat extending to his knees, and Bathsheba in a cloak that reached her clogs. Yet, though so plainly dressed, there was a certain rejuvenated appearance about her —
As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.
Repose had again incarnadined her cheeks; and having, at Gabriel’s request, arranged her hair this morning as she had worn it years ago on Norcombe Hill, she seemed in his eyes remarkably like a girl of that fascinating dream, which, considering that she was now only three or four-and-twenty, was perhaps not very wonderful. In the church were Tall, Liddy, and the parson, and in a remarkably short space of time the deed was done, and they were man and wife in the sight of God.