finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_40_part_0.txt
Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 41
chapter 41
{"name": "Chapter 41", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-41", "summary": "Bathsheba gives Troy the silent treatment during the evening after they return from the market, and he doesn't seem to mind all that much. The next day, Troy asks her for twenty pounds, which is a hefty sum of money. She asks him if it's for gambling on the horse races, and after a pause, he says \"Sure, why not?\" We readers know, though, that he's probably getting the money for Fanny. Bathsheba begs him to stay home. Finally, Troy admits that the money isn't for gambling. When he won't tell her what it's for, though, the two get into a terrible argument. Each of them tells the other that they wish they'd never gotten married. Bathsheba eventually gives up and hands over the money. Troy also says he plans on leaving the next day to go to Bath. Again, he won't tell Bathsheba about why he's going. At this point, Troy opens his pocket watch and Bathsheba sees a lock of blond hair fall out of it. She knows instantly that the hair belongs to another woman, though Troy tries to say it's hers. He eventually admits that it's the hair of a young woman he was going to marry before he met Bathsheba. He refuses to say the woman's name, though. But it comes out that the girl they met on the road a few days earlier is someone that Troy used to be engaged to, and that the hair in his watch is hers. At this point, Troy doesn't want to hash out details any longer, so he gets up and leaves the house. Bathsheba dissolves into tears. She leaves the house to walk in the fields. While doing so, she sees Farmer Boldwood at a distance stopping for a chat with Gabriel Oak. Joseph Poorgrass also stops to talk to the men, and then comes up the road to Bathsheba to tell her that her former servant, Fanny Robin, has died in the shelter at Casterbridge. Mr. Boldwood plans on sending a wagon for her body, but Bathsheba says she'll hear nothing of it. Fanny was her servant, so she'll send the cart. During the conversation, Bathsheba learns that Fanny had travelled to Casterbridge along the main road a few days earlier. This, of course, gets her wondering about whether this was the woman she saw with Troy. Apparently, Sergeant Troy has also said in the past that a man from his regiment used to be sweethearts with Fanny Robin. Bathsheba is starting to put two and two together.", "analysis": ""}


SUSPICION--FANNY IS SENT FOR


Bathsheba said very little to her husband all that evening of their
return from market, and he was not disposed to say much to her.  He
exhibited the unpleasant combination of a restless condition with a
silent tongue.  The next day, which was Sunday, passed nearly in the
same manner as regarded their taciturnity, Bathsheba going to church
both morning and afternoon.  This was the day before the Budmouth
races.  In the evening Troy said, suddenly--

"Bathsheba, could you let me have twenty pounds?"

Her countenance instantly sank. "Twenty pounds?" she said.

"The fact is, I want it badly."  The anxiety upon Troy's face was
unusual and very marked.  It was a culmination of the mood he had
been in all the day.

"Ah! for those races to-morrow."

Troy for the moment made no reply.  Her mistake had its advantages
to a man who shrank from having his mind inspected as he did now.
"Well, suppose I do want it for races?" he said, at last.

"Oh, Frank!" Bathsheba replied, and there was such a volume of
entreaty in the words.  "Only such a few weeks ago you said that I
was far sweeter than all your other pleasures put together, and that
you would give them all up for me; and now, won't you give up this
one, which is more a worry than a pleasure?  Do, Frank.  Come, let
me fascinate you by all I can do--by pretty words and pretty looks,
and everything I can think of--to stay at home.  Say yes to your
wife--say yes!"

The tenderest and softest phases of Bathsheba's nature were prominent
now--advanced impulsively for his acceptance, without any of the
disguises and defences which the wariness of her character when she
was cool too frequently threw over them.  Few men could have resisted
the arch yet dignified entreaty of the beautiful face, thrown a
little back and sideways in the well known attitude that expresses
more than the words it accompanies, and which seems to have been
designed for these special occasions.  Had the woman not been his
wife, Troy would have succumbed instantly; as it was, he thought he
would not deceive her longer.

"The money is not wanted for racing debts at all," he said.

"What is it for?" she asked.  "You worry me a great deal by these
mysterious responsibilities, Frank."

Troy hesitated.  He did not now love her enough to allow himself
to be carried too far by her ways.  Yet it was necessary to be
civil.  "You wrong me by such a suspicious manner," he said.  "Such
strait-waistcoating as you treat me to is not becoming in you at so
early a date."

"I think that I have a right to grumble a little if I pay," she said,
with features between a smile and a pout.

"Exactly; and, the former being done, suppose we proceed to the
latter.  Bathsheba, fun is all very well, but don't go too far, or
you may have cause to regret something."

She reddened.  "I do that already," she said, quickly.

"What do you regret?"

"That my romance has come to an end."

"All romances end at marriage."

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that.  You grieve me to my soul by
being smart at my expense."

"You are dull enough at mine.  I believe you hate me."

"Not you--only your faults.  I do hate them."

"'Twould be much more becoming if you set yourself to cure them.
Come, let's strike a balance with the twenty pounds, and be friends."

She gave a sigh of resignation.  "I have about that sum here for
household expenses.  If you must have it, take it."

"Very good.  Thank you.  I expect I shall have gone away before you
are in to breakfast to-morrow."

"And must you go?  Ah! there was a time, Frank, when it would have
taken a good many promises to other people to drag you away from me.
You used to call me darling, then.  But it doesn't matter to you how
my days are passed now."

"I must go, in spite of sentiment."  Troy, as he spoke, looked at his
watch, and, apparently actuated by _non lucendo_ principles, opened
the case at the back, revealing, snugly stowed within it, a small
coil of hair.

Bathsheba's eyes had been accidentally lifted at that moment, and she
saw the action and saw the hair.  She flushed in pain and surprise,
and some words escaped her before she had thought whether or not it
was wise to utter them.  "A woman's curl of hair!" she said.  "Oh,
Frank, whose is that?"

Troy had instantly closed his watch.  He carelessly replied, as one
who cloaked some feelings that the sight had stirred.  "Why, yours,
of course.  Whose should it be?  I had quite forgotten that I had
it."

"What a dreadful fib, Frank!"

"I tell you I had forgotten it!" he said, loudly.

"I don't mean that--it was yellow hair."

"Nonsense."

"That's insulting me.  I know it was yellow.  Now whose was it?  I
want to know."

"Very well--I'll tell you, so make no more ado.  It is the hair of a
young woman I was going to marry before I knew you."

"You ought to tell me her name, then."

"I cannot do that."

"Is she married yet?"

"No."

"Is she alive?"

"Yes."

"Is she pretty?"

"Yes."

"It is wonderful how she can be, poor thing, under such an awful
affliction!"

"Affliction--what affliction?" he inquired, quickly.

"Having hair of that dreadful colour."

"Oh--ho--I like that!" said Troy, recovering himself.  "Why, her hair
has been admired by everybody who has seen her since she has worn it
loose, which has not been long.  It is beautiful hair.  People used
to turn their heads to look at it, poor girl!"

"Pooh! that's nothing--that's nothing!" she exclaimed, in incipient
accents of pique.  "If I cared for your love as much as I used to I
could say people had turned to look at mine."

"Bathsheba, don't be so fitful and jealous.  You knew what married
life would be like, and shouldn't have entered it if you feared these
contingencies."

Troy had by this time driven her to bitterness: her heart was big in
her throat, and the ducts to her eyes were painfully full.  Ashamed
as she was to show emotion, at last she burst out:--

"This is all I get for loving you so well!  Ah! when I married you
your life was dearer to me than my own.  I would have died for
you--how truly I can say that I would have died for you!  And now
you sneer at my foolishness in marrying you.  O! is it kind to me to
throw my mistake in my face?  Whatever opinion you may have of my
wisdom, you should not tell me of it so mercilessly, now that I am
in your power."

"I can't help how things fall out," said Troy; "upon my heart, women
will be the death of me!"

"Well you shouldn't keep people's hair.  You'll burn it, won't you,
Frank?"

Frank went on as if he had not heard her.  "There are considerations
even before my consideration for you; reparations to be made--ties
you know nothing of.  If you repent of marrying, so do I."

Trembling now, she put her hand upon his arm, saying, in mingled
tones of wretchedness and coaxing, "I only repent it if you don't
love me better than any woman in the world!  I don't otherwise,
Frank.  You don't repent because you already love somebody better
than you love me, do you?"

"I don't know.  Why do you say that?"

"You won't burn that curl.  You like the woman who owns that pretty
hair--yes; it is pretty--more beautiful than my miserable black mane!
Well, it is no use; I can't help being ugly.  You must like her best,
if you will!"

"Until to-day, when I took it from a drawer, I have never looked upon
that bit of hair for several months--that I am ready to swear."

"But just now you said 'ties'; and then--that woman we met?"

"'Twas the meeting with her that reminded me of the hair."

"Is it hers, then?"

"Yes.  There, now that you have wormed it out of me, I hope you are
content."

"And what are the ties?"

"Oh! that meant nothing--a mere jest."

"A mere jest!" she said, in mournful astonishment.  "Can you jest
when I am so wretchedly in earnest?  Tell me the truth, Frank.  I
am not a fool, you know, although I am a woman, and have my woman's
moments.  Come! treat me fairly," she said, looking honestly and
fearlessly into his face.  "I don't want much; bare justice--that's
all!  Ah! once I felt I could be content with nothing less than the
highest homage from the husband I should choose.  Now, anything
short of cruelty will content me.  Yes! the independent and spirited
Bathsheba is come to this!"

"For Heaven's sake don't be so desperate!" Troy said, snappishly,
rising as he did so, and leaving the room.

Directly he had gone, Bathsheba burst into great sobs--dry-eyed sobs,
which cut as they came, without any softening by tears.  But she
determined to repress all evidences of feeling.  She was conquered;
but she would never own it as long as she lived.  Her pride was
indeed brought low by despairing discoveries of her spoliation by
marriage with a less pure nature than her own.  She chafed to and fro
in rebelliousness, like a caged leopard; her whole soul was in arms,
and the blood fired her face.  Until she had met Troy, Bathsheba had
been proud of her position as a woman; it had been a glory to her to
know that her lips had been touched by no man's on earth--that her
waist had never been encircled by a lover's arm.  She hated herself
now.  In those earlier days she had always nourished a secret
contempt for girls who were the slaves of the first good-looking
young fellow who should choose to salute them.  She had never taken
kindly to the idea of marriage in the abstract as did the majority of
women she saw about her.  In the turmoil of her anxiety for her lover
she had agreed to marry him; but the perception that had accompanied
her happiest hours on this account was rather that of self-sacrifice
than of promotion and honour.  Although she scarcely knew the
divinity's name, Diana was the goddess whom Bathsheba instinctively
adored.  That she had never, by look, word, or sign, encouraged a man
to approach her--that she had felt herself sufficient to herself,
and had in the independence of her girlish heart fancied there was
a certain degradation in renouncing the simplicity of a maiden
existence to become the humbler half of an indifferent matrimonial
whole--were facts now bitterly remembered.  Oh, if she had never
stooped to folly of this kind, respectable as it was, and could only
stand again, as she had stood on the hill at Norcombe, and dare Troy
or any other man to pollute a hair of her head by his interference!

The next morning she rose earlier than usual, and had the horse
saddled for her ride round the farm in the customary way.  When she
came in at half-past eight--their usual hour for breakfasting--she
was informed that her husband had risen, taken his breakfast, and
driven off to Casterbridge with the gig and Poppet.

After breakfast she was cool and collected--quite herself in
fact--and she rambled to the gate, intending to walk to another
quarter of the farm, which she still personally superintended as
well as her duties in the house would permit, continually, however,
finding herself preceded in forethought by Gabriel Oak, for whom she
began to entertain the genuine friendship of a sister.  Of course,
she sometimes thought of him in the light of an old lover, and had
momentary imaginings of what life with him as a husband would have
been like; also of life with Boldwood under the same conditions.
But Bathsheba, though she could feel, was not much given to futile
dreaming, and her musings under this head were short and entirely
confined to the times when Troy's neglect was more than ordinarily
evident.

She saw coming up the road a man like Mr. Boldwood.  It was Mr.
Boldwood.  Bathsheba blushed painfully, and watched.  The farmer
stopped when still a long way off, and held up his hand to Gabriel
Oak, who was in a footpath across the field.  The two men then
approached each other and seemed to engage in earnest conversation.

Thus they continued for a long time.  Joseph Poorgrass now passed
near them, wheeling a barrow of apples up the hill to Bathsheba's
residence.  Boldwood and Gabriel called to him, spoke to him for a
few minutes, and then all three parted, Joseph immediately coming
up the hill with his barrow.

Bathsheba, who had seen this pantomime with some surprise,
experienced great relief when Boldwood turned back again.  "Well,
what's the message, Joseph?" she said.

He set down his barrow, and, putting upon himself the refined aspect
that a conversation with a lady required, spoke to Bathsheba over the
gate.

"You'll never see Fanny Robin no more--use nor principal--ma'am."

"Why?"

"Because she's dead in the Union."

"Fanny dead--never!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What did she die from?"

"I don't know for certain; but I should be inclined to think it was
from general neshness of constitution.  She was such a limber maid
that 'a could stand no hardship, even when I knowed her, and 'a went
like a candle-snoff, so 'tis said.  She was took bad in the morning,
and, being quite feeble and worn out, she died in the evening.  She
belongs by law to our parish; and Mr. Boldwood is going to send a
waggon at three this afternoon to fetch her home here and bury her."

"Indeed I shall not let Mr. Boldwood do any such thing--I shall do
it!  Fanny was my uncle's servant, and, although I only knew her
for a couple of days, she belongs to me.  How very, very sad this
is!--the idea of Fanny being in a workhouse."  Bathsheba had begun to
know what suffering was, and she spoke with real feeling....  "Send
across to Mr. Boldwood's, and say that Mrs. Troy will take upon
herself the duty of fetching an old servant of the family....  We
ought not to put her in a waggon; we'll get a hearse."

"There will hardly be time, ma'am, will there?"

"Perhaps not," she said, musingly.  "When did you say we must be at
the door--three o'clock?"

"Three o'clock this afternoon, ma'am, so to speak it."

"Very well--you go with it.  A pretty waggon is better than an ugly
hearse, after all.  Joseph, have the new spring waggon with the blue
body and red wheels, and wash it very clean.  And, Joseph--"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Carry with you some evergreens and flowers to put upon her
coffin--indeed, gather a great many, and completely bury her in
them.  Get some boughs of laurustinus, and variegated box, and yew,
and boy's-love; ay, and some bunches of chrysanthemum.  And let old
Pleasant draw her, because she knew him so well."

"I will, ma'am.  I ought to have said that the Union, in the form of
four labouring men, will meet me when I gets to our churchyard gate,
and take her and bury her according to the rites of the Board of
Guardians, as by law ordained."

"Dear me--Casterbridge Union--and is Fanny come to this?" said
Bathsheba, musing.  "I wish I had known of it sooner.  I thought she
was far away.  How long has she lived there?"

"On'y been there a day or two."

"Oh!--then she has not been staying there as a regular inmate?"

"No.  She first went to live in a garrison-town t'other side o'
Wessex, and since then she's been picking up a living at seampstering
in Melchester for several months, at the house of a very respectable
widow-woman who takes in work of that sort.  She only got handy the
Union-house on Sunday morning 'a b'lieve, and 'tis supposed here and
there that she had traipsed every step of the way from Melchester.
Why she left her place, I can't say, for I don't know; and as to a
lie, why, I wouldn't tell it.  That's the short of the story, ma'am."

"Ah-h!"

No gem ever flashed from a rosy ray to a white one more rapidly than
changed the young wife's countenance whilst this word came from her
in a long-drawn breath.  "Did she walk along our turnpike-road?" she
said, in a suddenly restless and eager voice.

"I believe she did....  Ma'am, shall I call Liddy?  You bain't well,
ma'am, surely?  You look like a lily--so pale and fainty!"

"No; don't call her; it is nothing.  When did she pass Weatherbury?"

"Last Saturday night."

"That will do, Joseph; now you may go."

"Certainly, ma'am."

"Joseph, come hither a moment.  What was the colour of Fanny Robin's
hair?"

"Really, mistress, now that 'tis put to me so judge-and-jury like, I
can't call to mind, if ye'll believe me!"

"Never mind; go on and do what I told you.  Stop--well no, go on."

She turned herself away from him, that he might no longer notice the
mood which had set its sign so visibly upon her, and went indoors
with a distressing sense of faintness and a beating brow.  About an
hour after, she heard the noise of the waggon and went out, still
with a painful consciousness of her bewildered and troubled look.
Joseph, dressed in his best suit of clothes, was putting in the horse
to start.  The shrubs and flowers were all piled in the waggon, as
she had directed; Bathsheba hardly saw them now.

"Died of what? did you say, Joseph?"

"I don't know, ma'am."

"Are you quite sure?"

"Yes, ma'am, quite sure."

"Sure of what?"

"I'm sure that all I know is that she arrived in the morning and died
in the evening without further parley.  What Oak and Mr. Boldwood
told me was only these few words.  'Little Fanny Robin is dead,
Joseph,' Gabriel said, looking in my face in his steady old way.
I was very sorry, and I said, 'Ah!--and how did she come to die?'
'Well, she's dead in Casterbridge Union,' he said, 'and perhaps
'tisn't much matter about how she came to die.  She reached the
Union early Sunday morning, and died in the afternoon--that's clear
enough.' Then I asked what she'd been doing lately, and Mr. Boldwood
turned round to me then, and left off spitting a thistle with the end
of his stick.  He told me about her having lived by seampstering in
Melchester, as I mentioned to you, and that she walked therefrom at
the end of last week, passing near here Saturday night in the dusk.
They then said I had better just name a hint of her death to you, and
away they went.  Her death might have been brought on by biding in
the night wind, you know, ma'am; for people used to say she'd go off
in a decline: she used to cough a good deal in winter time.  However,
'tisn't much odds to us about that now, for 'tis all over."

"Have you heard a different story at all?" She looked at him so
intently that Joseph's eyes quailed.

"Not a word, mistress, I assure 'ee!" he said.  "Hardly anybody in
the parish knows the news yet."

"I wonder why Gabriel didn't bring the message to me himself.  He
mostly makes a point of seeing me upon the most trifling errand."
These words were merely murmured, and she was looking upon the
ground.

"Perhaps he was busy, ma'am," Joseph suggested.  "And sometimes he
seems to suffer from things upon his mind, connected with the time
when he was better off than 'a is now.  'A's rather a curious item,
but a very understanding shepherd, and learned in books."

"Did anything seem upon his mind whilst he was speaking to you about
this?"

"I cannot but say that there did, ma'am.  He was terrible down, and
so was Farmer Boldwood."

"Thank you, Joseph.  That will do.  Go on now, or you'll be late."

Bathsheba, still unhappy, went indoors again.  In the course of the
afternoon she said to Liddy, who had been informed of the occurrence,
"What was the colour of poor Fanny Robin's hair?  Do you know?  I
cannot recollect--I only saw her for a day or two."

"It was light, ma'am; but she wore it rather short, and packed away
under her cap, so that you would hardly notice it.  But I have seen
her let it down when she was going to bed, and it looked beautiful
then.  Real golden hair."

"Her young man was a soldier, was he not?"

"Yes.  In the same regiment as Mr. Troy.  He says he knew him very
well."

"What, Mr. Troy says so?  How came he to say that?"

"One day I just named it to him, and asked him if he knew Fanny's
young man.  He said, 'Oh yes, he knew the young man as well as he
knew himself, and that there wasn't a man in the regiment he liked
better.'"

"Ah!  Said that, did he?"

"Yes; and he said there was a strong likeness between himself and the
other young man, so that sometimes people mistook them--"

"Liddy, for Heaven's sake stop your talking!" said Bathsheba, with
the nervous petulance that comes from worrying perceptions.




Chapter 41
Bathsheba gives Troy the silent treatment during the evening after they return from the market, and he doesn't seem to mind all that much. The next day, Troy asks her for twenty pounds, which is a hefty sum of money. She asks him if it's for gambling on the horse races, and after a pause, he says "Sure, why not?" We readers know, though, that he's probably getting the money for Fanny. Bathsheba begs him to stay home. Finally, Troy admits that the money isn't for gambling. When he won't tell her what it's for, though, the two get into a terrible argument. Each of them tells the other that they wish they'd never gotten married. Bathsheba eventually gives up and hands over the money. Troy also says he plans on leaving the next day to go to Bath. Again, he won't tell Bathsheba about why he's going. At this point, Troy opens his pocket watch and Bathsheba sees a lock of blond hair fall out of it. She knows instantly that the hair belongs to another woman, though Troy tries to say it's hers. He eventually admits that it's the hair of a young woman he was going to marry before he met Bathsheba. He refuses to say the woman's name, though. But it comes out that the girl they met on the road a few days earlier is someone that Troy used to be engaged to, and that the hair in his watch is hers. At this point, Troy doesn't want to hash out details any longer, so he gets up and leaves the house. Bathsheba dissolves into tears. She leaves the house to walk in the fields. While doing so, she sees Farmer Boldwood at a distance stopping for a chat with Gabriel Oak. Joseph Poorgrass also stops to talk to the men, and then comes up the road to Bathsheba to tell her that her former servant, Fanny Robin, has died in the shelter at Casterbridge. Mr. Boldwood plans on sending a wagon for her body, but Bathsheba says she'll hear nothing of it. Fanny was her servant, so she'll send the cart. During the conversation, Bathsheba learns that Fanny had travelled to Casterbridge along the main road a few days earlier. This, of course, gets her wondering about whether this was the woman she saw with Troy. Apparently, Sergeant Troy has also said in the past that a man from his regiment used to be sweethearts with Fanny Robin. Bathsheba is starting to put two and two together.