THOMAS HARDY Premium Collection: 15 Novels, 53 Short Stories & 650+ Poems (Illustrated). Ð¢Ð¾Ð¼Ð°Ñ Ð¥Ð°Ñ€Ð´Ð¸
and paid the bill, the tailor passing out of the door just as Oak came in to report progress for the day.
“Oh, Oak,” said Boldwood. “I shall of course see you here to-night. Make yourself merry. I am determined that neither expense nor trouble shall be spared.”
“I’ll try to be here, sir, though perhaps it may not be very early,” said Gabriel, quietly. “I am glad indeed to see such a change in ‘ee from what it used to be.”
“Yes — I must own it — I am bright to-night: cheerful and more than cheerful — so much so that I am almost sad again with the sense that all of it is passing away. And sometimes, when I am excessively hopeful and blithe, a trouble is looming in the distance: so that I often get to look upon gloom in me with content, and to fear a happy mood. Still this may be absurd — I feel that it is absurd. Perhaps my day is dawning at last.”
“I hope it ‘ill be a long and a fair one.”
“Thank you — thank you. Yet perhaps my cheerful mess rests on a slender hope. And yet I trust my hope. It is faith, not hope. I think this time I reckon with my host. — Oak, my hands are a little shaky, or something; I can’t tie this neckerchief properly. Perhaps you will tie it for me. The fact is, I have not been well lately, you know.”
“I am sorry to hear that, sir.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I want it done as well as you can, please. Is there any late knot in fashion, Oak?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Oak. His tone had sunk to sadness.
Boldwood approached Gabriel, and as Oak tied the neckerchief the farmer went on feverishly —
“Does a woman keep her promise, Gabriel?”
“If it is not inconvenient to her she may.”
“— Or rather an implied promise.”
“I won’t answer for her implying,” said Oak, with faint bitterness. “That’s a word as full o’ holes as a sieve with them.”
“Oak, don’t talk like that. You have got quite cynical lately — how is it? We seem to have shifted our positions: I have become the young and hopeful man, and you the old and unbelieving one. However, does a woman keep a promise, not to marry, but to enter on an engagement to marry at some time? Now you know women better than I— tell me.”
“I am afeard you honour my understanding too much. However, she may keep such a promise, if it is made with an honest meaning to repair a wrong.”
“It has not gone far yet, but I think it will soon — yes, I know it will,” he said, in an impulsive whisper. “I have pressed her upon the subject, and she inclines to be kind to me, and to think of me as a husband at a long future time, and that’s enough for me. How can I expect more? She has a notion that a woman should not marry within seven years of her husband’s disappearance — that her own self shouldn’t, I mean — because his body was not found. It may be merely this legal reason which influences her, or it may be a religious one, but she is reluctant to talk on the point. Yet she has promised — implied — that she will ratify an engagement to-night.”
“Seven years,” murmured Oak.
“No, no — it’s no such thing!” he said, with impatience. Five years, nine months, and a few days. Fifteen months nearly have passed since he vanished, and is there anything so wonderful in an engagement of little more than five years?”
“It seems long in a forward view. Don’t build too much upon such promises, sir. Remember, you have once be’n deceived. Her meaning may be good; but there — she’s young yet.”
“Deceived? Never!” said Boldwood, vehemently. “She never promised me at that first time, and hence she did not break her promise! If she promises me, she’ll marry me, Bathsheba is a woman to her word.”
IV
Troy was sitting in a corner of The White Hart tavern at Casterbridge, smoking and drinking a steaming mixture from a glass. A knock was given at the door, and Pennyways entered.
“Well, have you seen him?” Troy inquired, pointing to a chair.
“Boldwood?”
“No — Lawyer Long.”
“He wadn’ at home. I went there first, too.”
“That’s a nuisance.”
“’Tis rather, I suppose.”
“Yet I don’t see that, because a man appears to be drowned and was not, he should be liable for anything. I shan’t ask any lawyer — not I.”
“But that’s not it, exactly. If a man changes his name and so forth, and takes steps to deceive the world and his own wife, he’s a cheat, and that in the eye of the law is ayless a rogue, and that is ayless a lammocken vagabond; and that’s a punishable situation.”
“Ha-ha! Well done, Pennyways,” Troy had laughed, but it was with some anxiety that he said, “Now, what I want to know is this, do you think there’s really anything going on between her and Boldwood? Upon my soul, I should never have believed it! How she must detest me! Have you found out whether she has encouraged him?”
“I haen’t been able to learn. There’s a deal of feeling on his side seemingly, but I don’t answer for her. I didn’t know a word about any such thing till yesterday, and all I heard then was that she was gwine to the party at his house to-night. This is the first time she has ever gone there, they say. And they say that she’ve not so much as spoke to him since they were at Greenhill Fair: but what can folk believe o’t? However, she’s not fond of him — quite offish and quite care less, I know.”
“I’m not so sure of that. . . . She’s a handsome woman, Pennyways, is she not? Own that you never saw a finer or more splendid creature in your life. Upon my honour, when I set eyes upon her that day I wondered what I could have been made of to be able to leave her by herself so long. And then I was hampered with that bothering show, which I’m free of at last, thank the stars.” He smoked on awhile, and then added, “How did she look when you passed by yesterday?”
“Oh, she took no great heed of me, ye may well fancy; but she looked well enough, far’s I know. Just flashed her haughty eyes upon my poor scram body, and then let them go past me to what was yond, much as if I’d been no more than a leafless tree. She had just got off her mare to look at the last wring-down of cider for the year; she had been riding, and so her colours were up and her breath rather quick, so that her bosom plimmed and fell — plimmed and fell — every time plain to my eye. Ay, and there were the fellers round her wringing down the cheese and bustling about and saying, “Ware o’ the pommy, ma’am: ’twill spoil yer gown.” “Never mind me,” says she. Then Gabe brought her some of the new cider, and she must needs go drinking it through a strawmote, and not in a nateral way at all. “Liddy,” says she, “bring indoors a few gallons, and I’ll make some cider-wine.” Sergeant, I was no more to her than a morsel of scroff in the fuel-house!”
“I must go and find her out at once — O yes, I see that — I must go. Oak is head man still, isn’t he?”
“Yes, ‘a b’lieve. And at Little Weatherbury Farm too. He manages everything.”
“’Twill puzzle him to manage her, or any other man of his compass!”
“I don’t know about that. She can’t do without him, and knowing it well he’s pretty independent. And she’ve a few soft corners to her mind, though I’ve never been able to get into one, the devil’s in’t!”
“Ah, baily, she’s a notch above you, and you must own it: a higher class of animal — a finer tissue. However, stick to me, and neither this haughty goddess, dashing piece of womanhood, Juno-wife of mine (Juno was a goddess, you know), nor anybody else shall hurt you. But all this wants looking into,