CHAPTER XLIII
FANNY'S REVENGE
"Do you want me any longer ma'am?" inquired Liddy, at a later hourthe same evening, standing by the door with a chamber candlestick inher hand and addressing Bathsheba, who sat cheerless and alone in thelarge parlour beside the first fire of the season.
"No more to-night, Liddy."
"I'll sit up for master if you like, ma'am. I am not at all afraidof Fanny, if I may sit in my own room and have a candle. She wassuch a childlike, nesh young thing that her spirit couldn't appearto anybody if it tried, I'm quite sure."
"Oh no, no! You go to bed. I'll sit up for him myself till twelveo'clock, and if he has not arrived by that time, I shall give him upand go to bed too."
"It is half-past ten now."
"Oh! is it?"
"Why don't you sit upstairs, ma'am?"
"Why don't I?" said Bathsheba, desultorily. "It isn't worthwhile--there's a fire here, Liddy." She suddenly exclaimed in animpulsive and excited whisper, "Have you heard anything strange saidof Fanny?" The words had no sooner escaped her than an expression ofunutterable regret crossed her face, and she burst into tears.
"No--not a word!" said Liddy, looking at the weeping woman withastonishment. "What is it makes you cry so, ma'am; has anything hurtyou?" She came to Bathsheba's side with a face full of sympathy.
"No, Liddy--I don't want you any more. I can hardly say why I havetaken to crying lately: I never used to cry. Good-night."
Liddy then left the parlour and closed the door.
Bathsheba was lonely and miserable now; not lonelier actually thanshe had been before her marriage; but her loneliness then was to thatof the present time as the solitude of a mountain is to the solitudeof a cave. And within the last day or two had come these disquietingthoughts about her husband's past. Her wayward sentiment thatevening concerning Fanny's temporary resting-place had been theresult of a strange complication of impulses in Bathsheba's bosom.Perhaps it would be more accurately described as a determinedrebellion against her prejudices, a revulsion from a lower instinctof uncharitableness, which would have withheld all sympathy fromthe dead woman, because in life she had preceded Bathsheba in theattentions of a man whom Bathsheba had by no means ceased fromloving, though her love was sick to death just now with the gravityof a further misgiving.
In five or ten minutes there was another tap at the door. Liddyreappeared, and coming in a little way stood hesitating, until atlength she said, "Maryann has just heard something very strange, butI know it isn't true. And we shall be sure to know the rights of itin a day or two."
"What is it?"
"Oh, nothing connected with you or us, ma'am. It is about Fanny.That same thing you have heard."
"I have heard nothing."
"I mean that a wicked story is got to Weatherbury within this lasthour--that--" Liddy came close to her mistress and whispered theremainder of the sentence slowly into her ear, inclining her head asshe spoke in the direction of the room where Fanny lay.
Bathsheba trembled from head to foot.
"I don't believe it!" she said, excitedly. "And there's only onename written on the coffin-cover."
"Nor I, ma'am. And a good many others don't; for we should surelyhave been told more about it if it had been true--don't you think so,ma'am?"
"We might or we might not."
Bathsheba turned and looked into the fire, that Liddy might not seeher face. Finding that her mistress was going to say no more, Liddyglided out, closed the door softly, and went to bed.
Bathsheba's face, as she continued looking into the fire thatevening, might have excited solicitousness on her account even amongthose who loved her least. The sadness of Fanny Robin's fate did notmake Bathsheba's glorious, although she was the Esther to this poorVashti, and their fates might be supposed to stand in some respectsas contrasts to each other. When Liddy came into the room a secondtime the beautiful eyes which met hers had worn a listless, wearylook. When she went out after telling the story they had expressedwretchedness in full activity. Her simple country nature, fed onold-fashioned principles, was troubled by that which would havetroubled a woman of the world very little, both Fanny and her child,if she had one, being dead.
Bathsheba had grounds for conjecturing a connection between her ownhistory and the dimly suspected tragedy of Fanny's end which Oakand Boldwood never for a moment credited her with possessing. Themeeting with the lonely woman on the previous Saturday night had beenunwitnessed and unspoken of. Oak may have had the best of intentionsin withholding for as many days as possible the details of what hadhappened to Fanny; but had he known that Bathsheba's perceptions hadalready been exercised in the matter, he would have done nothing tolengthen the minutes of suspense she was now undergoing, when thecertainty which must terminate it would be the worst fact suspectedafter all.
She suddenly felt a longing desire to speak to some one stronger thanherself, and so get strength to sustain her surmised position withdignity and her lurking doubts with stoicism. Where could she findsuch a friend? nowhere in the house. She was by far the coolest ofthe women under her roof. Patience and suspension of judgement fora few hours were what she wanted to learn, and there was nobody toteach her. Might she but go to Gabriel Oak!--but that could not be.What a way Oak had, she thought, of enduring things. Boldwood,who seemed so much deeper and higher and stronger in feeling thanGabriel, had not yet learnt, any more than she herself, the simplelesson which Oak showed a mastery of by every turn and look hegave--that among the multitude of interests by which he wassurrounded, those which affected his personal well-being were not themost absorbing and important in his eyes. Oak meditatively lookedupon the horizon of circumstances without any special regard to hisown standpoint in the midst. That was how she would wish to be. Butthen Oak was not racked by incertitude upon the inmost matter of hisbosom, as she was at this moment. Oak knew all about Fanny that hewished to know--she felt convinced of that. If she were to go to himnow at once and say no more than these few words, "What is the truthof the story?" he would feel bound in honour to tell her. It wouldbe an inexpressible relief. No further speech would need to beuttered. He knew her so well that no eccentricity of behaviour inher would alarm him.
She flung a cloak round her, went to the door and opened it. Everyblade, every twig was still. The air was yet thick with moisture,though somewhat less dense than during the afternoon, and a steadysmack of drops upon the fallen leaves under the boughs was almostmusical in its soothing regularity. It seemed better to be out ofthe house than within it, and Bathsheba closed the door, and walkedslowly down the lane till she came opposite to Gabriel's cottage,where he now lived alone, having left Coggan's house through beingpinched for room. There was a light in one window only, and thatwas downstairs. The shutters were not closed, nor was any blind orcurtain drawn over the window, neither robbery nor observation beinga contingency which could do much injury to the occupant of thedomicile. Yes, it was Gabriel himself who was sitting up: he wasreading. From her standing-place in the road she could see himplainly, sitting quite still, his light curly head upon his hand, andonly occasionally looking up to snuff the candle which stood besidehim. At length he looked at the clock, seemed surprised at thelateness of the hour, closed his book, and arose. He was going tobed, she knew, and if she tapped it must be done at once.
Alas for her resolve! She felt she could not do it. Not for worldsnow could she give a hint about her misery to him, much less ask himplainly for information on the cause of Fanny's death. She mustsuspect, and guess, and chafe, and bear it all alone.
Like a homeless wanderer she lingered by the bank, as if lulled andfascinated by the atmosphere of content which seemed to spread fromthat little dwelling, and was so sadly lacking in her own. Gabrielappeared in an upper room, placed his light in the window-bench,and then--knelt down to pray. The contrast of the picture with herrebellious and agitated existence at this same time was too much forher to bear to look upon longe
r. It was not for her to make a trucewith trouble by any such means. She must tread her giddy distractingmeasure to its last note, as she had begun it. With a swollen heartshe went again up the lane, and entered her own door.
More fevered now by a reaction from the first feelings which Oak'sexample had raised in her, she paused in the hall, looking at thedoor of the room wherein Fanny lay. She locked her fingers, threwback her head, and strained her hot hands rigidly across herforehead, saying, with a hysterical sob, "Would to God you wouldspeak and tell me your secret, Fanny! ... Oh, I hope, hope it is nottrue that there are two of you! ... If I could only look in upon youfor one little minute, I should know all!"
A few moments passed, and she added, slowly, "AND I WILL."
Bathsheba in after times could never gauge the mood which carriedher through the actions following this murmured resolution on thismemorable evening of her life. She went to the lumber-closet for ascrew-driver. At the end of a short though undefined time she foundherself in the small room, quivering with emotion, a mist before hereyes, and an excruciating pulsation in her brain, standing beside theuncovered coffin of the girl whose conjectured end had so entirelyengrossed her, and saying to herself in a husky voice as she gazedwithin--
"It was best to know the worst, and I know it now!"
She was conscious of having brought about this situation by a seriesof actions done as by one in an extravagant dream; of following thatidea as to method, which had burst upon her in the hall with glaringobviousness, by gliding to the top of the stairs, assuring herself bylistening to the heavy breathing of her maids that they were asleep,gliding down again, turning the handle of the door within which theyoung girl lay, and deliberately setting herself to do what, if shehad anticipated any such undertaking at night and alone, would havehorrified her, but which, when done, was not so dreadful as was theconclusive proof of her husband's conduct which came with knowingbeyond doubt the last chapter of Fanny's story.
Bathsheba's head sank upon her bosom, and the breath which had beenbated in suspense, curiosity, and interest, was exhaled now in theform of a whispered wail: "Oh-h-h!" she said, and the silent roomadded length to her moan.
Her tears fell fast beside the unconscious pair in the coffin:tears of a complicated origin, of a nature indescribable, almostindefinable except as other than those of simple sorrow. Assuredlytheir wonted fires must have lived in Fanny's ashes when events wereso shaped as to chariot her hither in this natural, unobtrusive, yeteffectual manner. The one feat alone--that of dying--by which a meancondition could be resolved into a grand one, Fanny had achieved.And to that had destiny subjoined this reencounter to-night, whichhad, in Bathsheba's wild imagining, turned her companion's failure tosuccess, her humiliation to triumph, her lucklessness to ascendency;it had thrown over herself a garish light of mockery, and set uponall things about her an ironical smile.
Fanny's face was framed in by that yellow hair of hers; and there wasno longer much room for doubt as to the origin of the curl owned byTroy. In Bathsheba's heated fancy the innocent white countenanceexpressed a dim triumphant consciousness of the pain she wasretaliating for her pain with all the merciless rigour of the Mosaiclaw: "Burning for burning; wound for wound: strife for strife."
Bathsheba indulged in contemplations of escape from her position byimmediate death, which, thought she, though it was an inconvenientand awful way, had limits to its inconvenience and awfulness thatcould not be overpassed; whilst the shames of life were measureless.Yet even this scheme of extinction by death was but tamely copyingher rival's method without the reasons which had glorified it in herrival's case. She glided rapidly up and down the room, as was mostlyher habit when excited, her hands hanging clasped in front of her, asshe thought and in part expressed in broken words: "O, I hate her,yet I don't mean that I hate her, for it is grievous and wicked; andyet I hate her a little! Yes, my flesh insists upon hating her,whether my spirit is willing or no! ... If she had only lived, Icould have been angry and cruel towards her with some justificationbut to be vindictive towards a poor dead woman recoils upon myself.O God, have mercy! I am miserable at all this!"
Bathsheba became at this moment so terrified at her own state of mindthat she looked around for some sort of refuge from herself. Thevision of Oak kneeling down that night recurred to her, and with theimitative instinct which animates women she seized upon the idea,resolved to kneel, and, if possible, pray. Gabriel had prayed; sowould she.
She knelt beside the coffin, covered her face with her hands, andfor a time the room was silent as a tomb. Whether from a purelymechanical, or from any other cause, when Bathsheba arose it was witha quieted spirit, and a regret for the antagonistic instincts whichhad seized upon her just before.
In her desire to make atonement she took flowers from a vase by thewindow, and began laying them around the dead girl's head. Bathshebaknew no other way of showing kindness to persons departed than bygiving them flowers. She knew not how long she remained engagedthus. She forgot time, life, where she was, what she was doing. Aslamming together of the coach-house doors in the yard brought her toherself again. An instant after, the front door opened and closed,steps crossed the hall, and her husband appeared at the entrance tothe room, looking in upon her.
He beheld it all by degrees, stared in stupefaction at the scene, asif he thought it an illusion raised by some fiendish incantation.Bathsheba, pallid as a corpse on end, gazed back at him in the samewild way.
So little are instinctive guesses the fruit of a legitimate inductionthat, at this moment, as he stood with the door in his hand, Troynever once thought of Fanny in connection with what he saw. Hisfirst confused idea was that somebody in the house had died.
"Well--what?" said Troy, blankly.
"I must go! I must go!" said Bathsheba, to herself more than to him.She came with a dilated eye towards the door, to push past him.
"What's the matter, in God's name? who's dead?" said Troy.
"I cannot say; let me go out. I want air!" she continued.
"But no; stay, I insist!" He seized her hand, and then volitionseemed to leave her, and she went off into a state of passivity. He,still holding her, came up the room, and thus, hand in hand, Troy andBathsheba approached the coffin's side.
The candle was standing on a bureau close by them, and the lightslanted down, distinctly enkindling the cold features of both motherand babe. Troy looked in, dropped his wife's hand, knowledge of itall came over him in a lurid sheen, and he stood still.
So still he remained that he could be imagined to have left in him nomotive power whatever. The clashes of feeling in all directionsconfounded one another, produced a neutrality, and there was motionin none.
"Do you know her?" said Bathsheba, in a small enclosed echo, as fromthe interior of a cell.
"I do," said Troy.
"Is it she?"
"It is."
He had originally stood perfectly erect. And now, in the well-nighcongealed immobility of his frame could be discerned an incipientmovement, as in the darkest night may be discerned light after awhile. He was gradually sinking forwards. The lines of his featuressoftened, and dismay modulated to illimitable sadness. Bathshebawas regarding him from the other side, still with parted lips anddistracted eyes. Capacity for intense feeling is proportionate tothe general intensity of the nature, and perhaps in all Fanny'ssufferings, much greater relatively to her strength, there never wasa time she suffered in an absolute sense what Bathsheba suffered now.
What Troy did was to sink upon his knees with an indefinable union ofremorse and reverence upon his face, and, bending over Fanny Robin,gently kissed her, as one would kiss an infant asleep to avoidawakening it.
At the sight and sound of that, to her, unendurable act, Bathshebasprang towards him. All the strong feelings which had been scatteredover her existence since she knew what feeling was, seemed gatheredtogether into one pulsation now. The revulsion from her indignantmood a little earlier, when she had meditated u
pon compromisedhonour, forestalment, eclipse in maternity by another, was violentand entire. All that was forgotten in the simple and stillstrong attachment of wife to husband. She had sighed for herself-completeness then, and now she cried aloud against the severanceof the union she had deplored. She flung her arms round Troy's neck,exclaiming wildly from the deepest deep of her heart--
"Don't--don't kiss them! O, Frank, I can't bear it--I can't! I loveyou better than she did: kiss me too, Frank--kiss me! YOU WILL,FRANK, KISS ME TOO!"
There was something so abnormal and startling in the childlike painand simplicity of this appeal from a woman of Bathsheba's calibreand independence, that Troy, loosening her tightly clasped arms fromhis neck, looked at her in bewilderment. It was such an unexpectedrevelation of all women being alike at heart, even those so differentin their accessories as Fanny and this one beside him, that Troycould hardly seem to believe her to be his proud wife Bathsheba.Fanny's own spirit seemed to be animating her frame. But this wasthe mood of a few instants only. When the momentary surprise hadpassed, his expression changed to a silencing imperious gaze.
"I will not kiss you!" he said pushing her away.
Had the wife now but gone no further. Yet, perhaps, under theharrowing circumstances, to speak out was the one wrong act whichcan be better understood, if not forgiven in her, than the right andpolitic one, her rival being now but a corpse. All the feeling shehad been betrayed into showing she drew back to herself again by astrenuous effort of self-command.
"What have you to say as your reason?" she asked, her bitter voicebeing strangely low--quite that of another woman now.
"I have to say that I have been a bad, black-hearted man," heanswered.
"And that this woman is your victim; and I not less than she."
"Ah! don't taunt me, madam. This woman is more to me, dead as sheis, than ever you were, or are, or can be. If Satan had not temptedme with that face of yours, and those cursed coquetries, I shouldhave married her. I never had another thought till you came in myway. Would to God that I had; but it is all too late!" He turnedto Fanny then. "But never mind, darling," he said; "in the sight ofHeaven you are my very, very wife!"
At these words there arose from Bathsheba's lips a long, low cry ofmeasureless despair and indignation, such a wail of anguish as hadnever before been heard within those old-inhabited walls. It was the"Tetelestai" [GREEK word meaning "it is finished"] of her union with Troy.
"If she's--that,--what--am I?" she added, as a continuation of thesame cry, and sobbing pitifully: and the rarity with her of suchabandonment only made the condition more dire.
"You are nothing to me--nothing," said Troy, heartlessly. "Aceremony before a priest doesn't make a marriage. I am not morallyyours."
A vehement impulse to flee from him, to run from this place, hide,and escape his words at any price, not stopping short of deathitself, mastered Bathsheba now. She waited not an instant, butturned to the door and ran out.