Fifty Four: Far From The Madding Crowd: Thomas Hardy: After The Shock

Boldwood passed into the high road and turned in the direction of Casterbridge.  He passed the Buck's Head,  Casterbridge hill and descended down into the town. It was midnight.  The streets were deserted, the waving lamp-flames only lighted up the rows of gray shop shutters, and strips of white paving, upon which his steps echoed as he passed along.  He turned to the left and halted before an arching of old brown bricks, which was closed by an iron studded pair of doors.  This was the entrance to the jail, and over it a lamp was fixed, the light enabling him to find a bell-pull. 

A small wicket at length opened, and a porter appeared.  Boldwood stepped forward and said something in a low tone, when after some delay, another man came. Then Boldwood entered, and the door was closed behind him, and he walked the world no more. 

Weatherbury had been thoroughly shaken by the catastrophe.  Gabriel Oak was one among the first to come to the scene of tragedy.  All the female guests were huddled aghast against the walls, like sheep in a storm, and the men were distracted, not knowing what to do.  Bathsheba was sitting on the floor beside the body of Troy, his head being pillowed in her lap.  She covered the wound in his breast with the handkerchief in her right hand though scarcely any blood had flowed; and with other hand she tightly clasped one of his. 

"Gabriel," she said when he entered, "ride to Casterbridge for a surgeon. Mr Boldwood had shot my husband." 

Gabriel hurried out of the house, saddled the horse and rode away. Gabriel had got wind of sergeant Troy's roaming around the place, but he never thought of such a catastrophe would ever occur.  Mr Granthead the surgeon arrived at the behest of Gabriel, who was to remain in Casterbridge, to give notice to the authorities about the catastrophe. The surgeon found his way to the back of of Boldwood's house, and there he discovered in the kitchen an old man of whom he made inquiries. 

"She's had him took away to her own house, sir," said the old man. 

"Who has?" said the doctor.

"Mrs Troy.  He was quite dead, sir."

This was astonishing.  "But she has no right to do that," he said.  "There will have to be an inquest, and the body should have been left there." 

"Yes, sir. It was hinted to her that she had better wait till the law took its course.  But she said law was nothing to her, and she wouldn't let her dear husband's corpse bide neglected for folks to stare at, for all the crowners in England.

Mr Granthead drove at once up the hill back again to Bathsheba's house.

The first person he met was poor Liddy, who seemed to have dwindled in these latter hours.

"What has been done?" he asked.

"I don't know sir," said Liddy.  "My mistress has done it all." 

"Where is she?" 

"Upstairs with him, sir.  When he was brought home and taken upstairs she said she wanted no further help from the men.  And then she called me, and made me fill the bath, and bring what was necessary; and then she locked herself into the room alone with him, telling me I had better go and lie down, because I looked so ill. But I thought I would wait in the next room in case she should want me.  I heard her moving inside for more than an hour, but she came out only once, and that was for more candles because hers had burnt down into the socket.  She said we were to tell her when you or Mr Thirdly come, sir."

Oak entered with the parson at this moment, and they all went upstairs together, Liddy Smallbury leading them.  Silently they passed on, and at the landing, Liddy knocked the door.

Bathsheba's footsteps were heard crossing the room, the key turned in the lock, and she opened the door. She appeared calm, but her face looked rigid like a slightly animated Melpomene.

"Mr Granthead, you have come at last, she murmured, and threw back the door.

"Ah, and you, Mr Thirdly.  Well, all is done, and anyone may see him now." She then passed by them, crossed the landing and entered another room.

Looking into the chamber of death that she had vacated, they saw, by the light of two candles, which were on the drawers, a tall, straight shape lying at the farther end of the bed room, wrapped in a sheet.  Everything around was orderly.  The doctor went in, and after a few minutes, returned to the landing again, where Oak and parson waited still.

"It is all done indeed as she says," said Mr Granthead.  He is quite cold. The body is undressed and properly laid out in grave clothes.  Gracious Heaven --- this mere girl!  She must have the nerve of a very stoic.

"No; the heart of a wife only," floated in a whisper about the ears of the three; and turning they saw Bathsheba amidst them in the shade.

Then, as if at that moment to prove that her fortitude had been more of will than of spontaneity, she collapsed and silently sank down between them in a shapeless heap on the floor.

They took her back into the farther room and was got to bed, and Oak finding that everything was done in her case, left the house, Liddy keeping watch in her chamber, where she heard her terror stricken mistress moaning in whispers through the dull slow hours of the night, "oh, it is my fault, how can I live!  O Heaven how can I live!" 

         END OF THE CHAPTER