Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (83 page)

“Certainly,” said the vicar, mechanically taking the card that Dick offered him.

“I turn in here by Grey’s Bridge,” said Dick.  “I suppose you go straight on and up town?”

“Yes.”

“Good-morning, sir.”

“Good-morning, Dewy.”

Maybold stood still upon the bridge, holding the card as it had been put into his hand, and Dick’s footsteps died away towards Durnover Mill.  The vicar’s first voluntary action was to read the card: —

DEWY AND SON,

TRANTERS AND HAULIERS,

MELLSTOCK.

NB. — Furniture, Coals, Potatoes, Live and Dead Stock, removed to any distance on the shortest notice.

Mr. Maybold leant over the parapet of the bridge and looked into the river.  He saw — without heeding — how the water came rapidly from beneath the arches, glided down a little steep, then spread itself over a pool in which dace, trout, and minnows sported at ease among the long green locks of weed that lay heaving and sinking with their roots towards the current.  At the end of ten minutes spent leaning thus, he drew from his pocket the letter to his friend, tore it deliberately into such minute fragments that scarcely two syllables remained in juxtaposition, and sent the whole handful of shreds fluttering into the water.  Here he watched them eddy, dart, and turn, as they were carried downwards towards the ocean and gradually disappeared from his view.  Finally he moved off, and pursued his way at a rapid pace back again to Mellstock Vicarage.

Nerving himself by a long and intense effort, he sat down in his study and wrote as follows:

“DEAR MISS DAY, — The meaning of your words, ‘the temptation is too strong,’ of your sadness and your tears, has been brought home to me by an accident.  I know to-day what I did not know yesterday — that you are not a free woman.

“Why did you not tell me — why didn’t you?  Did you suppose I knew?  No.  Had I known, my conduct in coming to you as I did would have been reprehensible.

“But I don’t chide you!  Perhaps no blame attaches to you — I can’t tell.  Fancy, though my opinion of you is assailed and disturbed in a way which cannot be expressed, I love you still, and my word to you holds good yet.  But will you, in justice to an honest man who relies upon your word to him, consider whether, under the circumstances, you can honourably forsake him? — Yours ever sincerely,

“ARTHUR MAYBOLD.”

He rang the bell.  “Tell Charles to take these copybooks and this note to the school at once.”

The maid took the parcel and the letter, and in a few minutes a boy was seen to leave the vicarage gate, with the one under his arm, and the other in his hand.  The vicar sat with his hand to his brow, watching the lad as he descended Church Lane and entered the waterside path which intervened between that spot and the school.

Here he was met by another boy, and after a free salutation and pugilistic frisk had passed between the two, the second boy came on his way to the vicarage, and the other vanished out of sight.

The boy came to the door, and a note for Mr. Maybold was brought in.

He knew the writing.  Opening the envelope with an unsteady hand, he read the subjoined words:

“DEAR MR. MAYBOLD, — I have been thinking seriously and sadly through the whole of the night of the question you put to me last evening and of my answer.  That answer, as an honest woman, I had no right to give.

“It is my nature — perhaps all women’s — to love refinement of mind and manners; but even more than this, to be ever fascinated with the idea of surroundings more elegant and pleasing than those which have been customary.  And you praised me, and praise is life to me.  It was alone my sensations at these things which prompted my reply.  Ambition and vanity they would be called; perhaps they are so.

“After this explanation I hope you will generously allow me to withdraw the answer I too hastily gave.

“And one more request.  To keep the meeting of last night, and all that passed between us there, for ever a secret.  Were it to become known, it would utterly blight the happiness of a trusting and generous man, whom I love still, and shall love always. — Yours sincerely,

“FANCY DAY.

The last written communication that ever passed from the vicar to Fancy, was a note containing these words only:

“Tell him everything; it is best.  He will forgive you.”

PART THE FIFTH: CONCLUSION

CHAPTER I:

‘THE KNOT THERE’S NO UNTYING’

The last day of the story is dated just subsequent to that point in the development of the seasons when country people go to bed among nearly naked trees, are lulled to sleep by a fall of rain, and awake next morning among green ones; when the landscape appears embarrassed with the sudden weight and brilliancy of its leaves; when the night-jar comes and strikes up for the summer his tune of one note; when the apple-trees have bloomed, and the roads and orchard-grass become spotted with fallen petals; when the faces of the delicate flowers are darkened, and their heads weighed down, by the throng of honey-bees, which increase their humming till humming is too mild a term for the all-pervading sound; and when cuckoos, blackbirds, and sparrows, that have hitherto been merry and respectful neighbours, become noisy and persistent intimates.

The exterior of Geoffrey Day’s house in Yalbury Wood appeared exactly as was usual at that season, but a frantic barking of the dogs at the back told of unwonted movements somewhere within.  Inside the door the eyes beheld a gathering, which was a rarity indeed for the dwelling of the solitary wood-steward and keeper.

About the room were sitting and standing, in various gnarled attitudes, our old acquaintance, grandfathers James and William, the tranter, Mr. Penny, two or three children, including Jimmy and Charley, besides three or four country ladies and gentlemen from a greater distance who do not require any distinction by name.  Geoffrey was seen and heard stamping about the outhouse and among the bushes of the garden, attending to details of daily routine before the proper time arrived for their performance, in order that they might be off his hands for the day.  He appeared with his shirt-sleeves rolled up; his best new nether garments, in which he had arrayed himself that morning, being temporarily disguised under a weekday apron whilst these proceedings were in operation.  He occasionally glanced at the hives in passing, to see if his wife’s bees were swarming, ultimately rolling down his shirt-sleeves and going indoors, talking to tranter Dewy whilst buttoning the wristbands, to save time; next going upstairs for his best waistcoat, and coming down again to make another remark whilst buttoning that, during the time looking fixedly in the tranter’s face as if he were a looking-glass.

The furniture had undergone attenuation to an alarming extent, every duplicate piece having been removed, including the clock by Thomas Wood; Ezekiel Saunders being at last left sole referee in matters of time.

Fancy was stationary upstairs, receiving her layers of clothes and adornments, and answering by short fragments of laughter which had more fidgetiness than mirth in them, remarks that were made from time to time by Mrs. Dewy and Mrs. Penny, who were assisting her at the toilet, Mrs. Day having pleaded a queerness in her head as a reason for shutting herself up in an inner bedroom for the whole morning.  Mrs. Penny appeared with nine corkscrew curls on each side of her temples, and a back comb stuck upon her crown like a castle on a steep.

The conversation just now going on was concerning the banns, the last publication of which had been on the Sunday previous.

“And how did they sound?” Fancy subtly inquired.

“Very beautiful indeed,” said Mrs. Penny.  “I never heard any sound better.”

“But
how
?”

“
O,
so
natural and elegant, didn’t they, Reuben!” she cried, through the chinks of the unceiled floor, to the tranter downstairs.

“What’s that?” said the tranter, looking up inquiringly at the floor above him for an answer.

“Didn’t Dick and Fancy sound well when they were called home in church last Sunday?” came downwards again in Mrs. Penny’s voice.

“Ay, that they did, my sonnies! — especially the first time.  There was a terrible whispering piece of work in the congregation, wasn’t there, neighbour Penny?” said the tranter, taking up the thread of conversation on his own account and, in order to be heard in the room above, speaking very loud to Mr. Penny, who sat at the distance of three feet from him, or rather less.

“I never can mind seeing such a whispering as there was,” said Mr. Penny, also loudly, to the room above.  “And such sorrowful envy on the maidens’ faces; really, I never did see such envy as there was!”

Fancy’s lineaments varied in innumerable little flushes, and her heart palpitated innumerable little tremors of pleasure.  “But perhaps,” she said, with assumed indifference, “it was only because no religion was going on just then?”

“O, no; nothing to do with that.  ‘Twas because of your high standing in the parish.  It was just as if they had one and all caught Dick kissing and coling ye to death, wasn’t it, Mrs. Dewy?”

“Ay; that ‘twas.”

“How people will talk about one’s doings!” Fancy exclaimed.

“Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can’t blame other people for singing ‘em.”

“Mercy me! how shall I go through it?” said the young lady again, but merely to those in the bedroom, with a breathing of a kind between a sigh and a pant, round shining eyes, and warm face.

“O, you’ll get through it well enough, child,” said Mrs. Dewy placidly.  “The edge of the performance is took off at the calling home; and when once you get up to the chancel end o’ the church, you feel as saucy as you please.  I’m sure I felt as brave as a sodger all through the deed — though of course I dropped my face and looked modest, as was becoming to a maid.  Mind you do that, Fancy.”

“And I walked into the church as quiet as a lamb, I’m sure,” subjoined Mrs. Penny.  “There, you see Penny is such a little small man.  But certainly, I was flurried in the inside o’ me.  Well, thinks I, ‘tis to be, and here goes!  And do you do the same: say, ‘‘Tis to be, and here goes!’”

“Is there such wonderful virtue in ‘‘Tis to be, and here goes!’” inquired Fancy.

“Wonderful!  ‘Twill carry a body through it all from wedding to churching, if you only let it out with spirit enough.”

“Very well, then,” said Fancy, blushing.  “‘Tis to be, and here goes!”

“That’s a girl for a husband!” said Mrs. Dewy.

“I do hope he’ll come in time!” continued the bride-elect, inventing a new cause of affright, now that the other was demolished.

“‘Twould be a thousand pities if he didn’t come, now you be so brave,” said Mrs. Penny.

Grandfather James, having overheard some of these remarks, said downstairs with mischievous loudness —

“I’ve known some would-be weddings when the men didn’t come.”

“They’ve happened not to come, before now, certainly,” said Mr. Penny, cleaning one of the glasses of his spectacles.

“O, do hear what they are saying downstairs,” whispered Fancy.  “Hush, hush!”

She listened.

“They have, haven’t they, Geoffrey?” continued grandfather James, as Geoffrey entered.

“Have what?” said Geoffrey.

“The men have been known not to come.”

“That they have,” said the keeper.

“Ay; I’ve knowed times when the wedding had to be put off through his not appearing, being tired of the woman.  And another case I knowed was when the man was catched in a man-trap crossing Oaker’s Wood, and the three months had run out before he got well, and the banns had to be published over again.”

“How horrible!” said Fancy.

“They only say it on purpose to tease ‘ee, my dear,” said Mrs. Dewy.

“‘Tis quite sad to think what wretched shifts poor maids have been put to,” came again from downstairs.  “Ye should hear Clerk Wilkins, my brother-law, tell his experiences in marrying couples these last thirty year: sometimes one thing, sometimes another — ’tis quite heart-rending — enough to make your hair stand on end.”

“Those things don’t happen very often, I know,” said Fancy, with smouldering uneasiness.

“Well, really ‘tis time Dick was here,” said the tranter.

“Don’t keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you down there!” Fancy broke out, unable to endure any longer.  “I am sure I shall die, or do something, if you do!”

“Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!” cried Nat Callcome, the best man, who had just entered, and threw his voice upward through the chinks of the floor as the others had done.  “‘Tis all right; Dick’s coming on like a wild feller; he’ll be here in a minute.  The hive o’ bees his mother gie’d en for his new garden swarmed jist as he was starting, and he said, ‘I can’t afford to lose a stock o’ bees; no, that I can’t, though I fain would; and Fancy wouldn’t wish it on any account.’  So he jist stopped to ting to ‘em and shake ‘em.”

“A genuine wise man,” said Geoffrey.

“To be sure, what a day’s work we had yesterday!” Mr. Callcome continued, lowering his voice as if it were not necessary any longer to include those in the room above among his audience, and selecting a remote corner of his best clean handkerchief for wiping his face.  “To be sure!”

“Things so heavy, I suppose,” said Geoffrey, as if reading through the chimney-window from the far end of the vista.

“Ay,” said Nat, looking round the room at points from which furniture had been removed.  “And so awkward to carry, too.  ‘Twas ath’art and across Dick’s garden; in and out Dick’s door; up and down Dick’s stairs; round and round Dick’s chammers till legs were worn to stumps: and Dick is so particular, too.  And the stores of victuals and drink that lad has laid in: why, ‘tis enough for Noah’s ark!  I’m sure I never wish to see a choicer half-dozen of hams than he’s got there in his chimley; and the cider I tasted was a very pretty drop, indeed; — none could desire a prettier cider.”

“They be for the love and the stalled ox both.  Ah, the greedy martels!” said grandfather James.