go now.” Her manner was restive, for she remembered her promise, and imagined what he was about to say. “But as it is not late,” she added, “I can walk home, and leave my man and Liddy to come when they choose.”
“I’ve been trying to get an opportunity of speaking to you,” said Boldwood. “You know perhaps what I long to say?”
Bathsheba silently looked on the floor.
“You do give it?” he said, eagerly.
“What?” she whispered.
“Now, that’s evasion! Why, the promise. I don’t want to intrude upon you at all, or to let it become known to anybody. But do give your word! A mere business compact, you know, between two people who are beyond the influence of passion.” Boldwood knew how false this picture was as regarded himself; but he had proved that it was the only tone in which she would allow him to approach her. “A promise to marry me at the end of five years and three-quarters. You owe it to me!”
“I feel that I do,” said Bathsheba; “that is, if you demand it. But I am a changed woman — an unhappy woman — and not — not ——”
“You are still a very beautiful woman,” said Boldwood. Honesty and pure conviction suggested the remark, unaccompanied by any perception that it might have been adopted by blunt flattery to soothe and win her.
However, it had not much effect now, for she said, in a passionless murmur which was in itself a proof of her words: “I have no feeling in the matter at all. And I don’t at all know what is right to do in my difficult position, and I have nobody to advise me. But I give my promise, if I must. I give it as the rendering of a debt, conditionally, of course, on my being a widow.”
“You’ll marry me between five and six years hence?”
“Don’t press me too hard. I’ll marry nobody else.”
“But surely you will name the time, or there’s nothing in the promise at all?”
“Oh, I don’t know, pray let me go!” she said, her bosom beginning to rise. “I am afraid what to do! I want to be just to you, and to be that seems to be wronging myself, and perhaps it is breaking the commandments. There is considerable doubt of his death, and then it is dreadful; let me ask a solicitor, Mr. Boldwood, if I ought or no!”
“Say the words, dear one, and the subject shall be dismissed; a blissful loving intimacy of six years, and then marriage — O Bathsheba, say them!” he begged in a husky voice, unable to sustain the forms of mere friendship any longer. “Promise yourself to me; I deserve it, indeed I do, for I have loved you more than anybody in the world! And if I said hasty words and showed uncalled-for heat of manner towards you, believe me, dear, I did not mean to distress you; I was in agony, Bathsheba, and I did not know what I said. You wouldn’t let a dog suffer what I have suffered, could you but know it! Sometimes I shrink from your knowing what I have felt for you, and sometimes I am distressed that all of it you never will know. Be gracious, and give up a little to me, when I would give up my life for you!”
The trimmings of her dress, as they quivered against the light, showed how agitated she was, and at last she burst out crying. “And you’ll not — press me — about anything more — if I say in five or six years?” she sobbed, when she had power to frame the words.
“Yes, then I’ll leave it to time.”
She waited a moment. “Very well. I’ll marry you in six years from this day, if we both live,” she said solemnly.
“And you’ll take this as a token from me.”
Boldwood had come close to her side, and now he clasped one of her hands in both his own, and lifted it to his breast.
“What is it? Oh I cannot wear a ring!” she exclaimed, on seeing what he held; “besides, I wouldn’t have a soul know that it’s an engagement! Perhaps it is improper? Besides, we are not engaged in the usual sense, are we? Don’t insist, Mr. Boldwood — don’t!” In her trouble at not being able to get her hand away from him at once, she stamped passionately on the floor with one foot, and tears crowded to her eyes again.
“It means simply a pledge — no sentiment — the seal of a practical compact,” he said more quietly, but still retaining her hand in his firm grasp. “Come, now!” And Boldwood slipped the ring on her finger.
“I cannot wear it,” she said, weeping as if her heart would break. “You frighten me, almost. So wild a scheme! Please let me go home!”
“Only to-night: wear it just to-night, to please me!”
Bathsheba sat down in a chair, and buried her face in her handkerchief, though Boldwood kept her hand yet. At length she said, in a sort of hopeless whisper —
“Very well, then, I will to-night, if you wish it so earnestly. Now loosen my hand; I will, indeed I will wear it to-night.”
“And it shall be the beginning of a pleasant secret courtship of six years, with a wedding at the end?”
“It must be, I suppose, since you will have it so!” she said, fairly beaten into non-resistance.
Boldwood pressed her hand, and allowed it to drop in her lap. “I am happy now,” he said. “God bless you!”
He left the room, and when he thought she might be sufficiently composed sent one of the maids to her. Bathsheba cloaked the effects of the late scene as she best could, followed the girl, and in a few moments came downstairs with her hat and cloak on, ready to go. To get to the door it was necessary to pass through the hall, and before doing so she paused on the bottom of the staircase which descended into one corner, to take a last look at the gathering.
There was no music or dancing in progress just now. At the lower end, which had been arranged for the work-folk specially, a group conversed in whispers, and with clouded looks. Boldwood was standing by the fireplace, and he, too, though so absorbed in visions arising from her promise that he scarcely saw anything, seemed at that moment to have observed their peculiar manner, and their looks askance.
“What is it you are in doubt about, men?” he said.
One of them turned and replied uneasily: “It was something Laban heard of, that’s all, sir.”
“News? Anybody married or engaged, born or dead?” inquired the farmer, gaily. “Tell it to us, Tall. One would think from your looks and mysterious ways that it was something very dreadful indeed.”
“Oh no, sir, nobody is dead,” said Tall.
“I wish somebody was,” said Samway, in a whisper.
“What do you say, Samway?” asked Boldwood, somewhat sharply. “If you have anything to say, speak out; if not, get up another dance.”
“Mrs. Troy has come downstairs,” said Samway to Tall. “If you want to tell her, you had better do it now.”
“Do you know what they mean?” the farmer asked Bathsheba, across the room.
“I don’t in the least,” said Bathsheba.
There was a smart rapping at the door. One of the men opened it instantly, and went outside.
“Mrs. Troy is wanted,” he said, on returning.
“Quite ready,” said Bathsheba. “Though I didn’t tell them to send.”
“It is a stranger, ma’am,” said the man by the door.
“A stranger?” she said.
“Ask him to come in,” said Boldwood.
The message was given, and Troy, wrapped up to his eyes as we have seen him, stood in the doorway.
There was an unearthly silence, all looking towards the newcomer. Those who had just learnt that he was in the neighbourhood recognized him instantly; those who did not were perplexed. Nobody noted Bathsheba. She was leaning on the stairs. Her brow had