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CHAPTER LIV - AFTER THE SHOCK
BOLDWOOD passed into the high road and turned in the
direction of Casterbridge. Here he walked at an even,
steady pace over Yalbury Hill, along the dead level beyond,
mounted Mellstock Hill, and between eleven and twelve
o'clock crossed the Moor into the town. The streets were
nearly deserted now, and the waving lamp-flames only lighted
up rows of grey shop-shutters, and strips of white paving
upon which his step echoed as his passed along. He turned
to the right, and halted before an archway of heavy
stonework, which was closed by an iron studded pair of
doors. This was the entrance to the gaol, and over it a
lamp was fixed, the light enabling the wretched traveller to
find a bell-pull.
The small wicket at last opened, and a porter appeared.
Boldwood stepped forward, and said something in a low tone,
when, after a delay, another man came. Boldwood entered,
and the door was closed behind him, and he walked the world
no more.
Long before this time Weatherbury had been thoroughly
aroused, and the wild deed which had terminated Boldwood's
merrymaking became known to all. Of those out of the house
Oak was one of the first to hear of the catastrophe, and
when he entered the room, which was about five minutes after
Boldwood's exit, the scene was terrible. All the female
guests were huddled aghast against the walls like sheep in a
storm, and the men were bewildered as to what to do. As for
Bathsheba, she had changed. She was sitting on the floor
beside the body of Troy, his head pillowed in her lap, where
she had herself lifted it. With one hand she held her
handkerchief to his breast and covered the wound, though
scarcely a single drop of blood had flowed, and with the
other she tightly clasped one of his. The household
convulsion had made her herself again. The temporary coma
had ceased, and activity had come with the necessity for it.
Deeds of endurance, which seem ordinary in philosophy, are
rare in conduct, and Bathsheba was astonishing all around
her now, for her philosophy was her conduct, and she seldom
thought practicable what she did not practise. She was of
the stuff of which great men's mothers are made. She was
indispensable to high generation, hated at tea parties,
feared in shops, and loved at crises. Troy recumbent in his
wife's lap formed now the sole spectacle in the middle of
the spacious room.
"Gabriel," she said, automatically, when he entered, turning
up a face of which only the wellknown lines remained to tell
him it was hers, all else in the picture having faded quite.
"Ride to Casterbridge instantly for a surgeon. It is, I
believe, useless, but go. Mr. Boldwood has shot my
husband."
Her statement of the fact in such quiet and simple words
came with more force than a tragic declamation, and had
somewhat the effect of setting the distorted images in each
mind present into proper focus. Oak, almost before he had
comprehended anything beyond the briefest abstract of the
event, hurried out of the room, saddled a horse and rode
away. Not till he had ridden more than a mile did it occur
to him that he would have done better by sending some other
man on this errand, remaining himself in the house. What
had become of Boldwood? He should have been looked after.
Was he mad -- had there been a quarrel? Then how had Troy
got there? Where had he come from? How did this remarkable
reappearance effect itself when he was supposed by many to
be at the bottom of the sea? Oak had in some slight measure
been prepared for the presence of Troy by hearing a rumour
of his return just before entering Boldwood's house; but
before he had weighed that information, this fatal event had
been superimposed. However, it was too late now to think of
sending another messenger, and he rode on, in the excitement
of these self-inquiries not discerning, when about three
miles from Casterbridge, a square-figured pedestrian passing
along under the dark hedge in the same direction as his own.
The miles necessary to be traversed, and other hindrances
incidental to the lateness of the hour and the darkness of
the night, delayed the arrival of Mr. Aldritch, the surgeon;
and more than three hours passed between the time at which
the shot was fired and that of his entering the house. Oak
was additionally detained in Casterbridge through having to
give notice to the authorities of what had happened; and he
then found that Boldwood had also entered the town, and
delivered himself up.
In the meantime the surgeon, having hastened into the hall
at Boldwood's, found it in darkness and quite deserted. He
went on to the back of the house, where he discovered in the
kitchen an old man, of whom he made inquiries.
"She's had him took away to her own house, sir," said his
informant.
"Who has?" said the doctor.
"Mrs. Troy. 'A was quite dead, sir."
This was astonishing information. "She had no right to do
that," said the doctor. "There will have to be an inquest,
and she should have waited to know what to do."
"Yes, sir; it was hinted to her that she had better wait
till the law was known. But she said law was nothing to
her, and she wouldn't let her dear husband's corpse bide
neglected for folks to stare at for all the crowners in
England."
Mr. Aldritch drove at once back again up the hill to
Bathsheba's. The first person he met was poor Liddy, who
seemed literally to have dwindled smaller in these few
latter hours. "What has been done?" he said.
"I don't know, sir," said Liddy, with suspended breath. "My
mistress has done it all."
"Where is she?"
"Upstairs with him, sir. When he was brought home and taken
upstairs, she said she wanted no further help from the men.
And then she called me, and made me fill the bath, and after
that told me I had better go and lie down because I looked
so ill. Then she locked herself into the room alone with
him, and would not let a nurse come in, or anybody at all.
But I thought I'd wait in the next room in case she should
want me. I heard her moving about inside for more than an
hour, but she only came out once, and that was for more
candles, because hers had burnt down into the socket. She
said we were to let her know when you or Mr. Thirdly came,
sir."
Oak entered with the parson at this moment, and they all
went upstairs together, preceded by Liddy Smallbury.
Everything was silent as the grave when they paused on the
landing. Liddy knocked, and Bathsheba's dress was heard
rustling across the room: the key turned in the lock, and
she opened the door. Her looks were calm and nearly rigid,
like a slightly animated bust of Melpomene.
"Oh, Mr. Aldritch, you have come at last," she murmured from
her lips merely, and threw back the door. "Ah, and Mr.
Thirdly. Well, all is done, and anybody in the world may
see him now." She then passed by him, crossed the landing,
and entered another room.
Looking into the chamber of death she had vacated they saw
by the light of the candles which were on the drawers a tall
straight shape lying at the further end of the bedroom,
wrapped in white. Everything around was quite orderly. The
doctor went in, and after a few minutes returned to the
landing again, where Oak and the parson still waited.
"It is all done, indeed, as she says," remarked Mr.
Aldritch, in a subdued voice. "The body has been undressed
and properly laid out in grave clothes. Gracious Heaven --
this mere girl! She must have the nerve of a stoic!"
"The heart of a wife merely," floated in a whisper about the
ears of the three, and turning they saw Bathsheba in the
midst of them. Then, as if at that instant to prove that
her fortitude had been more of will than of spontaneity, she
silently sank down between them and was a shapeless heap of
drapery on the floor. The simple consciousness that
superhuman strain was no longer required had at once put a
period to her power to continue it.
They took her away into a further room, and the medical
attendance which had been useless in Troy's case was
invaluable in Bathsheba's, who fell into a series of
fainting-fits that had a serious aspect for a time. The
sufferer was got to bed, and Oak, finding from the bulletins
that nothing really dreadful was to be apprehended on her
score, left the house. Liddy kept watch in Bathsheba's
chamber, where she heard her mistress, moaning in whispers
through the dull slow hours of that wretched night: "Oh it
is my fault -- how can I live! O Heaven, how can I live!"
Content of CHAPTER LIV - AFTER THE SHOCK [Thomas Hardy's novel: Far From The Madding Crowd]
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Read next: CHAPTER LV - THE MARCH FOLLOWING -- "BATHSHEBA BOLDWOOD"
Read previous: CHAPTER LIII - CONCURRITUR -- HORAE MOMENTO
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