by Thomas Hardy
CHAPTER XXXV
AT AN UPPER WINDOW
It was very early the next morning--a time of sun and dew. Theconfused beginnings of many birds' songs spread into the healthy air,and the wan blue of the heaven was here and there coated with thinwebs of incorporeal cloud which were of no effect in obscuring day.All the lights in the scene were yellow as to colour, and all theshadows were attenuated as to form. The creeping plants about theold manor-house were bowed with rows of heavy water drops, whichhad upon objects behind them the effect of minute lenses of highmagnifying power.
Just before the clock struck five Gabriel Oak and Coggan passed thevillage cross, and went on together to the fields. They were yetbarely in view of their mistress's house, when Oak fancied he saw theopening of a casement in one of the upper windows. The two men wereat this moment partially screened by an elder bush, now beginningto be enriched with black bunches of fruit, and they paused beforeemerging from its shade.
A handsome man leaned idly from the lattice. He looked east and thenwest, in the manner of one who makes a first morning survey. Theman was Sergeant Troy. His red jacket was loosely thrown on, butnot buttoned, and he had altogether the relaxed bearing of a soldiertaking his ease.
Coggan spoke first, looking quietly at the window.
"She has married him!" he said.
Gabriel had previously beheld the sight, and he now stood with hisback turned, making no reply.
"I fancied we should know something to-day," continued Coggan. "Iheard wheels pass my door just after dark--you were out somewhere."He glanced round upon Gabriel. "Good heavens above us, Oak, howwhite your face is; you look like a corpse!"
"Do I?" said Oak, with a faint smile.
"Lean on the gate: I'll wait a bit."
"All right, all right."
They stood by the gate awhile, Gabriel listlessly staring at theground. His mind sped into the future, and saw there enacted inyears of leisure the scenes of repentance that would ensue from thiswork of haste. That they were married he had instantly decided. Whyhad it been so mysteriously managed? It had become known that shehad had a fearful journey to Bath, owing to her miscalculating thedistance: that the horse had broken down, and that she had been morethan two days getting there. It was not Bathsheba's way to do thingsfurtively. With all her faults, she was candour itself. Could shehave been entrapped? The union was not only an unutterable grief tohim: it amazed him, notwithstanding that he had passed the precedingweek in a suspicion that such might be the issue of Troy's meetingher away from home. Her quiet return with Liddy had to some extentdispersed the dread. Just as that imperceptible motion which appearslike stillness is infinitely divided in its properties from stillnessitself, so had his hope undistinguishable from despair differed fromdespair indeed.
In a few minutes they moved on again towards the house. The sergeantstill looked from the window.
"Morning, comrades!" he shouted, in a cheery voice, when they cameup.
Coggan replied to the greeting. "Bain't ye going to answer the man?"he then said to Gabriel. "I'd say good morning--you needn't spend ahapenny of meaning upon it, and yet keep the man civil."
Gabriel soon decided too that, since the deed was done, to put thebest face upon the matter would be the greatest kindness to her heloved.
"Good morning, Sergeant Troy," he returned, in a ghastly voice.
"A rambling, gloomy house this," said Troy, smiling.
"Why--they MAY not be married!" suggested Coggan. "Perhaps she's notthere."
Gabriel shook his head. The soldier turned a little towards theeast, and the sun kindled his scarlet coat to an orange glow.
"But it is a nice old house," responded Gabriel.
"Yes--I suppose so; but I feel like new wine in an old bottle here.My notion is that sash-windows should be put throughout, and theseold wainscoted walls brightened up a bit; or the oak cleared quiteaway, and the walls papered."
"It would be a pity, I think."
"Well, no. A philosopher once said in my hearing that the oldbuilders, who worked when art was a living thing, had no respectfor the work of builders who went before them, but pulled down andaltered as they thought fit; and why shouldn't we? 'Creation andpreservation don't do well together,' says he, 'and a million ofantiquarians can't invent a style.' My mind exactly. I am for makingthis place more modern, that we may be cheerful whilst we can."
The military man turned and surveyed the interior of the room, toassist his ideas of improvement in this direction. Gabriel andCoggan began to move on.
"Oh, Coggan," said Troy, as if inspired by a recollection "do youknow if insanity has ever appeared in Mr. Boldwood's family?"
Jan reflected for a moment.
"I once heard that an uncle of his was queer in his head, but I don'tknow the rights o't," he said.
"It is of no importance," said Troy, lightly. "Well, I shall be downin the fields with you some time this week; but I have a few mattersto attend to first. So good-day to you. We shall, of course, keepon just as friendly terms as usual. I'm not a proud man: nobody isever able to say that of Sergeant Troy. However, what is must be,and here's half-a-crown to drink my health, men."
Troy threw the coin dexterously across the front plot and over thefence towards Gabriel, who shunned it in its fall, his face turningto an angry red. Coggan twirled his eye, edged forward, and caughtthe money in its ricochet upon the road.
"Very well--you keep it, Coggan," said Gabriel with disdain andalmost fiercely. "As for me, I'll do without gifts from him!"
"Don't show it too much," said Coggan, musingly. "For if he'smarried to her, mark my words, he'll buy his discharge and be ourmaster here. Therefore 'tis well to say 'Friend' outwardly, thoughyou say 'Troublehouse' within."
"Well--perhaps it is best to be silent; but I can't go further thanthat. I can't flatter, and if my place here is only to be kept bysmoothing him down, my place must be lost."
A horseman, whom they had for some time seen in the distance, nowappeared close beside them.
"There's Mr. Boldwood," said Oak. "I wonder what Troy meant by hisquestion."
Coggan and Oak nodded respectfully to the farmer, just checked theirpaces to discover if they were wanted, and finding they were notstood back to let him pass on.
The only signs of the terrible sorrow Boldwood had been combatingthrough the night, and was combating now, were the want of colourin his well-defined face, the enlarged appearance of the veins inhis forehead and temples, and the sharper lines about his mouth.The horse bore him away, and the very step of the animal seemedsignificant of dogged despair. Gabriel, for a minute, rose above hisown grief in noticing Boldwood's. He saw the square figure sittingerect upon the horse, the head turned to neither side, the elbowssteady by the hips, the brim of the hat level and undisturbed inits onward glide, until the keen edges of Boldwood's shape sank bydegrees over the hill. To one who knew the man and his story therewas something more striking in this immobility than in a collapse.The clash of discord between mood and matter here was forcedpainfully home to the heart; and, as in laughter there are moredreadful phases than in tears, so was there in the steadiness ofthis agonized man an expression deeper than a cry.
