Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  “The sluggish day began to break.... He heard the steps of a horse at the foot of the hill, and soon there appeared in view an auburn pony with a girl on its back, ascending by the path leading past the cattle-shed.... Here he ensconced himself, and peeped through the loophole in the direction of the rider’s approach. She came up and looked around — then on the other side of the hedge.... The path, after passing the cowshed, bisected the plantation. It was not a bridle-path — merely a pedestrian track, and the boughs spread horizontally at a height not greater than seven feet above the ground, which made it impossible to ride erect beneath them. The girl, who wore no riding-habit, looked around for a moment, as if to assure herself that all humanity was out of view, then dexterously dropped backwards flat upon the pony’s back, her head over its tail, her feet against its shoulder, and her eyes to the sky. The rapidity of her glide into this position was that of a kingfisher — its noiselessness that of a hawk. Gabriel’s eyes had scarcely been able to follow her. The tall, lank pony seemed used to such phenomena, and ambled along unconcerned. Thus she passed under the level boughs.

  ... She had no side-saddle, and it was very apparent that a firm seat upon the smooth leather beneath her was unattainable sideways. Springing to her accustomed perpendicular like a bowed sapling, she seated herself in the manner demanded by the saddle, though hardly expected of the woman.... An hour passed, the girl returned, properly seated now, with a bag of bran in front of her. On nearing the cattle-shed she was met by a boy bringing a milking-pail, who held the reins of the pony while she slid off. The boy led away the horse, leaving the pail with the young woman. Soon soft spirts alternating with loud spirts came in regular succession from within the shed. They were the sounds of a person milking a cow. Gabriel took the lost hat in his hand, and waited beside the path she would follow in leaving the hill. She came, the pail in one hand, hanging against her knee. The left arm was extended as a balance, enough of it being shown bare to make Oak wish that the event had happened in summer, when the whole would have been revealed.... She seemed tall, but the pail was a small one, and the hedge diminutive; hence, making allowance for error by comparison with these, she could have been not above the height to be chosen by women as best. All features of consequence were severe and regular. From the contours of her figure in its upper part, she must have had a beautiful neck and shoulders; but since her infancy nobody had ever seen them. Had she been put into a low dress she would have run and thrust her head into a bush. Yet she was not a shy girl by any means; it was merely her instinct to draw the line dividing the seen from the unseen higher than they do in towns.”

  It is Bathsheba whom we have seen here, and whose story agrees with his. I shall not tell Bathsheba over again, or do more than remind the reader that she does not marry the good Gabriel Oak till after she has married the unworthy Sergeant Troy whom her mad lover Boldwood kills, and so releases her to her right destiny with Oak. She is a girl of great good sense as well as beauty, and of that practical turn of mind which goes with prettiness rather oftener than with plainness. She has inherited a farm from her uncle, and having been cheated by her manager she decides to manage it herself. There is a delightful prospect of this side of Bathsheba’s character in the scene which passes between her and the farm-servants to whom she makes her purpose known.

  “Half an hour later Bathsheba, in finished dress, and followed by Liddy, entered the upper end of the old hall to find that her men had all deposited themselves on a long form and a settle at the lower extremity. She sat down at a table and opened the time-book, pen in her hand, with a canvas money-bag beside her. From this she poured a small heap of coin. Liddy took up a position at her elbow and began to sew, sometimes pausing and looking round, or with the air of a privileged person, taking up one of the half-sovereigns lying before her and admiringly surveying it as a work of art merely, strictly preventing her countenance from expressing any wish to possess it as money. ‘Now, before I begin, men,’ said Bathsheba, ‘I have two matters to speak of. The first is that the bailiff is dismissed for thieving, and that I have formed a resolution to have no bailiff at all, but to manage everything with my own head and hands,’ The men breathed an audible breath of amazement.... ‘Yes, sir — ma’am I mane,’ said the person addressed. ‘I am the personal name of Poorgrass — who is nothing in my own eye. In the eye of other people — well, I don’t say it; though public thought will out.” What do you do on the farm?’ ‘ I does carting things all the year, and in seed-time I shoots the rooks and sparrows, and helps at pig-killing, sir.’ ‘How much to you?’ ‘Please nine and ninepence and a good half-penny where ’twas a bad one, sir — ma’am I mane,’ ‘Quite correct. Now here are ten shillings in addition as a small present, as I am a new-comer,’ Bathsheba blushed slightly at the sense of being generous in public, and Henery Fray, who had drawn up towards her chair, lifted his eyebrows and fingers to express amazement on a small scale. ‘How much do I owe you — that man in the corner — what’s your name?’ continued Bathsheba. ‘Matthew Moon, ma’am,’ said a singular framework of clothes with nothing of any consequence inside them, which advanced with the toes in no definite direction forwards, but turned in or out as they chanced to swing. ‘Matthew Mark, did you say? — speak out — I shall not hurt you,’ inquired the young farmer, kindly. ‘Matthew Moon, mem,’ said Henery Fray, correctingly, from behind her chair, to which point he had edged himself. ‘Matthew Moon,’ murmured Bathsheba, turning her bright eyes to the book. ‘Ten and twopence halfpenny is the sum put down to you, I see?’ ‘Yes, mis’ess,’ said Matthew, as the rustle of wind among dead leaves. ‘Here it is, and ten shillings. Now the next — Andrew Randle, you are a new man, I hear. How came you to leave your last farm?’

  ‘P-p-p-p-p-pl-pl-pl-pl-l-l-l-ease, ma’am, p-p-p-p-pl-pl-pl-pl-please, ma’am-please ‘m, please ‘m—’...

  ‘Andrew Randle, here’s yours — finish thanking me in a day or two.... Now the next Laban Tall, you’ll stay on working for me?’ ‘For you or anybody that pays me well, ma’am,’ replied the young married man. ‘True — the man must live!’ said a woman in the back quarter, who had just entered with clicking pattens. ‘What woman is that?’ Bathsheba asked. ‘I be his lawful wife!’ continued the voice with greater prominence of manner and tone....

  ‘Oh, you are,’ said Bathsheba. ‘Well, Laban, will you stay on?’ ‘Yes, he’ll stay, ma’am!’ said again the shrill tongue of Laban’s lawful wife.... The names remaining were called in the same manner. ‘Now I think I have done with you,’ said Bathsheba, closing the book and shaking back a stray twine of hair.... ‘No, ma’am.’ ‘The new shepherd will want a man under him,’ suggested Henery Fray, trying to make himself official again by a sideway approach towards her chair. ‘Oh — he will. Who can he have?’ ‘Young Cain Ball is a very good lad,’ Henery said, ‘and Shepherd Oak don’t mind his youth?’ he added, turning with an apologetic smile to the shepherd, who had just appeared on the scene, and was now leaning against the door-post with his arms folded.... ‘Oh, I don’t mind that,’ said Gabriel. ‘How did Cain come by such a name?’ asked Bathsheba. ‘Oh, you see, mem, his pore mother, not being a Scripture-read woman, made a mistake at his christening, thinking ’twas Abel killed Cain, and called en Cain, meaning Abel all the time. The parson put it right, but ’twas too late, for the name could never be got rid of in the parish. ’Tis very unfortunate for the boy.’... ‘Very well then, Cainey Ball to be under-shepherd. And you quite understand your duties? — you I mean, Gabriel Oak?’ ‘Quite well, I thank you, Miss Everdene,’ said Shepherd Oak from the door-post. ‘If I don’t, I’ll inquire. ‘Gabriel was rather staggered by the remarkable coolness of her manner. Certainly nobody without previous information would have dreamt that Oak and the handsome woman before whom he stood had ever been other than strangers.... She then rose, but before retiring addressed a few words to them with a pretty dignity, to which her mourning dress added a soberness that was hardly to be found in the words themselves. ‘No
w mind, you have a mistress instead of a master. I don’t yet know my powers or my talents in farming; but I shall do my best, and if you serve me well, so shall I serve you. Don’t any unfair ones among you (if there are any such, but I hope not) suppose that because I’m a woman I don’t understand the difference between bad goings-on and good.’...

  ‘And so good-night.’ (All.) ‘Good-night, ma’am.’ Then this small thesmothete stepped from the table and surged out of the hall, her black silk dress licking up a few straws and dragging them along with a scratching noise upon the floor. Liddy, elevating her feelings to the occasion from a sense of grandeur, floated off behind Bathsheba with a milder dignity not entirely free from travesty, and the door was closed,”

  This is Bathsheba when her head is at work, and her common-sense. Another perspective of her when her heart is at work, and her uncommon feeling is not edifying, but it is doubtless as faithful. It is that famous scene of Sergeant Troy showing Bathsheba the broadsword exercise.

  “At eight o’clock this midsummer evening, whilst the bristling ball of gold in the west still swept the tips of the ferns with its long, luxuriant rays, a soft brushing-by of garments might have been heard among them, and Bathsheba appeared in their midst, their soft, feathery arms caressing her up to her shoulders.

  ... ‘Now,’ said Troy, producing the sword, which, as he raised it into the sunlight, gleamed a sort of greeting, like a living thing, ‘first, we have four right and four left cuts; four right and four left thrusts. Infantry cuts and guards are more interesting than ours, to my mind; but they are not so swashing. They have seven cuts and three thrusts.... Now I’ll be more interesting, and let you see some loose play-giving all the cuts and points, infantry and cavalry, quicker than lightning, and as promiscuously — with just enough rule to regulate instinct and yet not to fetter it You are my antagonist, with this difference from real warfare, that I shall miss you every time by one hair’s breadth, or perhaps two. Mind you don’t flinch, whatever you do. “I’ll be sure not to,’ she said, invincibly. He pointed to about a yard in front of him. Bathsheba’s adventurous spirit was beginning to find some grains of relish in these highly novel proceedings. She took up her position as directed, facing Troy. ‘Now just to learn whether you have pluck enough to let me do what I wish, I’ll give you a preliminary test’ He flourished the sword by way of introduction number two, and the next thing of which she was conscious was that the point and blade of the sword were darting with a gleam towards her left side, just above her hip; then of their reappearance on her right side, having apparently passed through her body. The third item of consciousness was that of seeing the same sword, perfectly clean and free from blood, held vertically in Troy’s hand (in the position technically called ‘recover swords’). All was as quick as electricity. ‘Oh!’ she cried out in affright, pressing her hand to her side. ‘Have you run me through? — no, you have not! Whatever have you done!’ ‘I have not touched you,’ said Troy, quietly. ‘It was mere sleight of hand. The sword passed behind you. Now you are not afraid, are you? Because if you are I can’t perform. I give my word that I will not only not hurt you, but not once touch you.’ ‘I don’t think I am afraid. You are quite sure you will not hurt me?’ ‘Oh no, only stand as still as a statue. Now!’ In an instant the atmosphere was transformed to Bathsheba’s eyes. Beams of light caught from the low sun’s rays, above, around, in front of her, wellnigh shut out earth and heaven — all emitted in the marvellous evolutions of Troy’s reflecting blade, which seemed everywhere at once, and yet nowhere specially. These circling gleams were accompanied by a keen rush that was almost a whistling — also springing from all sides of her at once. In short, she was enclosed in a firmament of light, and of sharp hisses,’ resembling a skyful of meteors close at hand.... It may safely be asserted with respect to the closeness of his cuts, that had it been possible for the edge of the sword to leave in the air a permanent substance wherever it flew past, the space left untouched would have been a complete mould of Bathsheba’s figure. The hissing of the sword had ceased, and he stopped entirely. ‘That outer loose lock of hair wants tidying,’ he said, before she had moved or spoken. ‘Wait: I’ll do it for you,’ An arc of silver shone on her right side; the sword had descended. The lock dropped to the ground. ‘Bravely borne!’ said Troy. ‘You didn’t flinch a shade’s thickness. Wonderful in a woman!’ ‘It was because I didn’t expect it Oh, you have spoilt my hair!’ ‘Only once more.’ ‘No — no! I am afraid of you — indeed I am!’ she cried.... ‘But how could you chop off a curl of my hair with a sword that has no edge?” No edge! This sword will shave like a razor. Look here.’ He touched the palm of his hand with the blade, and then, lifting it, showed her a thin shaving of scarf-skin dangling therefrom.”

  II

  The first glimpse of Paula Power in “ The Laodicean “ suggests a character as vividly as the first glimpse of Bathsheba, and gives us the sense of a heroine as thoroughly Hardyesque, though she is of such a different tradition and position. It is not in the cool, sequestered vale of life that Paula Power keeps the tenor of her way, but in the midst of worldly interests and ambitions which beset her as the heiress of a self-made father, who has made a great deal of money in the process of making himself. He has left her in possession of De Stancy Castle, where she lives with a daughter of the ancient house as her companion and friend, and in charge of a Baptist chapel which he built, and bestowed on the congregation to which he belonged. It is from filial piety, rather than the other sort, that Paula has brought herself to the point of being baptized into this church; for her ecclesiastical affiliations, as a young lady of wealth, culture, and fashion, or potential fashion, would not otherwise have been with this unpicturesque and unworldly sect of dissenters. She is presented to the reader in the moment of attempting to fulfil her pious duty, and I think any reader will agree with me that her introduction is not less spectacular and impressive than that of Bathsheba Everdene, though the circumstances are altogether so different. As in the case of Bathsheba, we share the vision of the heroine with her lover, though now it is no such single nature as the Shepherd Oak, but the complex personality, not less sincere, of the young architect Somerset, that is concerned. Somerset is down from London on a sketching excursion, and has looked into the chapel at the close of a summer’s day because he has happened to hear that there is to be a baptism in that strikingly ugly edifice.

  “He gazed into the lighted chapel made what had been an evening scene when he looked away from the landscape night itself on looking back; but he could see enough to discover that a brougham had driven up to the side-door used by the young water-bearers, and that a lady in white-and-black half-mourning was in the act of alighting, followed by what appeared to be a waiting-woman carrying wraps. They entered the vestry-room of the chapel, and the door was shut. The service went on as before till at a certain moment the door between vestry and chapel was opened, when a woman came out clothed in an ample robe of flowing white, which descended to her feet.... She was rather tall than otherwise, and the contour of her head and shoulders denoted a girl in the heyday of youth and activity.... His imagination, stimulated by this beginning, set about filling in the meagre outline with most attractive details.... She stood upon the brink of the pool, and the minister descended the steps at its edge till the soles of his shoes were moistened with the water. He turned to the young candidate, but she did not follow him: instead of doing so she remained rigid as a stone. He stretched out his hand, but she still showed reluctance, till, with some embarrassment, he went back, and spoke softly in her ear, afterwards saying in a voice audible to all who were near, ‘You will descend?’ She approached the edge, looked into the water, and gently turned away. Somerset could for the first time see her face.... The total dissimilarity between the expression of her lineaments and that of the countenances around her was not a little surprising, and was productive of hypotheses without measure as to how she came there. She was, in fact, emphatically a modem type of maidenho
od, and she looked ultra-modem by reason of her environment: a presumably sophisticated being among the simple ones — not wickedly so, but one who knew life fairly well for her age.... ‘And you refuse?’ said the astonished minister, as she still stood immovable on the brink of the pool. He added to the force of his pleading by persuasively taking her sleeve between his finger and thumb as if to draw her; but she resented this by a quick movement of displeasure, and he released her, seeing that he had gone too far. ‘But, my dear lady,’ he whispered, ‘you promised. Consider your profession, and that you stand in the eyes of the whole church as an exemplar of your faith,’ ‘I cannot help it,’ she said, trying to get away. ‘You came here with the intention to fulfil the Word?’ ‘But I was mistaken.’ ‘ Then why did you come?’ She tacitly implied that to be a question she did not care to answer. ‘Please say no more to me: I can wait no longer,’ she murmured, and hastened to withdraw. But the minister was not without insight, and he had seen that it would be useless to say more. The crestfallen old man had to turn round upon the congregation and declare officially that the baptism was postponed. She passed through the door into the vestry.... His face had a severe and even denunciatory look as he gave out his text, and Somerset began to understand that this meant mischief to the person who had caused the hitch....

  The sermon straightway began, and went on, and it was soon apparent that the commentary was to be no less forcible than the text. It was also apparent that the words were, virtually, not directed forward in the line in which they were uttered, but through the chink of the vestry-door, that had stood slightly ajar since the exit of the young lady.... At this moment there was not in the whole chapel a person whose imagination was not centred on what was invisibly taking place within the vestry-door. The thunder of the minister’s eloquence echoed, of course, through the sister’s cavern of retreat no less than round the public assembly. What she was doing inside there — whether listening contritely, or haughtily hastening to get away from the chapel and all it contained — was obviously the thought of each member.... The sermon ended, the minister wiped his steaming face and turned down his cuffs, and nods and sagacious glances went round.... For Somerset there was but one scene: the imagined scene of the girl herself as she sat alone in the vestry. The fervent congregation rose to sing again, and then Somerset heard a slight noise on his left hand which caused him to turn his head. The brougham, which had retired into the field to wait, was back again at the door: the subject of his rumination came out from the chapel — not in her mystic robe of white, but dressed in ordinary fashionable costume — followed as before by the attendant with other articles of clothing on her arm, including the white gown. Somerset fancied that the younger woman was drying her eyes with her handkerchief, but there was not much time to see: they quickly entered the carriage, and it moved on. Then a cat suddenly mewed, and he saw a white Persian standing forlorn where the carriage had been. The door was opened, the cat taken in, and the carriage rolled away,”