sion of unutterable regret crossed her face, and she
burst into tears.
"No - not a word!" said Liddy, looking at the
weeping woman with astonishment. "What is it makes
you cry so, ma'am; has anything hurt you?" She came
to Bathsheba's side with a face full of sympathy.
"No, Liddy-i don't want you any more. I can
hardly say why I have taken to crying lately: I never
used to cry. Good-night."
Liddy then left the parlour and closed the door.
Bathsheba was lonely and miserable now; not lone-
lier actually than she had been before her marriage;
but her loneliness then was to that of the present time
as the solitude of a mountain is to the solitude of a
cave. And within the last day or two had come these
disquieting thoughts about her husband's past. Her
wayward sentiment that evening concerning Fanny's
temporary resting-place had been the result of a strange
complication of impulses in Bathsheba's bosom. Per-
haps it would be more accurately described as a
determined rebellion against her prejudices, a revulsion
from a lower instinct of uncharitableness, which would
have withheld all sympathy from the dead woman, be-
cause in life she had preceded Bathsheba in the atten-
tions of a man whom Bathsheba had by no means
ceased from loving, though her love was sick to death
just now with the gravity of a further misgiving.
In five or ten minutes there was another tap at the
door. Liddy reappeared, and coming in a little way
stood hesitating, until at length she said,!Maryann has
just heard something very strange, but I know it isn't
true. And we shall be sure to know the rights of it in
a day or two."
"What is it?"
"Oh, nothing connected with you or us, ma'am. It
is about Fanny. That same thing you have heard."
"I have heard nothing."
"I mean that a wicked story is got to Weatherbury
within this last hour - that - - " Liddy came close to
her mistress and whispered the remainder of the sentence
slowly into her ear, inclining her head as she spoke in
the direction of the room where Fanny lay.
Bathsheba trembled from head to foot.
"I don't believe it!" she said, excitedly. "And
there's only one name written on the coffin-cover."
"Nor I, ma'am. And a good many others don't;
for we should surely have been told more about it if it
had been true - don't you think so, ma'am?"
"We might or we might not."
Bathsheba turned and looked into the fire, that
Liddy might not see her face. Finding that her mistress
was going to say no more, Liddy glided out, closed the
door softly, and went to bed.
Bathsheba's face, as she continued looking into the
fire that evening, might have excited solicitousness on
her account even among those who loved her least.
The sadness of Fanny Robin's fate did not make Bath-
sheba's glorious, although she was the Esther to this
poor Vashti, and their fates might be supposed to stand
in some respects as contrasts to each other. When
Liddy came into the room a second time the beautiful
eyes which met hers had worn a listless, weary look-
When she went out after telling the story they had ex-
pressed wretchedness in full activity. Her simple
country nature, fed on old-fashioned principles, was
troubled by that which would have troubled a woman
of the world very little, both Fanny and her child, if she
had one, being dead.
Bathsheba had grounds for conjecturing a connection
between her own history and the dimly suspected
tragedy of Fanny's end which Oak and Boldwood never
for a moment credited her with possessing. The
meeting with the lonely woman on the previous Saturday
night had been unwitnessed and unspoken of. Oak
may have had the best of intentions in withholding for
as many days as possible the details of what had
happened to Fanny; but had he known that Bathsheba's
perceptions had already been exercised in the matter,
he would have done nothing to lengthen the minutes of
suspense she was now undergoing, when the certainty
which must terminate it would be the worst fact suspected
after all.
She suddenly felt a longing desire to speak to some
one stronger than herself, and so get strength to sustain
her surmised position with dignity and her lurking
doubts with stoicism. Where could she find such a
friend? nowhere in the house. She was by far the
coolest of the women under her roof. Patience and
suspension of judgement for a few hours were what she
wanted to learn, and there was nobody to teach her.
Might she but go to Gabriel Oak! - but that could not
be. What a way Oak had, she thought, of enduring
things. Boldwood, who seemed so much deeper and
higher and stronger in feeling than Gabriel, had not
yet learnt, any more than she herself, the simple
lesson which Oak showed a mastery of by every turn
and look he gave - that among the multitude of interests
by which he was surrounded, those which affected his
personal wellbeing were not the most absorbing and
important in his eyes. Oak meditatively looked upon
the horizon of circumstances without any special regard
to his own standpoint in the midst. That was how
she would wish to be. But then Oak was not racked
by incertitude upon the inmost matter of his bosom, as
she was at this moment. Oak knew all about Fanny
that he wished to know - she felt convinced of that.
If she were to go to him now at once and say no more
than these few words,!What is the truth of the story?"
he would feel bound in honour to tell her. It would
be an inexpressible relief. No further speech would
need to be uttered. He knew her so well that no
eccentricity of behaviour in her would alarm him.
She flung a cloak round her, went to the door and
opened it. Every blade, every twig was still. The air
was yet thick with moisture, though somewhat less dense
than during the afternoon, and a steady smack of drops
upon the fallen leaves under the boughs was almost
musical in its soothing regularity. lt seemed better to
be out of the house than within it, and Bathsheba closed
the door, and walked slowly down the lane till she came
opposite to Gabriel's cottage, where he now lived alone,
having left Coggan's house through being pinched for
room. There was a light in one window only', and that
was downstairs. The shutters were not closed, nor was
any blind or curtain drawn over the window, neither
robbery nor observation being a contingency which could
do much injury to the occupant of the domicile. Yes,
it was Gabriel himself who was sitting up: he was reading,
From her standing-place in the road she could see him
plainly, sitting quite still, his light curly head upon his
hand, and only occasionally looking up to snuff the
candle which stood beside him. At length he looked
at the clock, seemed surprised at the lateness of the
hour, closed his book, and arose. He was going to bed,
she knew, and if she tapped it must be done at once.
Alas for her resolve! She felt she could not do it,
Not for worlds now could she give a hint about her
misery to him, much less ask him plainly for information
on the cause of Fanny's death. She must suspect, and
guess, and chafe, and bear it all alone.
Like a homeless wanderer she lingered by the bank,
as if lulled and fascinated by the atmosphere of content
which seemed to spread from that little dwelling, and
was so sadly lacking in her own. Gabriel appeared in
an upper room, placed his light in the window-bench,
and then - knelt down to pray. The contrast of the
picture with her rebellious and agitated existence at this
same time was too much for her to bear to look upon
longer. It was not for her to make a truce with
trouble by any such means. She must tread her giddy
distracting measure to its last note, as she had begun it.
With a swollen heart she went again up the lane, and
entered her own door.
More fevered now by a reaction from the first feelings
which Oak's example had raised in her, she paused in
the hall, looking at the door of the room wherein Fanny
lay. She locked her fingers, threw back her head, and
strained her hot hands rigidly across her forehead, saying,
with a hysterical sob, "Would to God you would speak
and tell me your secret, Fanny! . , . O, I hope, hope
it is not true that there are two of you! ... If I could
only look in upon you for one little minute, I should
know all!"
A few moments passed, and she added, slowly, "And
I will"
Bathsheba in after times could never gauge the mood
which carried her through the actions following this
murmured resolution on this memorable evening of her
life. She went to the lumber-closet for a screw-driver.
At the end of a short though undefined time she found
herself in the small room, quivering with emotion, a mist
before her eyes, and an excruciating pulsation in her
brain, standing beside the uncovered coffin of the girl
whose conjectured end had so entirely engrossed her, and
saying to herself in a husky voice as she gazed within -
"It was best to know the worst, and I know it now!"
She was conscious of having brought about this
situation by a series of actions done as by one in an
extravagant dream; of following that idea as to method,
which had burst upon her in the hall with glaring
obviousness, by gliding to the top of the stairs, assuring
herself by listening to the heavy breathing of her maids
that they were asleep, gliding down again, turning the
handle of the door within which the young girl lay, and
deliberately setting herself to do what, if she had antici-
pated any such undertaking at night and alone, would
have horrified her, but which, when done, was not so
dreadful as was the conclusive proof of her husband's
conduct which came with knowing beyond doubt the
last chapter of Fanny's story.
Bathsheba's head sank upon her bosom, and the
breath which had been bated in suspense, curiosity, and
interest, was exhaled now in the form of a whispered
wail: "Oh-h-h!" she said, and the silent room added
length to her moan.
Her tears fell fast beside the unconscious pair in the
coffin: tears of a complicated origin, of a nature inde-
scribable, almost indefinable except as other than those
of simple sorrow. Assuredly their wonted fires must
have lived in Fanny's ashes when events were so shaped
as to chariot her hither in this natural, unobtrusive, yet
effectual manner. The one feat alone - that of dying -
by which a mean condition could be resolved into a
grand one, Fanny had achieved. And to that had
destiny subjoined this rencounter to-night, which had,
in Bathsheba's wild imagining, turned her companion's
failure to success, her humiliation to triumph, her luck-
lessness to ascendency; et had thrown over herself a
garish light of mockery, and set upon all things about
her an ironical smile.
Fanny's face was framed in by that yellow hair of
hers; and there was no longer much room for doubt as
to the origin of the curl owned by Troy. In Bath-
sheba's heated fancy the innocent white countenance
expressed a dim triumphant consciousness of the pain
she was retaliating for her pain with all the merciless
rigour of the Mosaic law: "Burning for burning; wound
for wound: strife for strife.
Bathsheba indulged in contemplations of escape from
her position by immediate death, which thought she,
though it was an inconvenient and awful way, had limits
to its inconvenience and awfulness that could not be
overpassed; whilst the shames of life were measureless.
Yet even this scheme of extinction by death was out
tamely copying her rival's method without the reasons
which had glorified it in her rival's case. She glided
rapidly up and down the room, as was mostly her habit
hen excited, her hands hanging clasped in front of her,
as she thought and in part expressed in broken words:
O, I hate her, yet I don't mean that I hate her, for
it is grievous and wicked; and yet I hate her a little!
yes, my flesh insists upon hating her, whether my spirit
is willing or no!... If she had only lived, I could
ave been angry and cruel towards her with some justifi-
cation; but to be vindictive towards a poor dead woman
recoils upon myself. O God, have mercy,! I am
miserable at all this!"
Bathsheba became at this moment so terrified at her
own state of mind that she looked around for some sort
of refuge from herself. The vision of Oak kneeling
down that night recurred to her, and with the imitative
instinct which animates women she seized upon the idea,
resolved to kneel, and, if possible, pray. Gabriel had
prayed; so would she.
She knelt beside the coffin, covered her face with her
hands, and for a time the room was silent as a tomb.
whether from a purely mechanical, or from any other
cause, when Bathsheba arose it was with a quieted spirit,
and a regret for the antagonistic instincts which had
seized upon her just before.
In her desire to make atonement she took flowers
from a vase by the window, and began laying them
around the dead girl's head. Bathsheba knew no other
way of showing kindness to persons departed than by
giving them flowers. She knew not how long she
remained engaged thus. She forgot time, life, where
she was, what she was doing. A slamming together of
the coach-house doors in the yard brought her to her-
self again. An instant after, the front door opened and
closed, steps crossed the hall, and her husband appeared
at the entrance to the room, looking in upon her.
He beheld it all by degrees, stared in stupefaction at
the scene, as if he thought it an illusion raised by some
fiendish
incantation. Bathsheba, pallid as a corpse on
end, gazed back at him in the same wild way.
So little are instinctive guesses the fruit of a legitimate
induction, that at this moment, as he stood with the
door in his hand, Troy never once thought of Fanny in
connection with what he saw. His first confused idea
was that somebody in the house had died.
"Well - what?" said Troy, blankly.
"I must go! I must go!" said Bathsheba, to herself
more than to him. She came with a dilated eye towards
the door, to push past him.
"What's the matter, in God's name? who's dead?"
said Troy.
"I cannot say; let me go out. I want air!" she
continued.
"But no; stay, I insist!" He seized her hand, and
then volition seemed to leave her, and she went off into
a state of passivity. He, still holding her, came up the
room, and thus, hand in hand, Troy and Bathsheba
approached the coffin's side.
The candle was standing on a bureau close by them,
and the light slanted down, distinctly enkindling the
cold features of both mother and babe. Troy looked
in, dropped his wife's hand, knowledge of it all came
over him in a lurid sheen, and he stood still.
So still he remained that he could be imagined to
have left in him no motive power whatever. The
clashes of feeling in all directions confounded one
another, produced a neutrality, and there was motion in
none.
"Do you know her?" said Bathsheba, in a small
enclosed echo, as from the interior of a cell.
"I do." said Troy.
"Is it she?"
"It is."
He had originally stood perfectly erect. And now,
in the wellnigh congealed immobility of his frame
could be discerned an incipient movement, as in the
darkest night may be discerned light after a while.
He was gradually sinking forwards. The lines of his
features softened, and dismay modulated to illimitable
sadness. Bathsheba was regarding him from the other
side, still with parted lips and distracted eyes. Capacity
for intense feeling is proportionate to the general
intensity of the nature ,and perhaps in all Fanny's
sufferings, much greater relatively to her strength, there
never was a time she suffered in an absolute sense
what Bathsheba suffered now.
What Troy did was to sink upon his knees with
an indefinable union of remorse and reverence upon
his face, and, bending over Fanny Robin, gently kissed
her, as one would kiss an infant asleep to avoid
awakening it.
At the sight and sound of that, to her, unendurable
act, Bathsheba sprang towards him. All the strong
feelings which had been scattered over her existence
since she knew what feeling was, seemed gathered
together into one pulsation now. The revulsion from
her indignant mood a little earlier, when she had
meditated upon compromised honour, forestalment,
eclipse in maternity by another, was violent and entire.
All that was forgotten in the simple and still strong
attachment of wife to husband. She had sighed for
her self-completeness then, and now she cried aloud
against the severance of the union she had deplored.
She flung her arms round Troy's neck, exclaiming wildly
from the deepest deep of her heart -
"Don't - don't kiss them! O, Frank, I can"t bear
it-i can't! I love you better than she did: kiss me
too, Frank - kiss me! You will, Frank, kiss me too!"
There was something so abnormal and startling in
the childlike pain and simplicity of this appeal from a
woman of Bathsheba's calibre and independence, that
Troy, loosening her tightly clasped arms from his neck,
looked at her in bewilderment. It was such and unex-
pected revelation of all women being alike at heart, even
those so different in their accessories as Fanny and this
one beside him, that Troy could hardly seem to believe
her to be his proud wife Bathsheba. Fanny's own
spirit seemed to be animating her frame. But this was
the mood of a few instants only. When the momentary
"I will not kiss you!" he said pushing her away.
Had the wife now but gone no further. Yet,
perhaps. under the harrowing circumstances, to speak
out was the one wrong act which can be better under-
stood, if not forgiven in her, than the right and politic
one, her rival being now but a corpse. All the feeling
she had been betrayed into showing she drew back to
herself again by a strenuous effort of self-command.
"What have you to say as your reason?" she asked
her bitter voice being strangely low - quite that of
another woman now.
"I have to say that I have been a bad, black-hearted
man." he answered.
less than she."
"Ah! don't taunt me, madam. This woman is more
to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can
be. If Satan had not tempted me with that face of
yours, and those cursed coquetries, I should have
He turned to Fanny then. "But never mind, darling,
wife!"
At these words there arose from Bathsheba's lips a
long, low cry of measureless despair and indignation,
such a wail of anguish as had never before been heard
within those old-inhabited walls. It was the product*
of her union with Troy.
"If she's - that, - what - am I?" she added, as a
continuation of the same cry, and sobbing pitifully:
and the rarity with her of such abandonment only made
the condition more dire.
"You are nothing to me - nothing." said Troy,
heartlessly. "A ceremony before a priest doesn't make
a marriage. I am not morally yours."
A vehement impulse to flee from him, to run from
this place, hide, and escape his words at any price, not
stopping short of death itself, mastered Bathsheba now.
She waited not an instant, but turned to the door and
ran out.
CHAPTER XLIV
UNDER A TREE - REACTION
BATHSHEBA went along the dark road, neither know-
ing nor caring about the direction or issue of her flight.
The first time that she definitely noticed her position
was when she reached a gate leading into a thicket over-
hung by some large oak and beech trees. On looking
into the place, it occurred to her that she had seen it
by daylight on some previous occasion, and that what
appeared like an impassable thicket was in reality a
brake of fern now withering fast. She could think of
nothing better to do with her palpitating self than to go
in here and hide; and entering, she lighted on a spot
sheltered from the damp fog by a reclining trunk, where
she sank down upon a tangled couch of fronds and
stems. She mechanically pulled some armfuls round
her to keep off the breezes, and closed her eyes.
Whether she slept or not that night Bathsheba was
not clearly aware. But it was with a freshened exist-
ence and a cooler brain that, a long time afterwards, she
became conscious of some interesting proceedings which
were going on in the trees above her head and around.
A coarse-throated chatter was the first sound.
It was a sparrow just waking.
Next: "Chee-weeze-weeze-weeze!" from another
retreat.
It was a finch.
Third: "Tink-tink-tink-tink-a-chink!" from the hedge,
It was a robin.
"Chuck-chuck-chuck!" overhead.
A squirrel.
Then, from the road, "With my ra-ta-ta, and my
rum-tum-tum!"
It was a ploughboy. Presently he came opposite,
and she believed from his voice that he was one of
the boys on her own farm. He was followed by a
shambling tramp of heavy feet, and looking through
the ferns Bathsheba could just discern in the wan light
of daybreak a team of her own horses. They stopped
to drink at a pond on the other side of the way'. She
watched them flouncing into the pool, drinking, tossing
up their heads, drinking again, the water dribbling
from their lips in silver threads. There was another
flounce, and they came out of the pond, and turned
back again towards the farm.
She looked further around. Day was just dawning,
and beside its cool air and colours her heated actions
and resolves of the night stood out in lurid contrast.
She perceived that in her lap, and clinging to her
hair, were red and yellow leaves which had come
down from the tree and settled silently upon her
during her partial sleep. Bathsheba shook her dress to
get rid of them, when multitudes of the same family lying
round about her rose and fluttered away in the breeze
thus created, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing."
There was an opening towards the east, and the
glow from the as yet unrisen sun attracted her eyes
thither. From her feet, and between the beautiful
yellowing ferns with their feathery arms, the ground
sloped downwards to a hollow, in which was a species
of swamp, dotted with fungi. A morning mist hung
over it now - a fulsome yet magnificent silvery veil,
full of light from the sun, yet semi-opaque - the hedge
behind it being in some measure hidden by its hazy
luminousness. Up the sides of this depression grew
sheaves of the common rush, and here and there a
peculiar species of flag, the blades of which glistened
in the emerging sun, like scythes. But the general
aspect of the swamp was malignant. From its moist
and poisonous coat seemed to be exhaled the essences
of evil things in the earth, and in the waters under
the earth. The fungi grew in all manner of positions
from rotting leaves and tree stumps, some exhibiting
to her listless gaze their clammy tops, others their
oozing gills. Some were marked with great splotches,
red as arterial blood, others were saffron yellow, and
others tall and attenuated, with stems like macaroni.
Some were leathery and of richest browns. The
hollow seemed a nursery of pestilences small and
great, in the immediate neighbourhood of comfort
and health, and Bathsheba arose with a tremor at the
thought of having passed the night on the brink of
so dismal a place.
"There were now other footsteps to be heard along
the road. Bathsheba's nerves were still unstrung:
she crouched down out of sight again, and the pedes-
trian came into view. He was a schoolboy, with a
bag slung over his shoulder containing his dinner,
and a hook in his hand. He paused by the gate,
and, without looking up, continued murmuring words
in tones quite loud enough to reach her ears.
"O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord": -
that I know out o' book. "Give us, give us, give us,
give us, give us": - that I know. "Grace that, grace that,
grace that, grace that": - that I know." Other words
followed to the same effect. The boy was of the
dunce class apparently; the book was a psalter, and
this was his way of learning the collect. In the worst
attacks of trouble there appears to be always a super-
ficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged
and open to the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was
faintly amused at the boy's method, till he too passed on.
By this time stupor had given place to anxiety, and
anxiety began to make room for hunger and thirst.
A form now appeared upon the rise on the other side
of the swamp, half-hidden by the mist, and came
towards Bathsheba. The woman - for it was a woman
- approached with her face askance, as if looking
earnestly on all sides of her. When she got a little
further round to the left, and drew nearer, Bathsheba
could see the newcomer's profile against the sunny
sky', and knew the wavy sweep from forehead to chin,
with neither angle nor decisive line anywhere about
it, to be the familiar contour of Liddy Smallbury.
Bathsheba's heart bounded with gratitude in the
thought that she was not altogether deserted, and she
jumped up. "O, Liddy!" she said, or attempted to say;
but the words had only been framed by her lips; there
came no sound. She had lost her voice by exposure
to the clogged atmosphere all these hours of night.
"O, ma'am! I am so glad I have found you." said
the girl, as soon as she saw Bathsheba.
"You can't come across." Bathsheba said in a whisper,
which she vainly endeavoured to make loud enough to
reach Liddy's ears. Liddy, not knowing this, stepped
down upon the swamp, saying, as she did so, "It will
bear me up, I think."
Bathsheba never forgot that transient little picture
of Liddy crossing the swamp to her there in the
morning light. Iridescent bubbles of dank subter-
ranean breath rose from the sweating sod beside the
waiting maid's feet as she trod, hissing as they burst
and expanded away to join the vapoury firmament above.
Liddy did not sink, as Bathsheba had anticipated.
She landed safely on the other side, and looked up
at the beautiful though pale and weary face of her
young mistress.
"Poor thing!" said Liddy, with tears in her eyes,
Do hearten yourself up a little, ma'am. However
did - - "
"I can't speak above a whisper - my voice is gone
for the present." said Bathsheba, hurriedly." I suppose
the damp air from that hollow has taken it away
Liddy, don't question me, mind. Who sent you -
anybody?"
"Nobody. I thought, when I found you were not
at home, that something cruel had happened. I fancy
I heard his voice late last night; and so, knowing
something was wrong - - "
"Is he at home?"
"No; he left just before I came out."
"Is Fanny taken away?"
"Not yet. She will soon be - at nine o'clock."
"we won't go home at present, then. Suppose we
walk about in this wood?"
Liddy, without exactly understanding everything, or
anything, in this episode, assented, and they walked
together further among the trees.
"But you had better come in, ma'am, and have
something to eat. You will die of a chill!"
"I shall not come indoors yet - perhaps never."
"Shall I get you something to eat, and something
else to put over your head besides that little shawl?"
"If you will, Liddy."
Liddy vanished, and at the end of twenty minutes
returned with a cloak, hat, some slices of bread and
butter, a tea-cup, and some hot tea in a little china jug
"Is Fanny gone?" said Bathsheba.
"No." said her companion, pouring out the tea.
Bathsheba wrapped herself up and ate and drank
sparingly. Her voice was then a little clearer, and
trifling colour returned to her face. "Now we'll walk
about again." she said.
They wandered about the wood for nearly two
hours, Bathsheba replying in monosyllables to Liddy's
prattle, for her mind ran on one subject, and one only.
She interrupted with -
"l wonder if Fanny is gone by this time?"
"I will go and see."
She came back with the information that the
men were just taking away the corpse; that Bathsheba
had been inquired for; that she had replied to the
effect that her mistress was unwell and could not be
seen.
"Then they think I am in my bedroom?"
"Yes." Liddy then ventured to add:" You said
when I first found you that you might never go home
again - you didn't mean it, ma'am?"
"No; I've altered my mind. It is only women with
no pride in them who run away from their husbands.
There is one position worse than that of being found
dead in your husband's house from his ill usage, and
that is, to be found alive through having gone away to
The house of somebody else. I've thought of it all this
morning, and I've chosen my course. A runaway wife
is an encumbrance to everybody, a burden to herself and
a byword - all of which make up a heap of misery
greater than any that comes by staying at home -
though this may include the trifling items of insult,
beating, and starvation. Liddy, if ever you marry -
God forbid that you ever should! - you'll find yourself
in a fearful situation; but mind this, don't you flinch.
Stand your ground, and be cut to pieces. That's
what I'm going to do."
"O, mistress, don't talk so!" said Liddy,-taking her
hand; "but I knew you had too much sense to bide
away. May I ask what dreadful thing it is that has
happened between you and him?"
"You may ask; but I may not tell."
In about ten minutes they returned to the house by
a circuitous route, entering at the rear. Bathsheba
glided up the back stairs to a disused attic, and her
companion followed.
"Liddy." she said, with a lighter heart, for youth and
hope had begun to reassert themselves;" you are to be
my confidante for the present - somebody must be - and
I choose you. Well, I shall take up my abode here for
a while. Will you get a fire lighted, put down a piece
of carpet, and help me to make the place comfortable.
Afterwards, I want you and Maryann to bring up that
little stump bedstead in the small room, and the be
belonging to it, and a table, and some other things.
What shall I do to pass the heavy time away?"
"Hemming handkerchiefs is a very good thing." said
Liddy.
"O no, no! I hate needlework-i always did."
"knitting?"
"And that, too."
"You might finish your sampler. Only the carna-
tions and peacocks want filling in; and then it could
be framed and glazed, and hung beside your aunt"
ma'am."
"Samplers are out of date - horribly countrified. No
Liddy, I'll read. Bring up some books - not new ones.
I haven't heart to read anything new."
"Some of your uncle's old ones, ma'am?"
"Yes. Some of those we stowed away in boxes." A
faint gleam of humour passed over her face as she said:
"Bring Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy, and
the Mourning Bride, and let me see - Night Thoughts,
and the Vanity of Human Wishes."
"And that story of the black man, who murdered his
wife Desdemona? It is a nice dismal one that would
suit you excellent just now."
"Now, Liddy, you've been looking into my book
without telling me; and I said you were not to! How
do you know it would suit me? It wouldn't suit me a
all."
"But if the others do - - "
"No, they don't; and I won't read dismal books.
Why should I read dismal books, indeed? Bring me
Love in a Village, and Maid of the Mill, and Doctor
Syntax, and some volumes of the Spectator."
All that day Bathsheba and Liddy lived in the attic
in a state of barricade; a precaution which proved to be
needless as against Troy, for he did not appear in the
neighbourhood or trouble them at all. Bathsheba sat
at the window till sunset, sometimes attempting to read,
at other times watching every movement outside without
much purpose, and listening without much interest to
every sound.
The sun went down almost blood-red that night, and
a livid cloud received its rays in the east. Up against
this dark background the west front of the church
tower - the only part of the edifice visible from the
farm-house windows - rose distinct and lustrous, the
vane upon the summit bristling with rays. Hereabouts,
at six o'clock, the young men of the village gathered,
as was their custom, for a game of Prisoners' base. The
spot had been consecrated to this ancient diversion from
time immemorial, the old stocks conveniently forming
a base facing the boundary of the churchyard, in front
of which the ground was trodden hard and bare as a
pavement by the players. She could see the brown
and black heads of the young lads darting about right
and left, their white shirt-sleeves gleaming in the sun;
whilst occasionally a shout and a peal of hearty laughter
varied the stillness of the evening air. They continued
playing for a quarter of an hour or so, when the game
concluded abruptly, and the players leapt over the wall
and vanished round to the other side behind a yew-tree,
which was also half behind a beech, now spreading in
one mass of golden foliage, on which the branches
traced black lines.
"Why did the base-players finish their game so
suddenly?" Bathsheba inquired, the next time that
Liddy entered the room.
"I think 'twas because two men came just then from
Casterbridge and began putting up grand carved
tombstone." said Liddy. "The lads went to see whose
it was."
"Do you know?" Bathsheba asked.
"I don't." said Liddy.
CHAPTER XLV
TROY'S ROMANTICISM
WHEN Troy's wife had left the house at the previous
midnight his first act was to cover the dead from sight.
This done he ascended the stairs, and throwing himself
down upon the bed dressed as he was, he waited miser-
ably for the morning.
Fate had dealt grimly with him through the last four-
and-twenty hours. His day had been spent in a way
which varied very materially from his intentions regard-
ing it. There is always an inertia to be overcome in
striking out a new line of conduct - not more in our-
selves, it seems, than in circumscribing events, which
appear as if leagued together to allow no novelties in
the way of amelioration.
Twenty pounds having been secured from Bathsheba,
he had managed to add to the sum every farthing he
could muster on his own account, which had been seven
pounds ten. With this money, twenty-seven pounds ten
in all, he had hastily driven from the gate that morning
to keep his appointment with Fanny Robin.
On reaching Casterbridge he left the horse and trap
at an inn, and at five minutes before ten came back to
the bridge at the lower end of the town, and sat himself
upon the parapet. The clocks struck the hour, and no
Fanny appeared. In fact, at that moment she was being
robed in her grave-clothes by two attendants at the
Union poorhouse - the first and last tiring-women the
gentle creature had ever been honoured with. The
quarter went, the half hour. A rush of recollection
came upon Troy as he waited: this was the second
time she had broken a serious engagement with him
In anger he vowed it should be the last, and at eleven
o'clock, when he had lingered and watched the stone
of the bridge till he knew every lichen upon their face
and heard the chink of the ripples underneath till they
oppressed him, he jumped from his seat, went to the inn
for his gig, and in a bitter mood of indifference con-
cerning the past, and recklessness about the future,
drove on to Budmouth races.
He reached the race-course at two o'clock, and re-
mained either there or in the town till nine, But
Fanny's image, as it had appeared to him in the sombre
shadows of that Saturday evening, returned to his mind,
backed up by Bathsheba's reproaches. He vowed he
would not bet, and he kept his vow, for on leaving the
town at nine o'clock in the evening he had diminish
his cash only to the extent of a few shillings.
He trotted slowly homeward, and it was now that
was struck for the first time with a thought that Fanny
had been really prevented by illness from keeping her
promise. This time she could have made no mistake
He regretted that he had not remained in Casterbridge
and made inquiries. Reaching home he quietly un-
harnessed the horse and came indoors, as we have seen,
to the fearful shock that awaited him.
As soon as it grew light enough to distinguish objects,
Troy arose from the coverlet of the bed, and in a mood
of absolute indifference to Bathsheba's whereabouts, a
almost oblivious of her existence, he stalked downstairs
and left the house by the back door. His walk was
towards the churchyard, entering which he searched
around till he found a newly dug unoccupied grave -
the grave dug the day before for Fanny. The position
of this having been marked, he hastened on to Caster-
bridge, only pausing
whereon he had last seen Fanny alive.
Reaching the town, Troy descended into a side
street and entered a pair of gates surmounted by a board
bearing the words, "Lester, stone and marble mason."
Within were lying about stones of all sizes and designs,
inscribed as being sacred to the memory of unnamed
persons who had not yet died.
Troy was so unlike himself now in look, word, and
deed, that the want of likeness was perceptible even to
his own consciousness. His method of engaging himself
in this business of purchasing a tomb was that of an
absolutely unpractised man. He could not bring him-
self to consider, calculate, or economize. He waywardly
wished for something, and he set about obtaining it like
a child in a nursery. 'I want a good tomb." he said to
the man who stood in a little office within the yard.
"I want as good a one as you can give me for twenty-
seven pounds,"
It was all the money he possessed.
"That sum to include everything?"
"Everything. Cutting the name, carriage to Weather-
bury, and erection. And I want it now at once ."
"We could not get anything special worked this
week.
"If you would like one of these in stock it could be
got ready immediately."
"Very well." said Troy, impatiently. "Let's see what
you have."
"The best I have in stock is this one," said the stone-
cutter, going into a shed." Here's a marble headstone
beautifully crocketed, with medallions beneath of typical
subjects; here's the footstone after the same pattern,
and here's the coping to enclose the- grave. The
slabs are the best of their kind, and I can warrant them
"Well, I could add the name, and put it up at
visitor who wore not a shred of mourning. Troy then
settled the account and went away. In the afternoon
almost done. He waited in the yard till the tomb was
way to Weatherbury, giving directions to the two men
the grave of the person named in the inscription.
bridge. He carried rather a heavy basket upon his
occasionally at bridges and gates, whereon he deposited
returning in the darkness, the men and the waggon
the work was done, and, on being assured that it was,
Troy entered Weatherbury churchyard about ten
had marked the vacant grave early in the morning. It
extent from the view of passers along the road - a spot
and bushes of alder, but now it was cleared and made
the ground elsewhere.
Here now stood the tomb as the men had stated, snow-
white and shapely in the gloom, consisting of head and
foot-stone, and enclosing border of marble-work uniting
them. In the midst was mould, suitable for plants.
Troy deposited his basket beside the tomb, and
vanished for a few minutes. When he returned he
carried a spade and a lantern, the light of which he
directed for a few moments upon the marble, whilst he
read the inscription. He hung his lantern on the lowest
bough of the yew-tree, and took from his basket flower-
roots of several varieties. There were bundles of snow-
drop, hyacinth and crocus bulbs, violets and double
daisies, which were to bloom in early spring, and of
carnations, pinks, picotees, lilies of the valley, forget-me-
not, summer's-farewell, meadow-saffron and others, for
the later seasons of the year.
Troy laid these out upon the grass, and with an im-
passive face set to work to plant them. The snowdrops