Forty One: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy - The End Of Fanny Robin

Both Bathsheba and her husband remained silent after their return from the market. Troy was restless too.  The next day, which was a Sunday the silence continued.  Bathsheba went to church in the morning and afternoon.  This was the day before the Budmouth races.  In the evening Troy said suddenly, "Bathsheba, could you let me have twenty pounds?" 

Her countenance instantly sank.  "Twenty pounds?

"The fact is I want it badly," said Troy, his face marked his unusual anxiety. He had been living with the anxiety, all the day.

"Ah! for those races tomorrow."

Troy, for the moment made no reply.

"Well, suppose I do want it for races?" he said at last.

"Oh, Frank!" Bathsheba replied, and there was such an entreaty in her words.  "Only a few days ago you said that I was far sweeter than all your other pleasures put together, and you would give them all up for me, and now won't you give up this one, which is more a worry than a pleasure?  Do, Frank. Come, let me fascinate you by all I can do --- by pretty words and pretty looks, and everything I can think of --- to stay at home.  Say yes to your wife.--- say yes!" 

The tender and soft phases of Bathsheba's nature were prominent now --- advanced impulsively for his acceptance, without any of the disguise and defence which the wariness of her character when she was cool threw over them.  Few men could have resisted the arch yet dignified entreaty of the beautiful face thrown a little back and sideways in the well-known attitude that expresses more than the words it accompanied, and which seems to have been designed for these special occasions.  Had the woman not been his wife, Troy would have succumbed instantly.

"The money is not for racing debts," he said.

"What is it for?" she asked.  "You worry me a great deal by these mysterious responsibilities, Frank.

Troy hesitated.  He did not now love her enough to allow himself to be carried too far by her ways.  But it was necessary to be civil.

"You wrong me by a such a suspicious manner," he said.  "Such  strait waist-coating as you treat me to is not becoming in you at so early a date."

"I think that I have a right to grumble a little if I pay," she said with features between smile and pout.

"Exactly; and, the former being done, suppose we proceed to the latter.  Bathsheba, fun is very well, but don't go too far, or you may have cause to regret." 

She reddened.  "I do that already," she said quickly.

"What do you regret" 

"That my romance has come to an end." 

"All romances end at marriage." 

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that.  You grieve me to my soul by being smart at my expense." 

"You are full enough at mine.  I believe you hate me."

"Not you.  --- only your vices.  I do hate them."

"Twould be much more becoming if you set yourself to cure them.  Come, let us strike a  balance with the twenty pounds, and be friends."

She gave a sigh of resignation.  "I have about that sum here for household expenses.  If you must have it, take it." 

"Very good.  Thank you.  I expect I shall have gone before you are into breakfast tomorrow."

"And you must go!  Ah!  There was a time you kept yourself by me.  You used to call me darling, then.  But it doesn't matter to you how my days are passed now."

"I must go, in spite of sentiment."  Troy, as he spoke, looked at his watch, and, apparently actuated by 

non lucendo  principles, opened the case at the back, snugly stowed within it, a small coil of hair.

Bathsheba's eyes had been accidentally lifted at that moment, and she saw the action, and saw the hair.  She flushed in pain and surprise, and some words escaped her before she had thought whether or not  it was wise to utter them.  "A woman's curl of hair!" she said.  "Oh, Frank, whose is that?"

Troy had instantly closed his watch.  He carelessly replied, as one who cloaked some feelings that the sight had stirred, "Why, yours, of course.  Whose should it be?" I had quite forgotten that I had it.

"What a dreadful fib, Frank!" 

"I tell you I had forgotten it!" he said, loudly.

"I don't mean that --- it was yellow hair." 

"Nonsense." 

"That's insulting me.  I know it was yellow.  Now whose was it?  I want to know." 

"Very well, I will tell you, so make no more ado.  It was the hair of a woman I was going to marry before I knew you."

"You ought to tell me her name, then."

"I cannot do that." 

"Is she married yet?" 

"No." 

"Is she alive?" 

"Yes." 

"Is she pretty?" 

"Yes." 

"It's wonderful how she can be, poor thing, under such an awful affliction?"

"Affliction? --- What affliction?" he inquired quickly.

"Having hair of that dreadful colour."

"Oh ---oh--- I like that!" said Troy, recovering himself.  "Why, her hair has been admired by everybody who has seen her since she has worn it loose, which has not been long.  It is beautiful hair.  People used to turn their heads to look at it, poor girl!"

"Pooh that's nothing --- that's nothing!" she exclaimed in incipient accents of pique. "If I cared for your love as much as I used to I could say people had turned to look at mine."

"Bathsheba, don't be so fitful and jealous, you knew what married life could be like, and shouldn't have entered it if you feared these contingencies."

Troy had by this time driven her to bitterness: her heart was big in her throat , and the ducts to her eyes were painful.  Ashamed as she was to show emotion, at last she burst out:---

"This is all I get for loving you so well!   Ah! When I married you your life was dearer to me than my own.  I would have died for you --- how truly I can say that I would have died for you!  And now you sneer at my foolishness in marrying you.  Oh! is it kind to me to throw my mistake in my face?  Whatever opinion you may have on my wisdom, you should not tell me of it so mercilessly, now that I am in your power." 

"I can't help things fall out," said Troy, "upon my heart, women will be the death of me!" 

"Well, you shouldn't keep people's hair.  You will burn it, won't you, Frank?" 

Frank went on as if he had not heard her.  "There are considerations even before my consideration for you: reparation to be made --- ties you know nothing of.  If you repent of marrying, so do I."

Trembling now, she put her hand upon his arm, saying, in mingled tones of wretchedness and coaxing, "I only repent it if you don't love me better than any woman in the world.  "I don't otherwise, Frank.  You don't repent because you already love somebody better than you love me, do you?" 

"I don't know.  Why do you say that?" 

"You won't burn that curl.  You like the woman who owns that pretty hair --- yes; it is pretty --- more beautiful than my miserable black mane!  Well, it is no use.  I can't help being ugly.  You must like her best, if you will!" 

"Until today when I took it from the drawer, I have never looked upon that bit of hair for several months --- that I am ready to swear."

"But just now you said, 'ties'; and then that woman we met?" 

"It was the meeting that reminded me of her." 

"Is it hers, then?"

"Yes.  There, now you have wormed it out of me.  I hope you are content."

"And what are the ties?"

"Oh!  That meant nothing --- a mere jest."

"A mere jest!" she said, in mournful astonishment.  "Can you jest when I am so wretchedly in earnest?  Tell me the truth, Frank.  I am not a fool, you know, although I am a woman, and have my woman's moments.  Come!  Treat me fairly," she said, looking honestly and fearlessly into his face.  "I don't want much; bare justice --- that's all.  Ah! Once I felt I could be content with nothing less than the highest homage from the husband I should choose.  Now, anything short of cruelty will content me.  Yes!  The independent Bathsheba and spirited Bathsheba is come to this!"

"For Heaven's sake don't be so desparate!" Troy said, snappishly rising as he did so, and leaving the room. 

Directly he had gone, Bathsheba burst into great sobs, dry eyed sobs, which cut as they came, without any softening by tears.  But she determined to repress all evidences of feeling.  She was conquered by the marriage; but she would never own it.  Her pride was brought to low by the discovery of her spoiled marriage.  She walked to and fro like a caged leopard; her soul was in arms, and blood fired her face.  She took pride in that her waist had never been encircled by a lover's arm, and her lips had not been touched by no man's on earth.  She hated herself now.

In her maiden days, she had nourished a secret contempt for girls who fall in love with the first good-looking young boy who choose to salute them.  She felt that her marriage was by an accident, and that it turned out to be a disaster.  Diana was the Goddess Bathsheba adored. 

Next morning, Bathsheba had her horse saddled for ride round the farm.  When she returned it was their usual breakfast time.  She was informed that Troy, after his breakfast driven off to Casterbridge with the gig and Poppet.

Bathsheba, after her breakfast rambled to the gate.  She wanted to take a walk to another quarter of the farm.  She was engrossed by the thought of Gabriel Oak, towards whom she began to entertain a genuine friendship.

Bathsheba saw that Boldwood was coming up the hill.  Gabriel Oak was at another part of the farm.  When they came face to face, Boldwood held up his hand to Gabriel.  They seemed to engage in earnest conversation.

Joseph Poorgrass now passed near them, wheeling a barrow of apples uphill to Bathsheba's house.  Boldwood and Gabriel called to him, spoke to him for a few minutes, and then all parted, Joseph Poorgrass coming up the hill with his barrow.

Bathsheba, who had seen this pantomime with surprise was relieved when Boldwood took a diversion.

"Well, what's the message, Joseph?" said Bathsheba when he approached.

Joseph Poorgrass set down his barrow, and, upon himself the refined aspect that a conversation with a lady required, spoke to Bathsheba over the gate.

"You will never see Fanny Robin, now on, ma'am." 

"Why?" 

"Because she is dead in the Union."  

"Fanny dead --- Never !" 

"Yes, ma'am." 

"What did she die from?" 

"I don't know for certain.  I think it was general weaknesses of constitution.  She was weak in mind and body, could not stand hardship, and went like a candle-snuff. Took bad in the morning, and died in the afternoon.  She belongs to our parish; and Mr Boldwood is going to send a wagon this afternoon to fetch her home here and bury." 

"Indeed I shall not let Mr Boldwood do any such thing --- I shall do it.  Fanny was my uncle's servant, and although I knew her for a couple of days she belongs to me.  How very very sad this is!  The idea of Fanny being in a workhouse."  Bathsheba had begun to know what suffering was, and she spoke with real feeling.... "Send across to Mr Boldwood's and say that Mrs Troy Will take upon herself the duty of fetching an old servant of the family..... We ought not to put her in a wagon; we will get her a hearse."

"There'll hardly be time, ma'am, will there?"

"Perhaps not," she said musingly.  "When did you say we must be at the door --- three o'clock?"

"Three o'clock this afternoon, ma'am, so to speak it."

"Very well --- you go with it.  A pretty wagon is better than an ugly hearse.  Joseph, have the new spring wagon with blue body and red wheels.  And wash it very clean.  And Joseph"  ---

"Carry with you some evergreens and flowers to put upon her coffin --- indeed, gather a great many, and completely bury her in them.  Get some boughs of laurustinus and variegated box, and yew, and boy's love, aye some bunches of crysanthemum.  And let old Pleasent draw her, because she knew him so well." 

"I will, ma'am.  I ought to have said that the Union in the form of four labouring men, will meet me when I get to our churchyard gate, and take her and bury her according to the rites of the Board of Guardians, as by law ordained."

" Dear me --- Casterbridge Union --- and is Fanny come to this!" said Bathsheba, musing.  "I wish I had known of it sooner.  I thought she was far away.  How long has she lived there?"

"Only been there a day or two."

"Oh! --- then she has not been staying there as a regular inmate."

"No.  She has been picking up a living at seampstering in Melchester for several months, at the house of a very respectable widow who took in work of that sort.  She got to the Union house on Sunday morning after walking all the way from Melchester.  Why did she leave Melchester, I can't say.  That's the short of the story ma'am."

"Ah-h !" 

"No gem ever flashed from a rosy ray to a white one more rapidly than changed young wife's countenance while this word came from her in a long drawn breath.

"Did she walk along our turn-pike road?" she said in a suddenly restless and eager voice.

"I believe she did .... ma'am, shall I call Liddy?  You aren't well ma'am, surely?  You look like a lily, so pale and faint!" 

"No; don't call her; it is nothing.  When did she passed Weatherbury?" 

"Last Saturday night." 

"That will do Joseph; now you may go." 

"Certainly ma'am." 

"Joseph, come hither a moment.  What was the color of Fanny Robin's hair?" 

"Really, mistress, now that it is put to me so judge-and-jury-like, I can't call to mind, if you will believe me." 

"Never mind; go on and do what I told you.  Stop--- well, no, go on."

She turned herself away from him, that he might no longer notice the mood which had set its sign so visibly upon her, and went indoors with a distressing sense of faintness and a beating brow.  

About an hour after, she heard the noise of wagon and went out, still with a painful consciousness of her bewildered and troubled look.

Joseph, dressed in his best suit of clothes, was putting in the horse to start.  The shrubs and flowers were all piled in the wagon, as she had directed.  Bathsheba hardly saw them now.

"Whose sweetheart did you say, Joseph?"

"I don't know ma'am."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Yes, ma'am, quite sure." 

"Sure of what?" 

"I am sure that all I know is that she arrived in the morning and died in the evening without further parley.  What Oak and Mr Boldwood told me was only these few words.  'Little Fanny Robin is dead, Joseph,' Gabriel said, looking into my face, in his steady old way.  I was very sorry, and I said, 'Ah! --- and how did she come to die?'

'well, she is dead in Casterbridge Union,' he said; and perhaps it isn't much matter about how she came to die.  She reached the Union early Sunday morning, and died in the afternoon --- that is clear enough.' Then I asked what she had been doing lately, and Mr Boldwood turned round to me, and left off spitting a thistle with the end of his stick. He told me about her having lived by seampstering in Melchester, as I mentioned to you, and that she walked therefrom at the end of the last week, passing near here Saturday night in the dusk.  Then they said I had just name a hint of her death to you, and away they they went.  Her death might have been brought on by biding in the night wind, you know ma'am; for people used to say she would go off in a decline: she used to cough a good deal in winter time.  However, it isn't much odds to us about that now, for it's all over."

"Have you heard a different story at all?"

"Not a word, mistress, I assure you," he said.  "Hardly anybody in the parish knows the news yet."

"I wonder why Gabriel didn't bring the message himself.  He mostly makes a point of seeing me upon the most trifling errand."

"Perhaps he was busy, ma'am," Joseph suggested.  And sometimes he seems to suffer from things upon his mind connected with the time he was better off.  He's rather a curious item, but a very understanding man, and learned in books." 

"Did anything seem upon his mind while he was speaking to you?" 

"He was down, and so farmer Boldwood." 

"Thank you, Joseph.  That'll do.  Go on now or you'll be late." 

Still unhappy, Bathsheba went indoors again.  In the course of the afternoon she said to Liddy, "What was the colour of poor Fanny Robin's hair?" Do you know?   I cannot recollect --- I only saw her for a day or two."

"It was light, ma'am; but she wore it rather short, and packed away under her cap, so that you would hardly notice it.  But I have seen her let it down, when she was going to bed, and it looked beautiful.  Real golden hair." 

"Her young man was a soldier, was he not?" 

"Yes.  In the same regiment as Mr Troy.  He says he knew him well." 

"What, Mr Troy says so?  How came he to say that?"

"One day I just named it to him, and asked him if he knew Fanny's young man.  He said, 'Oh yes, I know him; and he knows me too.  And there wasn't a man in the regiment I liked best.'"

"Ah!  Said that.  Did he?"

"And he said there was a strong likeness between himself and the other young man, so that sometimes people mistook them."

"Liddy, for heaven's sake stop your talking!" said Bathsheba, with the nervous petulance that comes from worrying perceptions.

END OF THE CHAPTER