Forty Eight: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy - Doubts Arise Doubts Vanish.

Bathsheba underwent the absence of her husband from hours to days with a slight feeling of surprise and relief. But she was not indifferent to her status as a married woman.  She belonged to him. The certainties of that position were well defined. For the first time she was aware that she was not an independent woman. Soon or later her husband would be home again. She had been in doubt about 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 of 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, poverty would be sure. 

Bathsheba lived in a perception that her purposes were broken off.  Her mistake had been a fatal one, she accepted her position and waited coldly. 

The first Saturday after Troy's disappearance, she went to Casterbridge alone.  She was passing through the crowd of rural business-men gathered as usual in front of the market-house, gazed upon by the burghers.  A man who had apparently been following her, said some words to another on her left hand. 

Bathsheba had keen ears of a wild animal, she distinctly heard what he said, though her back was towards him. 

"I am looking for Mrs Troy.  Is that she here?" 

"Yes; that's the young lady, I believe," said the young 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, "Oh, 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 the portico of the old corn exchange when she passed through, 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 Carrow cove.  A coast guard man found his clothes and brought them into Budmouth yesterday." 

A strange fire lighted Boldwood's eyes, and his face flushed with the suppressed excitement of an unutterable thought. Everybody's glance was now centred on 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 Three Choughs Inn.  Here he passed with her under the archway into a private room, and by the time he had deposited the precious burden upon the sofa, Bathsheba had opened her eyes, and remembering all that had occurred, 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 he had grasped it.  She had been in his arms for a few moments, and he felt those moments heavenly and golden.  She had been close to his breast, and 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, he found very 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.  Bathsheba by this time had gathered all the information from the Budmouth man who brought the news.  Boldwood then offered to get her a driver, or to give her a seat in his phaeton, which was more comfortable than her own conveyance.  Bathsheba gently declined this, and the farmer departed.

Later, Bathsheba took her seat and reins, and went out of the town, as if nothing had happened.  The first shades of evening were showing themselves when she reached home.

Silently alighting and leaving the horse in the hands of the boy, she proceeded upstairs.  Liddy met her on the landing.  The news had already reached home, and Liddy looked inquiringly into her mistress's face.

Bathsheba entered her bedroom and sat by the window, and thought and thought till night enveloped her.  Somebody came to the door, knocked, and opened it.

"Well, what's it, Liddy?" 

"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.

"But I suppose there must be something done for the 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 full of a feeling that he is still alive!"

Bathsheba remained firm in her opinion till Monday, when a local newspaper published a report with a presumptive evidence of Troy's death by drowning.  It contained the testimony of a young Mr Barker, M.D. of Budmouth, who spoke to being an eye witness of the accident, in a letter to the editor.  He was passing over the cliff on the remoter side of the cove just as the sun was setting.

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 the projection of the coast, and Mr Baker followed along the shore in the same direction.  But by the time 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 arrival of his clothes in the midst of her agitation assured the people around her that Troy was drowned.  She was led to believe that Troy had undressed in the full conviction of dressing again, but death would have prevented him.

Others were assured that Troy was dead.  Why should not she be? A strange reflection occured to her, that Troy had left her and followed Fanny into another world.

When alone that evening  beside a small fire, and much calmed down, Bathsheba took Troy's watch, 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 hair which had been the fuse to this great explosion.

"He was hers and she was his, and they were 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 will not burn it; I will keep it in memory of her, poor thing!" she added, snatching back her hand.

   .   END OF THE CHAPTER