XVI. THEY MAKE READY FOR THE ILLUSTRIOUS STRANGER
Preparations for Matilda's welcome, and for the event which was tofollow, at once occupied the attention of the mill. The miller and hisman had but dim notions of housewifery on any large scale; so the greatwedding cleaning was kindly supervised by Mrs. Garland, Bob being mostlyaway during the day with his brother, the trumpet-major, on variouserrands, one of which was to buy paint and varnish for the gig thatMatilda was to be fetched in, which he had determined to decorate withhis 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 jollysitters, was scrubbed and scraped away; the brown circle round the nailwhereon the miller hung his hat, stained by the brim in wet weather, waswhitened over; the tawny smudges of bygone shoulders in the passage wereremoved without regard to a certain genial and historical value whichthey had acquired. The face of the clock, coated with verdigris as thickas a diachylon plaister, was rubbed till the figures emerged into day;while, inside the case of the same chronometer, the cobwebs that formedtriangular hammocks, which the pendulum could hardly wade through, werecleared away at one swoop.
Mrs. Garland also assisted at the invasion of worm-eaten cupboards, wherelayers of ancient smells lingered on in the stagnant air, and recalled tothe reflective nose the many good things that had been kept there. Theupper floors were scrubbed with such abundance of water that theold-established death-watches, wood-lice, and flour-worms were alldrowned, the suds trickling down into the room below in so lively andnovel a manner as to convey the romantic notion that the miller lived ina cave with dripping stalactites.
They moved what had never been moved before--the oak coffer, containingthe 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 themiller's wife died, and half pulverized by the moths, whose flattenedskeletons lay amid the mass in thousands.
'It fairly makes my back open and shut!' said Loveday, as, in obedienceto Mrs. Garland's direction, he lifted one corner, the grinder and Davidassisting 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, onexamining them, the beholder was not conscious of utensils, but of hisown face in a condition of hideous elasticity. The broken clock-line wasmended, the kettles rocked, the creeper nailed up, and a new handle putto the warming-pan. The large household lantern was cleaned out, afterthree years of uninterrupted accumulation, the operation yielding aconglomerate of candle-snuffs, candle-ends, remains of matches,lamp-black, and eleven ounces and a half of good grease--invaluable asdubbing for skitty boots and ointment for cart-wheels.
Everybody said that the mill residence had not been so thoroughly scouredfor twenty years. The miller and David looked on with a sort of awetempered by gratitude, tacitly admitting by their gaze that this wasbeyond what they had ever thought of. Mrs. Garland supervised all withdisinterested benevolence. It would never have done, she said, for hisfuture daughter-in-law to see the house in its original state. She wouldhave 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 tosee to it at all times?' said the miller as she bustled about again. Towhich she answered that she was considering the matter, and might in goodtime. He had previously informed her that his plan was to put Bob andhis wife in the part of the house that she, Mrs. Garland, occupied, assoon as she chose to enter his, which relieved her of any fear of beingincommoded by Matilda.
The cooking for the wedding festivities was on a proportionate scale ofthoroughness. They killed the four supernumerary chickens that had justbegun to crow, and the little curly-tailed barrow pig, in preference tothe sow; not having been put up fattening for more than five weeks it wasexcellent small meat, and therefore more delicate and likely to suit atown-bred lady's taste than the large one, which, having reached theweight of fourteen score, might have been a little gross to a culturedpalate. There were also provided a cold chine, stuffed veal, and twopigeon pies. Also thirty rings of black-pot, a dozen of white-pot, andten knots of tender and well-washed chitterlings, cooked plain in caseshe should like a change.
As additional reserves there were sweetbreads, and five milts, sewed upat 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 wasfound to be aching work for women; and David, the miller, the grinder,and the grinder's boy being fully occupied in their proper branches, andBob being very busy painting the gig and touching up the harness, Lovedaycalled in a friendly dragoon of John's regiment who was passing by, andhe, being a muscular man, willingly chopped all the afternoon for a quartof strong, judiciously administered, and all other victuals found, takingoff his jacket and gloves, rolling up his shirt-sleeves and unfasteninghis 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 puddingswere stirred up in the milking-pail, and boiled in the three-legged bell-metal crock, of great weight and antiquity, which every travelling tinkerfor the previous thirty years had tapped with his stick, coveted, made abid 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 thepast as Falstaff's favourite beverage--was not only well calculated towin the hearts of soldiers blown dry and dusty by residence in tents on ahill-top, but of any wayfarer whatever in that land. It was of the mostbeautiful colour that the eye of an artist in beer could desire; full inbody, yet brisk as a volcano; piquant, yet without a twang; luminous asan autumn sunset; free from streakiness of taste; but, finally, ratherheady. The masses worshipped it, the minor gentry loved it more thanwine, and by the most illustrious county families it was not despised.Anybody brought up for being drunk and disorderly in the streets of itsnatal borough, had only to prove that he was a stranger to the place andits liquor to be honourably dismissed by the magistrates, as oneovertaken in a fault that no man could guard against who entered the townunawares.
In addition, Mr. Loveday also tapped a hogshead of fine cider that he hadhad mellowing in the house for several months, having bought it of anhonest down-country man, who did not colour, for any special occasionlike the present. It had been pressed from fruit judiciously chosen byan old hand--Horner and Cleeves apple for the body, a few Tom-Putts forcolour, and just a dash of Old Five-corners for sparkle--a selectionoriginally made to please the palate of a well-known temperate earl whowas a regular cider-drinker, and lived to be eighty-eight.
On the morning of the Sunday appointed for her coming Captain Bob Lovedayset out to meet his bride. He had been all the week engaged in paintingthe gig, assisted by his brother at odd times, and it now appeared of agorgeous yellow, with blue streaks, and tassels at the corners, and redwheels outlined with a darker shade. He put in the pony at half-pasteleven, Anne looking at him from the door as he packed himself into thevehicle and drove off. There may be young women who look out at youngmen driving to meet their brides as Anne looked at Captain Bob, and yetare quite indifferent to the circumstances; but they are not often metwith.
So much dust had been raised on the highway by traffic resulting from thepresence of the Court at the town further on, that brambles hanging fromthe fence, and giving a friendly scratch to the wanderer's face, weredingy 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 wantof recent experience at the whip, he should meet with any mishap; but,picturing to himself the awkwardness of three in such circumstances, Bobwo
uld not hear of this; and nothing more serious happened to his drivingthan that the wheel-marks formed two serpentine lines along the roadduring the first mile or two, before he had got his hand in, and that thehorse shied at a milestone, a piece of paper, a sleeping tramp, and awheelbarrow, just to make use of the opportunity of being in bad hands.
He entered Casterbridge between twelve and one, and, putting up at theOld Greyhound, walked on to the Bow. Here, rather dusty on the ledges ofhis clothes, he stood and waited while the people in their best summerdresses poured out of the three churches round him. When they had allgone, and a smell of cinders and gravy had spread down the ancient high-street, and the pie-dishes from adjacent bakehouses had all travelledpast, he saw the mail coach rise above the arch of Grey's Bridge, aquarter of a mile distant, surmounted by swaying knobs, which proved tobe the heads of the outside travellers.
'That's the way for a man's bride to come to him,' said Robert to himselfwith a feeling of poetry; and as the horn sounded and the horsesclattered up the street he walked down to the inn. The knot of hostlersand inn-servants had gathered, the horses were dragged from the vehicle,and the passengers for Casterbridge began to descend. Captain Bob eyedthem over, looked inside, looked outside again; to his disappointmentMatilda was not there, nor her boxes, nor anything that was hers. Neithercoachman nor guard had seen or heard of such a person at Melchester; andBob walked slowly away.
Depressed by forebodings to an extent which took away nearly a third ofhis appetite, he sat down in the parlour of the Old Greyhound to a slicefrom the family joint of the landlord. This gentleman, who dined in hisshirt-sleeves, partly because it was August, and partly from a sense thatthey would not be so fit for public view further on in the week,suggested that Bob should wait till three or four that afternoon, whenthe road-waggon would arrive, as the lost lady might have preferred thatmode 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 manygenteel persons travelled in that way during the present high price ofprovisions. Loveday, who knew little of travelling by land, readilyaccepted her assurance and resolved to wait.
Wandering up and down the pavement, or leaning against some hot wallbetween the waggon-office and the corner of the street above, he passedthe time away. It was a still, sunny, drowsy afternoon, and scarcely asoul was visible in the length and breadth of the street. The office wasnot far from All Saints' Church, and the church-windows being open, hecould hear the afternoon service from where he lingered as distinctly asif he had been one of the congregation. Thus he was mentally conductedthrough the Psalms, through the first and second lessons, through theburst of fiddles and clarionets which announced the evening-hymn, andwell into the sermon, before any signs of the waggon could be seen uponthe London road.
The afternoon sermons at this church being of a dry and metaphysicalnature at that date, it was by a special providence that thewaggon-office was placed near the ancient fabric, so that whenever theSunday waggon was late, which it always was in hot weather, in coldweather, in wet weather, and in weather of almost every other sort, therattle, dismounting, and swearing outside completely drowned the parson'svoice within, and sustained the flagging interest of the congregation atprecisely the right moment. No sooner did the charity children begin towrithe on their benches, and adult snores grow audible, than the waggonarrived.
Captain Loveday felt a kind of sinking in his poetry at the possibilityof her for whom they had made such preparations being in the slow,unwieldy vehicle which crunched its way towards him; but he would notgive in to the weakness. Neither would he walk down the street to meetthe waggon, lest she should not be there. At last the broad wheels drewup against the kerb, the waggoner with his white smock-frock, and whip aslong as a fishing-line, descended from the pony on which he rodealongside, and the six broad-chested horses backed from their collars andshook themselves. In another moment something showed forth, and he knewthat Matilda was there.
Bob felt three cheers rise within him as she stepped down; but it beingSunday he did not utter them. In dress, Miss Johnson passed hisexpectations--a green and white gown, with long, tight sleeves, a greensilk handkerchief round her neck and crossed in front, a green parasol,and green gloves. It was strange enough to see this verdant caterpillarturn out of a road-waggon, and gracefully shake herself free from thebits of straw and fluff which would usually gather on the raiment of thegrandest travellers by that vehicle.
'But, my dear Matilda,' said Bob, when he had kissed her three times withmuch publicity--the practical step he had determined on seeming to demandthat 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 youwon'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 hadbeen less; and even if vexation were possible, it would have been out ofplace to say so. Still, he would have experienced no little surprise hadhe learnt the real reason of his Matilda's change of plan. That angelhad, in short, so wildly spent Bob's and her own money in the adornmentof her person before setting out, that she found herself without asufficient margin for her fare by coach, and had scrimped from sheernecessity.
'Well, I have got the trap out at the Greyhound,' said Bob. 'I don'tknow whether it will hold your luggage and us too; but it looked morerespectable than the waggon on a Sunday, and if there's not room for theboxes I can walk alongside.'
'I think there will be room,' said Miss Johnson mildly. And it was soonvery evident that she spoke the truth; for when her property wasdeposited on the pavement, it consisted of a trunk about eighteen incheslong, and nothing more.
'O--that's all!' said Captain Loveday, surprised.
'That's all,' said the young woman assuringly. 'I didn't want to givetrouble, 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 cancarry 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, forwhich the present situation was admirably suited. The sun shoneoccasionally into Matilda's face as they drove on, its rays picking outall her features to a great nicety. Her eyes would have been calledbrown, 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 broadshine than a sparkle. She had a firm, sufficient nose, which seemed tosay of itself that it was good as noses go. She had rather a picturesqueway of wrapping her upper in her lower lip, so that the red of the lattershowed strongly. Whenever she gazed against the sun towards the distanthills, she brought into her forehead, without knowing it, three shortvertical lines--not there at other times--giving her for the momentrather a hard look. And in turning her head round to a far angle, tostare at something or other that he pointed out, the drawn flesh of herneck 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, whenthey compared ages, that she was a little over two-and-twenty?
As Nature was hardly invented at this early point of the century, Bob'sMatilda could not say much about the glamour of the hills, or theshimmering of the foliage, or the wealth of glory in the distant sea, asshe would doubtless have done had she lived later on; but she did herbest to be interesting, asking Bob about matters of social interest inthe neighbourhood, to which she seemed quite a stranger.
'Is your watering-place a large city?' she inquired when they mounted thehill where the Overcombe folk had waited for the King.
'Bless you, my dear--no! 'Twould be nothing if it wasn't for the RoyalFamily, and the lords and ladies, and the regiments of soldiers,
and thefrigates, and the King's messengers, and the actors and actresses, andthe games that go on.'
At the words 'actors and actresses,' the innocent young thing pricked upher 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, dearRobert, 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, anddon't know much about the theatre in the town; but I'll take you theresome day. Would it be a treat to you?'
'O, an amazing treat!' said Miss Johnson, with an ecstasy in which aclose 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 ofwhite things on the down?'
'Yes, that's a part of the encampment above Overcombe. Lots of soldiersare encamped about here; those are the white tops of their tents.'
He pointed to a wing of the camp that had become visible. Matilda wasmuch interested.
'It will make it very lively for us,' he added, 'especially as John isthere.'
She thought so too, and thus they chatted on.