by Thomas Hardy
At first she thought they were disturbed by being partly in contact with the boughs of her bush; but in a moment Robert Loveday’s face peered from them, at a distance of about a yard from her own. Anne uttered a little indignant ‘Well!’ recovered herself, and went on plucking. Bob thereupon went on plucking likewise.
‘I am picking elderberries for your mother,’ said the lieutenant at last, humbly.
‘So I see.’
‘And I happen to have come to the next bush to yours.’
‘So I see; but not the reason why.’
Anne was now in the westernmost branches of the bush, and Bob had leant across into the eastern branches of his. In gathering he swayed towards her, back again, forward again.
‘I beg pardon,’ he said, when a further swing than usual had taken him almost in contact with her.
‘Then why do you do it?’
‘The wind rocks the bough, and the bough rocks me.’ She expressed by a look her opinion of this statement in the face of the gentlest breeze; and Bob pursued: ‘I am afraid the berries will stain your pretty hands.’
‘I wear gloves.’
‘Ah, that’s a plan I should never have thought of. Can I help you?’
‘Not at all.’
‘You are offended: that’s what that means.’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Then will you shake hands?’
Anne hesitated; then slowly stretched out her hand, which he took at once. ‘That will do,’ she said, finding that he did not relinquish it immediately. But as he still held it, she pulled, the effect of which was to draw Bob’s swaying person, bough and all, towards her, and herself towards him.
‘I am afraid to let go your hand,’ said that officer, ‘for if I do your spar will fly back, and you will be thrown upon the deck with great violence.’
‘I wish you to let me go!’
He accordingly did, and she flew back, but did not by any means fall.
‘It reminds me of the times when I used to be aloft clinging to a yard not much bigger than this tree-stem, in the mid-Atlantic, and thinking about you. I could see you in my fancy as plain as I see you now.’
‘Me, or some other woman!’ retorted Anne haughtily.
‘No!’ declared Bob, shaking the bush for emphasis, ‘I’ll protest that I did not think of anybody but you all the time we were dropping down channel, all the time we were off Cadiz, all the time through battles and bombardments. I seemed to see you in the smoke, and, thinks I, if I go to Davy’s locker, what will she do?’
‘You didn’t think that when you landed after Trafalgar.’
‘Well, now,’ said the lieutenant in a reasoning tone; ‘that was a curious thing. You’ll hardly believe it, maybe; but when a man is away from the woman he loves best in the port — world, I mean — he can have a sort of temporary feeling for another without disturbing the old one, which flows along under the same as ever.’
‘I can’t believe it, and won’t,’ said Anne firmly.
Molly now appeared with the empty basket, and when it had been filled from the heap on the grass, Anne went home with her, bidding Loveday a frigid adieu.
The same evening, when Bob was absent, the miller proposed that they should all three go to an upper window of the house, to get a distant view of some rockets and illuminations which were to be exhibited in the town and harbour in honour of the King, who had returned this year as usual. They accordingly went upstairs to an empty attic, placed chairs against the window, and put out the light; Anne sitting in the middle, her mother close by, and the miller behind, smoking. No sign of any pyrotechnic display was visible over the port as yet, and Mrs. Loveday passed the time by talking to the miller, who replied in monosyllables. While this was going on Anne fancied that she heard some one approach, and presently felt sure that Bob was drawing near her in the surrounding darkness; but as the other two had noticed nothing she said not a word.
All at once the swarthy expanse of southward sky was broken by the blaze of several rockets simultaneously ascending from different ships in the roads. At the very same moment a warm mysterious hand slipped round her own, and gave it a gentle squeeze.
‘O dear!’ said Anne, with a sudden start away.
‘How nervous you are, child, to be startled by fireworks so far off,’ said Mrs. Loveday.
‘I never saw rockets before,’ murmured Anne, recovering from her surprise.
Mrs. Loveday presently spoke again. ‘I wonder what has become of Bob?’
Anne did not reply, being much exercised in trying to get her hand away from the one that imprisoned it; and whatever the miller thought he kept to himself, because it disturbed his smoking to speak.
Another batch of rockets went up. ‘O I never!’ said Anne, in a half-suppressed tone, springing in her chair. A second hand had with the rise of the rockets leapt round her waist.
‘Poor girl, you certainly must have change of scene at this rate,’ said Mrs. Loveday.
‘I suppose I must,’ murmured the dutiful daughter.
For some minutes nothing further occurred to disturb Anne’s serenity. Then a slow, quiet ‘a-hem’ came from the obscurity of the apartment.
‘What, Bob? How long have you been there?’ inquired Mrs. Loveday.
‘Not long,’ said the lieutenant coolly. ‘I heard you were all here, and crept up quietly, not to disturb ye.’
‘Why don’t you wear heels to your shoes like Christian people, and not creep about so like a cat?’
‘Well, it keeps your floors clean to go slip-shod.’
‘That’s true.’
Meanwhile Anne was gently but firmly trying to pull Bob’s arm from her waist, her distressful difficulty being that in freeing her waist she enslaved her hand, and in getting her hand free she enslaved her waist. Finding the struggle a futile one, owing to the invisibility of her antagonist, and her wish to keep its nature secret from the other two, she arose, and saying that she did not care to see any more, felt her way downstairs. Bob followed, leaving Loveday and his wife to themselves.
‘Dear Anne,’ he began, when he had got down, and saw her in the candle-light of the large room. But she adroitly passed out at the other door, at which he took a candle and followed her to the small room. ‘Dear Anne, do let me speak,’ he repeated, as soon as the rays revealed her figure. But she passed into the bakehouse before he could say more; whereupon he perseveringly did the same. Looking round for her here he perceived her at the end of the room, where there were no means of exit whatever.
‘Dear Anne,’ he began again, setting down the candle, ‘you must try to forgive me; really you must. I love you the best of anybody in the wide, wide world. Try to forgive me; come!’ And he imploringly took her hand.
Anne’s bosom began to surge and fall like a small tide, her eyes remaining fixed upon the floor; till, when Loveday ventured to draw her slightly towards him, she burst out crying. ‘I don’t like you, Bob; I don’t!’ she suddenly exclaimed between her sobs. ‘I did once, but I don’t now — I can’t, I can’t; you have been very cruel to me!’ She violently turned away, weeping.
‘I have, I have been terribly bad, I know,’ answered Bob, conscience-stricken by her grief. ‘But — if you could only forgive me — I promise that I’ll never do anything to grieve ‘ee again. Do you forgive me, Anne?’
Anne’s only reply was crying and shaking her head.
‘Let’s make it up. Come, say we have made it up, dear.’
She withdrew her hand, and still keeping her eyes buried in her handkerchief, said ‘No.’
‘Very well, then!’ exclaimed Bob, with sudden determination. ‘Now I know my doom! And whatever you hear of as happening to me, mind this, you cruel girl, that it is all your causing!’ Saying this he strode with a hasty tread across the room into the passage and out at the door, slamming it loudly behind him.
Anne suddenly looked up from her handkerchief, and stared with round wet eyes and parted lips at the door by which he had gone. Ha
ving remained with suspended breath in this attitude for a few seconds she turned round, bent her head upon the table, and burst out weeping anew with thrice the violence of the former time. It really seemed now as if her grief would overwhelm her, all the emotions which had been suppressed, bottled up, and concealed since Bob’s return having made themselves a sluice at last.
But such things have their end; and left to herself in the large, vacant, old apartment, she grew quieter, and at last calm. At length she took the candle and ascended to her bedroom, where she bathed her eyes and looked in the glass to see if she had made herself a dreadful object. It was not so bad as she had expected, and she went downstairs again.
Nobody was there, and, sitting down, she wondered what Bob had really meant by his words. It was too dreadful to think that he intended to go straight away to sea without seeing her again, and frightened at what she had done she waited anxiously for his return.
CHAPTER XL.
A CALL ON BUSINESS
Her suspense was interrupted by a very gentle tapping at the door, and then the rustle of a hand over its surface, as if searching for the latch in the dark. The door opened a few inches, and the alabaster face of Uncle Benjy appeared in the slit.
‘O, Squire Derriman, you frighten me!’
‘All alone?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘My mother and Mr. Loveday are somewhere about the house.’
‘That will do,’ he said, coming forward. ‘I be wherrited out of my life, and I have thought of you again — you yourself, dear Anne, and not the miller. If you will only take this and lock it up for a few days till I can find another good place for it — if you only would!’ And he breathlessly deposited the tin box on the table.
‘What, obliged to dig it up from the cellar?’
‘Ay; my nephew hath a scent of the place — how, I don’t know! but he and a young woman he’s met with are searching everywhere. I worked like a wire-drawer to get it up and away while they were scraping in the next cellar. Now where could ye put it, dear? ‘Tis only a few documents, and my will, and such like, you know. Poor soul o’ me, I’m worn out with running and fright!’
‘I’ll put it here till I can think of a better place,’ said Anne, lifting the box. ‘Dear me, how heavy it is!’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Uncle Benjy hastily; ‘the box is iron, you see. However, take care of it, because I am going to make it worth your while. Ah, you are a good girl, Anne. I wish you was mine!’
Anne looked at Uncle Benjy. She had known for some time that she possessed all the affection he had to bestow.
‘Why do you wish that?’ she said simply.
‘Now don’t ye argue with me. Where d’ye put the coffer?’
‘Here,’ said Anne, going to the window-seat, which rose as a flap, disclosing a boxed receptacle beneath, as in many old houses.
‘‘Tis very well for the present,’ he said dubiously, and they dropped the coffer in, Anne locking down the seat, and giving him the key. ‘Now I don’t want ye to be on my side for nothing,’ he went on. ‘I never did now, did I? This is for you.’ He handed her a little packet of paper, which Anne turned over and looked at curiously. ‘I always meant to do it,’ continued Uncle Benjy, gazing at the packet as it lay in her hand, and sighing. ‘Come, open it, my dear; I always meant to do it!’
She opened it and found twenty new guineas snugly packed within.
‘Yes, they are for you. I always meant to do it!’ he said, sighing again.
‘But you owe me nothing!’ returned Anne, holding them out.
‘Don’t say it!’ cried Uncle Benjy, covering his eyes. ‘Put ‘em away. . . . Well, if you don’t want ‘em — But put ‘em away, dear Anne; they are for you, because you have kept my counsel. Good-night t’ye. Yes, they are for you.’
He went a few steps, and turning back added anxiously, ‘You won’t spend ‘em in clothes, or waste ‘em in fairings, or ornaments of any kind, my dear girl?’
‘I will not,’ said Anne. ‘I wish you would have them.’
‘No, no,’ said Uncle Benjy, rushing off to escape their shine. But he had got no further than the passage when he returned again.
‘And you won’t lend ‘em to anybody, or put ‘em into the bank — for no bank is safe in these troublous times?. . . If I was you I’d keep them exactly as they be, and not spend ‘em on any account. Shall I lock them into my box for ye?’
‘Certainly,’ said she; and the farmer rapidly unlocked the window-bench, opened the box, and locked them in.
‘‘Tis much the best plan,’ he said with great satisfaction as he returned the keys to his pocket. ‘There they will always be safe, you see, and you won’t be exposed to temptation.’
When the old man had been gone a few minutes, the miller and his wife came in, quite unconscious of all that had passed. Anne’s anxiety about Bob was again uppermost now, and she spoke but meagrely of old Derriman’s visit, and nothing of what he had left. She would fain have asked them if they knew where Bob was, but that she did not wish to inform them of the rupture. She was forced to admit to herself that she had somewhat tried his patience, and that impulsive men had been known to do dark things with themselves at such times.
They sat down to supper, the clock ticked rapidly on, and at length the miller said, ‘Bob is later than usual. Where can he be?’
As they both looked at her, she could no longer keep the secret.
‘It is my fault,’ she cried; ‘I have driven him away! What shall I do?’
The nature of the quarrel was at once guessed, and her two elders said no more. Anne rose and went to the front door, where she listened for every sound with a palpitating heart. Then she went in; then she went out: and on one occasion she heard the miller say, ‘I wonder what hath passed between Bob and Anne. I hope the chap will come home.’
Just about this time light footsteps were heard without, and Bob bounced into the passage. Anne, who stood back in the dark while he passed, followed him into the room, where her mother and the miller were on the point of retiring to bed, candle in hand.
‘I have kept ye up, I fear,’ began Bob cheerily, and apparently without the faintest recollection of his tragic exit from the house. ‘But the truth on’t is, I met with Fess Derriman at the “Duke of York” as I went from here, and there we have been playing Put ever since, not noticing how the time was going. I haven’t had a good chat with the fellow for years and years, and really he is an out and out good comrade — a regular hearty! Poor fellow, he’s been very badly used. I never heard the rights of the story till now; but it seems that old uncle of his treats him shamefully. He has been hiding away his money, so that poor Fess might not have a farthing, till at last the young man has turned, like any other worm, and is now determined to ferret out what he has done with it. The poor young chap hadn’t a farthing of ready money till I lent him a couple of guineas — a thing I never did more willingly in my life. But the man was very honourable. “No; no,” says he, “don’t let me deprive ye.” He’s going to marry, and what may you think he is going to do it for?’
‘For love, I hope,’ said Anne’s mother.
‘For money, I suppose, since he’s so short,’ said the miller.
‘No,’ said Bob, ‘for spite. He has been badly served — deuced badly served — by a woman. I never heard of a more heartless case in my life. The poor chap wouldn’t mention names, but it seems this young woman has trifled with him in all manner of cruel ways — pushed him into the river, tried to steal his horse when he was called out to defend his country — in short, served him rascally. So I gave him the two guineas and said, “Now let’s drink to the hussy’s downfall!”‘
‘O!’ said Anne, having approached behind him.
Bob turned and saw her, and at the same moment Mr. and Mrs. Loveday discreetly retired by the other door.
‘Is it peace?’ he asked tenderly.
‘O yes,’ she anxiously replied. ‘I — didn’t mean to make you think I had no heart.’ At
this Bob inclined his countenance towards hers. ‘No,’ she said, smiling through two incipient tears as she drew back. ‘You are to show good behaviour for six months, and you must promise not to frighten me again by running off when I — show you how badly you have served me.’
‘I am yours obedient — in anything,’ cried Bob. ‘But am I pardoned?’
Youth is foolish; and does a woman often let her reasoning in favour of the worthier stand in the way of her perverse desire for the less worthy at such times as these? She murmured some soft words, ending with ‘Do you repent?’
It would be superfluous to transcribe Bob’s answer.
Footsteps were heard without.
‘O begad; I forgot!’ said Bob. ‘He’s waiting out there for a light.’
‘Who?’
‘My friend Derriman.’
‘But, Bob, I have to explain.’
But Festus had by this time entered the lobby, and Anne, with a hasty ‘Get rid of him at once!’ vanished upstairs.
Here she waited and waited, but Festus did not seem inclined to depart; and at last, foreboding some collision of interests from Bob’s new friendship for this man, she crept into a storeroom which was over the apartment into which Loveday and Festus had gone. By looking through a knot-hole in the floor it was easy to command a view of the room beneath, this being unceiled, with moulded beams and rafters.
Festus had sat down on the hollow window-bench, and was continuing the statement of his wrongs. ‘If he only knew what he was sitting upon,’ she thought apprehensively, ‘how easily he could tear up the flap, lock and all, with his strong arm, and seize upon poor Uncle Benjy’s possessions!’ But he did not appear to know, unless he were acting, which was just possible. After a while he rose, and going to the table lifted the candle to light his pipe. At the moment when the flame began diving into the bowl the door noiselessly opened and a figure slipped across the room to the window-bench, hastily unlocked it, withdrew the box, and beat a retreat. Anne in a moment recognized the ghostly intruder as Festus Derriman’s uncle. Before he could get out of the room Festus set down the candle and turned.
