CHAPTER XLVIII

DOUBTS ARISE—DOUBTS LINGER

Bathsheba underwent the enlargement of her husband’s absence from hours

to days with a slight feeling of surprise, and a slight feeling of

relief; yet neither sensation rose at any time far above the level

commonly designated as indifference. She belonged to him: the

certainties of that position were so well defined, and the reasonable

probabilities of its issue so bounded that she could not speculate on

contingencies. Taking no further interest in herself as a splendid

woman, she acquired the indifferent feelings of an outsider in

contemplating her probable fate as a singular wretch; for Bathsheba

drew herself and her future in colours that no reality could exceed for

darkness. Her original vigorous pride of youth had sickened, and with

it had declined all her anxieties about coming years, since anxiety

recognizes a better and a worse alternative, and Bathsheba had made up

her mind that alternatives on any noteworthy scale had ceased for her.

Soon, or later—and that not very late—her husband would be home again.

And then the days of their tenancy of the Upper Farm would be numbered.

There had originally been shown by the agent to the estate some

distrust of Bathsheba’s tenure as James Everdene’s successor, on the

score of her sex, and her youth, and her beauty; but the peculiar

nature of her uncle’s will, his own frequent testimony before his death

to her cleverness in such a pursuit, and her vigorous marshalling of

the numerous flocks and herds which came suddenly into her hands before

negotiations were concluded, had won confidence in her powers, and no

further objections had been raised. She had latterly been in great

doubt as to what the legal effects of her marriage would be upon her

position; but no notice had been taken as yet of her change of name,

and only one point was clear—that in the event of her own or her

husband’s inability to meet the agent at the forthcoming January

rent-day, very little consideration would be shown, and, for that

matter, very little would be deserved. Once out of the farm, the

approach of poverty would be sure.

Hence Bathsheba lived in a perception that her purposes were broken

off. She was not a woman who could hope on without good materials for

the process, differing thus from the less far-sighted and energetic,

though more petted ones of the sex, with whom hope goes on as a sort of

clockwork which the merest food and shelter are sufficient to wind up;

and perceiving clearly that her mistake had been a fatal one, she

accepted her position, and waited coldly for the end.

The first Saturday after Troy’s departure she went to Casterbridge

alone, a journey she had not before taken since her marriage. On this

Saturday Bathsheba was passing slowly on foot through the crowd of

rural business-men gathered as usual in front of the market-house, who

were as usual gazed upon by the burghers with feelings that those

healthy lives were dearly paid for by exclusion from possible

aldermanship, when a man, who had apparently been following her, said

some words to another on her left hand. Bathsheba’s ears were keen as

those of any wild animal, and she distinctly heard what the speaker

said, though her back was towards him.

“I am looking for Mrs. Troy. Is that she there?”

“Yes; that’s the young lady, I believe,” said the the person addressed.

“I have some awkward news to break to her. Her husband is drowned.”

As if endowed with the spirit of prophecy, Bathsheba gasped out, “No,

it is not true; it cannot be true!” Then she said and heard no more.

The ice of self-command which had latterly gathered over her was

broken, and the currents burst forth again, and overwhelmed her. A

darkness came into her eyes, and she fell.

But not to the ground. A gloomy man, who had been observing her from

under the portico of the old corn-exchange when she passed through the

group without, stepped quickly to her side at the moment of her

exclamation, and caught her in his arms as she sank down.

“What is it?” said Boldwood, looking up at the bringer of the big news,

as he supported her.

“Her husband was drowned this week while bathing in Lulwind Cove. A

coastguardsman found his clothes, and brought them into Budmouth

yesterday.”

Thereupon a strange fire lighted up Boldwood’s eye, and his face

flushed with the suppressed excitement of an unutterable thought.

Everybody’s glance was now centred upon him and the unconscious

Bathsheba. He lifted her bodily off the ground, and smoothed down the

folds of her dress as a child might have taken a storm-beaten bird and

arranged its ruffled plumes, and bore her along the pavement to the

King’s Arms Inn. Here he passed with her under the archway into a

private room; and by the time he had deposited—so lothly—the precious

burden upon a sofa, Bathsheba had opened her eyes. Remembering all that

had occurred, she murmured, “I want to go home!”

Boldwood left the room. He stood for a moment in the passage to recover

his senses. The experience had been too much for his consciousness to

keep up with, and now that he had grasped it it had gone again. For

those few heavenly, golden moments she had been in his arms. What did

it matter about her not knowing it? She had been close to his breast;

he had been close to hers.

He started onward again, and sending a woman to her, went out to

ascertain all the facts of the case. These appeared to be limited to

what he had already heard. He then ordered her horse to be put into the

gig, and when all was ready returned to inform her. He found that,

though still pale and unwell, she had in the meantime sent for the

Budmouth man who brought the tidings, and learnt from him all there was

to know.

Being hardly in a condition to drive home as she had driven to town,

Boldwood, with every delicacy of manner and feeling, offered to get her

a driver, or to give her a seat in his phaeton, which was more

comfortable than her own conveyance. These proposals Bathsheba gently

declined, and the farmer at once departed.

About half-an-hour later she invigorated herself by an effort, and took

her seat and the reins as usual—in external appearance much as if

nothing had happened. She went out of the town by a tortuous back

street, and drove slowly along, unconscious of the road and the scene.

The first shades of evening were showing themselves when Bathsheba

reached home, where, silently alighting and leaving the horse in the

hands of the boy, she proceeded at once upstairs. Liddy met her on the

landing. The news had preceded Bathsheba to Weatherbury by

half-an-hour, and Liddy looked inquiringly into her mistress’s face.

Bathsheba had nothing to say.

She entered her bedroom and sat by the window, and thought and thought

till night enveloped her, and the extreme lines only of her shape were

visible. Somebody came to the door, knocked, and opened it.

“Well, what is it, Liddy?” she said.

“I was thinking there must be something got for you to wear,” said

Liddy, with hesitation.

“What do you mean?”

“Mourning.”

“No, no, no,” said Bathsheba, hurriedly.

“But I suppose there must be something done for poor—”

“Not at present, I think. It is not necessary.”

“Why not, ma’am?”

“Because he’s still alive.”

“How do you know that?” said Liddy, amazed.

“I don’t know it. But wouldn’t it have been different, or shouldn’t I

have heard more, or wouldn’t they have found him, Liddy?—or—I don’t

know how it is, but death would have been different from how this is. I

am perfectly convinced that he is still alive!”

Bathsheba remained firm in this opinion till Monday, when two

circumstances conjoined to shake it. The first was a short paragraph in

the local newspaper, which, beyond making by a methodizing pen

formidable presumptive evidence of Troy’s death by drowning, contained

the important testimony of a young Mr. Barker, M.D., of Budmouth, who

spoke to being an eyewitness of the accident, in a letter to the

editor. In this he stated that he was passing over the cliff on the

remoter side of the cove just as the sun was setting. At that time he

saw a bather carried along in the current outside the mouth of the

cove, and guessed in an instant that there was but a poor chance for

him unless he should be possessed of unusual muscular powers. He

drifted behind a projection of the coast, and Mr. Barker followed along

the shore in the same direction. But by the time that he could reach an

elevation sufficiently great to command a view of the sea beyond, dusk

had set in, and nothing further was to be seen.

The other circumstance was the arrival of his clothes, when it became

necessary for her to examine and identify them—though this had

virtually been done long before by those who inspected the letters in

his pockets. It was so evident to her in the midst of her agitation

that Troy had undressed in the full conviction of dressing again almost

immediately, that the notion that anything but death could have

prevented him was a perverse one to entertain.

Then Bathsheba said to herself that others were assured in their

opinion; strange that she should not be. A strange reflection occurred

to her, causing her face to flush. Suppose that Troy had followed Fanny

into another world. Had he done this intentionally, yet contrived to

make his death appear like an accident? Nevertheless, this thought of

how the apparent might differ from the real—made vivid by her bygone

jealousy of Fanny, and the remorse he had shown that night—did not

blind her to the perception of a likelier difference, less tragic, but

to herself far more disastrous.

When alone late that evening beside a small fire, and much calmed down,

Bathsheba took Troy’s watch into her hand, which had been restored to

her with the rest of the articles belonging to him. She opened the case

as he had opened it before her a week ago. There was the little coil of

pale hair which had been as the fuze to this great explosion.

“He was hers and she was his; they should be gone together,” she said.

“I am nothing to either of them, and why should I keep her hair?” She

took it in her hand, and held it over the fire. “No—I’ll not burn

it—I’ll keep it in memory of her, poor thing!” she added, snatching

back her hand.