The Hair in the Watch — Far from the Madding Crowd

After the Yalbury Hill silence Bathsheba and Troy pass a bitter Sunday: he asks abruptly for twenty pounds, and when he checks his watch she sees a yellow curl stowed in the case. He claims it belonged to a woman he nearly married before her, will not burn it, and speaks of ties and reparations she knows nothing of. She yields the household money though he says he may be gone before breakfast. Monday he drives to Casterbridge while she learns from Joseph Poorgrass that Fanny Robin is dead in the Union and Mr. Boldwood will send a waggon at three. Bathsheba takes charge herself: decorated spring waggon, evergreens, laurustinus, old Pleasant to draw. Joseph's account of Fanny walking from Melchester Saturday night makes Bathsheba turn lily-pale; she asks the colour of Fanny's hair and sends Joseph off. Alone with Liddy she learns the hair was real golden, and that Troy knew Fanny's soldier in his regiment, liked him, and said people sometimes mistook the two men for each other. Bathsheba stops Liddy's mouth with nervous petulance. Hardy knots suspicion from a watch curl, a hill encounter, and parish gossip into the afternoon that sends Fanny homeward in flowers the mistress herself orders.