The leaves lie thick in the woods, and Bathsheba lives in a quietness that is not peace. While she thought Troy alive she could think of his death with calm. Now that he may truly be gone, she finds she regrets that he is not hers still. She keeps the farm going, rakes in her profits without caring about them, and looks back at her old life across a great gulf, as if she were a dead person left with the habit of thinking. One good thing comes of all this apathy: Oak is at last made bailiff. He has done the work for years, so the change brings him more wages and little else.
Boldwood shuts himself away. His wheat and all his barley are spoilt by rain, sprout into thick mats, and are thrown to the pigs in armfuls. His men say they warned him as often as they dared. It is the sight of the pigs turning in disgust from the rotten ears that rouses him, and he sends for Oak and asks him to manage the Lower Farm as well. Bathsheba objects, languidly, and Boldwood never speaks to her himself, only through Oak, who rides about two thousand acres on a cob as though the crops were his own, while the real owners sit in gloom at home. The parish begins to say Gabriel is feathering his nest, since he now has a share of Boldwood's receipts. Yet he lives in the same cottage and pares his own potatoes.
A great hope has been growing in Boldwood since the news of the drowning, and it grows each Sunday that Bathsheba comes to church in mourning. At the haymaking, after she returns from two months at Norcombe, he finds a reason to talk to Liddy in the field. He asks about her mistress, about whether she tells her everything, and about marriage, and he goes away red and ashamed of this first underhand act of his life. Liddy has given him one fact: Bathsheba once said she might marry again in seven years. Boldwood counts the years and finds six, and decides that six years is nothing for such a woman. Liddy, raking beside him, has only noticed how stupid he has become, and as far as she knows her mistress never speaks of marrying at all.
Coming Up in Chapter 50
Greenhill is the Nijni Novgorod of South Wessex, and its sheep fair is held on a hilltop ringed by an ancient earthwork. Shepherds drive their flocks there for days, and Gabriel brings the combined flocks of Bathsheba and Boldwood, with Cain Ball and old George the dog behind them. At midday a huge new tent goes up.
