Under the Greenwood Tree; Or, The Mellstock Quire

by Thomas Hardy

  CHAPTER VIII: DICK MEETS HIS FATHER

  For several minutes Dick drove along homeward, with the inner eye ofreflection so anxiously set on his passages at arms with Fancy, that theroad and scenery were as a thin mist over the real pictures of his mind.Was she a coquette? The balance between the evidence that she did lovehim and that she did not was so nicely struck, that his opinion had nostability. She had let him put his hand upon hers; she had allowed hergaze to drop plumb into the depths of his--his into hers--three or fourtimes; her manner had been very free with regard to the basin and towel;she had appeared vexed at the mention of Shiner. On the other hand, shehad driven him about the house like a quiet dog or cat, said Shiner caredfor her, and seemed anxious that Mr. Maybold should do the same.

  Thinking thus as he neared the handpost at Mellstock Cross, sitting onthe front board of the spring cart--his legs on the outside, and hiswhole frame jigging up and down like a candle-flame to the time ofSmart's trotting--who should he see coming down the hill but his fatherin the light wagon, quivering up and down on a smaller scale of shakes,those merely caused by the stones in the road. They were soon crossingeach other's front.

  "Weh-hey!" said the tranter to Smiler.

  "Weh-hey!" said Dick to Smart, in an echo of the same voice.

  "Th'st hauled her back, I suppose?" Reuben inquired peaceably.

  "Yes," said Dick, with such a clinching period at the end that it seemedhe was never going to add another word. Smiler, thinking this the closeof the conversation, prepared to move on.

  "Weh-hey!" said the tranter. "I tell thee what it is, Dick. That theremaid is taking up thy thoughts more than's good for thee, my sonny.Thou'rt never happy now unless th'rt making thyself miserable about herin one way or another."

  "I don't know about that, father," said Dick rather stupidly.

  "But I do--Wey, Smiler!--'Od rot the women, 'tis nothing else wi' 'emnowadays but getting young men and leading 'em astray."

  "Pooh, father! you just repeat what all the common world says; that's allyou do."

  "The world's a very sensible feller on things in jineral, Dick; verysensible indeed."

  Dick looked into the distance at a vast expanse of mortgaged estate. "Iwish I was as rich as a squire when he's as poor as a crow," he murmured;"I'd soon ask Fancy something."

  "I wish so too, wi' all my heart, sonny; that I do. Well, mind whatbeest about, that's all."

  Smart moved on a step or two. "Supposing now, father,--We-hey, Smart!--Idid think a little about her, and I had a chance, which I ha'n't; don'tyou think she's a very good sort of--of--one?"

  "Ay, good; she's good enough. When you've made up your mind to marry,take the first respectable body that comes to hand--she's as good as anyother; they be all alike in the groundwork; 'tis only in the flourishesthere's a difference. She's good enough; but I can't see what the nationa young feller like you--wi' a comfortable house and home, and father andmother to take care o' thee, and who sent 'ee to a school so good that'twas hardly fair to the other children--should want to go holleringafter a young woman for, when she's quietly making a husband in herpocket, and not troubled by chick nor chiel, to make a poverty-stric'wife and family of her, and neither hat, cap, wig, nor waistcoat to set'em up with: be drowned if I can see it, and that's the long and theshort o't, my sonny."

  Dick looked at Smart's ears, then up the hill; but no reason wassuggested by any object that met his gaze.

  "For about the same reason that you did, father, I suppose."

  "Dang it, my sonny, thou'st got me there!" And the tranter gave vent toa grim admiration, with the mien of a man who was too magnanimous not toappreciate artistically a slight rap on the knuckles, even if they werehis own.

  "Whether or no," said Dick, "I asked her a thing going along the road."

  "Come to that, is it? Turk! won't thy mother be in a taking! Well,she's ready, I don't doubt?"

  "I didn't ask her anything about having me; and if you'll let me speak,I'll tell 'ee what I want to know. I just said, Did she care about me?"

  "Piph-ph-ph!"

  "And then she said nothing for a quarter of a mile, and then she said shedidn't know. Now, what I want to know is, what was the meaning of thatspeech?" The latter words were spoken resolutely, as if he didn't carefor the ridicule of all the fathers in creation.

  "The meaning of that speech is," the tranter replied deliberately, "thatthe meaning is meant to be rather hid at present. Well, Dick, as anhonest father to thee, I don't pretend to deny what you d'know wellenough; that is, that her father being rather better in the pocket thanwe, I should welcome her ready enough if it must be somebody."

  "But what d'ye think she really did mean?" said the unsatisfied Dick.

  "I'm afeard I am not o' much account in guessing, especially as I was notthere when she said it, and seeing that your mother was the only 'ooman Iever cam' into such close quarters as that with."

  "And what did mother say to you when you asked her?" said Dick musingly.

  "I don't see that that will help 'ee."

  "The principle is the same."

  "Well--ay: what did she say? Let's see. I was oiling my working-dayboots without taking 'em off, and wi' my head hanging down, when she justbrushed on by the garden hatch like a flittering leaf. 'Ann,' I said,says I, and then,--but, Dick I'm afeard 'twill be no help to thee; for wewere such a rum couple, your mother and I, leastways one half was, thatis myself--and your mother's charms was more in the manner than thematerial."

  "Never mind! 'Ann,' said you."

  "'Ann,' said I, as I was saying . . . 'Ann,' I said to her when I wasoiling my working-day boots wi' my head hanging down, 'Woot hae me?' . .. What came next I can't quite call up at this distance o' time. Perhapsyour mother would know,--she's got a better memory for her littletriumphs than I. However, the long and the short o' the story is that wewere married somehow, as I found afterwards. 'Twas on WhiteTuesday,--Mellstock Club walked the same day, every man two and two, anda fine day 'twas,--hot as fire,--how the sun did strike down upon my backgoing to church! I well can mind what a bath o' sweating I was in, bodyand soul! But Fance will ha' thee, Dick--she won't walk with anotherchap--no such good luck."

  "I don't know about that," said Dick, whipping at Smart's flank in afanciful way, which, as Smart knew, meant nothing in connection withgoing on. "There's Pa'son Maybold, too--that's all against me."

  "What about he? She's never been stuffing into thy innocent heart thathe's in hove with her? Lord, the vanity o' maidens!"

  "No, no. But he called, and she looked at him in such a way, and at mein such a way--quite different the ways were,--and as I was coming off,there was he hanging up her birdcage."

  "Well, why shouldn't the man hang up her bird-cage? Turk seize it all,what's that got to do wi' it? Dick, that thou beest a white-lyvered chapI don't say, but if thou beestn't as mad as a cappel-faced bull, let mesmile no more."

  "O, ay."

  "And what's think now, Dick?"

  "I don't know."

  "Here's another pretty kettle o' fish for thee. Who d'ye think's thebitter weed in our being turned out? Did our party tell 'ee?"

  "No. Why, Pa'son Maybold, I suppose."

  "Shiner,--because he's in love with thy young woman, and d'want to seeher young figure sitting up at that queer instrument, and her youngfingers rum-strumming upon the keys."

  A sharp ado of sweet and bitter was going on in Dick during thiscommunication from his father. "Shiner's a fool!--no, that's not it; Idon't believe any such thing, father. Why, Shiner would never take abold step like that, unless she'd been a little made up to, and had takenit kindly. Pooh!"

  "Who's to say she didn't?"

  "I do."

  "The more fool you."

  "Why, father of me?"

  "Has she ever done more to thee?"

  "No."

  "Then she has done as much to he--rot 'em! Now, Dick, this is how a maidis. She'll swear she's dying for thee,
and she is dying for thee, andshe will die for thee; but she'll fling a look over t'other shoulder atanother young feller, though never leaving off dying for thee just thesame."

  "She's not dying for me, and so she didn't fling a look at him."

  "But she may be dying for him, for she looked at thee."

  "I don't know what to make of it at all," said Dick gloomily.

  "All I can make of it is," the tranter said, raising his whip, arranginghis different joints and muscles, and motioning to the horse to move on,"that if you can't read a maid's mind by her motions, nature d'seem tosay thou'st ought to be a bachelor. Clk, clk! Smiler!" And the trantermoved on.

  Dick held Smart's rein firmly, and the whole concern of horse, cart, andman remained rooted in the lane. How long this condition would havelasted is unknown, had not Dick's thoughts, after adding up numerousitems of misery, gradually wandered round to the fact that as somethingmust be done, it could not be done by staying there all night.

  Reaching home he went up to his bedroom, shut the door as if he weregoing to be seen no more in this life, and taking a sheet of paper anduncorking the ink-bottle, he began a letter. The dignity of the writer'smind was so powerfully apparent in every line of this effusion that itobscured the logical sequence of facts and intentions to an appreciabledegree; and it was not at all clear to a reader whether he there and thenleft off loving Miss Fancy Day; whether he had never loved her seriously,and never meant to; whether he had been dying up to the present moment,and now intended to get well again; or whether he had hitherto been ingood health, and intended to die for her forthwith.

  He put this letter in an envelope, sealed it up, directed it in a sternhandwriting of straight dashes--easy flourishes being rigorouslyexcluded. He walked with it in his pocket down the lane in strides notan inch less than three feet long. Reaching her gate he put on aresolute expression--then put it off again, turned back homeward, tore uphis letter, and sat down.

  That letter was altogether in a wrong tone--that he must own. Aheartless man-of-the-world tone was what the juncture required. That herather wanted her, and rather did not want her--the latter for choice;but that as a member of society he didn't mind making a query in jauntyterms, which could only be answered in the same way: did she meananything by her bearing towards him, or did she not?

  This letter was considered so satisfactory in every way that, being putinto the hands of a little boy, and the order given that he was to runwith it to the school, he was told in addition not to look behind him ifDick called after him to bring it back, but to run along with it just thesame. Having taken this precaution against vacillation, Dick watched hismessenger down the road, and turned into the house whistling an air insuch ghastly jerks and starts, that whistling seemed to be the act thevery furthest removed from that which was instinctive in such a youth.

  The letter was left as ordered: the next morning came and passed--and noanswer. The next. The next. Friday night came. Dick resolved that ifno answer or sign were given by her the next day, on Sunday he would meether face to face, and have it all out by word of mouth.

  "Dick," said his father, coming in from the garden at that moment--ineach hand a hive of bees tied in a cloth to prevent their egress--"Ithink you'd better take these two swarms of bees to Mrs. Maybold's to-morrow, instead o' me, and I'll go wi' Smiler and the wagon."

  It was a relief; for Mrs. Maybold, the vicar's mother, who had just takeninto her head a fancy for keeping bees (pleasantly disguised under thepretence of its being an economical wish to produce her own honey), livednear the watering-place of Budmouth-Regis, ten miles off, and thebusiness of transporting the hives thither would occupy the whole day,and to some extent annihilate the vacant time between this evening andthe coming Sunday. The best spring-cart was washed throughout, the axlesoiled, and the bees placed therein for the journey.