________________________________________________
_
CHAPTER XLI - SUSPICION -- FANNY IS SENT FOR
BATHSHEBA said very little to her husband all that evening
of their return from market, and he was not disposed to say
much to her. He exhibited the unpleasant combination of a
restless condition with a silent tongue. The next day,
which was Sunday, passed nearly in the same manner as
regarded their taciturnity, Bathsheba going to church both
morning and afternoon. This was the day before the Budmouth
races. In the evening Troy said, suddenly --
"Bathsheba, could you let me have twenty pounds?"
Her countenance instantly sank. "Twenty pounds?" she said.
"The fact is, I want it badly." The anxiety upon Troy's
face was unusual and very marked. It was a culmination of
the mood he had been in all the day.
"Ah! for those races to-morrow."
Troy for the moment made no reply. Her mistake had its
advantages to a man who shrank from having his mind
inspected as he did now. "Well, suppose I do want it for
races?" he said, at last.
"Oh, Frank!" Bathsheba replied, and there was such a volume
of entreaty in the words. "Only such a few weeks ago you
said that I was far sweeter than all your other pleasures
put together, and that you would give them all up for me;
and now, won't you give up this one, which is more a worry
than a pleasure? Do, Frank. Come, let me fascinate you by
all I can do -- by pretty words and pretty looks, and
everything I can think of -- to stay at home. Say yes to
your wife -- say yes!"
The tenderest and softest phases of Bathsheba's nature were
prominent now -- advanced impulsively for his acceptance,
without any of the disguises and defences which the wariness
of her character when she was cool too frequently threw over
them. Few men could have resisted the arch yet dignified
entreaty of the beautiful face, thrown a little back and
sideways in the well known attitude that expresses more than
the words it accompanies, and which seems to have been
designed for these special occasions. Had the woman not
been his wife, Troy would have succumbed instantly; as it
was, he thought he would not deceive her longer.
"The money is not wanted for racing debts at all," he said.
"What is it for?" she asked. "You worry me a great deal by
these mysterious responsibilities, Frank."
Troy hesitated. He did not now love her enough to allow
himself to be carried too far by her ways. Yet it was
necessary to be civil. "You wrong me by such a suspicious
manner," he said. "Such strait-waistcoating as you treat me
to is not becoming in you at so early a date."
"I think that I have a right to grumble a little if I pay,"
she said, with features between a smile and a pout.
"Exactly; and, the former being done, suppose we proceed to
the latter. Bathsheba, fun is all very well, but don't go
too far, or you may have cause to regret something."
She reddened. "I do that already," she said, quickly.
"What do you regret?"
"That my romance has come to an end."
"All romances end at marriage."
"I wish you wouldn't talk like that. You grieve me to my
soul by being smart at my expense."
"You are dull enough at mine. I believe you hate me."
"Not you -- only your faults. I do hate them."
"'Twould be much more becoming if you set yourself to cure
them. Come, let's strike a balance with the twenty pounds,
and be friends."
She gave a sigh of resignation. "I have about that sum here
for household expenses. If you must have it, take it."
"Very good. Thank you. I expect I shall have gone away
before you are in to breakfast to-morrow."
"And must you go? Ah! there was a time, Frank, when it would
have taken a good many promises to other people to drag you
away from me. You used to call me darling, then. But it
doesn't matter to you how my days are passed now."
"I must go, in spite of sentiment." Troy, as he spoke,
looked at his watch, and, apparently actuated by NON LUCENDO
principles, opened the case at the back, revealing, snugly
stowed within it, a small coil of hair.
Bathsheba's eyes had been accidentally lifted at that
moment, and she saw the action and saw the hair. She
flushed in pain and surprise, and some words escaped her
before she had thought whether or not it was wise to utter
them. "A woman's curl of hair!" she said. "Oh, Frank,
whose is that?"
Troy had instantly closed his watch. He carelessly replied,
as one who cloaked some feelings that the sight had stirred.
"Why, yours, of course. Whose should it be? I had quite
forgotten that I had it."
"What a dreadful fib, Frank!"
"I tell you I had forgotten it!" he said, loudly.
"I don't mean that -- it was yellow hair."
"Nonsense."
"That's insulting me. I know it was yellow. Now whose was
it? I want to know."
"Very well I'll tell you, so make no more ado. It is the
hair of a young woman I was going to marry before I knew
you."
"You ought to tell me her name, then."
"I cannot do that."
"Is she married yet?"
"No."
"Is she alive?"
"Yes."
"Is she pretty?"
"Yes."
"It is wonderful how she can be, poor thing, under such an
awful affliction!"
"Affliction -- what affliction?" he inquired, quickly.
"Having hair of that dreadful colour."
"Oh -- ho -- I like that!" said Troy, recovering himself.
"Why, her hair has been admired by everybody who has seen
her since she has worn it loose, which has not been long.
It is beautiful hair. People used to turn their heads to
look at it, poor girl!"
"Pooh! that's nothing -- that's nothing!" she exclaimed, in
incipient accents of pique. "If I cared for your love as
much as I used to I could say people had turned to look at
mine."
"Bathsheba, don't be so fitful and jealous. You knew what
married life would be like, and shouldn't have entered it if
you feared these contingencies."
Troy had by this time driven her to bitterness: her heart
was big in her throat, and the ducts to her eyes were
painfully full. Ashamed as she was to show emotion, at last
she burst out: --
"This is all I get for loving you so well! Ah! when I
married you your life was dearer to me than my own. I would
have died for you -- how truly I can say that I would have
died for you! And now you sneer at my foolishness in
marrying you. O! is it kind to me to throw my mistake in my
face? Whatever opinion you may have of my wisdom, you
should not tell me of it so mercilessly, now that I am in
your power."
"I can't help how things fall out," said Troy; "upon my
heart, women will be the death of me!"
"Well you shouldn't keep people's hair. You'll burn it,
won't you, Frank?"
Frank went on as if he had not heard her. "There are
considerations even before my consideration for you;
reparations to be made -- ties you know nothing of. If you
repent of marrying, so do I."
Trembling now, she put her hand upon his arm, saying, in
mingled tones of wretchedness and coaxing, "I only repent it
if you don't love me better than any woman in the world! I
don't otherwise, Frank. You don't repent because you
already love somebody better than you love me, do you?"
"I don't know. Why do you say that?"
"You won't burn that curl. You like the woman who owns that
pretty hair -- yes; it is pretty -- more beautiful than my
miserable black mane! Well, it is no use; I can't help
being ugly. You must like her best, if you will!"
"Until to-day, when I took it from a drawer, I have never
looked upon that bit of hair for several months -- that I am
ready to swear."
"But just now you said 'ties'; and then -- that woman we
met?"
"'Twas the meeting with her that reminded me of the hair."
"Is it hers, then?"
"Yes. There, now that you have wormed it out of me, I hope
you are content."
"And what are the ties?"
"Oh! that meant nothing -- a mere jest."
"A mere jest!" she said, in mournful astonishment. "Can you
jest when I am so wretchedly in earnest? Tell me the truth,
Frank. I am not a fool, you know, although I am a woman,
and have my woman's moments. Come! treat me fairly," she
said, looking honestly and fearlessly into his face. "I
don't want much; bare justice -- that's all! Ah! once I
felt I could be content with nothing less than the highest
homage from the husband I should choose. Now, anything
short of cruelty will content me. Yes! the independent and
spirited Bathsheba is come to this!"
"For Heaven's sake don't be so desperate!" Troy said,
snappishly, rising as he did so, and leaving the room.
Directly he had gone, Bathsheba burst into great sobs --
dry-eyed sobs, which cut as they came, without any softening
by tears. But she determined to repress all evidences of
feeling. She was conquered; but she would never own it as
long as she lived. Her pride was indeed brought low by
despairing discoveries of her spoliation by marriage with a
less pure nature than her own. She chafed to and fro in
rebelliousness, like a caged leopard; her whole soul was in
arms, and the blood fired her face. Until she had met Troy,
Bathsheba had been proud of her position as a woman; it had
been a glory to her to know that her lips had been touched
by no man's on earth -- that her waist had never been
encircled by a lover's arm. She hated herself now. In
those earlier days she had always nourished a secret
contempt for girls who were the slaves of the first
goodlooking young fellow who should choose to salute them.
She had never taken kindly to the idea of marriage in the
abstract as did the majority of women she saw about her. In
the turmoil of her anxiety for her lover she had agreed to
marry him; but the perception that had accompanied her
happiest hours on this account was rather that of self-
sacrifice than of promotion and honour. Although she
scarcely knew the divinity's name, Diana was the goddess
whom Bathsheba instinctively adored. That she had never, by
look, word, or sign, encouraged a man to approach her --
that she had felt herself sufficient to herself, and had in
the independence of her girlish heart fancied there was a
certain degradation in renouncing the simplicity of a maiden
existence to become the humbler half of an indifferent
matrimonial whole -- were facts now bitterly remembered.
Oh, if she had never stooped to folly of this kind,
respectable as it was, and could only stand again, as she
had stood on the hill at Norcombe, and dare Troy or any
other man to pollute a hair of her head by his interference!
The next morning she rose earlier than usual, and had the
horse saddled for her ride round the farm in the customary
way. When she came in at half-past eight -- their usual
hour for breakfasting -- she was informed that her husband
had risen, taken his breakfast, and driven off to
Casterbridge with the gig and Poppet.
After breakfast she was cool and collected -- quite herself
in fact -- and she rambled to the gate, intending to walk to
another quarter of the farm, which she still personally
superintended as well as her duties in the house would
permit, continually, however, finding herself preceded in
forethought by Gabriel Oak, for whom she began to entertain
the genuine friendship of a sister. Of course, she
sometimes thought of him in the light of an old lover, and
had momentary imaginings of what life with him as a husband
would have been like; also of life with Boldwood under the
same conditions. But Bathsheba, though she could feel, was
not much given to futile dreaming, and her musings under
this head were short and entirely confined to the times when
Troy's neglect was more than ordinarily evident.
She saw coming up the road a man like Mr. Boldwood. It was
Mr. Boldwood. Bathsheba blushed painfully, and watched.
The farmer stopped when still a long way off, and held up
his hand to Gabriel Oak, who was in a footpath across the
field. The two men then approached each other and seemed to
engage in earnest conversation.
Thus they continued for a long time. Joseph Poorgrass now
passed near them, wheeling a barrow of apples up the hill to
Bathsheba's residence. Boldwood and Gabriel called to him,
spoke to him for a few minutes, and then all three parted,
Joseph immediately coming up the hill with his barrow.
Bathsheba, who had seen this pantomime with some surprise,
experienced great relief when Boldwood turned back again.
"Well, what's the message, Joseph?" she said.
He set down his barrow, and, putting upon himself the
refined aspect that a conversation with a lady required,
spoke to Bathsheba over the gate.
"You'll never see Fanny Robin no more -- use nor principal --
ma'am."
"Why?"
"Because she's dead in the Union."
"Fanny dead -- never!"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What did she die from?"
"I don't know for certain; but I should be inclined to think
it was from general neshness of constitution. She was such
a limber maid that 'a could stand no hardship, even when I
knowed her, and 'a went like a candle-snoff, so 'tis said.
She was took bad in the morning, and, being quite feeble and
worn out, she died in the evening. She belongs by law to
our parish; and Mr. Boldwood is going to send a waggon at
three this afternoon to fetch her home here and bury her."
"Indeed I shall not let Mr. Boldwood do any such thing -- I
shall do it! Fanny was my uncle's servant, and, although I
only knew her for a couple of days, she belongs to me. How
very, very sad this is! -- the idea of Fanny being in a
workhouse." Bathsheba had begun to know what suffering was,
and she spoke with real feeling.... "Send across to Mr.
Boldwood's, and say that Mrs. Troy will take upon herself
the duty of fetching an old servant of the family.... We
ought not to put her in a waggon; we'll get a hearse."
"There will hardly be time, ma'am, will there?"
"Perhaps not," she said, musingly. "When did you say we
must be at the door -- three o'clock?"
"Three o'clock this afternoon, ma'am, so to speak it."
"Very well -- you go with it. A pretty waggon is better
than an ugly hearse, after all. Joseph, have the new spring
waggon with the blue body and red wheels, and wash it very
clean. And, Joseph ----"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Carry with you some evergreens and flowers to put upon her
coffin -- indeed, gather a great many, and completely bury
her in them. Get some boughs of laurustinus, and variegated
box, and yew, and boy's-love; ay, and some hunches of
chrysanthemum. And let old Pleasant draw her, because she
knew him so well."
"I will, ma'am. I ought to have said that the Union, in the
form of four labouring men, will meet me when I gets to our
churchyard gate, and take her and bury her according to the
rites of the Board of Guardians, as by law ordained."
"Dear me -- Casterbridge Union -- and is Fanny come to
this?" said Bathsheba, musing. "I wish I had known of it
sooner. I thought she was far away. How long has she lived
there?"
"On'y been there a day or two."
"Oh! -- then she has not been staying there as a regular
inmate?"
"No. She first went to live in a garrison-town t'other side
o' Wessex, and since then she's been picking up a living at
seampstering in Melchester for several months, at the house
of a very respectable widow-woman who takes in work of that
sort. She only got handy the Union-house on Sunday morning
'a b'lieve, and 'tis supposed here and there that she had
traipsed every step of the way from Melchester. Why she
left her place, I can't say, for I don't know; and as to a
lie, why, I wouldn't tell it. That's the short of the
story, ma'am."
"Ah-h!"
No gem ever flashed from a rosy ray to a white one more
rapidly than changed the young wife's countenance whilst
this word came from her in a long-drawn breath. "Did she
walk along our turnpike-road?" she said, in a suddenly
restless and eager voice.
"I believe she did.... Ma'am, shall I call Liddy? You
bain't well, ma'am, surely? You look like a lily -- so pale
and fainty!"
"No; don't call her; it is nothing. When did she pass
Weatherbury?"
"Last Saturday night."
"That will do, Joseph; now you may go."
"Certainly, ma'am."
"Joseph, come hither a moment. What was the colour of Fanny
Robin's hair?"
"Really, mistress, now that 'tis put to me so judge-and-jury
like, I can't call to mind, if ye'll believe me!"
"Never mind; go on and do what I told you. Stop -- well no,
go on."
She turned herself away from him, that he might no longer
notice the mood which had set its sign so visibly upon her,
and went indoors with a distressing sense of faintness and a
beating brow. About an hour after, she heard the noise of
the waggon and went out, still with a painful consciousness
of her bewildered and troubled look. Joseph, dressed in his
best suit of clothes, was putting in the horse to start.
The shrubs and flowers were all piled in the waggon, as she
had directed; Bathsheba hardly saw them now.
"Whose sweetheart did you say, Joseph?"
"I don't know, ma'am."
"Are you quite sure?"
"Yes, ma'am, quite sure."
"Sure of what?"
"I'm sure that all I know is that she arrived in the morning
and died in the evening without further parley. What Oak
and Mr. Boldwood told me was only these few words. 'Little
Fanny Robin is dead, Joseph,' Gabriel said, looking in my
face in his steady old way. I was very sorry, and I said,
'Ah! -- and how did she come to die?' 'Well, she's dead in
Casterbridge Union,' he said, 'and perhaps 'tisn't much
matter about how she came to die. She reached the Union
early Sunday morning, and died in the afternoon -- that's
clear enough.' Then I asked what she'd been doing lately,
and Mr. Boldwood turned round to me then, and left off
spitting a thistle with the end of his stick. He told me
about her having lived by seampstering in Melchester, as I
mentioned to you, and that she walked therefrom at the end
of last week, passing near here Saturday night in the dusk.
They then said I had better just name a hint of her death to
you, and away they went. Her death might have been brought
on by biding in the night wind, you know, ma'am; for people
used to say she'd go off in a decline: she used to cough a
good deal in winter time. However, 'tisn't much odds to us
about that now, for 'tis all over."
"Have you heard a different story at all?" She looked at him
so intently that Joseph's eyes quailed.
"Not a word, mistress, I assure 'ee!" he said. "Hardly
anybody in the parish knows the news yet."
"I wonder why Gabriel didn't bring the message to me
himself. He mostly makes a point of seeing me upon the most
trifling errand." These words were merely murmured, and she
was looking upon the ground.
"Perhaps he was busy, ma'am," Joseph suggested. "And
sometimes he seems to suffer from things upon his mind,
connected with the time when he was better off than 'a is
now. 'A's rather a curious item, but a very understanding
shepherd, and learned in books."
"Did anything seem upon his mind whilst he was speaking to
you about this?"
"I cannot but say that there did, ma'am. He was terrible
down, and so was Farmer Boldwood."
"Thank you, Joseph. That will do. Go on now, or you'll be
late."
Bathsheba, still unhappy, went indoors again. In the course
of the afternoon she said to Liddy, who had been informed of
the occurrence, "What was the colour of poor Fanny Robin's
hair? Do you know? I cannot recollect -- I only saw her
for a day or two."
"It was light, ma'am; but she wore it rather short, and
packed away under her cap, so that you would hardly notice
it. But I have seen her let it down when she was going to
bed, and it looked beautiful then. Real golden hair."
"Her young man was a soldier, was he not?"
"Yes. In the same regiment as Mr. Troy. He says he knew
him very well."
"What, Mr. Troy says so? How came he to say that?"
"One day I just named it to him, and asked him if he knew
Fanny's young man. He said, 'Oh yes, he knew the young man
as well as he knew himself, and that there wasn't a man in
the regiment he liked better.'"
"Ah! Said that, did he?"
"Yes; and he said there was a strong likeness between
himself and the other young man, so that sometimes people
mistook them ----"
"Liddy, for Heaven's sake stop your talking!" said
Bathsheba, with the nervous petulance that comes from
worrying perceptions.
Content of CHAPTER XLI - SUSPICION -- FANNY IS SENT FOR [Thomas Hardy's novel: Far From The Madding Crowd]
_
Read next: CHAPTER XLII - JOSEPH AND HIS BURDEN
Read previous: CHAPTER XL - ON CASTERBRIDGE HIGHWAY
Table of content of Far From The Madding Crowd
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
