the house, where 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 his informant.
“Who has?” said the doctor.
“Mrs. Troy. ‘A was quite dead, sir.”
This was astonishing information. “She had no right to do that,” said the doctor. “There will have to be an inquest, and she should have waited to know what to do.”
“Yes, sir; it was hinted to her that she had better wait till the law was known. 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. Aldritch drove at once back again up the hill to Bathsheba’s. The first person he met was poor Liddy, who seemed literally to have dwindled smaller in these few latter hours. “What has been done?” he said.
“I don’t know, sir,” said Liddy, with suspended breath. “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 after that told me I had better go and lie down because I looked so ill. Then she locked herself into the room alone with him, and would not let a nurse come in, or anybody at all. But I thought I’d wait in the next room in case she should want me. I heard her moving about inside for more than an hour, but she only came out once, and that was for more candles, because hers had burnt down into the socket. She said we were to let her know when you or Mr. Thirdly came, sir.”
Oak entered with the parson at this moment, and they all went upstairs together, preceded by Liddy Smallbury. Everything was silent as the grave when they paused on the landing. Liddy knocked, and Bathsheba’s dress was heard rustling across the room: the key turned in the lock, and she opened the door. Her looks were calm and nearly rigid, like a slightly animated bust of Melpomene.
“Oh, Mr. Aldritch, you have come at last,” she murmured from her lips merely, and threw back the door. “Ah, and Mr. Thirdly. Well, all is done, and anybody in the world may see him now.” She then passed by him, crossed the landing, and entered another room.
Looking into the chamber of death she had vacated they saw by the light of the candles which were on the drawers a tall straight shape lying at the further end of the bedroom, wrapped in white. Everything around was quite orderly. The doctor went in, and after a few minutes returned to the landing again, where Oak and the parson still waited.
“It is all done, indeed, as she says,” remarked Mr. Aldritch, in a subdued voice. “The body has been undressed and properly laid out in grave clothes. Gracious Heaven — this mere girl! She must have the nerve of a stoic!”
“The heart of a wife merely,” floated in a whisper about the ears of the three, and turning they saw Bathsheba in the midst of them. Then, as if at that instant to prove that her fortitude had been more of will than of spontaneity, she silently sank down between them and was a shapeless heap of drapery on the floor. The simple consciousness that superhuman strain was no longer required had at once put a period to her power to continue it.
They took her away into a further room, and the medical attendance which had been useless in Troy’s case was invaluable in Bathsheba’s, who fell into a series of fainting-fits that had a serious aspect for a time. The sufferer was got to bed, and Oak, finding from the bulletins that nothing really dreadful was to be apprehended on her score, left the house. Liddy kept watch in Bathsheba’s chamber, where she heard her mistress, moaning in whispers through the dull slow hours of that wretched night: “Oh it is my fault — how can I live! O Heaven, how can I live!”
Chapter 55
The March Following — “Bathsheba Boldwood”
We pass rapidly on into the month of March, to a breezy day without sunshine, frost, or dew. On Yalbury Hill, about midway between Weatherbury and Casterbridge, where the turnpike road passes over the crest, a numerous concourse of people had gathered, the eyes of the greater number being frequently stretched afar in a northerly direction. The groups consisted of a throng of idlers, a party of javelin-men, and two trumpeters, and in the midst were carriages, one of which contained the high sheriff. With the idlers, many of whom had mounted to the top of a cutting formed for the road, were several Weatherbury men and boys — among others Poorgrass, Coggan, and Cain Ball.
At the end of half-an-hour a faint dust was seen in the expected quarter, and shortly after a travelling-carriage, bringing one of the two judges on the Western Circuit, came up the hill and halted on the top. The judge changed carriages whilst a flourish was blown by the big-cheeked trumpeters, and a procession being formed of the vehicles and javelin-men, they all proceeded towards the town, excepting the Weatherbury men, who as soon as they had seen the judge move off returned home again to their work.
“Joseph, I seed you squeezing close to the carriage,” said Coggan, as they walked. “Did ye notice my lord judge’s face?”
“I did,” said Poorgrass. “I looked hard at en, as if I would read his very soul; and there was mercy in his eyes — or to speak with the exact truth required of us at this solemn time, in the eye that was towards me.”
“Well, I hope for the best,” said Coggan, “though bad that must be. However, I shan’t go to the trial, and I’d advise the rest of ye that bain’t wanted to bide away. ’Twill disturb his mind more than anything to see us there staring at him as if he were a show.”
“The very thing I said this morning,” observed Joseph, “‘Justice is come to weigh him in the balances,’ I said in my reflectious way, ‘and if he’s found wanting, so be it unto him,’ and a bystander said ‘Hear, hear! A man who can talk like that ought to be heard.’ But I don’t like dwelling upon it, for my few words are my few words, and not much; though the speech of some men is rumoured abroad as though by nature formed for such.”
“So ’tis, Joseph. And now, neighbours, as I said, every man bide at home.”
The resolution was adhered to; and all waited anxiously for the news next day. Their suspense was diverted, however, by a discovery which was made in the afternoon, throwing more light on Boldwood’s conduct and condition than any details which had preceded it.
That he had been from the time of Greenhill Fair until the fatal Christmas Eve in excited and unusual moods was known to those who had been intimate with him; but nobody imagined that there had shown in him unequivocal symptoms of the mental derangement which Bathsheba and Oak, alone of all others and at different times, had momentarily suspected. In a locked closet was now discovered an extraordinary collection of articles. There were several sets of ladies’ dresses in the piece, of sundry expensive materials; silks and satins, poplins and velvets, all of colours which from Bathsheba’s style of dress might have been judged to be her favourites. There were two muffs, sable and ermine. Above all there was a case of jewellery, containing four heavy gold bracelets and several lockets and rings, all of fine quality and manufacture. These things had been bought in Bath and other towns from time to time, and brought home by stealth. They were all carefully packed in paper, and each package was labelled “Bathsheba Boldwood,” a date being subjoined six years in advance in every instance.
These somewhat pathetic evidences of a mind crazed with care and love were the subject of discourse in Warren’s malt-house when Oak entered from Casterbridge with tidings of sentence. He came in the afternoon, and his face, as the kiln glow shone upon it, told the tale sufficiently well. Boldwood, as every one supposed he would do, had pleaded guilty, and had been sentenced to death.
The conviction that Boldwood had not been morally responsible for his later acts now became general. Facts elicited previous to the trial had pointed strongly in