Page 31 of Far from the Madding Crowd

BLAME -- FURY

THE next evening Bathsheba, with the idea of gettingout of the way of Mr. Boldwood in the event of hisreturning to answer her note in person, proceeded tofulfil an engagement made with Liddy some few hoursearlier. Bathsheba's companion, as a gage of theirreconciliation, had been granted a week's holiday tovisit her sister, who was married to a thriving hurdlerand cattle-crib-maker living in a delightful labyrinth ofhazel copse not far beyond Yalbury. The arrangementwas that Miss Everdene should honour them by comingthere for a day or two to inspect some ingenious con-trivances which this man of the woods had introducedinto his wares.Leaving her instructions with Gabriel and Maryann,that they were to see everything carefully locked up forthe night, she went out of the house just at the close ofa timely thunder-shower, which had refined the air, anddaintily bathed the coat of the land, though all beneathwas dry as ever. Freshness was exhaled in an essencefrom the varied contours of bank and hollow, as if theearth breathed maiden breath; and the pleased birdswere hymning to the scene. Before her, among theclouds, there was a contrast in the shape of lairs offierce light which showed themselves in the neighbour-hood of a hidden sun, lingering on to the farthest north-west corner of the heavens that this midsummer seasonallowed.She had walked nearly two miles of her journey,watching how the day was retreating, and thinking howthe time of deeds was quietly melting into the time ofthought, to give place in its turn to the time of prayerand sleep, when she beheld advancing over Yalbury hillthe very man she sought so anxiously to elude. Boldwoodwas stepping on, not with that quiet tread of reservedstrength which was his customary gait, in which healways seemed to be balancing two thoughts. Hismanner was stunned and sluggish now.Boldwood had for the first time been awakened towoman's privileges in tergiversation even when it involvesanother person's possible blight. That Bathsheba wasa firm and positive girl, far less inconsequent than herfellows, had been the very lung of his hope; for he hadheld that these qualities would lead her to adhere to astraight course for consistency's sake, and accept him,though her fancy might not flood him with the iridescenthues of uncritical love. But the argument now cameback as sorry gleams from a broken mirror. The dis-covery was no less a scourge than a surprise.He came on looking upon the ground, and did notsee Bathsheba till they were less than a stone's throwapart. He looked up at the sound of her pit-pat, andhis changed appearance sufficiently denoted to her thedepth and strength of the feelings paralyzed by herletter.”Oh; is it you, Mr. Boldwood?” she faltered, a guiltywarmth pulsing in her face.Those who have the power of reproaching in silencemay find it a means more effective than words. Thereare accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, andmore tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear.It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remotermoods that they avoid the pathway of sound. Bold-wood's look was unanswerable.Seeing she turned a little aside, he said, ”What, areyou afraid of me?”Why should you say that?” said Bathsheba.”I fancied you looked so.” said he. ”And it is moststrange, because of its contrast with my feeling for you.She regained self-possession, fixed her eyes calmly,and waited.”You know what that feeling is.” continued Boldwood,deliberately. ”A thing strong as death. No dismissalby a hasty letter affects that.””I wish you did not feel so strongly about me.” shemurmured. ”It is generous of you, and more than Ideserve, but I must not hear it now.””Hear it? What do you think I have to say, then?I am not to marry you, and that's enough. Your letterwas excellently plain. I want you to hear nothing --not I.”Bathsheba was unable to direct her will into anydefinite groove for freeing herself from this fearfullyand was moving on. Boldwood walked up to her heavilyand dully.”Bathsheba -- darling -- is it final indeed?””Indeed it is.””O, Bathsheba -- have pity upon me!” Boldwoodburst out. ”God's sake, yes -- I am come to that low,lowest stage -- to ask a woman for pity! Still, she isyou -- she is you.”Bathsheba commanded herself well. But she couldhardly get a clear voice for what came instinctively toher lips: ”There is little honour to the woman in thatspeech.” It was only whispered, for something unutter-ably mournful no less than distressing in this spectacleof a man showing himself to be so entirely the vane of apassion enervated the feminine instinct for punctilios.”I am beyond myself about this, and am mad.” hesaid. ”I am no stoic at all to he supplicating here; butI do supplicate to you. I wish you knew what is inme of devotion to you; but it is impossible, that. Inbare human mercy to a lonely man, don't throw me offnow!””I don't throw you off -- indeed, how can I? I neverhad you.” In her noon-clear sense that she had neverloved him she forgot for a moment her thoughtless angleon that day in February.”But there was a time when you turned to me,before I thought of you! I don't reproach you, foreven now I feel that the ignorant and cold darknessthat I should have lived in if you had not attracted meby that letter -- valentine you call it -- would have beenworse than my knowledge of you, though it has broughtthis misery. But, I say, there was a time when I knewnothing of you, and cared nothing for you, and yet youdrew me on. And if you say you gave me no en-couragement, I cannot but contradict you.””What you call encouragement was the childishgame of an idle minute. I have bitterly repented of it -- ay, bitterly, and in tears. Can you still go on re-minding me?””I don't accuse you of it -- I deplore it. I took forearnest what you insist was jest, and now this that Ipray to be jest you say is awful, wretched earnest. Ourmoods meet at wrong places. I wish your feeling wasmore like mine, or my feeling more like yours! O,could I but have foreseen the torture that trifling trickwas going to lead me into, how I should have cursedyou; but only having been able to see it since, I cannotdo that, for I love you too well! But it is weak, idledrivelling to go on like this.... Bathsheba, you arethe first woman of any shade or nature that I have everlooked at to love, and it is the having been so nearclaiming you for my own that makes this denial so hardto bear. How nearly you promised me! But I don'tspeak now to move your heart, and make you grievebecause of my pain; it is no use, that. I must bear it;my pain would get no less by paining you.””But I do pity you -- deeply -- O so deeply!” sheearnestly said.”Do no such thing -- do no such thing. Your dearlove, Bathsheba, is such a vast thing beside your pity,that the loss of your pity as well as your love is no greataddition to my sorrow, nor does the gain of your pitymake it sensibly less. O sweet -- how dearly youspoke to me behind the spear-bed at the washing-pool,and in the barn at the shearing, and that dearest lasttime in the evening at your home! Where are yourpleasant words all gone -- your earnest hope to be ableto love me? Where is your firm conviction that youwould get to care for me very much? Really forgotten? -- really?”She checked emotion, looked him quietly and clearlyin the face, and said in her low, firm voice, ” Mr. Bold-wood, I promised you nothing. Would you have hadme a woman of clay when you paid me that furthest,highest compliment a man can pay a woman -- tellingher he loves her? I was bound to show some feeling,if l would not be a graceless shrew. Yet each of thosepleasures was just for the day -- the day just for thepleasure. How was I to know that what is a pastimeto all other men was death to you? Have reason, do,and think more kindly of me!””Well, never mind arguing -- never mind. Onething is sure: you were all but mine, and now you arenot nearly mine. Everything is changed, and that byyou alone, remember. You were nothing to me once,and I was contented; you are now nothing to me again,and how different the second nothing is from the first!Would to God you had never taken me up, since it wasonly to throw me down!”Bathsheba, in spite of her mettle, began to feel un-mistakable signs that she was inherently the weakervessel. She strove miserably against this feminitywhich would insist upon supplying unbidden emotionsin stronger and stronger current. She had tried toelude agitation by fixing her mind on the trees, sky, anytrivial object before her eyes, whilst his reproaches fell,but ingenuity could not save her now.”I did not take you up -- surely I did not!” sheanswered as heroically as she could. ”But don't be inthis mood with me. I can endure being told I am inthe wrong, if you will only tell it me gently! O sir,will you not kindly forgive me, and look at itcheerfully?””Cheerfully! Can a man fooled to utter heart-burning find a reason for being merry> If I have lost,how can I be as if I had won? Heavens you must beheartless quite! Had I known what a fearfully bittersweet this was to be, how would I have avoided you,and never seen you, and been deaf of you. I tell youall this, but what do you care! You don't care.”She returned silent and weak denials to his charges,and swayed her head desperately, as if to thrust awaythe words as they came showering about her ears fromthe lips of the trembling man in the climax of life, withhis bronzed Roman face and fine frame.”Dearest, dearest, I am wavering even now betweenthe two opposites of recklessly renouncing you, andlabouring humbly for you again. Forget that you havesaid No, and let it be as it was! Say, Bathsheba, thatyou only wrote that refusal to me in fun -- come, say itto me!””It would be untrue, and painful to both of us. Youoverrate my capacity for love. I don't possess halfthe warmth of nature you believe me to have. An un-protected childhood in a cold world has beaten gentle-ness out of me.”He immediately said with more resentment: ”Thatmay be true, somewhat; but ah, Miss Everdene, it won'tdo as a reason! You are not the cold woman youwould have me believe. No, no! It isn't because youhave no feeling in you that you don't love me. Younaturally would have me think so -- you would hide fromthat you have a burning heart like mine. You havelove enough, but it is turned into a new channel. Iknow where.”The swift music of her heart became hubbub now,and she throbbed to extremity. He was coming toTroy. He did then know what had occurred! Andthe name fell from his lips the next moment.”Why did Troy not leave my treasure alone?” heasked, fiercely. ”When I had no thought of injuringhim, why did he force himself upon your notice!Before he worried you your inclination was to have me;when next I should have come to you your answerwould have been Yes. Can you deny it -- I ask, canyou deny it?”She delayed the reply, but was to honest to withhold it.” I cannot.” she whispered.”I know you cannot. But he stole in in my absenceand robbed me. Why did't he win you away before,when nobody would have been grieved? -- when nobodywould have been set tale-bearing. Now the peoplesneer at me -- the very hills and sky seem to laugh atme till I blush shamefuly for my folly. I have lost myrespect, my good name, my standing -- lost it, never toget it again. Go and marry your man -- go on!””O sir -- Mr. Boldwood!””You may as well. I have no further claim upon you.As for me, I had better go somewhere alone, and hide --and pray. I loved a woman once. I am now ashamed.When I am dead they'll say, Miserable love-sick manthat he was. Heaven -- heaven -- if I had got jiltedsecretly, and the dishonour not known, and my positionkept! But no matter, it is gone, and the woman notgained. Shame upon him -- shame!”His unreasonable anger terrified her, and she glidedfrom him, without obviously moving, as she said, ”I amonly a girl -- do not speak to me so!””All the time you knew -- how very well you knew --that your new freak was my misery. Dazzled by brassand scarlet -- O, Bathsheba -- this is woman's follyindeed!”She fired up at once. ”You are taking too muchupon yourself!” she said, vehemently. ”Everybody isupon me -- everybody. It is unmanly to attack awoman so! I have nobody in the world to fight mybattles for me; but no mercy is shown. Yet if athousand of you sneer and say things against me, I WILLNOT be put down!””You'll chatter with him doubtless about me. Say tohim, ”Boldwood would have died for me.” Yes, andyou have given way to him, knowing him to be not theman for you. He has kissed you -- claimed you as his.Do you hear -- he has kissed you. Deny it!”The most tragic woman is cowed by a tragic man,and although Boldwood was, in vehemence and glow,nearly her own self rendered into another sex,Bathsheba's cheek quivered. She gasped,” Leave me,sir -- leave me! I am nothing to you. Let me go on!””Deny that he has kissed you.””I shall not.””Ha -- then he has!” came hoarsely from the farmer.”He has,” she said, slowly, and, in spite of her fear,defiantly. ”I am not ashamed to speak the truth.””Then curse him; and curse him!” said Boldwood,breaking into a whispered fury.” Whilst I would havegiven worlds to touch your hand, you have let a rake comein without right or ceremony and -- kiss you! Heaven'smercy -- kiss you! ... Ah, a time of his life shall comewhen he will have to repent, and think wretchedly ofthe pain he has caused another man; and then may heache, and wish, and curse, and yearn -- as I do now!””Don't, don't, O, don't pray down evil upon him!”she implored in a miserable cry. ”Anything but that --anything. O, be kind to him, sir, for I love him true .”Boldwood's ideas had reached that point of fusion atwhich outline and consistency entirely disappear. Theimpending night appeared to concentrate in his eye.He did not hear her at all now.”I'll punish him -- by my soul, that will I! I'll meethim, soldier or no, and I'll horsewhip the untimelystripling for this reckless theft of my one delight. If hewere a hundred men I'd horsewhip him -- --” Hedropped his voice suddenly and unnaturally. ”Bath-sheba, sweet, lost coquette, pardon me! I've beenblaming you, threatening you, behaving like a churl toyou, when he's the greatest sinner. He stole your dearheart away with his unfathomable lies! ... lt is afortunate thing for him that he's gone back to hisregiment -- that he's away up the country, and not here!I hope he may not return here just yet. I pray Godhe may not come into my sight, for I may be temptedbeyond myself. O, Bathsheba, keep him away -- yes,keep him away from me!”For a moment Boldwood stood so inertly after thisthat his soul seemed to have been entirely exhaled withthe breath of his passionate words. He turned his faceaway, and withdrew, and his form was soon covered overby the twilight as his footsteps mixed in with the lowhiss of the leafy trees.Bathsheba, who had been standing motionless as amodel all this latter time, flung her hands to her face,and wildly attempted to ponder on the exhibition whichhad just passed away. Such astounding wells of feveredfeeling in a still man like Mr. Boldwood were incompre-hensible, dreadful. Instead of being a man trained torepression he was -- what she had seen him.The force of the farmer's threats lay in their relation to acircumstance known at present only to herself: her lover wascoming back to Weatherby in the course of the very nextday or two. Troy had not returned to his distant barracks asBoldwood and others supposed, but had merely gone to visitsome acquaintance in Bath, and had yet a week or moreremaining to his furlough. She felt wretchedly certain that if he revisited her just atthis nick of time, and came into contact with Boldwood,afierce quarrel would be the consequence. She panted withsolicitude when she thought of possible injury to Troy. Theleast spark would kindle the farmer's swift feelings of rageand jealousy; he would lose his self-mastery as he had thisevening; Troy's blitheness might become aggressive; it mighttake the direction of derision, and Boldwood's anger mightthen take the direction of revenge. With almost a morbid dread of being thought a gushinggirl, this guileless woman too well concealed from the worldunder a manner of carelessness the warm depths of her strongemotions. But now there was no reserve. In ferher distraction, instead of advancing further shewalked up and down, beatingthe air with her fingers, pressing on her brow, and sobbingbrokenly to herself. Then she sat down on a heap of stones bythe wayside to think. There she remained long. Above thedark margin of the earth appeared foreshores and promontor-ies of coppery cloud,bounding a green and pellucid expansein the western sky. Amaranthine glosses came over them then,and the unresting world wheeled her round to a contrastingprospect eastward, in the shape of indecisive and palpitatingstars. She gazed upon their silent throes amid the shades ofspace, but realised none at all. Her troubled spirit was faraway with Troy.



CHAPTER XXXII