Preparations for Matilda's welcome, and for the event which was to
follow, at once occupied the attention of the mill. The miller and his
man had but dim notions of housewifery on any large scale; so the great
wedding cleaning was kindly supervised by Mrs. Garland, Bob being mostly
away during the day with his brother, the trumpet-major, on various
errands, one of which was to buy paint and varnish for the gig that
Matilda was to be fetched in, which he had determined to decorate with
his own hands.
By the widow's direction the old familiar incrustation of shining dirt,
imprinted along the back of the settle by the heads of countless jolly
sitters, was scrubbed and scraped away; the brown circle round the nail
whereon the miller hung his hat, stained by the brim in wet weather, was
whitened over; the tawny smudges of bygone shoulders in the passage were
removed without regard to a certain genial and historical value which
they had acquired. The face of the clock, coated with verdigris as thick
as a diachylon plaister, was rubbed till the figures emerged into day;
while, inside the case of the same chronometer, the cobwebs that formed
triangular hammocks, which the pendulum could hardly wade through, were
cleared away at one swoop.
Mrs. Garland also assisted at the invasion of worm-eaten cupboards, where
layers of ancient smells lingered on in the stagnant air, and recalled to
the reflective nose the many good things that had been kept there. The
upper floors were scrubbed with such abundance of water that the
old-established death-watches, wood-lice, and flour-worms were all
drowned, the suds trickling down into the room below in so lively and
novel a manner as to convey the romantic notion that the miller lived in
a cave with dripping stalactites.
They moved what had never been moved before--the oak coffer, containing
the miller's wardrobe--a tremendous weight, what with its locks, hinges,
nails, dirt, framework, and the hard stratification of old jackets,
waistcoats, and knee-breeches at the bottom, never disturbed since the
miller's wife died, and half pulverized by the moths, whose flattened
skeletons lay amid the mass in thousands.
'It fairly makes my back open and shut!' said Loveday, as, in obedience
to Mrs. Garland's direction, he lifted one corner, the grinder and David
assisting at the others. 'All together: speak when ye be going to heave.
Now!'
The pot covers and skimmers were brought to such a state that, on
examining them, the beholder was not conscious of utensils, but of his
own face in a condition of hideous elasticity. The broken clock-line was
mended, the kettles rocked, the creeper nailed up, and a new handle put
to the warming-pan. The large household lantern was cleaned out, after
three years of uninterrupted accumulation, the operation yielding a
conglomerate of candle-snuffs, candle-ends, remains of matches,
lamp-black, and eleven ounces and a half of good grease--invaluable as
dubbing for skitty boots and ointment for cart-wheels.
Everybody said that the mill residence had not been so thoroughly scoured
for twenty years. The miller and David looked on with a sort of awe
tempered by gratitude, tacitly admitting by their gaze that this was
beyond what they had ever thought of. Mrs. Garland supervised all with
disinterested benevolence. It would never have done, she said, for his
future daughter-in-law to see the house in its original state. She would
have taken a dislike to him, and perhaps to Bob likewise.
'Why don't ye come and live here with me, and then you would be able to
see to it at all times?' said the miller as she bustled about again. To
which she answered that she was considering the matter, and might in good
time. He had previously informed her that his plan was to put Bob and
his wife in the part of the house that she, Mrs. Garland, occupied, as
soon as she chose to enter his, which relieved her of any fear of being
incommoded by Matilda.
The cooking for the wedding festivities was on a proportionate scale of
thoroughness. They killed the four supernumerary chickens that had just
begun to crow, and the little curly-tailed barrow pig, in preference to
the sow; not having been put up fattening for more than five weeks it was
excellent small meat, and therefore more delicate and likely to suit a
town-bred lady's taste than the large one, which, having reached the
weight of fourteen score, might have been a little gross to a cultured
palate. There were also provided a cold chine, stuffed veal, and two
pigeon pies. Also thirty rings of black-pot, a dozen of white-pot, and
ten knots of tender and well-washed chitterlings, cooked plain in case
she should like a change.
As additional reserves there were sweetbreads, and five milts, sewed up
at one side in the form of a chrysalis, and stuffed with thyme, sage,
parsley, mint, groats, rice, milk, chopped egg, and other ingredients.
They were afterwards roasted before a slow fire, and eaten hot.
The business of chopping so many herbs for the various stuffings was
found to be aching work for women; and David, the miller, the grinder,
and the grinder's boy being fully occupied in their proper branches, and
Bob being very busy painting the gig and touching up the harness, Loveday
called in a friendly dragoon of John's regiment who was passing by, and
he, being a muscular man, willingly chopped all the afternoon for a quart
of strong, judiciously administered, and all other victuals found, taking
off his jacket and gloves, rolling up his shirt-sleeves and unfastening
his collar in an honourable and energetic way.
All windfalls and maggot-cored codlins were excluded from the apple pies;
and as there was no known dish large enough for the purpose, the puddings
were stirred up in the milking-pail, and boiled in the three-legged bell-
metal crock, of great weight and antiquity, which every travelling tinker
for the previous thirty years had tapped with his stick, coveted, made a
bid for, and often attempted to steal.
In the liquor line Loveday laid in an ample barrel of Casterbridge
'strong beer.' This renowned drink--now almost as much a thing of the
past as Falstaff's favourite beverage--was not only well calculated to
win the hearts of soldiers blown dry and dusty by residence in tents on a
hill-top, but of any wayfarer whatever in that land. It was of the most
beautiful colour that the eye of an artist in beer could desire; full in
body, yet brisk as a volcano; piquant, yet without a twang; luminous as
an autumn sunset; free from streakiness of taste; but, finally, rather
heady. The masses worshipped it, the minor gentry loved it more than
wine, and by the most illustrious county families it was not despised.
Anybody brought up for being drunk and disorderly in the streets of its
natal borough, had only to prove that he was a stranger to the place and
its liquor to be honourably dismissed by the magistrates, as one
overtaken in a fault that no man could guard against who entered the town
unawares.
In addition, Mr. Loveday also tapped a hogshead of fine cider that he had
had mellowing in the house for several months, having bought it of an
honest down-country man, who did not colour, for any special occasion
like the present. It had been pressed from fruit judiciously chosen by
an old hand--Horner and Cleeves apple for the body, a few Tom-Putts for
colour, and just a dash of Old Five-corners for sparkle--a selection
originally made to please the palate of a well-known temperate earl who
was a regular cider-drinker, and lived to be eighty-eight.
On the morning of the Sunday appointed for her coming Captain Bob Loveday
set out to meet his bride. He had been all the week engaged in painting
the gig, assisted by his brother at odd times, and it now appeared of a
gorgeous yellow, with blue streaks, and tassels at the corners, and red
wheels outlined with a darker shade. He put in the pony at half-past
eleven, Anne looking at him from the door as he packed himself into the
vehicle and drove off. There may be young women who look out at young
men driving to meet their brides as Anne looked at Captain Bob, and yet
are quite indifferent to the circumstances; but they are not often met
with.
So much dust had been raised on the highway by traffic resulting from the
presence of the Court at the town further on, that brambles hanging from
the fence, and giving a friendly scratch to the wanderer's face, were
dingy as church cobwebs; and the grass on the margin had assumed a paper-
shaving hue. Bob's father had wished him to take David, lest, from want
of recent experience at the whip, he should meet with any mishap; but,
picturing to himself the awkwardness of three in such circumstances, Bob
would not hear of this; and nothing more serious happened to his driving
than that the wheel-marks formed two serpentine lines along the road
during the first mile or two, before he had got his hand in, and that the
horse shied at a milestone, a piece of paper, a sleeping tramp, and a
wheelbarrow, just to make use of the opportunity of being in bad hands.
He entered Casterbridge between twelve and one, and, putting up at the
Old Greyhound, walked on to the Bow. Here, rather dusty on the ledges of
his clothes, he stood and waited while the people in their best summer
dresses poured out of the three churches round him. When they had all
gone, and a smell of cinders and gravy had spread down the ancient high-
street, and the pie-dishes from adjacent bakehouses had all travelled
past, he saw the mail coach rise above the arch of Grey's Bridge, a
quarter of a mile distant, surmounted by swaying knobs, which proved to
be the heads of the outside travellers.
'That's the way for a man's bride to come to him,' said Robert to himself
with a feeling of poetry; and as the horn sounded and the horses
clattered up the street he walked down to the inn. The knot of hostlers
and inn-servants had gathered, the horses were dragged from the vehicle,
and the passengers for Casterbridge began to descend. Captain Bob eyed
them over, looked inside, looked outside again; to his disappointment
Matilda was not there, nor her boxes, nor anything that was hers. Neither
coachman nor guard had seen or heard of such a person at Melchester; and
Bob walked slowly away.
Depressed by forebodings to an extent which took away nearly a third of
his appetite, he sat down in the parlour of the Old Greyhound to a slice
from the family joint of the landlord. This gentleman, who dined in his
shirt-sleeves, partly because it was August, and partly from a sense that
they would not be so fit for public view further on in the week,
suggested that Bob should wait till three or four that afternoon, when
the road-waggon would arrive, as the lost lady might have preferred that
mode of conveyance; and when Bob appeared rather hurt at the suggestion,
the landlord's wife assured him, as a woman who knew good life, that many
genteel persons travelled in that way during the present high price of
provisions. Loveday, who knew little of travelling by land, readily
accepted her assurance and resolved to wait.
Wandering up and down the pavement, or leaning against some hot wall
between the waggon-office and the corner of the street above, he passed
the time away. It was a still, sunny, drowsy afternoon, and scarcely a
soul was visible in the length and breadth of the street. The office was
not far from All Saints' Church, and the church-windows being open, he
could hear the afternoon service from where he lingered as distinctly as
if he had been one of the congregation. Thus he was mentally conducted
through the Psalms, through the first and second lessons, through the
burst of fiddles and clarionets which announced the evening-hymn, and
well into the sermon, before any signs of the waggon could be seen upon
the London road.
The afternoon sermons at this church being of a dry and metaphysical
nature at that date, it was by a special providence that the
waggon-office was placed near the ancient fabric, so that whenever the
Sunday waggon was late, which it always was in hot weather, in cold
weather, in wet weather, and in weather of almost every other sort, the
rattle, dismounting, and swearing outside completely drowned the parson's
voice within, and sustained the flagging interest of the congregation at
precisely the right moment. No sooner did the charity children begin to
writhe on their benches, and adult snores grow audible, than the waggon
arrived.
Captain Loveday felt a kind of sinking in his poetry at the possibility
of her for whom they had made such preparations being in the slow,
unwieldy vehicle which crunched its way towards him; but he would not
give in to the weakness. Neither would he walk down the street to meet
the waggon, lest she should not be there. At last the broad wheels drew
up against the kerb, the waggoner with his white smock-frock, and whip as
long as a fishing-line, descended from the pony on which he rode
alongside, and the six broad-chested horses backed from their collars and
shook themselves. In another moment something showed forth, and he knew
that Matilda was there.
Bob felt three cheers rise within him as she stepped down; but it being
Sunday he did not utter them. In dress, Miss Johnson passed his
expectations--a green and white gown, with long, tight sleeves, a green
silk handkerchief round her neck and crossed in front, a green parasol,
and green gloves. It was strange enough to see this verdant caterpillar
turn out of a road-waggon, and gracefully shake herself free from the
bits of straw and fluff which would usually gather on the raiment of the
grandest travellers by that vehicle.
'But, my dear Matilda,' said Bob, when he had kissed her three times with
much publicity--the practical step he had determined on seeming to demand
that these things should no longer be done in a corner--'my dear Matilda,
why didn't you come by the coach, having the money for't and all?'
'That's my scrimping!' said Matilda in a delightful gush. 'I know you
won't be offended when you know I did it to save against a rainy day!'
Bob, of course, was not offended, though the glory of meeting her had
been less; and even if vexation were possible, it would have been out of
place to say so. Still, he would have experienced no little surprise had
he learnt the real reason of his Matilda's change of plan. That angel
had, in short, so wildly spent Bob's and her own money in the adornment
of her person before setting out, that she found herself without a
sufficient margin for her fare by coach, and had scrimped from sheer
necessity.
'Well, I have got the trap out at the Greyhound,' said Bob. 'I don't
know whether it will hold your luggage and us too; but it looked more
respectable than the waggon on a Sunday, and if there's not room for the
boxes I can walk alongside.'
'I think there will be room,' said Miss Johnson mildly. And it was soon
very evident that she spoke the truth; for when her property was
deposited on the pavement, it consisted of a trunk about eighteen inches
long, and nothing more.
'O--that's all!' said Captain Loveday, surprised.
'That's all,' said the young woman assuringly. 'I didn't want to give
trouble, you know, and what I have besides I have left at my aunt's.'
'Yes, of course,' he answered readily. 'And as it's no bigger, I can
carry it in my hand to the inn, and so it will be no trouble at all.'
He caught up the little box, and they went side by side to the Greyhound;
and in ten minutes they were trotting up the Southern Road.
Bob did not hurry the horse, there being many things to say and hear, for
which the present situation was admirably suited. The sun shone
occasionally into Matilda's face as they drove on, its rays picking out
all her features to a great nicety. Her eyes would have been called
brown, but they were really eel-colour, like many other nice brown eyes;
they were well-shaped and rather bright, though they had more of a broad
shine than a sparkle. She had a firm, sufficient nose, which seemed to
say of itself that it was good as noses go. She had rather a picturesque
way of wrapping her upper in her lower lip, so that the red of the latter
showed strongly. Whenever she gazed against the sun towards the distant
hills, she brought into her forehead, without knowing it, three short
vertical lines--not there at other times--giving her for the moment
rather a hard look. And in turning her head round to a far angle, to
stare at something or other that he pointed out, the drawn flesh of her
neck became a mass of lines. But Bob did not look at these things,
which, of course, were of no significance; for had she not told him, when
they compared ages, that she was a little over two-and-twenty?
As Nature was hardly invented at this early point of the century, Bob's
Matilda could not say much about the glamour of the hills, or the
shimmering of the foliage, or the wealth of glory in the distant sea, as
she would doubtless have done had she lived later on; but she did her
best to be interesting, asking Bob about matters of social interest in
the neighbourhood, to which she seemed quite a stranger.
'Is your watering-place a large city?' she inquired when they mounted the
hill where the Overcombe folk had waited for the King.
'Bless you, my dear--no! 'Twould be nothing if it wasn't for the Royal
Family, and the lords and ladies, and the regiments of soldiers, and the
frigates, and the King's messengers, and the actors and actresses, and
the games that go on.'
At the words 'actors and actresses,' the innocent young thing pricked up
her ears.
'Does Elliston pay as good salaries this summer as in--?'
'O, you know about it then? I thought--'
'O no, no! I have heard of Budmouth--read in the papers, you know, dear
Robert, about the doings there, and the actors and actresses, you know.'
'Yes, yes, I see. Well, I have been away from England a long time, and
don't know much about the theatre in the town; but I'll take you there
some day. Would it be a treat to you?'
'O, an amazing treat!' said Miss Johnson, with an ecstasy in which a
close observer might have discovered a tinge of ghastliness.
'You've never been into one perhaps, dear?'
'N--never,' said Matilda flatly. 'Whatever do I see yonder--a row of
white things on the down?'
'Yes, that's a part of the encampment above Overcombe. Lots of soldiers
are encamped about here; those are the white tops of their tents.'
He pointed to a wing of the camp that had become visible. Matilda was
much interested.
'It will make it very lively for us,' he added, 'especially as John is
there.'
She thought so too, and thus they chatted on.