CHAPTER XLIV
UNDER A TREE--REACTION
Bathsheba went along the dark road, neither knowing nor caring aboutthe direction or issue of her flight. The first time that shedefinitely noticed her position was when she reached a gate leadinginto a thicket overhung by some large oak and beech trees. Onlooking into the place, it occurred to her that she had seen it bydaylight on some previous occasion, and that what appeared like animpassable thicket was in reality a brake of fern now withering fast.She could think of nothing better to do with her palpitating selfthan to go in here and hide; and entering, she lighted on a spotsheltered from the damp fog by a reclining trunk, where she sank downupon a tangled couch of fronds and stems. She mechanically pulledsome armfuls round her to keep off the breezes, and closed her eyes.
Whether she slept or not that night Bathsheba was not clearly aware.But it was with a freshened existence and a cooler brain that, a longtime afterwards, she became conscious of some interesting proceedingswhich were going on in the trees above her head and around.
A coarse-throated chatter was the first sound.
It was a sparrow just waking.
Next: "Chee-weeze-weeze-weeze!" from another retreat.
It was a finch.
Third: "Tink-tink-tink-tink-a-chink!" from the hedge.
It was a robin.
"Chuck-chuck-chuck!" overhead.
A squirrel.
Then, from the road, "With my ra-ta-ta, and my rum-tum-tum!"
It was a ploughboy. Presently he came opposite, and she believedfrom his voice that he was one of the boys on her own farm. He wasfollowed by a shambling tramp of heavy feet, and looking through theferns Bathsheba could just discern in the wan light of daybreak ateam of her own horses. They stopped to drink at a pond on the otherside of the way. She watched them flouncing into the pool, drinking,tossing up their heads, drinking again, the water dribbling fromtheir lips in silver threads. There was another flounce, and theycame out of the pond, and turned back again towards the farm.
She looked further around. Day was just dawning, and beside its coolair and colours her heated actions and resolves of the night stoodout in lurid contrast. She perceived that in her lap, and clingingto her hair, were red and yellow leaves which had come down fromthe tree and settled silently upon her during her partial sleep.Bathsheba shook her dress to get rid of them, when multitudes of thesame family lying round about her rose and fluttered away in thebreeze thus created, "like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing."
There was an opening towards the east, and the glow from the as yetunrisen sun attracted her eyes thither. From her feet, and betweenthe beautiful yellowing ferns with their feathery arms, the groundsloped downwards to a hollow, in which was a species of swamp,dotted with fungi. A morning mist hung over it now--a fulsomeyet magnificent silvery veil, full of light from the sun, yetsemi-opaque--the hedge behind it being in some measure hidden by itshazy luminousness. Up the sides of this depression grew sheaves ofthe common rush, and here and there a peculiar species of flag, theblades of which glistened in the emerging sun, like scythes. Butthe general aspect of the swamp was malignant. From its moist andpoisonous coat seemed to be exhaled the essences of evil things inthe earth, and in the waters under the earth. The fungi grew inall manner of positions from rotting leaves and tree stumps, someexhibiting to her listless gaze their clammy tops, others theiroozing gills. Some were marked with great splotches, red as arterialblood, others were saffron yellow, and others tall and attenuated,with stems like macaroni. Some were leathery and of richest browns.The hollow seemed a nursery of pestilences small and great, in theimmediate neighbourhood of comfort and health, and Bathsheba arosewith a tremor at the thought of having passed the night on the brinkof so dismal a place.
There were now other footsteps to be heard along the road.Bathsheba's nerves were still unstrung: she crouched down out ofsight again, and the pedestrian came into view. He was a schoolboy,with a bag slung over his shoulder containing his dinner, and abook in his hand. He paused by the gate, and, without looking up,continued murmuring words in tones quite loud enough to reach herears.
"'O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord':--that I know out o' book.'Give us, give us, give us, give us, give us':--that I know. 'Gracethat, grace that, grace that, grace that':--that I know." Otherwords followed to the same effect. The boy was of the dunce classapparently; the book was a psalter, and this was his way of learningthe collect. In the worst attacks of trouble there appears to bealways a superficial film of consciousness which is left disengagedand open to the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was faintly amusedat the boy's method, till he too passed on.
By this time stupor had given place to anxiety, and anxiety began tomake room for hunger and thirst. A form now appeared upon the riseon the other side of the swamp, half-hidden by the mist, and cametowards Bathsheba. The woman--for it was a woman--approached withher face askance, as if looking earnestly on all sides of her.When she got a little further round to the left, and drew nearer,Bathsheba could see the newcomer's profile against the sunny sky, andknew the wavy sweep from forehead to chin, with neither angle nordecisive line anywhere about it, to be the familiar contour of LiddySmallbury.
Bathsheba's heart bounded with gratitude in the thought that she wasnot altogether deserted, and she jumped up. "Oh, Liddy!" she said,or attempted to say; but the words had only been framed by her lips;there came no sound. She had lost her voice by exposure to theclogged atmosphere all these hours of night.
"Oh, ma'am! I am so glad I have found you," said the girl, as soonas she saw Bathsheba.
"You can't come across," Bathsheba said in a whisper, which shevainly endeavoured to make loud enough to reach Liddy's ears. Liddy,not knowing this, stepped down upon the swamp, saying, as she did so,"It will bear me up, I think."
Bathsheba never forgot that transient little picture of Liddycrossing the swamp to her there in the morning light. Iridescentbubbles of dank subterranean breath rose from the sweating sod besidethe waiting-maid's feet as she trod, hissing as they burst andexpanded away to join the vapoury firmament above. Liddy did notsink, as Bathsheba had anticipated.
She landed safely on the other side, and looked up at the beautifulthough pale and weary face of her young mistress.
"Poor thing!" said Liddy, with tears in her eyes, "Do heartenyourself up a little, ma'am. However did--"
"I can't speak above a whisper--my voice is gone for the present,"said Bathsheba, hurriedly. "I suppose the damp air from thathollow has taken it away. Liddy, don't question me, mind. Whosent you--anybody?"
"Nobody. I thought, when I found you were not at home, thatsomething cruel had happened. I fancy I heard his voice late lastnight; and so, knowing something was wrong--"
"Is he at home?"
"No; he left just before I came out."
"Is Fanny taken away?"
"Not yet. She will soon be--at nine o'clock."
"We won't go home at present, then. Suppose we walk about in thiswood?"
Liddy, without exactly understanding everything, or anything, in thisepisode, assented, and they walked together further among the trees.
"But you had better come in, ma'am, and have something to eat. Youwill die of a chill!"
"I shall not come indoors yet--perhaps never."
"Shall I get you something to eat, and something else to put overyour head besides that little shawl?"
"If you will, Liddy."
Liddy vanished, and at the end of twenty minutes returned with acloak, hat, some slices of bread and butter, a tea-cup, and some hottea in a little china jug.
"Is Fanny gone?" said Bathsheba.
"No," said her companion, pouring out the tea.
Bathsheba wrapped herself up and ate and drank sparingly. Her voicewas then a little clearer, and trifling colour returned to her face."Now we'll walk about again," she said.
They wandered about the wood for nearly two hours, Bathsheba replyingin monosyllables
to Liddy's prattle, for her mind ran on one subject,and one only. She interrupted with--
"I wonder if Fanny is gone by this time?"
"I will go and see."
She came back with the information that the men were just takingaway the corpse; that Bathsheba had been inquired for; that she hadreplied to the effect that her mistress was unwell and could not beseen.
"Then they think I am in my bedroom?"
"Yes." Liddy then ventured to add: "You said when I first found youthat you might never go home again--you didn't mean it, ma'am?"
"No; I've altered my mind. It is only women with no pride in themwho run away from their husbands. There is one position worse thanthat of being found dead in your husband's house from his ill usage,and that is, to be found alive through having gone away to the houseof somebody else. I've thought of it all this morning, and I'vechosen my course. A runaway wife is an encumbrance to everybody,a burden to herself and a byword--all of which make up a heap ofmisery greater than any that comes by staying at home--though thismay include the trifling items of insult, beating, and starvation.Liddy, if ever you marry--God forbid that you ever should!--you'llfind yourself in a fearful situation but mind this, don't youflinch. Stand your ground, and be cut to pieces. That's what I'mgoing to do."
"Oh, mistress, don't talk so!" said Liddy, taking her hand; "but Iknew you had too much sense to bide away. May I ask what dreadfulthing it is that has happened between you and him?"
"You may ask; but I may not tell."
In about ten minutes they returned to the house by a circuitousroute, entering at the rear. Bathsheba glided up the back stairs toa disused attic, and her companion followed.
"Liddy," she said, with a lighter heart, for youth and hope hadbegun to reassert themselves; "you are to be my confidante for thepresent--somebody must be--and I choose you. Well, I shall take upmy abode here for a while. Will you get a fire lighted, put downa piece of carpet, and help me to make the place comfortable.Afterwards, I want you and Maryann to bring up that little stumpbedstead in the small room, and the bed belonging to it, and a table,and some other things.... What shall I do to pass the heavy timeaway?"
"Hemming handkerchiefs is a very good thing," said Liddy.
"Oh no, no! I hate needlework--I always did."
"Knitting?"
"And that, too."
"You might finish your sampler. Only the carnations and peacockswant filling in; and then it could be framed and glazed, and hungbeside your aunt's ma'am."
"Samplers are out of date--horribly countrified. No Liddy, I'llread. Bring up some books--not new ones. I haven't heart to readanything new."
"Some of your uncle's old ones, ma'am?"
"Yes. Some of those we stowed away in boxes." A faint gleamof humour passed over her face as she said: "Bring Beaumont andFletcher's _Maid's Tragedy_, and the _Mourning Bride_, and--letme see--_Night Thoughts_, and the _Vanity of Human Wishes_."
"And that story of the black man, who murdered his wife Desdemona?It is a nice dismal one that would suit you excellent just now."
"Now, Liddy, you've been looking into my books without telling me;and I said you were not to! How do you know it would suit me? Itwouldn't suit me at all."
"But if the others do--"
"No, they don't; and I won't read dismal books. Why shouldI read dismal books, indeed? Bring me _Love in a Village_,and _Maid of the Mill_, and _Doctor Syntax_, and some volumes ofthe _Spectator-_."
All that day Bathsheba and Liddy lived in the attic in a state ofbarricade; a precaution which proved to be needless as against Troy,for he did not appear in the neighbourhood or trouble them at all.Bathsheba sat at the window till sunset, sometimes attempting toread, at other times watching every movement outside without muchpurpose, and listening without much interest to every sound.
The sun went down almost blood-red that night, and a livid cloudreceived its rays in the east. Up against this dark background thewest front of the church tower--the only part of the edifice visiblefrom the farm-house windows--rose distinct and lustrous, the vaneupon the summit bristling with rays. Hereabouts, at six o'clock, theyoung men of the village gathered, as was their custom, for a gameof Prisoners' base. The spot had been consecrated to this ancientdiversion from time immemorial, the old stocks conveniently forminga base facing the boundary of the churchyard, in front of which theground was trodden hard and bare as a pavement by the players. Shecould see the brown and black heads of the young lads darting aboutright and left, their white shirt-sleeves gleaming in the sun;whilst occasionally a shout and a peal of hearty laughter varied thestillness of the evening air. They continued playing for a quarterof an hour or so, when the game concluded abruptly, and the playersleapt over the wall and vanished round to the other side behind ayew-tree, which was also half behind a beech, now spreading in onemass of golden foliage, on which the branches traced black lines.
"Why did the base-players finish their game so suddenly?" Bathshebainquired, the next time that Liddy entered the room.
"I think 'twas because two men came just then from Casterbridge andbegan putting up a grand carved tombstone," said Liddy. "The ladswent to see whose it was."
"Do you know?" Bathsheba asked.
"I don't," said Liddy.