As there was no help for it, he nerved himself and assented. As her head
only reached to his fourth button she necessarily looked up for his
convenience, and John began fumbling at the bow. Try as he would it was
impossible to touch the ribbon without getting his finger tips mixed with
the curls of her forehead.
'Your hand shakes--ah! you have been walking fast,' she said.
'Yes--yes.'
'Have you almost done it?' She inquiringly directed her gaze upward
through his fingers.
'No--not yet,' he faltered in a warm sweat of emotion, his heart going
like a flail.
'Then be quick, please.'
'Yes, I will, Miss Garland! B-B-Bob is a very good fel--'
'Not that man's name to me!' she interrupted.
John was silent instantly, and nothing was to be heard but the rustling
of the ribbon; till his hands once more blundered among the curls, and
then touched her forehead.
'O good God!' ejaculated the trumpet-major in a whisper, turning away
hastily to the corner-cupboard, and resting his face upon his hand.
'What's the matter, John?' said she.
'I can't do it!'
'What?'
'Tie your cap-ribbon.'
'Why not?'
'Because you are so--Because I am clumsy, and never could tie a bow.'
'You are clumsy indeed,' answered Anne, and went away.
After this she felt injured, for it seemed to show that he rated her
happiness as of meaner value than Bob's; since he had persisted in his
idea of giving Bob another chance when she had implied that it was her
wish to do otherwise. Could Miss Johnson have anything to do with his
firmness? An opportunity of testing him in this direction occurred some
days later. She had been up the village, and met John at the mill-door.
'Have you heard the news? Matilda Johnson is going to be married to
young Derriman.'
Anne stood with her back to the sun, and as he faced her, his features
were searchingly exhibited. There was no change whatever in them, unless
it were that a certain light of interest kindled by her question turned
to complete and blank indifference. 'Well, as times go, it is not a bad
match for her,' he said, with a phlegm which was hardly that of a lover.
John on his part was beginning to find these temptations almost more than
he could bear. But being quartered so near to his father's house it was
unnatural not to visit him, especially when at any moment the regiment
might be ordered abroad, and a separation of years ensue; and as long as
he went there he could not help seeing her.
The year changed from green to gold, and from gold to grey, but little
change came over the house of Loveday. During the last twelve months Bob
had been occasionally heard of as upholding his country's honour in
Denmark, the West Indies, Gibraltar, Malta, and other places about the
globe, till the family received a short letter stating that he had
arrived again at Portsmouth. At Portsmouth Bob seemed disposed to
remain, for though some time elapsed without further intelligence, the
gallant seaman never appeared at Overcombe. Then on a sudden John learnt
that Bob's long-talked-of promotion for signal services rendered was to
be an accomplished fact. The trumpet-major at once walked off to
Overcombe, and reached the village in the early afternoon. Not one of
the family was in the house at the moment, and John strolled onwards over
the hill towards Casterbridge, without much thought of direction till,
lifting his eyes, he beheld Anne Garland wandering about with a little
basket upon her arm.
At first John blushed with delight at the sweet vision; but, recalled by
his conscience, the blush of delight was at once mangled and slain. He
looked for a means of retreat. But the field was open, and a soldier was
a conspicuous object: there was no escaping her.
'It was kind of you to come,' she said, with an inviting smile.
'It was quite by accident,' he answered, with an indifferent laugh. 'I
thought you was at home.'
Anne blushed and said nothing, and they rambled on together. In the
middle of the field rose a fragment of stone wall in the form of a gable,
known as Faringdon Ruin; and when they had reached it John paused and
politely asked her if she were not a little tired with walking so far. No
particular reply was returned by the young lady, but they both stopped,
and Anne seated herself on a stone, which had fallen from the ruin to the
ground.
'A church once stood here,' observed John in a matter-of-fact tone.
'Yes, I have often shaped it out in my mind,' she returned. 'Here where
I sit must have been the altar.'
'True; this standing bit of wall was the chancel end.'
Anne had been adding up her little studies of the trumpet-major's
character, and was surprised to find how the brightness of that character
increased in her eyes with each examination. A kindly and gentle
sensation was again aroused in her. Here was a neglected heroic man,
who, loving her to distraction, deliberately doomed himself to pensive
shade to avoid even the appearance of standing in a brother's way.
'If the altar stood here, hundreds of people have been made man and wife
just there, in past times,' she said, with calm deliberateness, throwing
a little stone on a spot about a yard westward.
John annihilated another tender burst and replied, 'Yes, this field used
to be a village. My grandfather could call to mind when there were
houses here. But the squire pulled 'em down, because poor folk were an
eyesore to him.'
'Do you know, John, what you once asked me to do?' she continued, not
accepting the digression, and turning her eyes upon him.
'In what sort of way?'
'In the matter of my future life, and yours.'
'I am afraid I don't.'
'John Loveday!'
He turned his back upon her for a moment, that she might not see his
face. 'Ah--I do remember,' he said at last, in a dry, small, repressed
voice.
'Well--need I say more? Isn't it sufficient?'
'It would be sufficient,' answered the unhappy man. 'But--'
She looked up with a reproachful smile, and shook her head. 'That
summer,' she went on, 'you asked me ten times if you asked me once. I am
older now; much more of a woman, you know; and my opinion is changed
about some people; especially about one.'
'O Anne, Anne!' he burst out as, racked between honour and desire, he
snatched up her hand. The next moment it fell heavily to her lap. He
had absolutely relinquished it half-way to his lips.
'I have been thinking lately,' he said, with preternaturally sudden
calmness, 'that men of the military profession ought not to m--ought to
be like St. Paul, I mean.'
'Fie, John; pretending religion!' she said sternly. 'It isn't that at
all. _It's Bob_!'
'Yes!' cried the miserable trumpet-major. 'I have had a letter from him
to-day.' He pulled out a sheet of paper from his breast. 'That's it!
He's promoted--he's a lieutenant, and appointed to a sloop that only
cruises on our own coast, so that he'll be at home on leave half his
time--he'll be a gentleman some day, and worthy of you!'
He threw the letter into her lap, and drew back to the other side of the
gable-wall. Anne jumped up from her seat, flung away the letter without
looking at it, and went hastily on. John did not attempt to overtake
her. Picking up the letter, he followed in her wake at a distance of a
hundred yards.
But, though Anne had withdrawn from his presence thus precipitately, she
never thought more highly of him in her life than she did five minutes
afterwards, when the excitement of the moment had passed. She saw it all
quite clearly; and his self-sacrifice impressed her so much that the
effect was just the reverse of what he had been aiming to produce. The
more he pleaded for Bob, the more her perverse generosity pleaded for
John. To-day the crisis had come--with what results she had not
foreseen.
As soon as the trumpet-major reached the nearest pen-and-ink he flung
himself into a seat and wrote wildly to Bob:--
'DEAR ROBERT,--I write these few lines to let you know that if you
want Anne Garland you must come at once--you must come instantly, and
post-haste--_or she will be gone_! Somebody else wants her, and she
wants him! It is your last chance, in the opinion of--
'Your faithful brother and well-wisher,
'JOHN.
'P.S.--Glad to hear of your promotion. Tell me the day and I'll meet
the coach.'