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CHAPTER XLIII - FANNY'S REVENGE
"DO you want me any longer ma'am?" inquired Liddy, at a
later hour the same evening, standing by the door with a
chamber candlestick in her hand and addressing Bathsheba,
who sat cheerless and alone in the large parlour beside the
first fire of the season.
"No more to-night, Liddy."
"I'll sit up for master if you like, ma'am. I am not at all
afraid of Fanny, if I may sit in my own room and have a
candle. She was such a childlike, nesh young thing that her
spirit couldn't appear to anybody if it tried, I'm quite
sure."
"Oh no, no! You go to bed. I'll sit up for him myself till
twelve o'clock, and if he has not arrived by that time, I
shall give him up and go to bed too."
"It is half-past ten now."
"Oh! is it?"
"Why don't you sit upstairs, ma'am?"
"Why don't I?" said Bathsheba, desultorily. "It isn't worth
while -- there's a fire here, Liddy." She suddenly
exclaimed in an impulsive and excited whisper, Have you
heard anything strange said of Fanny?" The words had no
sooner escaped her than an expression 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 lonelier
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. Perhaps 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,
because in life she had preceded Bathsheba in the attentions
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 Bathsheba'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 expressed wretchedness in full activity. Her
simple contrary 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 well-being 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. It 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! ... Oh, 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 anticipated 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
indescribable, 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 lucklessness to ascendency; it
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 Bathsheba'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 but 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 when 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 have been angry and cruel towards her with
some justification; 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
well-nigh 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 an unexpected 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 surprise had passed, his expression changed to
a silencing imperious gaze.
"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 understood, 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.
"And that this woman is your victim; and I not 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 married her. I never had another
thought till you came in my way. Would to God that I had;
but it is all too late!" He turned to Fanny then. "But
never mind, darling," he said; "in the sight of Heaven you
are my very, very 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 [GREEK word meaning "it is
finished"] 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.
Content of CHAPTER XLIII - FANNY'S REVENGE [Thomas Hardy's novel: Far From The Madding Crowd]
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