St. Valentine’s Day

St. Valentine’s Day is the occasion on which Bathsheba’s thoughtless valentine acquires a gravity its sender did not intend. Its place in the calendar links a winter game in the farmhouse to Boldwood’s sudden idealization of its message, while the novel’s later seasonal markers show rural work continuing beyond this disruption of feeling.

The winter setting and a game of divination

On the Sunday afternoon before the holiday, February 13, Bathsheba asks Liddy to sit with her in the farmhouse. In the dim, cold interior, Liddy suggests using a Bible and key to discover whom Bathsheba will marry. Bathsheba first dismisses the idea, then readily agrees to try it, despite Liddy’s concern that the practice may be wrong on a Sunday. Their exchange presents the holiday’s romantic atmosphere alongside a distinctly local, domestic custom: the prospect of marriage is approached as both a subject of speculation and a matter of chance.

Bathsheba finds a verse in the Book of Ruth and places the front-door key on the Bible. A rusty mark on the page shows that the volume has been used this way before. She blushes during the ritual but does not tell Liddy whose name she tried. The episode establishes the contrast that governs the later valentine: Bathsheba can enter into romantic suggestion playfully, without treating it as a deliberate declaration, while another person may attach much greater meaning to such signs.

The valentine and Boldwood’s response

On the evening of St. Valentine’s Day, Boldwood sits down to supper and repeatedly looks at Bathsheba’s letter, displayed on the mantelpiece above his timepiece. Its large red seal catches his attention, and he imagines the words “MARRY ME” though he cannot read them from where he sits. The playful command takes on a solemn cast in his quiet, grave household. By bedtime he places the valentine beside the looking-glass and remains conscious of it even when turned away.

Boldwood assumes that the letter must have had a substantial motive. The thought that it might have originated in a trivial impulse does not occur to him; instead, he imagines an unknown woman writing his name and wonders about the person behind the message. The date therefore marks not a mutual courtship but the beginning of a one-sided interpretation: a brief, unserious gesture from Bathsheba becomes, for Boldwood, evidence around which an ideal passion can form.

A date within the novel’s seasonal rhythm

The holiday’s effect is emotional, but it does not suspend the practical calendar of Weatherbury. By June 1, sheep-shearing fills the great barn, with Gabriel supervising and Bathsheba watching the workers’ care and efficiency. The scene emphasizes the collective, recurring labor on which the farm depends; Gabriel’s renewed energy is also checked by his lingering attachment to Bathsheba. The contrast places private feeling within the continuing demands of agricultural life.

After the shearing, Bathsheba encounters Sergeant Troy in the hayfield, where he has joined the haymakers voluntarily. Later, as a storm threatens the harvest, Gabriel reads signs in nature, estimates the stored corn at £750, and seeks help to protect it. In summer, the annual sheep fair at Greenhill gathers flocks and shepherds from near and far, including the united flocks of Bathsheba and Boldwood. Set against these dated labors and gatherings, St. Valentine’s Day is a small point in the year with an outsized personal consequence: the season turns on, while the meaning Boldwood gives the valentine continues to shape his expectations.