Far from the Madding Crowd (61 page)

“Getting me! What does that mean?”

“Marrying of ‘ee, in plain British. You asked me to tell, so you mustn't blame me.”

Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been discharged by her ear, which was what Oak had expected. “Marrying me! I didn't know it was that you meant,” she said, quietly. “Such a thing as that is too absurd — too soon — to think of, by far!”

“Yes; of course, it is too absurd. I don't desire any such thing; I should think that was plain enough by this time. Surely, surely you be the last person in the world I think of marrying. It is too absurd, as you say.”

“'Too — s-s-soon' were the words I used.”

“I must beg your pardon for correcting you, but you said, ‘too absurd,' and so do I.”

“I beg your pardon too!” she returned, with tears in her eyes. “'Too soon' was what I said. But it doesn't matter a bit — not at all — but I only meant, ‘too soon.' Indeed, I didn't, Mr. Oak, and you must believe me!”

Gabriel looked her long in the face, but the firelight being faint there was not much to be seen. “Bathsheba,” he said, tenderly and in surprise, and coming closer: “if I only knew one thing — whether you would allow me to love you and win you, and marry you after all — if I only knew that!”

“But you never will know,” she murmured.

“Why?”

“Because you never ask.”

“Oh — Oh!” said Gabriel, with a low laugh of joyousness. “My own dear — ” and in his joy he actually took her hand, fondled it and kissed it, and she did not withdraw it, but smiled upon him as tenderly as a mother.

“You ought not to have sent me that harsh letter this morning,” she interrupted. “It shows you didn't care a bit about me, and were ready to desert me like all the rest of them! It was very cruel of you, considering I was the first sweetheart that you ever had, and you were the first I ever had; and I shall not forget it!”

“Now, Bathsheba, was ever anybody so provoking,” he said, laughing and letting go her hand. “You know it was purely that I, as an unmarried man, carrying on a business for you as a very taking young woman, had a proper hard part to play — more particular that people knew I had a sort of feeling for ‘ee; and I fancied, from the way we were mentioned together, that it might injure your good name. Nobody knows the heat and fret I have been caused by it.”

“And was that all?”

“All.”

“Oh, how glad I am I came!” she exclaimed, thankfully, as she rose from her seat. “I have thought so much more of you since I fancied you did not want even to see me again. But I must be going now, or I shall be missed. Why Gabriel,” she said, with a slight laugh, as they went to the door, “it seems exactly as if I had come courting you — how dreadful!”

“And quite right too,” said Oak. “I've danced at your skittish heels, my beautiful Bathsheba, for many a long mile, and many a long day; and it is hard to begrudge me this one visit.”

For answer, she put her face up to his, and slowly, tenderly, hesitatingly, he bent his curly head to hers and their lips met. If ever Bathsheba had doubted that this man could light a fire in her, this kiss gave her assurance that Gabriel's flame for her burned as brightly as ever after all these years. Indeed, she felt her breath grow short and her head grow dizzy as they sounded each other, tongues entwined, exploring and probing, till she broke off and had to sit down again to recover herself.

He accompanied her up the hill, explaining to her the details of his forthcoming tenure of the other farm. They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality. This good-fellowship —
camaraderie
— usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is strong as death — that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam.

A
FOGGY NIGHT AND MORNING — CONCLUSION

“The most private, secret, plainest wedding that it is possible to have.”

Those had been Bathsheba's words to Oak one evening, some time after the event of the preceding chapter, and he meditated a full hour by the clock upon how to carry out her wishes to the letter.

“A license — O yes, it must be a license,” he said to himself at last. “Very well, then; first, a license.”

On a dark night, a few days later, Oak came with mysterious steps from the surrogate's door, in Casterbridge. On the way home he heard a heavy tread in front of him, and, overtaking the man, found him to be Coggan. They walked together into the village until they came to a little lane behind the church, leading down to the cottage of Laban Tall, who had lately been installed as clerk of the parish, and was yet in mortal terror at church on Sundays when he heard his lone voice among certain hard words of the Psalms, whither no man ventured to follow him.

“Well, good-night, Coggan,” said Oak, “I'm going down this way.”

“Oh!” said Coggan, surprised; “what's going on to-night then, make so bold Mr. Oak?”

It seemed rather ungenerous not to tell Coggan, under the circumstances, for Coggan had been true as steel all through the time of Gabriel's unhappiness about Bathsheba, and Gabriel said, “You can keep a secret, Coggan?”

“You've proved me, and you know.”

“Yes, I have, and I do know. Well, then, mistress and I mean to get married to-morrow morning.”

“Heaven's high tower! And yet I've thought of such a thing from time to time; true, I have. But keeping it so close! Well, there, ‘tis no consarn of of mine, and I wish ‘ee joy o' her. Marriage, in short, is what we are all best fitted for, and I am sure you won't have no regrets.”

“Thank you, Coggan. But I assure ‘ee that this great hush is not what I wished for at all, or what either of us would have wished if it hadn't been for certain things that would make a gay wedding seem hardly the thing. Bathsheba has a great wish that all the parish shall not be in church, looking at her — she's shy-like and nervous about it, in fact — so I be doing this to humour her.”

“Ay, I see: quite right, too, I suppose I must say. And you be now going down to the clerk.”

“Yes; you may as well come with me.”

“I am afeard your labour in keeping it close will be throwed away,” said Coggan, as they walked along. “Labe Tall's old woman will horn it all over parish in half-an-hour.”

“So she will, upon my life; I never thought of that,” said Oak, pausing. “Yet I must tell him to-night, I suppose, for he's working so far off, and leaves early.”

“I'll tell ‘ee how we could tackle her,” said Coggan. “I'll knock and ask to speak to Laban outside the door, you standing in the background. Then he'll come out, and you can tell yer tale. She'll never guess what I want en for; and I'll make up a few words about the farm-work, as a blind.”

This scheme was considered feasible; and Coggan advanced boldly, and rapped at Mrs. Tall's door. Mrs. Tall herself opened it.

“I wanted to have a word with Laban.”

“He's not at home, and won't be this side of eleven o'clock. He've been forced to go over to Yalbury since shutting out work. I shall do quite as well.”

“I hardly think you will. Stop a moment;” and Coggan stepped round the corner of the porch to consult Oak.

“Who's t'other man, then?” said Mrs. Tall.

“Only a friend,” said Coggan.

“Say he's wanted to meet mistress near church-hatch to-morrow morning at ten,” said Oak, in a whisper. “That he must come without fail, and wear his best clothes.”

“The clothes will floor us as safe as houses!” said Coggan.

“It can't be helped,” said Oak. “Tell her.”

So Coggan delivered the message. “Mind, het or wet, blow or snow, he must come,” added Jan. “'Tis very particular, indeed. The fact is, ‘tis to witness her sign some law-work about taking shares wi' another farmer for a long span o' years. There, that's what ‘tis, and now I've told ‘ee, Mother Tall, in a way I shouldn't ha' done if I hadn't loved ‘ee so hopeless well.”

Coggan retired before she could ask any further; and next they called at the vicar's in a manner which excited no curiosity at all. Then Gabriel went home, and prepared for the morrow.

“Liddy,” said Bathsheba, on going to bed that night, “I want you to call me at seven o'clock to-morrow, In case I shouldn't wake.”

“But you always do wake afore then, ma'am.”

“Yes, but I have something important to do, which I'll tell you of when the time comes, and it's best to make sure.”

Bathsheba, however, awoke voluntarily at four, nor could she by any contrivance get to sleep again. About six, being quite positive that her watch had stopped during the night, she could wait no longer. She went and tapped at Liddy's door, and after some labour awoke her.

“But I thought it was I who had to call you?” said the bewildered Liddy. “And it isn't six yet.”

“Indeed it is; how can you tell such a story, Liddy? I know it must be ever so much past seven. Come to my room as soon as you can; I want you to give my hair a good brushing.”

When Liddy came to Bathsheba's room her mistress was already waiting. Liddy could not understand this extraordinary promptness. “Whatever
is
going on, ma'am?” she said.

“Well, I'll tell you,” said Bathsheba, with a mischievous smile in her bright eyes. “Farmer Oak is coming here to dine with me to-day!”

“Farmer Oak — and nobody else? — you two alone?”

“Yes.”

“But is it safe, ma'am, after what's been said?” asked her companion, dubiously. “A woman's good name is such a perishable article that — ”

Bathsheba laughed with a flushed cheek, and whispered in Liddy's ear, although there was nobody present. Then Liddy stared and exclaimed, “Souls alive, what news! It makes my heart go quite bumpity-bump!”

“It makes mine rather furious, too,” said Bathsheba. “However, there's no getting out of it now!”

It was a damp disagreeable morning. Nevertheless, at twenty minutes to ten o'clock, Oak came out of his house, and

Went up the hill side

With that sort of stride

A man puts out when walking in search of a bride,

and knocked Bathsheba's door. Ten minutes later a large and a smaller umbrella might have been seen moving from the same door, and through the mist along the road to the church. The distance was not more than a quarter of a mile, and these two sensible persons deemed it unnecessary to drive. An observer must have been very close indeed to discover that the forms under the umbrellas were those of Oak and Bathsheba, arm-in-arm for the first time in their lives, Oak in a greatcoat extending to his knees, and Bathsheba in a cloak that reached her clogs. Yet, though so plainly dressed, there was a certain rejuvenated appearance about her —

As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.

Repose had again incarnadined her cheeks; and having, at Gabriel's request, arranged her hair this morning as she had worn it years ago on Norcombe Hill, she seemed in his eyes remarkably like a girl of that fascinating dream, which, considering that she was now only three or four-and-twenty, was perhaps not very wonderful. In the church were Tall, Liddy, and the parson, and in a remarkably short space of time the deed was done, and they were man and wife in the sight of God.

After Liddy and Tall had left them, Gabriel and Bathsheba took a walk, for the damp fog and misty rain of the early morning had given way to a soft mildness, which, while not as violent as the heat of summer, for two farming folk well used to the outdoor life, was as welcome as blossom in May.

Bathsheba followed happily where Oak led her, glad beyond words at the steady, solid presence of her curly-headed new husband, and on the bank of the river that had long been the sole and silent witness to his earthly delights till now, they sat down, and he took the pins one by one from her hair, as gently and kindly as if she had been a new lamb and he the shepherd coaxing it into its first breath. With her hair spread out over her shoulders, she held up her face to be kissed, and was rewarded with the brief trembling of a tear in his eye as he laid gentle lips upon hers.

“Whenever I look up, there will you be,” she whispered, remembering in some amazement that far distant day in times past, when Gabriel had plighted his troth and she had, with scarce a thought, thrown it back at him. He smiled and pointed down at the river, where, with the brief sparkle of emerald, a kingfisher swooped upon a minnow and was gone again in a flash of orange, white and turquoise.

“Now I have you, as surely as he has that fish he risked all for,” he said. “Will I tell you a secret thing about myself?”

She nodded, in wonder that there would be no end to the depths of Oak, and he stood up, and stripped off his bridegroom's gear and displayed himself before her, naked and unashamed.

“We are one now,” he said quietly, “and I have done with my old ways. But here on this bank, many and many's the day I have thought of you, and only you, as I took to the waters, and with their rough caresses they in their turn proved my comfort and my joy, for what is natural and in the open air is best for man and beast — and for woman too, perhaps. And though today be wintry, yet am I glad to be standing thus before you, under the sky, to show you with my body what I cannot say in words.”