The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy

Meanwhile Anne Garland had gone home, and, being weary with her ramble in / search of Matilda, sat silent in a corner of the room. Her mother was / passing the time in giving utterance to every conceivable surmise on the / cause of Miss Johnson's disappearance that the human mind could frame, to / which Anne returned monosyllabic answers, the result, not of / indifference, but of intense preoccupation. Presently Loveday, the / father, came to the door; her mother vanished with him, and they remained / closeted together a long time. Anne went into the garden and seated / herself beneath the branching tree whose boughs had sheltered her during / so many hours of her residence here. Her attention was fixed more upon / the miller's wing of the irregular building before her than upon that / occupied by her mother, for she could not help expecting every moment to / see some one run out with a wild face and announce some awful clearing up / of the mystery.

Every sound set her on the alert, and hearing the tread of a horse in the / lane she looked round eagerly. Gazing at her over the hedge was Festus / Derriman, mounted on such an incredibly tall animal that he could see to / her very feet over the thick and broad thorn fence. She no sooner / recognized him than she withdrew her glance; but as his eyes were fixed / steadily upon her this was a futile manoeuvre.

'I saw you look round! ' he exclaimed crossly. 'What have I done to make / you behave like that? Come, Miss Garland, be fair. 'Tis no use to turn / your back upon me. ' As she did not turn he went on -- 'Well, now, this is / enough to provoke a saint. Now I tell you what, Miss Garland; here I'll / stay till you do turn round, if 'tis all the afternoon. You know my / temper -- what I say I mean. ' He seated himself firmly in the saddle, / plucked some leaves from the hedge, and began humming a song, to show how / absolutely indifferent he was to the flight of time.

'What have you come for, that you are so anxious to see me? ' inquired / Anne, when at last he had wearied her patience, rising and facing him / with the added independence which came from a sense of the hedge between / them.

'There, I knew you would turn round! ' he said, his hot angry face invaded / by a smile in which his teeth showed like white hemmed in by red at / chess.

'What do you want, Mr. Derriman? ' said she.

"What do you want, Mr. Derriman? " -- now listen to that! Is that my / encouragement?'

Anne bowed superciliously, and moved away.

'I have just heard news that explains all that,' said the giant, eyeing / her movements with somnolent irascibility. 'My uncle has been letting / things out. He was here late last night, and he saw you.'

'Indeed he didn't,' said Anne.

'O, now! He saw Trumpet-major Loveday courting somebody like you in that / garden walk; and when he came you ran indoors.'

'It is not true, and I wish to hear no more.'

'Upon my life, he said so! How can you do it, Miss Garland, when I, who / have enough money to buy up all the Lovedays, would gladly come to terms / with ye? What a simpleton you must be, to pass me over for him! There, / now you are angry because I said simpleton! -- I didn't mean simpleton, I / meant misguided -- misguided rosebud! That's it -- run off,' he continued in / a raised voice, as Anne made towards the garden door. 'But I'll have you / yet. Much reason you have to be too proud to stay with me. But it won't / last long; I shall marry you, madam, if I choose, as you'll see.'

When he was quite gone, and Anne had calmed down from the not altogether / unrelished fear and excitement that he always caused her, she returned to / her seat under the tree, and began to wonder what Festus Derriman's story / meant, which, from the earnestness of his tone, did not seem like a pure / invention. It suddenly flashed upon her mind that she herself had heard / voices in the garden, and that the persons seen by Farmer Derriman, of / whose visit and reclamation of his box the miller had told her, might / have been Matilda and John Loveday. She further recalled the strange / agitation of Miss Johnson on the preceding evening, and that it occurred / just at the entry of the dragoon, till by degrees suspicion amounted to / conviction that he knew more than any one else supposed of that lady's / disappearance.

It was just at this time that the trumpet-major descended to the mill / after his talk with his brother on the down. As fate would have it, / instead of entering the house he turned aside to the garden and walked / down that pleasant enclosure, to learn if he were likely to find in the / other half of it the woman he loved so well.

Yes, there she was, sitting on the seat of logs that he had repaired for / her, under the apple-tree; but she was not facing in his direction. He / walked with a noisier tread, he coughed, he shook a bough, he did / everything, in short, but the one thing that Festus did in the same / circumstances -- call out to her. He would not have ventured on that for / the world. Any of his signs would have been sufficient to attract her a / day or two earlier; now she would not turn. At last, in his fond / anxiety, he did what he had never done before without an invitation, and / crossed over into Mrs. Garland's half of the garden, till he stood before / her.

When she could not escape him she arose, and, saying 'Good afternoon, / trumpet-major,' in a glacial manner unusual with her, walked away to / another part of the garden.

Loveday, quite at a loss, had not the strength of mind to persevere / further. He had a vague apprehension that some imperfect knowledge of / the previous night's unhappy business had reached her; and, unable to / remedy the evil without telling more than he dared, he went into the / mill, where his father still was, looking doleful enough, what with his / concern at events and the extra quantity of flour upon his face through / sticking so closely to business that day.