BEAUTY IN LONELINESS—AFTER ALL
Bathsheba revived with the spring. The utter prostration that had
followed the low fever from which she had suffered diminished
perceptibly when all uncertainty upon every subject had come to an end.
But she remained alone now for the greater part of her time, and stayed
in the house, or at furthest went into the garden. She shunned every
one, even Liddy, and could be brought to make no confidences, and to
ask for no sympathy.
As the summer drew on she passed more of her time in the open air, and
began to examine into farming matters from sheer necessity, though she
never rode out or personally superintended as at former times. One
Friday evening in August she walked a little way along the road and
entered the village for the first time since the sombre event of the
preceding Christmas. None of the old colour had as yet come to her
cheek, and its absolute paleness was heightened by the jet black of her
gown, till it appeared preternatural. When she reached a little shop at
the other end of the place, which stood nearly opposite to the
churchyard, Bathsheba heard singing inside the church, and she knew
that the singers were practising. She crossed the road, opened the
gate, and entered the graveyard, the high sills of the church windows
effectually screening her from the eyes of those gathered within. Her
stealthy walk was to the nook wherein Troy had worked at planting
flowers upon Fanny Robin’s grave, and she came to the marble tombstone.
A motion of satisfaction enlivened her face as she read the complete
inscription. First came the words of Troy himself:—
Erected by Francis Troy
In Beloved Memory of
Fanny Robin
Who died October 9, 18—,
Aged 20 years.
Underneath this was now inscribed in new letters:—
In the Same Grave lie
The Remains of the aforesaid
Francis Troy,
Who died December 24th, 18—,
Aged 26 years.
Whilst she stood and read and meditated the tones of the organ began
again in the church, and she went with the same light step round to the
porch and listened. The door was closed, and the choir was learning a
new hymn. Bathsheba was stirred by emotions which latterly she had
assumed to be altogether dead within her. The little attenuated voices
of the children brought to her ear in distinct utterance the words they
sang without thought or comprehension—
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on.
Bathsheba’s feeling was always to some extent dependent upon her whim,
as is the case with many other women. Something big came into her
throat and an uprising to her eyes—and she thought that she would allow
the imminent tears to flow if they wished. They did flow and
plenteously, and one fell upon the stone bench beside her. Once that
she had begun to cry for she hardly knew what, she could not leave off
for crowding thoughts she knew too well. She would have given anything
in the world to be, as those children were, unconcerned at the meaning
of their words, because too innocent to feel the necessity for any such
expression. All the impassioned scenes of her brief experience seemed
to revive with added emotion at that moment, and those scenes which had
been without emotion during enactment had emotion then. Yet grief came
to her rather as a luxury than as the scourge of former times.
Owing to Bathsheba’s face being buried in her hands she did not notice
a form which came quietly into the porch, and on seeing her, first
moved as if to retreat, then paused and regarded her. Bathsheba did not
raise her head for some time, and when she looked round her face was
wet, and her eyes drowned and dim. “Mr. Oak,” exclaimed she,
disconcerted, “how long have you been here?”
“A few minutes, ma’am,” said Oak, respectfully.
“Are you going in?” said Bathsheba; and there came from within the
church as from a prompter—
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.
“I was,” said Gabriel. “I am one of the bass singers, you know. I have
sung bass for several months.”
“Indeed: I wasn’t aware of that. I’ll leave you, then.”
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile,
sang the children.
“Don’t let me drive you away, mistress. I think I won’t go in
to-night.”
“Oh no—you don’t drive me away.”
Then they stood in a state of some embarrassment, Bathsheba trying to
wipe her dreadfully drenched and inflamed face without his noticing
her. At length Oak said, “I’ve not seen you—I mean spoken to you—since
ever so long, have I?” But he feared to bring distressing memories
back, and interrupted himself with: “Were you going into church?”
“No,” she said. “I came to see the tombstone privately—to see if they
had cut the inscription as I wished. Mr. Oak, you needn’t mind speaking
to me, if you wish to, on the matter which is in both our minds at this
moment.”
“And have they done it as you wished?” said Oak.
“Yes. Come and see it, if you have not already.”
So together they went and read the tomb. “Eight months ago!” Gabriel
murmured when he saw the date. “It seems like yesterday to me.”
“And to me as if it were years ago—long years, and I had been dead
between. And now I am going home, Mr. Oak.”
Oak walked after her. “I wanted to name a small matter to you as soon
as I could,” he said, with hesitation. “Merely about business, and I
think I may just mention it now, if you’ll allow me.”
“Oh yes, certainly.”
“It is that I may soon have to give up the management of your farm,
Mrs. Troy. The fact is, I am thinking of leaving England—not yet, you
know—next spring.”
“Leaving England!” she said, in surprise and genuine disappointment.
“Why, Gabriel, what are you going to do that for?”
“Well, I’ve thought it best,” Oak stammered out. “California is the
spot I’ve had in my mind to try.”
“But it is understood everywhere that you are going to take poor Mr.
Boldwood’s farm on your own account.”
“I’ve had the refusal o’ it ’tis true; but nothing is settled yet, and
I have reasons for giving up. I shall finish out my year there as
manager for the trustees, but no more.”
“And what shall I do without you? Oh, Gabriel, I don’t think you ought
to go away. You’ve been with me so long—through bright times and dark
times—such old friends as we are—that it seems unkind almost. I had
fancied that if you leased the other farm as master, you might still
give a helping look across at mine. And now going away!”
“I would have willingly.”
“Yet now that I am more helpless than ever you go away!”
“Yes, that’s the ill fortune o’ it,” said Gabriel, in a distressed
tone. “And it is because of that very helplessness that I feel bound to
go. Good afternoon, ma’am” he concluded, in evident anxiety to get
away, and at once went out of the churchyard by a path she could follow
on no pretence whatever.
Bathsheba went home, her mind occupied with a new trouble, which being
rather harassing than deadly was calculated to do good by diverting her
from the chronic gloom of her life. She was set thinking a great deal
about Oak and of his wish to shun her; and there occurred to Bathsheba
several incidents of her latter intercourse with him, which, trivial
when singly viewed, amounted together to a perceptible disinclination
for her society. It broke upon her at length as a great pain that her
last old disciple was about to forsake her and flee. He who had
believed in her and argued on her side when all the rest of the world
was against her, had at last like the others become weary and
neglectful of the old cause, and was leaving her to fight her battles
alone.
Three weeks went on, and more evidence of his want of interest in her
was forthcoming. She noticed that instead of entering the small parlour
or office where the farm accounts were kept, and waiting, or leaving a
memorandum as he had hitherto done during her seclusion, Oak never came
at all when she was likely to be there, only entering at unseasonable
hours when her presence in that part of the house was least to be
expected. Whenever he wanted directions he sent a message, or note with
neither heading nor signature, to which she was obliged to reply in the
same offhand style. Poor Bathsheba began to suffer now from the most
torturing sting of all—a sensation that she was despised.
The autumn wore away gloomily enough amid these melancholy conjectures,
and Christmas-day came, completing a year of her legal widowhood, and
two years and a quarter of her life alone. On examining her heart it
appeared beyond measure strange that the subject of which the season
might have been supposed suggestive—the event in the hall at
Boldwood’s—was not agitating her at all; but instead, an agonizing
conviction that everybody abjured her—for what she could not tell—and
that Oak was the ringleader of the recusants. Coming out of church that
day she looked round in hope that Oak, whose bass voice she had heard
rolling out from the gallery overhead in a most unconcerned manner,
might chance to linger in her path in the old way. There he was, as
usual, coming down the path behind her. But on seeing Bathsheba turn,
he looked aside, and as soon as he got beyond the gate, and there was
the barest excuse for a divergence, he made one, and vanished.
The next morning brought the culminating stroke; she had been expecting
it long. It was a formal notice by letter from him that he should not
renew his engagement with her for the following Lady-day.
Bathsheba actually sat and cried over this letter most bitterly. She
was aggrieved and wounded that the possession of hopeless love from
Gabriel, which she had grown to regard as her inalienable right for
life, should have been withdrawn just at his own pleasure in this way.
She was bewildered too by the prospect of having to rely on her own
resources again: it seemed to herself that she never could again
acquire energy sufficient to go to market, barter, and sell. Since
Troy’s death Oak had attended all sales and fairs for her, transacting
her business at the same time with his own. What should she do now? Her
life was becoming a desolation.
So desolate was Bathsheba this evening, that in an absolute hunger for
pity and sympathy, and miserable in that she appeared to have outlived
the only true friendship she had ever owned, she put on her bonnet and
cloak and went down to Oak’s house just after sunset, guided on her way
by the pale primrose rays of a crescent moon a few days old.
A lively firelight shone from the window, but nobody was visible in the
room. She tapped nervously, and then thought it doubtful if it were
right for a single woman to call upon a bachelor who lived alone,
although he was her manager, and she might be supposed to call on
business without any real impropriety. Gabriel opened the door, and the
moon shone upon his forehead.
“Mr. Oak,” said Bathsheba, faintly.
“Yes; I am Mr. Oak,” said Gabriel. “Who have I the honour—O how stupid
of me, not to know you, mistress!”
“I shall not be your mistress much longer, shall I Gabriel?” she said,
in pathetic tones.
“Well, no. I suppose—But come in, ma’am. Oh—and I’ll get a light,” Oak
replied, with some awkwardness.
“No; not on my account.”
“It is so seldom that I get a lady visitor that I’m afraid I haven’t
proper accommodation. Will you sit down, please? Here’s a chair, and
there’s one, too. I am sorry that my chairs all have wood seats, and
are rather hard, but I—was thinking of getting some new ones.” Oak
placed two or three for her.
“They are quite easy enough for me.”
So down she sat, and down sat he, the fire dancing in their faces, and
upon the old furniture,
all a-sheenen
Wi’ long years o’ handlen,[3]
that formed Oak’s array of household possessions, which sent back a
dancing reflection in reply. It was very odd to these two persons, who
knew each other passing well, that the mere circumstance of their
meeting in a new place and in a new way should make them so awkward and
constrained. In the fields, or at her house, there had never been any
embarrassment; but now that Oak had become the entertainer their lives
seemed to be moved back again to the days when they were strangers.
“You’ll think it strange that I have come, but—”
“Oh no; not at all.”
“But I thought—Gabriel, I have been uneasy in the belief that I have
offended you, and that you are going away on that account. It grieved
me very much and I couldn’t help coming.”
“Offended me! As if you could do that, Bathsheba!”
“Haven’t I?” she asked, gladly. “But, what are you going away for
else?”
“I am not going to emigrate, you know; I wasn’t aware that you would
wish me not to when I told ’ee or I shouldn’t ha’ thought of doing it,”
he said, simply. “I have arranged for Little Weatherbury Farm and shall
have it in my own hands at Lady-day. You know I’ve had a share in it
for some time. Still, that wouldn’t prevent my attending to your
business as before, hadn’t it been that things have been said about
us.”
“What?” said Bathsheba, in surprise. “Things said about you and me!
What are they?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“It would be wiser if you were to, I think. You have played the part of
mentor to me many times, and I don’t see why you should fear to do it
now.”
“It is nothing that you have done, this time. The top and tail o’t is
this—that I am sniffing about here, and waiting for poor Boldwood’s
farm, with a thought of getting you some day.”
“Getting me! What does that mean?”
“Marrying of ’ee, in plain British. You asked me to tell, so you
mustn’t blame me.”
Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been
discharged by her ear, which was what Oak had expected. “Marrying me! I
didn’t know it was that you meant,” she said, quietly. “Such a thing as
that is too absurd—too soon—to think of, by far!”
“Yes; of course, it is too absurd. I don’t desire any such thing; I
should think that was plain enough by this time. Surely, surely you be
the last person in the world I think of marrying. It is too absurd, as
you say.”
“‘Too—s-s-soon’ were the words I used.”
“I must beg your pardon for correcting you, but you said, ‘too absurd,’
and so do I.”
“I beg your pardon too!” she returned, with tears in her eyes. “‘Too
soon’ was what I said. But it doesn’t matter a bit—not at all—but I
only meant, ‘too soon.’ Indeed, I didn’t, Mr. Oak, and you must believe
me!”
Gabriel looked her long in the face, but the firelight being faint
there was not much to be seen. “Bathsheba,” he said, tenderly and in
surprise, and coming closer: “if I only knew one thing—whether you
would allow me to love you and win you, and marry you after all—if I
only knew that!”
“But you never will know,” she murmured.
“Why?”
“Because you never ask.”
“Oh—Oh!” said Gabriel, with a low laugh of joyousness. “My own dear—”
“You ought not to have sent me that harsh letter this morning,” she
interrupted. “It shows you didn’t care a bit about me, and were ready
to desert me like all the rest of them! It was very cruel of you,
considering I was the first sweetheart that you ever had, and you were
the first I ever had; and I shall not forget it!”
“Now, Bathsheba, was ever anybody so provoking,” he said, laughing.
“You know it was purely that I, as an unmarried man, carrying on a
business for you as a very taking young woman, had a proper hard part
to play—more particular that people knew I had a sort of feeling for
’ee; and I fancied, from the way we were mentioned together, that it
might injure your good name. Nobody knows the heat and fret I have been
caused by it.”
“And was that all?”
“All.”
“Oh, how glad I am I came!” she exclaimed, thankfully, as she rose from
her seat. “I have thought so much more of you since I fancied you did
not want even to see me again. But I must be going now, or I shall be
missed. Why Gabriel,” she said, with a slight laugh, as they went to
the door, “it seems exactly as if I had come courting you—how
dreadful!”
“And quite right too,” said Oak. “I’ve danced at your skittish heels,
my beautiful Bathsheba, for many a long mile, and many a long day; and
it is hard to begrudge me this one visit.”
He accompanied her up the hill, explaining to her the details of his
forthcoming tenure of the other farm. They spoke very little of their
mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably
unnecessary between such tried friends. Theirs was that substantial
affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are
thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each
other’s character, and not the best till further on, the romance
growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality. This
good-fellowship—_camaraderie_—usually occurring through similarity of
pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded to love between the sexes,
because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their
pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance permits its
development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love
which is strong as death—that love which many waters cannot quench, nor
the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name
is evanescent as steam.