CHAPTER XIX
THE SHEEP-WASHING--THE OFFER
Boldwood did eventually call upon her. She was not at home. "Ofcourse not," he murmured. In contemplating Bathsheba as a woman, hehad forgotten the accidents of her position as an agriculturist--thatbeing as much of a farmer, and as extensive a farmer, as himself,her probable whereabouts was out-of-doors at this time of the year.This, and the other oversights Boldwood was guilty of, were naturalto the mood, and still more natural to the circumstances. Thegreat aids to idealization in love were present here: occasionalobservation of her from a distance, and the absence of socialintercourse with her--visual familiarity, oral strangeness. Thesmaller human elements were kept out of sight; the pettinesses thatenter so largely into all earthly living and doing were disguised bythe accident of lover and loved-one not being on visiting terms; andthere was hardly awakened a thought in Boldwood that sorry householdrealities appertained to her, or that she, like all others, hadmoments of commonplace, when to be least plainly seen was to be mostprettily remembered. Thus a mild sort of apotheosis took placein his fancy, whilst she still lived and breathed within his ownhorizon, a troubled creature like himself.
It was the end of May when the farmer determined to be no longerrepulsed by trivialities or distracted by suspense. He had by thistime grown used to being in love; the passion now startled him lesseven when it tortured him more, and he felt himself adequate to thesituation. On inquiring for her at her house they had told him shewas at the sheep-washing, and he went off to seek her there.
The sheep-washing pool was a perfectly circular basin of brickwork inthe meadows, full of the clearest water. To birds on the wing itsglassy surface, reflecting the light sky, must have been visible formiles around as a glistening Cyclops' eye in a green face. The grassabout the margin at this season was a sight to remember long--in aminor sort of way. Its activity in sucking the moisture from therich damp sod was almost a process observable by the eye. Theoutskirts of this level water-meadow were diversified by rounded andhollow pastures, where just now every flower that was not a buttercupwas a daisy. The river slid along noiselessly as a shade, theswelling reeds and sedge forming a flexible palisade upon its moistbrink. To the north of the mead were trees, the leaves of whichwere new, soft, and moist, not yet having stiffened and darkenedunder summer sun and drought, their colour being yellow beside agreen--green beside a yellow. From the recesses of this knot offoliage the loud notes of three cuckoos were resounding through thestill air.
Boldwood went meditating down the slopes with his eyes on his boots,which the yellow pollen from the buttercups had bronzed in artisticgradations. A tributary of the main stream flowed through thebasin of the pool by an inlet and outlet at opposite points of itsdiameter. Shepherd Oak, Jan Coggan, Moon, Poorgrass, Cain Ball,and several others were assembled here, all dripping wet to thevery roots of their hair, and Bathsheba was standing by in a newriding-habit--the most elegant she had ever worn--the reins of herhorse being looped over her arm. Flagons of cider were rolling aboutupon the green. The meek sheep were pushed into the pool by Cogganand Matthew Moon, who stood by the lower hatch, immersed to theirwaists; then Gabriel, who stood on the brink, thrust them under asthey swam along, with an instrument like a crutch, formed for thepurpose, and also for assisting the exhausted animals when the woolbecame saturated and they began to sink. They were let out againstthe stream, and through the upper opening, all impurities flowingaway below. Cainy Ball and Joseph, who performed this latteroperation, were if possible wetter than the rest; they resembleddolphins under a fountain, every protuberance and angle of theirclothes dribbling forth a small rill.
Boldwood came close and bade her good morning, with such constraintthat she could not but think he had stepped across to the washing forits own sake, hoping not to find her there; more, she fancied hisbrow severe and his eye slighting. Bathsheba immediately contrivedto withdraw, and glided along by the river till she was a stone'sthrow off. She heard footsteps brushing the grass, and had aconsciousness that love was encircling her like a perfume. Insteadof turning or waiting, Bathsheba went further among the high sedges,but Boldwood seemed determined, and pressed on till they werecompletely past the bend of the river. Here, without being seen,they could hear the splashing and shouts of the washers above.
"Miss Everdene!" said the farmer.
She trembled, turned, and said "Good morning." His tone was soutterly removed from all she had expected as a beginning. It waslowness and quiet accentuated: an emphasis of deep meanings, theirform, at the same time, being scarcely expressed. Silence hassometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodiedsoul of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it is then moreimpressive than speech. In the same way, to say a little is often totell more than to say a great deal. Boldwood told everything in thatword.
As the consciousness expands on learning that what was fancied tobe the rumble of wheels is the reverberation of thunder, so didBathsheba's at her intuitive conviction.
"I feel--almost too much--to think," he said, with a solemnsimplicity. "I have come to speak to you without preface. My lifeis not my own since I have beheld you clearly, Miss Everdene--I cometo make you an offer of marriage."
Bathsheba tried to preserve an absolutely neutral countenance, andall the motion she made was that of closing lips which had previouslybeen a little parted.
"I am now forty-one years old," he went on. "I may have been calleda confirmed bachelor, and I was a confirmed bachelor. I had neverany views of myself as a husband in my earlier days, nor have I madeany calculation on the subject since I have been older. But we allchange, and my change, in this matter, came with seeing you. I havefelt lately, more and more, that my present way of living is bad inevery respect. Beyond all things, I want you as my wife."
"I feel, Mr. Boldwood, that though I respect you much, I do notfeel--what would justify me to--in accepting your offer," shestammered.
This giving back of dignity for dignity seemed to open the sluices offeeling that Boldwood had as yet kept closed.
"My life is a burden without you," he exclaimed, in a low voice. "Iwant you--I want you to let me say I love you again and again!"
Bathsheba answered nothing, and the horse upon her arm seemed soimpressed that instead of cropping the herbage she looked up.
"I think and hope you care enough for me to listen to what I have totell!"
Bathsheba's momentary impulse at hearing this was to ask why hethought that, till she remembered that, far from being a conceitedassumption on Boldwood's part, it was but the natural conclusion ofserious reflection based on deceptive premises of her own offering.
"I wish I could say courteous flatteries to you," the farmercontinued in an easier tone, "and put my rugged feeling into agraceful shape: but I have neither power nor patience to learn suchthings. I want you for my wife--so wildly that no other feeling canabide in me; but I should not have spoken out had I not been led tohope."
"The valentine again! O that valentine!" she said to herself, butnot a word to him.
"If you can love me say so, Miss Everdene. If not--don't say no!"
"Mr. Boldwood, it is painful to have to say I am surprised, so thatI don't know how to answer you with propriety and respect--but amonly just able to speak out my feeling--I mean my meaning; that I amafraid I can't marry you, much as I respect you. You are toodignified for me to suit you, sir."
"But, Miss Everdene!"
"I--I didn't--I know I ought never to have dreamt of sending thatvalentine--forgive me, sir--it was a wanton thing which no woman withany self-respect should have done. If you will only pardon mythoughtlessness, I promise never to--"
"No, no, no. Don't say thoughtlessness! Make me think it wassomething more--that it was a sort of prophetic instinct--thebeginning of a feeling that you would like me. You torture me to sayit was done in thoughtlessness--I never thought of it in that light,and I can't endure it. Ah! I wish I knew how to win you! bu
t that Ican't do--I can only ask if I have already got you. If I have not,and it is not true that you have come unwittingly to me as I have toyou, I can say no more."
"I have not fallen in love with you, Mr. Boldwood--certainly I mustsay that." She allowed a very small smile to creep for the firsttime over her serious face in saying this, and the white row of upperteeth, and keenly-cut lips already noticed, suggested an idea ofheartlessness, which was immediately contradicted by the pleasanteyes.
"But you will just think--in kindness and condescension think--if youcannot bear with me as a husband! I fear I am too old for you, butbelieve me I will take more care of you than would many a man of yourown age. I will protect and cherish you with all my strength--I willindeed! You shall have no cares--be worried by no household affairs,and live quite at ease, Miss Everdene. The dairy superintendenceshall be done by a man--I can afford it well--you shall never haveso much as to look out of doors at haymaking time, or to think ofweather in the harvest. I rather cling to the chaise, because it isthe same my poor father and mother drove, but if you don't like itI will sell it, and you shall have a pony-carriage of your own. Icannot say how far above every other idea and object on earth youseem to me--nobody knows--God only knows--how much you are to me!"
Bathsheba's heart was young, and it swelled with sympathy for thedeep-natured man who spoke so simply.
"Don't say it! don't! I cannot bear you to feel so much, and me tofeel nothing. And I am afraid they will notice us, Mr. Boldwood.Will you let the matter rest now? I cannot think collectedly. I didnot know you were going to say this to me. Oh, I am wicked to havemade you suffer so!" She was frightened as well as agitated at hisvehemence.
"Say then, that you don't absolutely refuse. Do not quite refuse?"
"I can do nothing. I cannot answer."
"I may speak to you again on the subject?"
"Yes."
"I may think of you?"
"Yes, I suppose you may think of me."
"And hope to obtain you?"
"No--do not hope! Let us go on."
"I will call upon you again to-morrow."
"No--please not. Give me time."
"Yes--I will give you any time," he said earnestly and gratefully."I am happier now."
"No--I beg you! Don't be happier if happiness only comes from myagreeing. Be neutral, Mr. Boldwood! I must think."
"I will wait," he said.
And then she turned away. Boldwood dropped his gaze to the ground,and stood long like a man who did not know where he was. Realitiesthen returned upon him like the pain of a wound received in anexcitement which eclipses it, and he, too, then went on.