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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 they 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 with-out
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.
Content of CHAPTER XXXV - AT AN UPPER WINDOW [Thomas Hardy's novel: Far From The Madding Crowd]
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Read next: CHAPTER XXXVI - WEALTH IN JEOPARDY -- THE REVEL
Read previous: CHAPTER XXXIV - HOME AGAIN -- A TRICKSTER
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