The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy

To explain the miller's sudden proposal it is only necessary to go back / to that moment when Anne, Festus, and Mrs. Garland were talking together / on the down. John Loveday had fallen behind so as not to interfere with / a meeting in which he was decidedly superfluous; and his father, who / guessed the trumpet-major's secret, watched his face as he stood. John's / face was sad, and his eyes followed Mrs. Garland's encouraging manner to / Festus in a way which plainly said that every parting of her lips was / tribulation to him. The miller loved his son as much as any miller or / private gentleman could do, and he was pained to see John's gloom at such / a trivial circumstance. So what did he resolve but to help John there / and then by precipitating a matter which, had he himself been the only / person concerned, he would have delayed for another six months.

He had long liked the society of his impulsive, tractable neighbour, Mrs. / Garland; had mentally taken her up and pondered her in connexion with the / question whether it would not be for the happiness of both if she were to / share his home, even though she was a little his superior in antecedents / and knowledge. In fact he loved her; not tragically, but to a very / creditable extent for his years; that is, next to his sons, Bob and John, / though he knew very well of that ploughed-ground appearance near the / corners of her once handsome eyes, and that the little depression in her / right cheek was not the lingering dimple it was poetically assumed to be, / but a result of the abstraction of some worn-out nether millstones within / the cheek by Rootle, the Budmouth man, who lived by such practices on the / heads of the elderly. But what of that, when he had lost two to each one / of hers, and exceeded her in age by some eight years! To do John a / service, then, he quickened his designs, and put the question to her / while they were standing under the eyes of the younger pair.

Mrs. Garland, though she had been interested in the miller for a long / time, and had for a moment now and then thought on this question as far / as, 'Suppose he should, 'If he were to,' and so on, had never thought / much further; and she was really taken by surprise when the question / came. She answered without affectation that she would think over the / proposal; and thus they parted.

Her mother's infirmity of purpose set Anne thinking, and she was suddenly / filled with a conviction that in such a case she ought to have some / purpose herself. Mrs. Garland's complacency at the miller's offer had, / in truth, amazed her. While her mother had held up her head, and / recommended Festus, it had seemed a very pretty thing to rebel; but the / pressure being removed an awful sense of her own responsibility took / possession of her mind. As there was no longer anybody to be wise or / ambitious for her, surely she should be wise and ambitious for herself, / discountenance her mother's attachment, and encourage Festus in his / addresses, for her own and her mother's good. There had been a time when / a Loveday thrilled her own heart; but that was long ago, before she had / thought of position or differences. To wake into cold daylight like / this, when and because her mother had gone into the land of romance, was / dreadful and new to her, and like an increase of years without living / them.

But it was easier to think that she ought to marry the yeoman than to / take steps for doing it; and she went on living just as before, only with / a little more thoughtfulness in her eyes.

Two days after the visit to the camp, when she was again in the garden, / Soldier Loveday said to her, at a distance of five rows of beans and a / parsley-bed --

'You have heard the news, Miss Garland?'

'No,' said Anne, without looking up from a book she was reading.

'The King is coming to-morrow.'

'The King? ' She looked up then.

'Yes; to Gloucester Lodge; and he will pass this way. He can't arrive / till long past the middle of the night, if what they say is true, that he / is timed to change horses at Woodyates Inn -- between Mid and South / Wessex -- at twelve o'clock,' continued Loveday, encouraged by her interest / to cut off the parsley-bed from the distance between them.

Miller Loveday came round the corner of the house.

'Have ye heard about the King coming, Miss Maidy Anne? ' he said.

Anne said that she had just heard of it; and the trumpet-major, who / hardly welcomed his father at such a moment, explained what he knew of / the matter.

'And you will go with your regiment to meet 'en, I suppose? ' said old / Loveday.

Young Loveday said that the men of the German Legion were to perform that / duty. And turning half from his father, and half towards Anne, he added, / in a tentative tone, that he thought he might get leave for the night, if / anybody would like to be taken to the top of the Ridgeway over which the / royal party must pass.

Anne, knowing by this time of the budding hope in the gallant dragoon's / mind, and not wishing to encourage it, said, 'I don't want to go.'

The miller looked disappointed as well as John.

'Your mother might like to?'

'Yes, I am going indoors, and I'll ask her if you wish me to,' said she.