CHAPTER LIV
AFTER THE SHOCK
Boldwood passed into the high road and turned in the direction ofCasterbridge. Here he walked at an even, steady pace over YalburyHill, along the dead level beyond, mounted Mellstock Hill, andbetween eleven and twelve o'clock crossed the Moor into the town.The streets were nearly deserted now, and the waving lamp-flames onlylighted up rows of grey shop-shutters, and strips of white pavingupon which his step echoed as his passed along. He turned to theright, and halted before an archway of heavy stonework, which wasclosed by an iron studded pair of doors. This was the entranceto the gaol, and over it a lamp was fixed, the light enabling thewretched traveller to find a bell-pull.
The small wicket at last opened, and a porter appeared. Boldwoodstepped forward, and said something in a low tone, when, after adelay, another man came. Boldwood entered, and the door was closedbehind him, and he walked the world no more.
Long before this time Weatherbury had been thoroughly aroused, andthe wild deed which had terminated Boldwood's merrymaking becameknown to all. Of those out of the house Oak was one of the first tohear of the catastrophe, and when he entered the room, which wasabout five minutes after Boldwood's exit, the scene was terrible.All the female guests were huddled aghast against the walls likesheep in a storm, and the men were bewildered as to what to do. Asfor Bathsheba, she had changed. She was sitting on the floor besidethe body of Troy, his head pillowed in her lap, where she had herselflifted it. With one hand she held her handkerchief to his breast andcovered the wound, though scarcely a single drop of blood had flowed,and with the other she tightly clasped one of his. The householdconvulsion had made her herself again. The temporary coma hadceased, and activity had come with the necessity for it. Deeds ofendurance, which seem ordinary in philosophy, are rare in conduct,and Bathsheba was astonishing all around her now, for her philosophywas her conduct, and she seldom thought practicable what she didnot practise. She was of the stuff of which great men's mothersare made. She was indispensable to high generation, hated at teaparties, feared in shops, and loved at crises. Troy recumbent inhis wife's lap formed now the sole spectacle in the middle of thespacious room.
"Gabriel," she said, automatically, when he entered, turning up aface of which only the well-known lines remained to tell him itwas hers, all else in the picture having faded quite. "Ride toCasterbridge instantly for a surgeon. It is, I believe, useless,but go. Mr. Boldwood has shot my husband."
Her statement of the fact in such quiet and simple words came withmore force than a tragic declamation, and had somewhat the effect ofsetting the distorted images in each mind present into proper focus.Oak, almost before he had comprehended anything beyond the briefestabstract of the event, hurried out of the room, saddled a horse androde away. Not till he had ridden more than a mile did it occur tohim that he would have done better by sending some other man on thiserrand, remaining himself in the house. What had become of Boldwood?He should have been looked after. Was he mad--had there been aquarrel? Then how had Troy got there? Where had he come from? Howdid this remarkable reappearance effect itself when he was supposedby many to be at the bottom of the sea? Oak had in some slightmeasure been prepared for the presence of Troy by hearing a rumourof his return just before entering Boldwood's house; but before hehad weighed that information, this fatal event had been superimposed.However, it was too late now to think of sending another messenger,and he rode on, in the excitement of these self-inquiriesnot discerning, when about three miles from Casterbridge, asquare-figured pedestrian passing along under the dark hedge in thesame direction as his own.
The miles necessary to be traversed, and other hindrances incidentalto the lateness of the hour and the darkness of the night, delayedthe arrival of Mr. Aldritch, the surgeon and more than three hourspassed between the time at which the shot was fired and that of hisentering the house. Oak was additionally detained in Casterbridgethrough having to give notice to the authorities of what hadhappened; and he then found that Boldwood had also entered the town,and delivered himself up.
In the meantime the surgeon, having hastened into the hall atBoldwood's, found it in darkness and quite deserted. He went on tothe back of the house, where he discovered in the kitchen an old man,of whom he made inquiries.
"She's had him took away to her own house, sir," said his informant.
"Who has?" said the doctor.
"Mrs. Troy. 'A was quite dead, sir."
This was astonishing information. "She had no right to do that,"said the doctor. "There will have to be an inquest, and she shouldhave waited to know what to do."
"Yes, sir; it was hinted to her that she had better wait till the lawwas known. But she said law was nothing to her, and she wouldn't lether dear husband's corpse bide neglected for folks to stare at forall the crowners in England."
Mr. Aldritch drove at once back again up the hill to Bathsheba's.The first person he met was poor Liddy, who seemed literally to havedwindled smaller in these few latter hours. "What has been done?" hesaid.
"I don't know, sir," said Liddy, with suspended breath. "My mistresshas done it all."
"Where is she?"
"Upstairs with him, sir. When he was brought home and takenupstairs, she said she wanted no further help from the men. And thenshe called me, and made me fill the bath, and after that told me Ihad better go and lie down because I looked so ill. Then she lockedherself into the room alone with him, and would not let a nurse comein, or anybody at all. But I thought I'd wait in the next room incase she should want me. I heard her moving about inside for morethan an hour, but she only came out once, and that was for morecandles, because hers had burnt down into the socket. She said wewere to let her know when you or Mr. Thirdly came, sir."
Oak entered with the parson at this moment, and they all wentupstairs together, preceded by Liddy Smallbury. Everything wassilent as the grave when they paused on the landing. Liddy knocked,and Bathsheba's dress was heard rustling across the room: the keyturned in the lock, and she opened the door. Her looks were calm andnearly rigid, like a slightly animated bust of Melpomene.
"Oh, Mr. Aldritch, you have come at last," she murmured from her lipsmerely, and threw back the door. "Ah, and Mr. Thirdly. Well, all isdone, and anybody in the world may see him now." She then passed byhim, crossed the landing, and entered another room.
Looking into the chamber of death she had vacated they saw by thelight of the candles which were on the drawers a tall straightshape lying at the further end of the bedroom, wrapped in white.Everything around was quite orderly. The doctor went in, and after afew minutes returned to the landing again, where Oak and the parsonstill waited.
"It is all done, indeed, as she says," remarked Mr. Aldritch, in asubdued voice. "The body has been undressed and properly laid out ingrave clothes. Gracious Heaven--this mere girl! She must have thenerve of a stoic!"
"The heart of a wife merely," floated in a whisper about the earsof the three, and turning they saw Bathsheba in the midst of them.Then, as if at that instant to prove that her fortitude had beenmore of will than of spontaneity, she silently sank down betweenthem and was a shapeless heap of drapery on the floor. The simpleconsciousness that superhuman strain was no longer required had atonce put a period to her power to continue it.
They took her away into a further room, and the medical attendancewhich had been useless in Troy's case was invaluable in Bathsheba's,who fell into a series of fainting-fits that had a serious aspectfor a time. The sufferer was got to bed, and Oak, finding from thebulletins that nothing really dreadful was to be apprehended on herscore, left the house. Liddy kept watch in Bathsheba's chamber,where she heard her mistress, moaning in whispers through the dullslow hours of that wretched night: "Oh it is my fault--how can Ilive! O Heaven, how can I live!"