Through a partly-opened door the noise of a scrubbing-brush led up to the charwoman, Maryann Money, a person who for a face had a circular disc, furrowed less by age than by long gazes of perplexity at distant objects. To think of her was to get good-humoured; to speak of her was to raise the image of a dried Normandy pippin.
"Stop your scrubbing a moment," said Bathsheba through the door to her. "I hear something."
Maryann suspended the brush.
The tramp of a horse was apparent, approaching the front of the building. The paces slackened, turned in at the wicket, and, what was most unusual, came up the mossy path close to the door. The door was tapped with the end of a crop or stick.
"What impertinence!" said Liddy, in a low voice. "To ride up the footpath like that! Why didn"t he stop at the gate? Lord! "Tis a gentleman! I see the top of his hat."
"Be quiet!" said Bathsheba.
The further expression of Liddy"s concern was continued by aspect instead of narrative.
"Why doesn"t Mrs. Coggan go to the door?" Bath-sheba continued.
Rat-tat-tat-tat resounded more decisively from Bath-sheba"s oak.
"Maryann, you go!" said she, fluttering under the onset of a crowd of romantic possibilities.
"Oh ma"am--see, here"s a mess!"
The argument was unanswerable after a glance at Maryann.
"Liddy--you must," said Bathsheba.
Liddy held up her hands and arms, coated with dust from the rubbish they were sorting, and looked imploringly at her mistress.
"There--Mrs. Coggan is going!" said Bathsheba, exhaling her relief in the form of a long breath which had lain in her bosom a minute or more.
The door opened, and a deep voice said--
"Is Miss Everdene at home?"
"I"ll see, sir," said Mrs. Coggan, and in a minute appeared in the room.
"Dear, what a thirtover place this world is!" continued Mrs. Coggan (a wholesome-looking lady who had a voice for each cla.s.s of remark according to the emotion involved; who could toss a pancake or twirl a mop with the accuracy of pure mathematics, and who at this moment showed hands s.h.a.ggy with fragments of dough and arms encrusted with flour). "I am never up to my elbows, Miss, in making a pudding but one of two things do happen--either my nose must needs begin tickling, and I can"t live without scratching it, or somebody knocks at the door. Here"s Mr. Boldwood wanting to see you, Miss Everdene."
A woman"s dress being a part of her countenance, and any disorder in the one being of the same nature with a malformation or wound in the other, Bathsheba said at once--
"I can"t see him in this state. Whatever shall I do?"
Not-at-homes were hardly naturalized in Weatherbury farmhouses, so Liddy suggested--"Say you"re a fright with dust, and can"t come down."
"Yes--that sounds very well," said Mrs. Coggan, critically.
"Say I can"t see him--that will do."
Mrs. Coggan went downstairs, and returned the answer as requested, adding, however, on her own responsibility, "Miss is dusting bottles, sir, and is quite a object--that"s why "tis."
"Oh, very well," said the deep voice indifferently. "All I wanted to ask was, if anything had been heard of f.a.n.n.y Robin?"
"Nothing, sir--but we may know to-night. William Smallbury is gone to Casterbridge, where her young man lives, as is supposed, and the other men be inquiring about everywhere."
The horse"s tramp then recommenced and retreated, and the door closed.
"Who is Mr. Boldwood?" said Bathsheba.
"A gentleman-farmer at Little Weatherbury."
"Married?"
"No, miss."
"How old is he?"
"Forty, I should say--very handsome--rather stern-looking--and rich."
"What a bother this dusting is! I am always in some unfortunate plight or other," Bathsheba said, complainingly. "Why should he inquire about f.a.n.n.y?"
"Oh, because, as she had no friends in her childhood, he took her and put her to school, and got her her place here under your uncle. He"s a very kind man that way, but Lord--there!"
"What?"
"Never was such a hopeless man for a woman! He"s been courted by sixes and sevens--all the girls, gentle and simple, for miles round, have tried him. Jane Perkins worked at him for two months like a slave, and the two Miss Taylors spent a year upon him, and he cost Farmer Ives"s daughter nights of tears and twenty pounds" worth of new clothes; but Lord--the money might as well have been thrown out of the window."
A little boy came up at this moment and looked in upon them. This child was one of the Coggans, who, with the Smallburys, were as common among the families of this district as the Avons and Derwents among our rivers. He always had a loosened tooth or a cut finger to show to particular friends, which he did with an air of being thereby elevated above the common herd of afflictionless humanity--to which exhibition people were expected to say "Poor child!" with a dash of congratulation as well as pity.
"I"ve got a pen-nee!" said Master Coggan in a scanning measure.
"Well--who gave it you, Teddy?" said Liddy.
"Mis-terr Bold-wood! He gave it to me for opening the gate."
"What did he say?"
"He said, "Where are you going, my little man?" and I said, "To Miss Everdene"s please," and he said, "She is a staid woman, isn"t she, my little man?" and I said, "Yes.""
"You naughty child! What did you say that for?"
""Cause he gave me the penny!"
"What a pucker everything is in!" said Bathsheba, discontentedly when the child had gone. "Get away, Maryann, or go on with your scrubbing, or do something! You ought to be married by this time, and not here troubling me!"
"Ay, mistress--so I did. But what between the poor men I won"t have, and the rich men who won"t have me, I stand as a pelican in the wilderness!"
"Did anybody ever want to marry you miss?" Liddy ventured to ask when they were again alone. "Lots of "em, I daresay?"
Bathsheba paused, as if about to refuse a reply, but the temptation to say yes, since it was really in her power was irresistible by aspiring virginity, in spite of her spleen at having been published as old.