Far from the Madding Crowd

by Pan Zador

  After Liddy and Tall had left them, Gabriel and Bathsheba took a walk, for the damp fog and misty rain of the early morning had given way to a soft mildness, which, while not as violent as the heat of summer, for two farming folk well used to the outdoor life, was as welcome as blossom in May.

  Bathsheba followed happily where Oak led her, glad beyond words at the steady, solid presence of her curly-headed new husband, and on the bank of the river that had long been the sole and silent witness to his earthly delights till now, they sat down, and he took the pins one by one from her hair, as gently and kindly as if she had been a new lamb and he the shepherd coaxing it into its first breath. With her hair spread out over her shoulders, she held up her face to be kissed, and was rewarded with the brief trembling of a tear in his eye as he laid gentle lips upon hers.

  “Whenever I look up, there will you be,” she whispered, remembering in some amazement that far distant day in times past, when Gabriel had plighted his troth and she had, with scarce a thought, thrown it back at him. He smiled and pointed down at the river, where, with the brief sparkle of emerald, a kingfisher swooped upon a minnow and was gone again in a flash of orange, white and turquoise.

  “Now I have you, as surely as he has that fish he risked all for,” he said. “Will I tell you a secret thing about myself?”

  She nodded, in wonder that there would be no end to the depths of Oak, and he stood up, and stripped off his bridegroom’s gear and displayed himself before her, naked and unashamed.

  “We are one now,” he said quietly, “and I have done with my old ways. But here on this bank, many and many’s the day I have thought of you, and only you, as I took to the waters, and with their rough caresses they in their turn proved my comfort and my joy, for what is natural and in the open air is best for man and beast — and for woman too, perhaps. And though today be wintry, yet am I glad to be standing thus before you, under the sky, to show you with my body what I cannot say in words.”

  There was no denying the evidence of his arousal, for he did not turn away to hide himself from her, but stood, erect and proud, seemingly with no haste to complete the act that would truly make them man and wife.

  A blush came to her cheek, for as yet they had only kissed, yet in spite of the greyness of the day, Bathsheba felt something hot stirring within her, and in one impulsive move, she too threw off her wedding clothes, and stood as bare and white as he, beside him.

  “Here am I by your side, Gabriel, and no powders or paints, no soft candlelight or lantern, shall hide from you what I am and whose I am.”

  He laughed with joy, that his natural urge was twinned by her wild heat.

  “Will we make our marriage bed here?” he asked her, softly stroking her breast.

  For answer, she lay naked on her back before him, and stretched out her white bare arms to pull him down upon her. They needed no teasing or tickling to bring them both to a full readiness, and as they lay together for the first time on God’s earth, feeling the cold grass grow warm, they joined, body, soul, and hearts for ever. Slow, gentle and easy was their love making, coming by degrees to a peak of pleasure, and at the final moment she cried out in her fulfilment, and he groaned softly and shuddered, and they felt joy in the rightness of their union.

  He made ready to help her dress, but she stopped him.

  “My dearest darling,” she murmured, “you, who have waited so long for me, and have given me such pleasure in this riverside union, deserve yet more. I am here for your pleasure, my husband. Tell me or show me what it is you want. Let me now make those long years of dreaming into reality.

  Gabriel lay on the green sward, amazed. She let her abundant black ropes of hair brush over his body with long, slow sweeps. The feel of her hair was just as he had imagined, and her sweet face bending to kiss his belly, then lower, aroused in him the fullest sensations of exquisite pleasure. She kissed his hardness, the sweet moisture of her mouth bringing it to a stand, then gently, and oh, so slowly, took him into her mouth and sucked as gently as a new lamb suckles its mother.

  “Dear heaven,” he whispered, stroking that head, tangling his hands in her hair as he felt the soft brush of her breasts, fuller now, more rounded and softer than he had ever imagined, “this is paradise to me.”

  For answer, she sucked a little harder, then drew back to mouth and tease his tip with lips and tongue, until he could no longer contain himself. Quickly and eagerly she was astride him, taking his stiff length deeply into that wet hot place where her velvet caressed his hardness until he spent himself in undreamt of ecstasies. Her face glowed with joy, and she came with waves of gasping pleasure, then collapsed upon him, her face hot against his breast; they remained thus joined for a long while, stroking each others arms and face, until the coolness of the day stirred them to slowly, with reluctance, pull apart.

  “Let us be together always innocent as beasts, and as kind as angels.”

  Was it she who spoke that thought aloud, or he? It mattered not; it was as simple a message as the beating of their two hearts in unison, and what was shared in their thoughts and feelings would in the future be naturally demonstrated by the embraces of their physical bodies.

  The two sat down very quietly to tea in Bathsheba’s parlour in the evening of the same day, for it had been arranged that Farmer Oak should go there to live, since he had as yet neither money, house, nor furniture worthy of the name, though he was on a sure way towards them, whilst Bathsheba was, comparatively, in a plethora of all three.

  Just as Bathsheba was pouring out a cup of tea, their ears were greeted by the firing of a cannon, followed by what seemed like a tremendous blowing of trumpets, in the front of the house.

  “There!” said Oak, laughing, “I knew those fellows were up to something, by the look on their faces.”

  Oak took up the light and went into the porch, followed by Bathsheba with a shawl over her head. The rays fell upon a group of male figures gathered upon the gravel in front, who, when they saw the newly-married couple in the porch, set up a loud “Hurrah!” and at the same moment bang again went the cannon in the background, followed by a hideous clang of music from a drum, tambourine, clarionet, serpent, hautboy, tenor-viol, and double-bass — the only remaining relics of the true and original Weatherbury band — venerable worm-eaten instruments, which had celebrated in their own persons the victories of Marlborough, under the fingers of the forefathers of those who played them now. The performers came forward, and marched up to the front.

  “Those bright boys, Mark Clark and Jan, are at the bottom of all this,” said Oak. “Come in, souls, and have something to eat and drink wi’ me and my wife.”

  “Not to-night,” said Mr. Clark, with evident self-denial. “Thank ye all the same; but we’ll call at a more seemly time. However, we couldn’t think of letting the day pass without a note of admiration of some sort. If ye could send a drop of som’at down to Warren’s, why so it is. Here’s long life and happiness to neighbour Oak and his comely bride!”

  “Aye, faith, here’s to all wives!” cried Jan, whose nimble wife had taught him tricks he never dreamed of, in all his creeping-up.

  “Thank ye; thank ye all,” said Gabriel. “A bit and a drop shall be sent to Warren’s for ye at once. I had a thought that we might very likely get a salute of some sort from our old friends, and I was saying so to my wife but now.”

  “Faith,” said Coggan, in a critical tone, turning to his companions, “the man hev learnt to say ‘my wife’ in a wonderful naterel way, considering how very youthful he is in wedlock as yet — hey, neighbours all?”

  “I never heerd a skilful old married feller of twenty years’ standing pipe ‘my wife’ in a more used note than ‘a did,” said Jacob Smallbury. “It might have been a little more true to nater if’t had been spoke a little chillier, but that wasn’t to be expected just now.”

  “That impr
ovement will come wi’ time,” said Jan, twirling his eye.

  Then Oak laughed, and Bathsheba smiled (for she never laughed readily now), and their friends turned to go.

  “Yes; I suppose that’s the size o’t,” said Joseph Poorgrass with a cheerful sigh as they moved away; “and I wish him joy o’ her; though I were once or twice upon saying to-day with holy Hosea, in my scripture manner, which is my second nature, ‘Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.’ But since ’tis as ’tis, why, it might have been worse, and I feel my thanks accordingly.”

  About the Collaborating Author

  Pan Zador currently lives in rural Wales. The downs, farmlands, coast, and rivers of Dorset, in England — Hardy’s original model for the Wessex countryside he describes so enchantingly in this novel — are familiar to her from frequent visits there to friends and family.

  For five years she was a novice sheep farmer in the south west of Ireland, in between her other career as playwright. Hardy’s descriptions of the trials and terrors of sheep farming are, she assures the reader, completely authentic.

  In preparing this book for the Wild & Wanton imprint, it has been always her intention to support Hardy in his thwarted wish to be more explicit in the love scenes. Alas, poor Hardy did not have the encouragement of his editor in this direction — unlike his more fortunate co-writer, who was not confined by editorial notions of Victorian morality, but rather, encouraged to go further and be ever more adventurous.

  Pan Zador has one other novel published under the Crimson Romance imprint — Act of Love is a story set in the present day world of theatre, where, she is happy to say, costumes and underwear are removed far more easily than in Bathsheba Everdene’s day.

  A Sneak Peek from Crimson Romance

  (From Sense and Sensibility: The Wild and Wanton Edition by Lauren Lane and Jane Austen)

  The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to bequeath it. In the society of his nephew and niece, and their children, the old Gentleman’s days were comfortably spent. His attachment to them all increased. The constant attention of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the children added a relish to his existence.

  By a former marriage, Mr. Henry Dashwood had one son: by his present lady, three daughters. The son, a steady respectable young man, was amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had been large, and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age. By his own marriage, likewise, which happened soon afterwards, he added to his wealth. To him therefore the succession to the Norland estate was not so really important as to his sisters; for their fortune, independent of what might arise to them from their father’s inheriting that property, could be but small. Their mother had nothing, and their father only seven thousand pounds in his own disposal; for the remaining moiety of his first wife’s fortune was also secured to her child, and he had only a life-interest in it.

  The old gentleman died: his will was read, and like almost every other will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure. He was neither so unjust, nor so ungrateful, as to leave his estate from his nephew; but he left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the bequest. Mr. Dashwood had wished for it more for the sake of his wife and daughters than for himself or his son; but to his son, and his son’s son, a child of four years old, it was secured, in such a way, as to leave to himself no power of providing for those who were most dear to him, and who most needed a provision by any charge on the estate, or by any sale of its valuable woods. The whole was tied up for the benefit of this child, who, in occasional visits with his father and mother at Norland, had so far gained on the affections of his uncle, by such attractions as are by no means unusual in children of two or three years old; an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise, as to outweigh all the value of all the attention which, for years, he had received from his niece and her daughters. He meant not to be unkind, however, and, as a mark of his affection for the three girls, he left them a thousand pounds a-piece.

  Mr. Dashwood’s disappointment was, at first, severe; but his temper was cheerful and sanguine; and he might reasonably hope to live many years, and by living economically, lay by a considerable sum from the produce of an estate already large, and capable of almost immediate improvement. But the fortune, which had been so tardy in coming, was his only one twelvemonth. He survived his uncle no longer; and ten thousand pounds, including the late legacies, was all that remained for his widow and daughters.

  His son was sent for as soon as his danger was known, and to him Mr. Dashwood recommended, with all the strength and urgency which illness could command, the interest of his mother-in-law and sisters.

  Mr. John Dashwood had not the strong feelings of the rest of the family; but he was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at such a time, and he promised to do every thing in his power to make them comfortable. His father was rendered easy by such an assurance, and Mr. John Dashwood had then leisure to consider how much there might prudently be in his power to do for them.

  He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted, rather selfish, and rather insatiable in the bedroom is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general, well respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of his ordinary duties. Had he married a more amiable woman, he might have been made still more respectable than he was: he might even have been made amiable himself; for he was very young when he married, and very fond of his wife, as her libido was as unquenchable as his own and she was always amenable to anything he might suggest between the sheets — and quite often offered suggestions of her own. But Mrs. John Dashwood was a strong caricature of himself; more narrow-minded and selfish.

  When he gave his promise to his father, he meditated within himself to increase the fortunes of his sisters by the present of a thousand pounds a-piece. He then really thought himself equal to it. The prospect of four thousand a-year, in addition to his present income, besides the remaining half of his own mother’s fortune, warmed his heart, and made him feel capable of generosity. “Yes, he would give them three thousand pounds: it would be liberal and handsome! It would be enough to make them completely easy. Three thousand pounds! he could spare so considerable a sum with little inconvenience.” He thought of it all day long, and for many days successively, and he did not repent.

  No sooner was his father’s funeral over, than Mrs. John Dashwood, without sending any notice of her intention to her mother-in-law, arrived with her child and their attendants. No one could dispute her right to come; the house was her husband’s from the moment of his father’s decease; but the indelicacy of her conduct was so much the greater, and to a woman in Mrs. Dashwood’s situation, with only common feelings, must have been highly unpleasing. But in her mind there was a sense of honor so keen, a generosity so romantic, that any offence of the kind, by whomsoever given or received, was to her a source of immovable disgust. Mrs. John Dashwood had never been a favourite with any of her husband’s family; but she had had no opportunity, till the present, of showing them with how little attention to the comfort of other people she could act when occasion require
d it. It was as if she were purposely doing anything and everything she could think of to drive them away — including behaving entirely inappropriately with her husband while in the company of the other women.

  So acutely did Mrs. Dashwood feel this ungracious behaviour, and so earnestly did she despise her daughter-in-law for it, that, on the arrival of the latter, she would have quitted the house for ever, had not the entreaty of her eldest girl induced her first to reflect on the propriety of going, and her own tender love for all her three children determined her afterwards to stay, and for their sakes avoid a breach with their brother.

  Elinor, this eldest daughter, whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence. She had an excellent heart; her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them: it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn; and which one of her sisters had resolved never to be taught. She knew she would make an excellent wife one day; she only had to meet the man who was destined to be her husband.

  Marianne’s abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor’s. She was sensible and clever; but eager in everything: her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable, interesting: she was everything but prudent. The resemblance between her and her mother was strikingly great. But above all, she dreamt of finding love — an all consuming, passionate connection that would make her forget everything except the raw hunger she and her lover felt for one another. She wanted nothing more than to be swept up in romance and be revered by a man who had eyes only for her, a man who would cause her, at even the slightest glance, to tremble with desire and anticipation, and who would make her feel like the woman she knew she was deep down inside.