CHAPTER VI: YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER'S HOUSE
A mood of blitheness rarely experienced even by young men was Dick's onthe following Monday morning. It was the week after the Easter holidays,and he was journeying along with Smart the mare and the lightspring-cart, watching the damp slopes of the hill-sides as they streamedin the warmth of the sun, which at this unsettled season shone on thegrass with the freshness of an occasional inspector rather than as anaccustomed proprietor. His errand was to fetch Fancy, and someadditional household goods, from her father's house in the neighbouringparish to her dwelling at Mellstock. The distant view was darkly shadedwith clouds; but the nearer parts of the landscape were whitely illuminedby the visible rays of the sun streaming down across the heavy gray shadebehind.
The tranter had not yet told his son of the state of Shiner's heart thathad been suggested to him by Shiner's movements. He preferred to letsuch delicate affairs right themselves; experience having taught him thatthe uncertain phenomenon of love, as it existed in other people, was nota groundwork upon which a single action of his own life could be founded.
Geoffrey Day lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood, which formed portion ofone of the outlying estates of the Earl of Wessex, to whom Day was headgame-keeper, timber-steward, and general overlooker for this district.The wood was intersected by the highway from Casterbridge to London at aplace not far from the house, and some trees had of late years beenfelled between its windows and the ascent of Yalbury Hill, to give thesolitary cottager a glimpse of the passers-by.
It was a satisfaction to walk into the keeper's house, even as astranger, on a fine spring morning like the present. A curl ofwood-smoke came from the chimney, and drooped over the roof like a bluefeather in a lady's hat; and the sun shone obliquely upon the patch ofgrass in front, which reflected its brightness through the open doorwayand up the staircase opposite, lighting up each riser with a shiny greenradiance, and leaving the top of each step in shade.
The window-sill of the front room was between four and five feet from thefloor, dropping inwardly to a broad low bench, over which, as well asover the whole surface of the wall beneath, there always hung a deepshade, which was considered objectionable on every ground save one,namely, that the perpetual sprinkling of seeds and water by the cagedcanary above was not noticed as an eyesore by visitors. The window wasset with thickly-leaded diamond glazing, formed, especially in the lowerpanes, of knotty glass of various shades of green. Nothing was betterknown to Fancy than the extravagant manner in which these circular knotsor eyes distorted everything seen through them from the outside--liftinghats from heads, shoulders from bodies; scattering the spokes of cart-wheels, and bending the straight fir-trunks into semicircles. Theceiling was carried by a beam traversing its midst, from the side ofwhich projected a large nail, used solely and constantly as a peg forGeoffrey's hat; the nail was arched by a rainbow-shaped stain, imprintedby the brim of the said hat when it was hung there dripping wet.
The most striking point about the room was the furniture. This was arepetition upon inanimate objects of the old principle introduced byNoah, consisting for the most part of two articles of every sort. Theduplicate system of furnishing owed its existence to the forethought ofFancy's mother, exercised from the date of Fancy's birthday onwards. Thearrangement spoke for itself: nobody who knew the tone of the householdcould look at the goods without being aware that the second set was aprovision for Fancy, when she should marry and have a house of her own.The most noticeable instance was a pair of green-faced eight-day clocks,ticking alternately, which were severally two and half minutes and threeminutes striking the hour of twelve, one proclaiming, in Italianflourishes, Thomas Wood as the name of its maker, and the other--archedat the top, and altogether of more cynical appearance--that of EzekielSaunders. They were two departed clockmakers of Casterbridge, whosedesperate rivalry throughout their lives was nowhere more emphaticallyperpetuated than here at Geoffrey's. These chief specimens of themarriage provision were supported on the right by a couple of kitchendressers, each fitted complete with their cups, dishes, and plates, intheir turn followed by two dumb-waiters, two family Bibles, two warming-pans, and two intermixed sets of chairs.
But the position last reached--the chimney-corner--was, after all, themost attractive side of the parallelogram. It was large enough to admit,in addition to Geoffrey himself, Geoffrey's wife, her chair, and her work-table, entirely within the line of the mantel, without danger or eveninconvenience from the heat of the fire; and was spacious enough overheadto allow of the insertion of wood poles for the hanging of bacon, whichwere cloaked with long shreds of soot, floating on the draught like thetattered banners on the walls of ancient aisles.
These points were common to most chimney corners of the neighbourhood;but one feature there was which made Geoffrey's fireside not only anobject of interest to casual aristocratic visitors--to whom every cottagefireside was more or less a curiosity--but the admiration of friends whowere accustomed to fireplaces of the ordinary hamlet model. Thispeculiarity was a little window in the chimney-back, almost over thefire, around which the smoke crept caressingly when it left theperpendicular course. The window-board was curiously stamped with blackcircles, burnt thereon by the heated bottoms of drinking-cups, which hadrested there after previously standing on the hot ashes of the hearth forthe purpose of warming their contents, the result giving to the ledge thelook of an envelope which has passed through innumerable post-offices.
Fancy was gliding about the room preparing dinner, her head inclining nowto the right, now to the left, and singing the tips and ends of tunesthat sprang up in her mind like mushrooms. The footsteps of Mrs. Daycould be heard in the room overhead. Fancy went finally to the door.
"Father! Dinner."
A tall spare figure was seen advancing by the window with periodicalsteps, and the keeper entered from the garden. He appeared to be a manwho was always looking down, as if trying to recollect something he saidyesterday. The surface of his face was fissured rather than wrinkled,and over and under his eyes were folds which seemed as a kind of exterioreyelids. His nose had been thrown backwards by a blow in a poachingfray, so that when the sun was low and shining in his face, people couldsee far into his head. There was in him a quiet grimness, which would inhis moments of displeasure have become surliness, had it not beentempered by honesty of soul, and which was often wrongheadedness becausenot allied with subtlety.
Although not an extraordinarily taciturn man among friends slightlyricher than himself, he never wasted words upon outsiders, and to histrapper Enoch his ideas were seldom conveyed by any other means than nodsand shakes of the head. Their long acquaintance with each other's ways,and the nature of their labours, rendered words between them almostsuperfluous as vehicles of thought, whilst the coincidence of theirhorizons, and the astonishing equality of their social views, bystartling the keeper from time to time as very damaging to the theory ofmaster and man, strictly forbade any indulgence in words as courtesies.
Behind the keeper came Enoch (who had been assisting in the garden) atthe well-considered chronological distance of three minutes--an intervalof non-appearance on the trapper's part not arrived at without somereflection. Four minutes had been found to express indifference toindoor arrangements, and simultaneousness had implied too great ananxiety about meals.
"A little earlier than usual, Fancy," the keeper said, as he sat down andlooked at the clocks. "That Ezekiel Saunders o' thine is tearing onafore Thomas Wood again."
"I kept in the middle between them," said Fancy, also looking at the twoclocks.
"Better stick to Thomas," said her father. "There's a healthy beat inThomas that would lead a man to swear by en offhand. He is as true asthe town time. How is it your stap-mother isn't here?"
As Fancy was about to reply, the rattle of wheels was heard, and "Weh-hey, Smart!" in Mr. Richard Dewy's voice rolled into the cottage fromround the corner of the house.
"Hullo! there's Dewy's
cart come for thee, Fancy--Dick driving--aforetime, too. Well, ask the lad to have pot-luck with us."
Dick on entering made a point of implying by his general bearing that hetook an interest in Fancy simply as in one of the same race and countryas himself; and they all sat down. Dick could have wished her manner hadnot been so entirely free from all apparent consciousness of thoseaccidental meetings of theirs: but he let the thought pass. Enoch satdiagonally at a table afar off, under the corner cupboard, and drank hiscider from a long perpendicular pint cup, having tall fir-trees done inbrown on its sides. He threw occasional remarks into the general tide ofconversation, and with this advantage to himself, that he participated inthe pleasures of a talk (slight as it was) at meal-times, withoutsaddling himself with the responsibility of sustaining it.
"Why don't your stap-mother come down, Fancy?" said Geoffrey. "You'llexcuse her, Mister Dick, she's a little queer sometimes."
"O yes,--quite," said Richard, as if he were in the habit of excusingpeople every day.
"She d'belong to that class of womankind that become second wives: a rumclass rather."
"Indeed," said Dick, with sympathy for an indefinite something.
"Yes; and 'tis trying to a female, especially if you've been a firstwife, as she hev."
"Very trying it must be."
"Yes: you see her first husband was a young man, who let her go too far;in fact, she used to kick up Bob's-a-dying at the least thing in theworld. And when I'd married her and found it out, I thought, thinks I,''Tis too late now to begin to cure 'e;' and so I let her bide. Butshe's queer,--very queer, at times!"
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yes: there; wives be such a provoking class o' society, because thoughthey be never right, they be never more than half wrong."
Fancy seemed uneasy under the infliction of this household moralizing,which might tend to damage the airy-fairy nature that Dick, as maidenshrewdness told her, had accredited her with. Her dead silence impressedGeoffrey with the notion that something in his words did not agree withher educated ideas, and he changed the conversation.
"Did Fred Shiner send the cask o' drink, Fancy?"
"I think he did: O yes, he did."
"Nice solid feller, Fred Shiner!" said Geoffrey to Dick as he helpedhimself to gravy, bringing the spoon round to his plate by way of thepotato-dish, to obviate a stain on the cloth in the event of a spill.
Now Geoffrey's eyes had been fixed upon his plate for the previous fouror five minutes, and in removing them he had only carried them to thespoon, which, from its fulness and the distance of its transit,necessitated a steady watching through the whole of the route. Just asintently as the keeper's eyes had been fixed on the spoon, Fancy's hadbeen fixed on her father's, without premeditation or the slightest phaseof furtiveness; but there they were fastened. This was the reason why:
Dick was sitting next to her on the right side, and on the side of thetable opposite to her father. Fancy had laid her right hand lightly downupon the table-cloth for an instant, and to her alarm Dick, afterdropping his fork and brushing his forehead as a reason, flung down hisown left hand, overlapping a third of Fancy's with it, and keeping itthere. So the innocent Fancy, instead of pulling her hand from the trap,settled her eyes on her father's, to guard against his discovery of thisperilous game of Dick's. Dick finished his mouthful; Fancy finished hercrumb, and nothing was done beyond watching Geoffrey's eyes. Then thehands slid apart; Fancy's going over six inches of cloth, Dick's overone. Geoffrey's eye had risen.
"I said Fred Shiner is a nice solid feller," he repeated, moreemphatically.
"He is; yes, he is," stammered Dick; "but to me he is little more than astranger."
"O, sure. Now I know en as well as any man can be known. And you knowen very well too, don't ye, Fancy?"
Geoffrey put on a tone expressing that these words signified at presentabout one hundred times the amount of meaning they conveyed literally.
Dick looked anxious.
"Will you pass me some bread?" said Fancy in a flurry, the red of herface becoming slightly disordered, and looking as solicitous as a humanbeing could look about a piece of bread.
"Ay, that I will," replied the unconscious Geoffrey. "Ay," he continued,returning to the displaced idea, "we are likely to remain friendly wi'Mr. Shiner if the wheels d'run smooth."
"An excellent thing--a very capital thing, as I should say," the youthanswered with exceeding relevance, considering that his thoughts, insteadof following Geoffrey's remark, were nestling at a distance of about twofeet on his left the whole time.
"A young woman's face will turn the north wind, Master Richard: my heartif 'twon't." Dick looked more anxious and was attentive in earnest atthese words. "Yes; turn the north wind," added Geoffrey after animpressive pause. "And though she's one of my own flesh and blood . . ."
"Will you fetch down a bit of raw-mil' cheese from pantry-shelf?" Fancyinterrupted, as if she were famishing.
"Ay, that I will, chiel; chiel, says I, and Mr. Shiner only asking lastSaturday night . . . cheese you said, Fancy?"
Dick controlled his emotion at these mysterious allusions to Mr.Shiner,--the better enabled to do so by perceiving that Fancy's heartwent not with her father's--and spoke like a stranger to the affairs ofthe neighbourhood. "Yes, there's a great deal to be said upon the powerof maiden faces in settling your courses," he ventured, as the keeperretreated for the cheese.
"The conversation is taking a very strange turn: nothing that I have everdone warrants such things being said!" murmured Fancy with emphasis, justloud enough to reach Dick's ears.
"You think to yourself, 'twas to be," cried Enoch from his distantcorner, by way of filling up the vacancy caused by Geoffrey's momentaryabsence. "And so you marry her, Master Dewy, and there's an end o't."
"Pray don't say such things, Enoch," came from Fancy severely, upon whichEnoch relapsed into servitude.
"If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single, wedo," replied Dick.
Geoffrey had by this time sat down again, and he now made his lips thinby severely straining them across his gums, and looked out of the windowalong the vista to the distant highway up Yalbury Hill. "That's not thecase with some folk," he said at length, as if he read the words on aboard at the further end of the vista.
Fancy looked interested, and Dick said, "No?"
"There's that wife o' mine. It was her doom to be nobody's wife at allin the wide universe. But she made up her mind that she would, and didit twice over. Doom? Doom is nothing beside a elderly woman--quite achiel in her hands!"
A movement was now heard along the upstairs passage, and footstepsdescending. The door at the foot of the stairs opened, and the secondMrs. Day appeared in view, looking fixedly at the table as she advancedtowards it, with apparent obliviousness of the presence of any otherhuman being than herself. In short, if the table had been thepersonages, and the persons the table, her glance would have been themost natural imaginable.
She showed herself to possess an ordinary woman's face, iron-grey hair,hardly any hips, and a great deal of cleanliness in a broad white apron-string, as it appeared upon the waist of her dark stuff dress.
"People will run away with a story now, I suppose," she began saying,"that Jane Day's tablecloths are as poor and ragged as any unionbeggar's!"
Dick now perceived that the tablecloth was a little the worse for wear,and reflecting for a moment, concluded that 'people' in step-motherlanguage probably meant himself. On lifting his eyes he found that Mrs.Day had vanished again upstairs, and presently returned with an armful ofnew damask-linen tablecloths, folded square and hard as boards by longcompression. These she flounced down into a chair; then took one, shookit out from its folds, and spread it on the table by instalments,transferring the plates and dishes one by one from the old to the newcloth.
"And I suppose they'll say, too, that she ha'n't a decent knife and forkin her house!"
"I shouldn't
say any such ill-natured thing, I am sure--" began Dick. ButMrs. Day had vanished into the next room. Fancy appeared distressed.
"Very strange woman, isn't she?" said Geoffrey, quietly going on with hisdinner. "But 'tis too late to attempt curing. My heart! 'tis so growedinto her that 'twould kill her to take it out. Ay, she's very queer:you'd be amazed to see what valuable goods we've got stowed awayupstairs."
Back again came Mrs. Day with a box of bright steel horn-handled knives,silver-plated forks, carver, and all complete. These were wiped of thepreservative oil which coated them, and then a knife and fork were laiddown to each individual with a bang, the carving knife and fork thrustinto the meat dish, and the old ones they had hitherto used tossed away.
Geoffrey placidly cut a slice with the new knife and fork, and asked Dickif he wanted any more.
The table had been spread for the mixed midday meal of dinner and tea,which was common among frugal countryfolk. "The parishioners abouthere," continued Mrs. Day, not looking at any living being, but snatchingup the brown delf tea-things, "are the laziest, gossipest, poachest,jailest set of any ever I came among. And they'll talk about my teapotand tea-things next, I suppose!" She vanished with the teapot, cups, andsaucers, and reappeared with a tea-service in white china, and a packetwrapped in brown paper. This was removed, together with folds of tissue-paper underneath; and a brilliant silver teapot appeared.
"I'll help to put the things right," said Fancy soothingly, and risingfrom her seat. "I ought to have laid out better things, I suppose. But"(here she enlarged her looks so as to include Dick) "I have been awayfrom home a good deal, and I make shocking blunders in my housekeeping."Smiles and suavity were then dispensed all around by this bright littlebird.
After a little more preparation and modification, Mrs. Day took her seatat the head of the table, and during the latter or tea division of themeal, presided with much composure. It may cause some surprise to learnthat, now her vagary was over, she showed herself to be an excellentperson with much common sense, and even a religious seriousness of toneon matters pertaining to her afflictions.