The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy
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Title: The Return of the Native
Author: Thomas Hardy
Release Date: January 12, 2006 [eBook #17500]
Most recently updated: March 13, 2013
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE***
E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D., and John Hamm
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
by
THOMAS HARDY
1912
CONTENTS
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
BOOK FIRST: THE THREE WOMEN
I. A Face on Which Time Makes But Little Impression
II. Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble
III. The Custom of the Country
IV. The Halt on the Turnpike Road
V. Perplexity among Honest People
VI. The Figure against the Sky
VII. Queen of Night
VIII. Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody
IX. Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy
X. A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion
XI. The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman
BOOK SECOND: THE ARRIVAL
I. Tidings of the Comer
II. The People at Blooms-End Make Ready
III. How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream
IV. Eustacia Is Led On to an Adventure
V. Through the Moonlight
VI. The Two Stand Face to Face
VII. A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness
VIII. Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart
BOOK THIRD: THE FASCINATION
I. "My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"
II. The New Course Causes Disappointment
III. The First Act in a Timeworn Drama
IV. An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness
V. Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues
VI. Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete
VII. The Morning and the Evening of a Day
VIII. A New Force Disturbs the Current
BOOK FOURTH: THE CLOSED DOOR
I. The Rencounter by the Pool
II. He Is Set Upon by Adversities; but He Sings a Song
III. She Goes Out to Battle against Depression
IV. Rough Coercion Is Employed
V. The Journey across the Heath
VI. A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian
VII. The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends
VIII. Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil
BOOK FIFTH: THE DISCOVERY
I. "Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery"
II. A Lurid Light Breaks In upon a Darkened Understanding
III. Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning
IV. The Ministrations of a Half-Forgotten One
V. An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated
VI. Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter
VII. The Night of the Sixth of November
VIII. Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers
IX. Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
BOOK SIXTH: AFTERCOURSES
I. The Inevitable Movement Onward
II. Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road
III. The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin
IV. Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End,
and Clym Finds His Vocation
"To sorrow
I bade good morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind.
I would deceive her,
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind."
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The date at which the following events are assumed to have occurred
may be set down as between 1840 and 1850, when the old watering-place
herein called "Budmouth" still retained sufficient afterglow from its
Georgian gaiety and prestige to lend it an absorbing attractiveness to
the romantic and imaginative soul of a lonely dweller inland.
Under the general name of "Egdon Heath," which has been given to the
sombre scene of the story, are united or typified heaths of various
real names, to the number of at least a dozen; these being virtually
one in character and aspect, though their original unity, or partial
unity, is now somewhat disguised by intrusive strips and slices
brought under the plough with varying degrees of success, or planted
to woodland.
It is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive tract whose
south-western quarter is here described, may be the heath of that
traditionary King of Wessex--Lear.
July 1895
POSTSCRIPT
To prevent disappointment to searchers for scenery it should be added
that though the action of the narrative is supposed to proceed in the
central and most secluded part of the heaths united into one whole,
as above described, certain topographical features resembling those
delineated really lie on the margin of the waste, several miles to the
westward of the centre. In some other respects also there has been a
bringing together of scattered characteristics.
The first edition of this novel was published in three volumes in
1878.
April 1912 T. H.
BOOK FIRST
THE THREE WOMEN
I
A Face on Which Time Makes But Little Impression
A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight,
and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned
itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud
shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its
floor.
The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with
the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was
clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of
an instalment of night which had taken up its place before its
astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived
hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a
furze-cutter would have been inclined to continue work; looking down,
he would have decided to finish his faggot and go home. The distant
rims of the world and of the firmament seemed to be a division in time
no less than a division in matter. The face of the heath by its mere
complexion added half an hour to evening; it could in like manner
retard the dawn, sadden noon, anticipate the frowning of storms
scarcely generated, and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight
to a cause of shaking and dread.
In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into
darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and
nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at
such a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen,
its complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding
hours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true
tale. The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and when night
showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate together could be
perceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre stretch of rounds
and hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure
sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens
precipitated it. And so the obscurity in the air and the obscurity in
the land closed together in a black fraternization towards which each
advanced half-way.
The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other
things sank brooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and
listen. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but
it had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the
crises of so many things, that it could only be imagined to await one
last crisis--the final overthrow.
It was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who loved it
with an aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity. Smiling champaigns of
flowers and fruit hardly do this, for they are permanently harmonious
only with an existence of better reputation as to its issues than the
present. Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve
a thing majestic without severity, impressive without showiness,
emphatic in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity. The
qualifications which frequently invest the façade of a prison with far
more dignity than is found in the façade of a palace double its size
lent to this heath a sublimity in which spots renowned for beauty of
the accepted kind are utterly wanting. Fair prospects wed happily
with fair times; but alas, if times be not fair! Men have oftener
suffered from the mockery of a place too smiling for their reason
than from the oppression of surroundings oversadly tinged. Haggard
Egdon appealed to a subtler and scarcer instinct, to a more recently
learnt emotion, than that which responds to the sort of beauty called
charming and fair.
Indeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this orthodox
beauty is not approaching its last quarter. The new Vale of Tempe
may be a gaunt waste in Thule; human souls may find themselves in
closer and closer harmony with external things wearing a sombreness
distasteful to our race when it was young. The time seems near, if it
has not actually arrived, when the chastened sublimity of a moor, a
sea, or a mountain will be all of nature that is absolutely in keeping
with the moods of the more thinking among mankind. And ultimately,
to the commonest tourist, spots like Iceland may become what the
vineyards and myrtle-gardens of South Europe are to him now; and
Heidelberg and Baden be passed unheeded as he hastens from the Alps to
the sand-dunes of Scheveningen.
The most thorough-going ascetic could feel that he had a natural right
to wander on Egdon: he was keeping within the line of legitimate
indulgence when he laid himself open to influences such as these.
Colours and beauties so far subdued were, at least, the birthright of
all. Only in summer days of highest feather did its mood touch the
level of gaiety. Intensity was more usually reached by way of the
solemn than by way of the brilliant, and such a sort of intensity was
often arrived at during winter darkness, tempests, and mists. Then
Egdon was aroused to reciprocity; for the storm was its lover, and
the wind its friend. Then it became the home of strange phantoms; and
it was found to be the hitherto unrecognized original of those wild
regions of obscurity which are vaguely felt to be compassing us about
in midnight dreams of flight and disaster, and are never thought of
after the dream till revived by scenes like this.
It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man's
nature--neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace,
unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal
singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with
some persons who have long lived apart, solitude seemed to look
out of its countenance. It had a lonely face, suggesting tragical
possibilities.
This obscure, obsolete, superseded country figures in Domesday.
Its condition is recorded therein as that of heathy, furzy, briary
wilderness--"Bruaria." Then follows the length and breadth in
leagues; and, though some uncertainty exists as to the exact extent of
this ancient lineal measure, it appears from the figures that the area
of Egdon down to the present day has but little diminished. "Turbaria
Bruaria"--the right of cutting heath-turf--occurs in charters relating
to the district. "Overgrown with heth and mosse," says Leland of the
same dark sweep of country.
Here at least were intelligible facts regarding
landscape--far-reaching proofs productive of genuine satisfaction.
The untameable, Ishmaelitish thing that Egdon now was it always had
been. Civilization was its enemy; and ever since the beginning of
vegetation its soil had worn the same antique brown dress, the natural
and invariable garment of the particular formation. In its venerable
one coat lay a certain vein of satire on human vanity in clothes. A
person on a heath in raiment of modern cut and colours has more or
less an anomalous look. We seem to want the oldest and simplest human
clothing where the clothing of the earth is so primitive.
To recline on a stump of thorn in the central valley of Egdon, between
afternoon and night, as now, where the eye could reach nothing of the
world outside the summits and shoulders of heathland which filled the
whole circumference of its glance, and to know that everything around
and underneath had been from prehistoric times as unaltered as the
stars overhead, gave ballast to the mind adrift on change, and
harassed by the irrepressible New. The great inviolate place had
an ancient permanence which the sea cannot claim. Who can say of a
particular sea that it is old? Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the
moon, it is renewed in a year, in a day, or in an hour. The sea
changed, the fields changed, the rivers, the villages, and the people
changed, yet Egdon remained. Those surfaces were neither so steep as
to be destructible by weather, nor so flat as to be the victims of
floods and deposits. With the exception of an aged highway, and a
still more aged barrow presently to be referred to--themselves almost
crystallized to natural products by long continuance--even the
trifling irregularities were not caused by pickaxe, plough, or spade,
but remained as the very finger-touches of the last geological change.
The above-mentioned highway traversed the lower levels of the heath,
from one horizon to another. In many portions of its course it
overlaid an old vicinal way, which branched from the great Western
road of the Romans, the Via Iceniana, or Ikenild Street, hard by.
On the evening under consideration it would have been noticed that,
though the gloom had increased sufficiently to confuse the minor
features of the heath, the white surface of the road remained almost
as clear as ever.
II
Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble
Along the road walked an old man. He was white-headed as a mountain,
bowed in the shoulders, and faded in general aspect. He wore a
glazed hat, an ancient boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass buttons
bearing an anchor upon their face. In his hand was a silver-headed
walking-stick, which he used as a veritable third leg, perseveringly
dotting the ground with its point at every few inches' interval. One
would have said that he had been, in his day, a naval officer of some
sort or other.
Before him stretched the long, laborious road, dry, empty, and white.
It was quite open to the heath on each side, and bisected that
vast dark surface like the parting-line on a head of black hair,
diminishing and bending away on the furthest horizon.
The old man frequently stretched his eyes ahead to gaze over the tract
that he had yet to traverse. At length he discerned, a long distance
in front of him, a moving spot, which appeared to be a vehicle, and
it proved to be going the same way as that in which he himself was
journeying. It was the single atom of life that the scene contained,
and it only served to render the general loneliness more evident. Its
rate of advance was slow, and the old man gained upon it sensibly.
When he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring van, ordinary in
shape, but singular in colour, this being a lurid red. The driver
walked beside it; and, like his van, he was completely red. One dye
of that tincture covered his clothes, the cap upon his head, his
boots, his face, and his hands. He was not temporarily overlaid with
the colour; it permeated him.
The old man knew the meaning of this. The traveller with the cart
was a reddleman--a person whose vocation it was to supply farmers
with redding for their sheep. He was one of a class rapidly becoming
extinct in Wessex, filling at present in the rural world the place
which, during the last century, the dodo occupied in the world of
animals. He is a curious, interesting, and nearly perished link
between obsolete forms of life and those which generally prevail.
The decayed officer, by degrees, came up alongside his
fellow-wayfarer, and wished him good evening. The reddleman turned
his head, and replied in sad and occupied tones. He was young, and
his face, if not exactly handsome, approached so near to handsome that
nobody would have contradicted an assertion that it really was so in
its natural colour. His eye, which glared so strangely through his
stain, was in itself attractive--keen as that of a bird of prey, and
blue as autumn mist. He had neither whisker nor moustache, which
allowed the soft curves of the lower part of his face to be apparent.
His lips were thin, and though, as it seemed, compressed by thought,
there was a pleasant twitch at their corners now and then. He was
clothed throughout in a tight-fitting suit of corduroy, excellent in
quality, not much worn, and well-chosen for its purpose, but deprived
of its original colour by his trade. It showed to advantage the good
shape of his figure. A certain well-to-do air about the man suggested
that he was not poor for his degree. The natural query of an observer
would have been, Why should such a promising being as this have hidden
his prepossessing exterior by adopting that singular occupation?
After replying to the old man's greeting he showed no inclination to
continue in talk, although they still walked side by side, for the
elder traveller seemed to desire company. There were no sounds but
that of the booming wind upon the stretch of tawny herbage around
them, the crackling wheels, the tread of the men, and the footsteps
of the two shaggy ponies which drew the van. They were small, hardy
animals, of a breed between Galloway and Exmoor, and were known as
"heath-croppers" here.
Now, as they thus pursued their way, the reddleman occasionally left
his companion's side, and, stepping behind the van, looked into its
interior through a small window. The look was always anxious. He
would then return to the old man, who made another remark about
the state of the country and so on, to which the reddleman again
abstractedly replied, and then again they would lapse into silence.
The silence conveyed to neither any sense of awkwardness; in these
lonely places wayfarers, after a first greeting, frequently plod on
for miles without speech; contiguity amounts to a tacit conversation
where, otherwise than in cities, such contiguity can be put an end
to on the merest inclination, and where not to put an end to it is
intercourse in itself.
Possibly these two might not have spoken again till their parting, had
it not been for the reddleman's visits to his van. When he returned
from his fifth time of looking in the old man said, "You have
something inside there besides your load?"
"Yes."
"Somebody who wants looking after?"
"Yes."
Not long after this a faint cry sounded from the interior. The
reddleman hastened to the back, looked in, and came away again.
"You have a child there, my man?"
"No, sir, I have a woman."
"The deuce you have! Why did she cry out?"
"Oh, she has fallen asleep, and not being used to traveling, she's
uneasy, and keeps dreaming."
"A young woman?"
"Yes, a young woman."
"That would have interested me forty years ago. Perhaps she's your
wife?"
"My wife!" said the other bitterly. "She's above mating with such as
I. But there's no reason why I should tell you about that."
"That's true. And there's no reason why you should not. What harm
can I do to you or to her?"
The reddleman looked in the old man's face. "Well, sir," he said at
last, "I knew her before today, though perhaps it would have been
better if I had not. But she's nothing to me, and I am nothing to
her; and she wouldn't have been in my van if any better carriage had
been there to take her."
"Where, may I ask?"
"At Anglebury."
"I know the town well. What was she doing there?"
"Oh, not much--to gossip about. However, she's tired to death now,
and not at all well, and that's what makes her so restless. She
dropped off into a nap about an hour ago, and 'twill do her good."
"A nice-looking girl, no doubt?"
"You would say so."
The other traveller turned his eyes with interest towards the van
window, and, without withdrawing them, said, "I presume I might look
in upon her?"
"No," said the reddleman abruptly. "It is getting too dark for you to
see much of her; and, more than that, I have no right to allow you.
Thank God she sleeps so well: I hope she won't wake till she's home."
"Who is she? One of the neighbourhood?"
"'Tis no matter who, excuse me."
"It is not that girl of Blooms-End, who has been talked about more or
less lately? If so, I know her; and I can guess what has happened."
"'Tis no matter... Now, sir, I am sorry to say that we shall soon have
to part company. My ponies are tired, and I have further to go, and I
am going to rest them under this bank for an hour."
The elder traveller nodded his head indifferently, and the reddleman
turned his horses and van in upon the turf, saying, "Good night." The
old man replied, and proceeded on his way as before.
The reddleman watched his form as it diminished to a speck on the road
and became absorbed in the thickening films of night. He then took
some hay from a truss which was slung up under the van, and, throwing
a portion of it in front of the horses, made a pad of the rest,
which he laid on the ground beside his vehicle. Upon this he sat
down, leaning his back against the wheel. From the interior a low
soft breathing came to his ear. It appeared to satisfy him, and he
musingly surveyed the scene, as if considering the next step that he
should take.
To do things musingly, and by small degrees, seemed, indeed, to be
a duty in the Egdon valleys at this transitional hour, for there
was that in the condition of the heath itself which resembled
protracted and halting dubiousness. It was the quality of the repose
appertaining to the scene. This was not the repose of actual
stagnation, but the apparent repose of incredible slowness. A
condition of healthy life so nearly resembling the torpor of death
is a noticeable thing of its sort; to exhibit the inertness of the
desert, and at the same time to be exercising powers akin to those of
the meadow, and even of the forest, awakened in those who thought of
it the attentiveness usually engendered by understatement and reserve.
The scene before the reddleman's eyes was a gradual series of ascents
from the level of the road backward into the heart of the heath. It
embraced hillocks, pits, ridges, acclivities, one behind the other,
till all was finished by a high hill cutting against the still light
sky. The traveller's eye hovered about these things for a time, and
finally settled upon one noteworthy object up there. It was a barrow.
This bossy projection of earth above its natural level occupied the
loftiest ground of the loneliest height that the heath contained.
Although from the vale it appeared but as a wart on an Atlantean
brow, its actual bulk was great. It formed the pole and axis of this
heathery world.
As the resting man looked at the barrow he became aware that its
summit, hitherto the highest object in the whole prospect round, was
surmounted by something higher. It rose from the semi-globular mound
like a spike from a helmet. The first instinct of an imaginative
stranger might have been to suppose it the person of one of the Celts
who built the barrow, so far had all of modern date withdrawn from the
scene. It seemed a sort of last man among them, musing for a moment
before dropping into eternal night with the rest of his race.
There the form stood, motionless as the hill beneath. Above the plain
rose the hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above the barrow
rose the figure. Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped
elsewhere than on a celestial globe.
Such a perfect, delicate, and necessary finish did the figure give
to the dark pile of hills that it seemed to be the only obvious
justification of their outline. Without it, there was the dome
without the lantern; with it the architectural demands of the mass
were satisfied. The scene was strangely homogeneous, in that the
vale, the upland, the barrow, and the figure above it amounted only to
unity. Looking at this or that member of the group was not observing
a complete thing, but a fraction of a thing.
The form was so much like an organic part of the entire motionless
structure that to see it move would have impressed the mind as a
strange phenomenon. Immobility being the chief characteristic of
that whole which the person formed portion of, the discontinuance of
immobility in any quarter suggested confusion.
Yet that is what happened. The figure perceptibly gave up its fixity,
shifted a step or two, and turned round. As if alarmed, it descended
on the right side of the barrow, with the glide of a water-drop down a
bud, and then vanished. The movement had been sufficient to show more
clearly the characteristics of the figure, and that it was a woman's.
The reason of her sudden displacement now appeared. With her dropping
out of sight on the right side, a new-comer, bearing a burden,
protruded into the sky on the left side, ascended the tumulus, and
deposited the burden on the top. A second followed, then a third, a
fourth, a fifth, and ultimately the whole barrow was peopled with
burdened figures.
The only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime of
silhouettes was that the woman had no relation to the forms who had
taken her place, was sedulously avoiding these, and had come thither
for another object than theirs. The imagination of the observer clung
by preference to that vanished, solitary figure, as to something more
interesting, more important, more likely to have a history worth
knowing than these new-comers, and unconsciously regarded them as
intruders. But they remained, and established themselves; and the
lonely person who hitherto had been queen of the solitude did not at
present seem likely to return.
III
The Custom of the Country
Had a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity of the barrow,
he would have learned that these persons were boys and men of the
neighbouring hamlets. Each, as he ascended the barrow, had been
heavily laden with furze-faggots, carried upon the shoulder by means
of a long stake sharpened at each end for impaling them easily--two
in front and two behind. They came from a part of the heath a quarter
of a mile to the rear, where furze almost exclusively prevailed as a
product.
Every individual was so involved in furze by his method of carrying
the faggots that he appeared like a bush on legs till he had thrown
them down. The party had marched in trail, like a travelling flock of
sheep; that is to say, the strongest first, the weak and young behind.
The loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze thirty feet
in circumference now occupied the crown of the tumulus, which was
known as Rainbarrow for many miles round. Some made themselves busy
with matches, and in selecting the driest tufts of furze, others in
loosening the bramble bonds which held the faggots together. Others,
again, while this was in progress, lifted their eyes and swept the
vast expanse of country commanded by their position, now lying nearly
obliterated by shade. In the valleys of the heath nothing save its
own wild face was visible at any time of day; but this spot commanded
a horizon enclosing a tract of far extent, and in many cases lying
beyond the heath country. None of its features could be seen now, but
the whole made itself felt as a vague stretch of remoteness.
While the men and lads were building the pile, a change took place in
the mass of shade which denoted the distant landscape. Red suns and
tufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the whole country
round. They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets that were
engaged in the same sort of commemoration. Some were distant, and
stood in a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of pale strawlike beams
radiated around them in the shape of a fan. Some were large and near,
glowing scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. Some
were Maenades, with winy faces and blown hair. These tinctured the
silent bosom of the clouds above them and lit up their ephemeral
caves, which seemed thenceforth to become scalding caldrons. Perhaps
as many as thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole bounds
of the district; and as the hour may be told on a clock-face when
the figures themselves are invisible, so did the men recognize the
locality of each fire by its angle and direction, though nothing of
the scenery could be viewed.
The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting
all eyes that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to
their own attempt in the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the
inner surface of the human circle--now increased by other stragglers,
male and female--with its own gold livery, and even overlaid the
dark turf around with a lively luminousness, which softened off into
obscurity where the barrow rounded downwards out of sight. It showed
the barrow to be the segment of a globe, as perfect as on the day when
it was thrown up, even the little ditch remaining from which the earth
was dug. Not a plough had ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn
soil. In the heath's barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility to
the historian. There had been no obliteration, because there had been
no tending.
It seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some radiant
upper story of the world, detached from and independent of the dark
stretches below. The heath down there was now a vast abyss, and no
longer a continuation of what they stood on; for their eyes, adapted
to the blaze, could see nothing of the deeps beyond its influence.
Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous flare than usual from their
faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp down the inclines to
some distant bush, pool, or patch of white sand, kindling these to
replies of the same colour, till all was lost in darkness again. Then
the whole black phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from
the brink by the sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered
articulations of the wind in the hollows were as complaints and
petitions from the "souls of mighty worth" suspended therein.
It was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into past ages, and
fetched therefrom an hour and deed which had before been familiar with
this spot. The ashes of the original British pyre which blazed from
that summit lay fresh and undisturbed in the barrow beneath their
tread. The flames from funeral piles long ago kindled there had shone
down upon the lowlands as these were shining now. Festival fires to
Thor and Woden had followed on the same ground and duly had their day.
Indeed, it is pretty well known that such blazes as this the heathmen
were now enjoying are rather the lineal descendants from jumbled
Druidical rites and Saxon ceremonies than the invention of popular
feeling about Gunpowder Plot.
Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man
when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature.
It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against that
fiat that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness,
misery and death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the
earth say, Let there be light.
The brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled upon the skin
and clothes of the persons standing round caused their lineaments and
general contours to be drawn with Dureresque vigour and dash. Yet the
permanent moral expression of each face it was impossible to discover,
for as the nimble flames towered, nodded, and swooped through the
surrounding air, the blots of shade and flakes of light upon the
countenances of the group changed shape and position endlessly. All
was unstable; quivering as leaves, evanescent as lightning. Shadowy
eye-sockets, deep as those of a death's head, suddenly turned into
pits of lustre: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining;
wrinkles were emphasized to ravines, or obliterated entirely by a
changed ray. Nostrils were dark wells; sinews in old necks were gilt
mouldings; things with no particular polish on them were glazed;
bright objects, such as the tip of a furze-hook one of the men
carried, were as glass; eyeballs glowed like little lanterns. Those
whom Nature had depicted as merely quaint became grotesque, the
grotesque became preternatural; for all was in extremity.
Hence it may be that the face of an old man, who had like others been
called to the heights by the rising flames, was not really the mere
nose and chin that it appeared to be, but an appreciable quantity of
human countenance. He stood complacently sunning himself in the heat.
With a speaker, or stake, he tossed the outlying scraps of fuel into
the conflagration, looking at the midst of the pile, occasionally
lifting his eyes to measure the height of the flame, or to follow the
great sparks which rose with it and sailed away into darkness. The
beaming sight, and the penetrating warmth, seemed to breed in him a
cumulative cheerfulness, which soon amounted to delight. With his
stick in his hand he began to jig a private minuet, a bunch of copper
seals shining and swinging like a pendulum from under his waistcoat:
he also began to sing, in the voice of a bee up a flue--
"The king´ call'd down´ his no-bles all´,
By one´, by two´, by three´;
Earl Mar´-shal, I'll´ go shrive´-the queen´,
And thou´ shalt wend´ with me´.
"A boon´, a boon´, quoth Earl´ Mar-shal´,
And fell´ on his bend´-ded knee´,
That what´-so-e'er´ the queen´ shall say´,
No harm´ there-of´ may be´."
Want of breath prevented a continuance of the song; and the breakdown
attracted the attention of a firm-standing man of middle age, who
kept each corner of his crescent-shaped mouth rigorously drawn back
into his cheek, as if to do away with any suspicion of mirthfulness
which might erroneously have attached to him.
"A fair stave, Grandfer Cantle; but I am afeard 'tis too much for the
mouldy weasand of such a old man as you," he said to the wrinkled
reveller. "Dostn't wish th' wast three sixes again, Grandfer, as you
was when you first learnt to sing it?"
"Hey?" said Grandfer Cantle, stopping in his dance.
"Dostn't wish wast young again, I say? There's a hole in thy poor
bellows nowadays seemingly."
"But there's good art in me? If I couldn't make a little wind go a
long ways I should seem no younger than the most aged man, should I,
Timothy?"
"And how about the new-married folks down there at the Quiet Woman
Inn?" the other inquired, pointing towards a dim light in the
direction of the distant highway, but considerably apart from where
the reddleman was at that moment resting. "What's the rights of the
matter about 'em? You ought to know, being an understanding man."
"But a little rakish, hey? I own to it. Master Cantle is that, or
he's nothing. Yet 'tis a gay fault, neighbour Fairway, that age will
cure."
"I heard that they were coming home to-night. By this time they must
have come. What besides?"
"The next thing is for us to go and wish 'em joy, I suppose?"
"Well, no."
"No? Now, I thought we must. _I_ must, or 'twould be very unlike
me--the first in every spree that's going!
"Do thou´ put on´ a fri´-ar's coat´,
And I'll´ put on´ a-no´-ther,
And we´ will to´ Queen Ele´anor go´,
Like Fri´ar and´ his bro´ther.
"I met Mis'ess Yeobright, the young bride's aunt, last night, and she
told me that her son Clym was coming home a' Christmas. Wonderful
clever, 'a believe--ah, I should like to have all that's under that
young man's hair. Well, then, I spoke to her in my well-known merry
way, and she said, 'O that what's shaped so venerable should talk like
a fool!'--that's what she said to me. I don't care for her, be jowned
if I do, and so I told her. 'Be jowned if I care for 'ee,' I said. I
had her there--hey?"
"I rather think she had you," said Fairway.
"No," said Grandfer Cantle, his countenance slightly flagging.
"'Tisn't so bad as that with me?"
"Seemingly 'tis; however, is it because of the wedding that Clym is
coming home a' Christmas--to make a new arrangement because his mother
is now left in the house alone?"
"Yes, yes--that's it. But, Timothy, hearken to me," said the Grandfer
earnestly. "Though known as such a joker, I be an understanding man
if you catch me serious, and I am serious now. I can tell 'ee lots
about the married couple. Yes, this morning at six o'clock they went
up the country to do the job, and neither vell nor mark have been seen
of 'em since, though I reckon that this afternoon has brought 'em home
again man and woman--wife, that is. Isn't it spoke like a man,
Timothy, and wasn't Mis'ess Yeobright wrong about me?"
"Yes, it will do. I didn't know the two had walked together since
last fall, when her aunt forbad the banns. How long has this new
set-to been mangling then? Do you know, Humphrey?"
"Yes, how long?" said Grandfer Cantle smartly, likewise turning to
Humphrey. "I ask that question."
"Ever since her aunt altered her mind, and said she might have the
man after all," replied Humphrey, without removing his eyes from the
fire. He was a somewhat solemn young fellow, and carried the hook
and leather gloves of a furze-cutter, his legs, by reason of that
occupation, being sheathed in bulging leggings as stiff as the
Philistine's greaves of brass. "That's why they went away to be
married, I count. You see, after kicking up such a nunny-watch
and forbidding the banns 'twould have made Mis'ess Yeobright seem
foolish-like to have a banging wedding in the same parish all as if
she'd never gainsaid it."
"Exactly--seem foolish-like; and that's very bad for the poor things
that be so, though I only guess as much, to be sure," said Grandfer
Cantle, still strenuously preserving a sensible bearing and mien.
"Ah, well, I was at church that day," said Fairway, "which was a very
curious thing to happen."
"If 'twasn't my name's Simple," said the Grandfer emphatically. "I
ha'n't been there to-year; and now the winter is a-coming on I won't
say I shall."
"I ha'n't been these three years," said Humphrey; "for I'm so dead
sleepy of a Sunday; and 'tis so terrible far to get there; and when
you do get there 'tis such a mortal poor chance that you'll be chose
for up above, when so many bain't, that I bide at home and don't go at
all."
"I not only happened to be there," said Fairway, with a fresh
collection of emphasis, "but I was sitting in the same pew as Mis'ess
Yeobright. And though you may not see it as such, it fairly made my
blood run cold to hear her. Yes, it is a curious thing; but it made
my blood run cold, for I was close at her elbow." The speaker looked
round upon the bystanders, now drawing closer to hear him, with his
lips gathered tighter than ever in the rigorousness of his descriptive
moderation.
"'Tis a serious job to have things happen to 'ee there," said a woman
behind.
"'Ye are to declare it,' was the parson's words," Fairway continued.
"And then up stood a woman at my side--a-touching of me. 'Well, be
damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I said to
myself. Yes, neighbours, though I was in the temple of prayer that's
what I said. 'Tis against my conscience to curse and swear in
company, and I hope any woman here will overlook it. Still what I did
say I did say, and 'twould be a lie if I didn't own it."
"So 'twould, neighbour Fairway."
"'Be damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I
said," the narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with the same
passionless severity of face as before, which proved how entirely
necessity and not gusto had to do with the iteration. "And the next
thing I heard was, 'I forbid the banns,' from her. 'I'll speak to
you after the service,' said the parson, in quite a homely way--yes,
turning all at once into a common man no holier than you or I. Ah, her
face was pale! Maybe you can call to mind that monument in Weatherbury
church--the cross-legged soldier that have had his arm knocked away by
the school-children? Well, he would about have matched that woman's
face, when she said, 'I forbid the banns.'"
The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks into the
fire, not because these deeds were urgent, but to give themselves time
to weigh the moral of the story.
"I'm sure when I heard they'd been forbid I felt as glad as if anybody
had gied me sixpence," said an earnest voice--that of Olly Dowden, a
woman who lived by making heath brooms, or besoms. Her nature was to
be civil to enemies as well as to friends, and grateful to all the
world for letting her remain alive.
"And now the maid have married him just the same," said Humphrey.
"After that Mis'ess Yeobright came round and was quite agreeable,"
Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to show that his words were no
appendage to Humphrey's, but the result of independent reflection.
"Supposing they were ashamed, I don't see why they shouldn't have
done it here-right," said a wide-spread woman whose stays creaked
like shoes whenever she stooped or turned. "'Tis well to call the
neighbours together and to hae a good racket once now and then; and it
may as well be when there's a wedding as at tide-times. I don't care
for close ways."
"Ah, now, you'd hardly believe it, but I don't care for gay weddings,"
said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round. "I hardly
blame Thomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing it quiet, if
I must own it. A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by
the hour; and they do a man's legs no good when he's over forty."
"True. Once at the woman's house you can hardly say nay to being one
in a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself
worth your victuals."
"You be bound to dance at Christmas because 'tis the time o' year; you
must dance at weddings because 'tis the time o' life. At christenings
folk will even smuggle in a reel or two, if 'tis no further on than
the first or second chiel. And this is not naming the songs you've
got to sing... For my part I like a good hearty funeral as well as
anything. You've as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties,
and even better. And it don't wear your legs to stumps in talking
over a poor fellow's ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes."
"Nine folks out of ten would own 'twas going too far to dance then, I
suppose?" suggested Grandfer Cantle.
"'Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at after the
mug have been round a few times."
"Well, I can't understand a quiet lady-like little body like Tamsin
Yeobright caring to be married in such a mean way," said Susan
Nunsuch, the wide woman, who preferred the original subject. "'Tis
worse than the poorest do. And I shouldn't have cared about the man,
though some may say he's good-looking."
"To give him his due he's a clever, learned fellow in his way--a'most
as clever as Clym Yeobright used to be. He was brought up to better
things than keeping the Quiet Woman. An engineer--that's what the man
was, as we know; but he threw away his chance, and so 'a took a public
house to live. His learning was no use to him at all."
"Very often the case," said Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet how people
do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn't use
to make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their
names now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single
blot: what do I say?--why, almost without a desk to lean their
stomachs and elbows upon."
"True: 'tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought to,"
said Humphrey.
"Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was called),
in the year four," chimed in Grandfer Cantle brightly, "I didn't know
no more what the world was like than the commonest man among ye. And
now, jown it all, I won't say what I bain't fit for, hey?"
"Couldst sign the book, no doubt," said Fairway, "if wast young enough
to join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve and Mis'ess Tamsin,
which is more than Humph there could do, for he follows his father in
learning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I was married how I zid thy
father's mark staring me in the face as I went to put down my name.
He and your mother were the couple married just afore we were and
there stood they father's cross with arms stretched out like a great
banging scarecrow. What a terrible black cross that was--thy father's
very likeness in en! To save my soul I couldn't help laughing when I
zid en, though all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the
marrying, and what with the woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack
Changley and a lot more chaps grinning at me through church window.
But the next moment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I
called to mind that if thy father and mother had had high words once,
they'd been at it twenty times since they'd been man and wife, and I
zid myself as the next poor stunpoll to get into the same
mess... Ah--well, what a day 'twas!"
"Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a goodfew summers. A
pretty maid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to
tear her smock for a man like that."
The speaker, a peat or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group,
carried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large
dimensions used in that species of labour; and its well-whetted edge
gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire.
"A hundred maidens would have had him if he'd asked 'em," said the
wide woman.
"Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would marry?"
inquired Humphrey.
"I never did," said the turf-cutter.
"Nor I," said another.
"Nor I," said Grandfer Cantle.
"Well, now, I did once," said Timothy Fairway, adding more firmness
to one of his legs. "I did know of such a man. But only once, mind."
He gave his throat a thorough rake round, as if it were the duty of
every person not to be mistaken through thickness of voice. "Yes, I
knew of such a man," he said.
"And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have been like,
Master Fairway?" asked the turf-cutter.
"Well, 'a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind man.
What 'a was I don't say."
"Is he known in these parts?" said Olly Dowden.
"Hardly," said Timothy; "but I name no name... Come, keep the fire up
there, youngsters."
"Whatever is Christian Cantle's teeth a-chattering for?" said a boy
from amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the blaze. "Be ye
a-cold, Christian?"
A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, "No, not at all."
"Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn't know you were
here," said Fairway, with a humane look across towards that quarter.
Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders, and a
great quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes, advanced a step
or two by his own will, and was pushed by the will of others half a
dozen steps more. He was Grandfer Cantle's youngest son.
"What be ye quaking for, Christian?" said the turf-cutter kindly.
"I'm the man."
"What man?"
"The man no woman will marry."
"The deuce you be!" said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to cover
Christian's whole surface and a great deal more; Grandfer Cantle
meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.
"Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard," said Christian. "D'ye think
'twill hurt me? I shall always say I don't care, and swear to it,
though I do care all the while."
"Well, be damned if this isn't the queerest start ever I know'd,"
said Mr. Fairway. "I didn't mean you at all. There's another in the
country, then! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune, Christian?"
"'Twas to be if 'twas, I suppose. I can't help it, can I?" He turned
upon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by concentric lines
like targets.
"No, that's true. But 'tis a melancholy thing, and my blood ran cold
when you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where I had
thought only one. 'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian. How'st know
the women won't hae thee?"
"I've asked 'em."
"Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what
did the last one say to ye? Nothing that can't be got over, perhaps,
after all?"
"'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight
fool,' was the woman's words to me."
"Not encouraging, I own," said Fairway. "'Get out of my sight, you
slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather a hard way of
saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so as
to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head. How old
be you, Christian?"
"Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway."
"Not a boy--not a boy. Still there's hope yet."
"That's my age by baptism, because that's put down in the great book
of the Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but mother told me I
was born some time afore I was christened."
"Ah!"
"But she couldn't tell when, to save her life, except that there was
no moon."
"No moon: that's bad. Hey, neighbours, that's bad for him!"
"Yes, 'tis bad," said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.
"Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another woman that had an
almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her, because of the
saying, 'No moon, no man,' which made her afeard every man-child she
had. Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there was no
moon?"
"Yes; 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings ever spit out.
The boy never comes to anything that's born at new moon. A bad job
for thee, Christian, that you should have showed your nose then of all
days in the month."
"I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?" said
Christian, with a look of hopeless admiration at Fairway.
"Well, 'a was not new," Mr. Fairway replied, with a disinterested
gaze.
"I'd sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be a man of no moon,"
continued Christian, in the same shattered recitative. "'Tis said I
be only the rames of a man, and no good for my race at all; and I
suppose that's the cause o't."
"Ay," said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit; "and yet his
mother cried for scores of hours when 'a was a boy, for fear he should
outgrow hisself and go for a soldier."
"Well, there's many just as bad as he." said Fairway. "Wethers must
live their time as well as other sheep, poor soul."
"So perhaps I shall rub on? Ought I to be afeared o' nights, Master
Fairway?"
"You'll have to lie alone all your life; and 'tis not to married
couples but to single sleepers that a ghost shows himself when 'a do
come. One has been seen lately, too. A very strange one."
"No--don't talk about it if 'tis agreeable of ye not to! 'Twill make
my skin crawl when I think of it in bed alone. But you will--ah, you
will, I know, Timothy; and I shall dream all night o't! A very strange
one? What sort of a spirit did ye mean when ye said, a very strange
one, Timothy?--no, no--don't tell me."
"I don't half believe in spirits myself. But I think it ghostly
enough--what I was told. 'Twas a little boy that zid it."
"What was it like?--no, don't--"
"A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white; but this is as if it had been
dipped in blood."
Christian drew a deep breath without letting it expand his body, and
Humphrey said, "Where has it been seen?"
"Not exactly here; but in this same heth. But 'tisn't a thing to
talk about. What do ye say," continued Fairway in brisker tones, and
turning upon them as if the idea had not been Grandfer Cantle's--"what
do you say to giving the new man and wife a bit of a song to-night
afore we go to bed--being their wedding-day? When folks are just
married 'tis as well to look glad o't, since looking sorry won't
unjoin 'em. I am no drinker, as we know, but when the womenfolk and
youngsters have gone home we can drop down across to the Quiet Woman,
and strike up a ballet in front of the married folks' door. 'Twill
please the young wife, and that's what I should like to do, for many's
the skinful I've had at her hands when she lived with her aunt at
Blooms-End."
"Hey? And so we will!" said Grandfer Cantle, turning so briskly that
his copper seals swung extravagantly. "I'm as dry as a kex with biding
up here in the wind, and I haven't seen the colour of drink since
nammet-time today. 'Tis said that the last brew at the Woman is very
pretty drinking. And, neighbours, if we should be a little late in
the finishing, why, tomorrow's Sunday, and we can sleep it off?"
"Grandfer Cantle! you take things very careless for an old man," said
the wide woman.
"I take things careless; I do--too careless to please the women! Klk!
I'll sing the 'Jovial Crew,' or any other song, when a weak old man
would cry his eyes out. Jown it; I am up for anything.
"The king´ look'd o´ver his left´ shoul-der´,
And a grim´ look look´-ed hee´,
Earl Mar´-shal, he said´, but for´ my oath´
Or hang´-ed thou´ shouldst bee´."
"Well, that's what we'll do," said Fairway. "We'll give 'em a song,
an' it please the Lord. What's the good of Thomasin's cousin Clym
a-coming home after the deed's done? He should have come afore, if so
be he wanted to stop it, and marry her himself."
"Perhaps he's coming to bide with his mother a little time, as she
must feel lonely now the maid's gone."
"Now, 'tis very odd, but I never feel lonely--no, not at all," said
Grandfer Cantle. "I am as brave in the night-time as a' admiral!"
The bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low, for the fuel had
not been of that substantial sort which can support a blaze long.
Most of the other fires within the wide horizon were also dwindling
weak. Attentive observation of their brightness, colour, and length
of existence would have revealed the quality of the material burnt,
and through that, to some extent the natural produce of the district
in which each bonfire was situate. The clear, kingly effulgence that
had characterized the majority expressed a heath and furze country
like their own, which in one direction extended an unlimited number of
miles; the rapid flares and extinctions at other points of the compass
showed the lightest of fuel--straw, beanstalks, and the usual waste
from arable land. The most enduring of all--steady unaltering eyes
like Planets--signified wood, such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots,
and stout billets. Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare,
and though comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient
blazes, now began to get the best of them by mere long continuance.
The great ones had perished, but these remained. They occupied the
remotest visible positions--sky-backed summits rising out of rich
coppice and plantation districts to the north, where the soil was
different, and heath foreign and strange.
Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the whole
shining throng. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to that of
the little window in the vale below. Its nearness was such that,
notwithstanding its actual smallness, its glow infinitely transcended
theirs.
This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time; and when
their own fire had become sunken and dim it attracted more; some even
of the wood fires more recently lighted had reached their decline, but
no change was perceptible here.
"To be sure, how near that fire is!" said Fairway. "Seemingly. I can
see a fellow of some sort walking round it. Little and good must be
said of that fire, surely."
"I can throw a stone there," said the boy.
"And so can I!" said Grandfer Cantle.
"No, no, you can't, my sonnies. That fire is not much less than a
mile off, for all that 'a seems so near."
"'Tis in the heath, but not furze," said the turf-cutter.
"'Tis cleft-wood, that's what 'tis," said Timothy Fairway. "Nothing
would burn like that except clean timber. And 'tis on the knap afore
the old captain's house at Mistover. Such a queer mortal as that man
is! To have a little fire inside your own bank and ditch, that nobody
else may enjoy it or come anigh it! And what a zany an old chap must
be, to light a bonfire when there's no youngsters to please."
"Cap'n Vye has been for a long walk to-day, and is quite tired out,"
said Grandfer Cantle, "so 'tisn't likely to be he."
"And he would hardly afford good fuel like that," said the wide woman.
"Then it must be his grand-daughter," said Fairway. "Not that a body
of her age can want a fire much."
"She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself, and such
things please her," said Susan.
"She's a well-favoured maid enough," said Humphrey the furze-cutter;
"especially when she's got one of her dandy gowns on."
"That's true," said Fairway. "Well, let her bonfire burn an't will.
Ours is well-nigh out by the look o't."
"How dark 'tis now the fire's gone down!" said Christian Cantle,
looking behind him with his hare eyes. "Don't ye think we'd better
get home-along, neighbours? The heth isn't haunted, I know; but we'd
better get home... Ah, what was that?"
"Only the wind," said the turf-cutter.
"I don't think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up by night except
in towns. It should be by day in outstep, ill-accounted places like
this!"
"Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy, dear,
you and I will have a jig--hey, my honey?--before 'tis quite too dark
to see how well-favoured you be still, though so many summers have
passed since your husband, a son of a witch, snapped you up from me."
This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next circumstance of
which the beholders were conscious was a vision of the matron's broad
form whisking off towards the space whereon the fire had been kindled.
She was lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway's arm, which had been flung round
her waist before she had become aware of his intention. The site of
the fire was now merely a circle of ashes flecked with red embers
and sparks, the furze having burnt completely away. Once within the
circle he whirled her round and round in a dance. She was a woman
noisily constructed; in addition to her enclosing framework of
whalebone and lath, she wore pattens summer and winter, in wet weather
and in dry, to preserve her boots from wear; and when Fairway began to
jump about with her, the clicking of the pattens, the creaking of the
stays, and her screams of surprise, formed a very audible concert.
"I'll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!" said Mrs. Nunsuch,
as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like
drumsticks among the sparks. "My ankles were all in a fever before,
from walking through that prickly furze, and now you must make 'em
worse with these vlankers!"
The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious. The turf-cutter seized
old Olly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently, poussetted with her
likewise. The young men were not slow to imitate the example of their
elders, and seized the maids; Grandfer Cantle and his stick jigged in
the form of a three-legged object among the rest; and in half a minute
all that could be seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling of dark shapes
amid a boiling confusion of sparks, which leapt around the dancers
as high as their waists. The chief noises were women's shrill
cries, men's laughter, Susan's stays and pattens, Olly Dowden's
"heu-heu-heu!" and the strumming of the wind upon the furze-bushes,
which formed a kind of tune to the demoniac measure they trod.
Christian alone stood aloof, uneasily rocking himself as he murmured,
"They ought not to do it--how the vlankers do fly! 'tis tempting the
Wicked one, 'tis."
"What was that?" said one of the lads, stopping.
"Ah--where?" said Christian, hastily closing up to the rest.
The dancers all lessened their speed.
"'Twas behind you, Christian, that I heard it--down there."
"Yes--'tis behind me!" Christian said. "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, bless the bed that I lie on; four angels guard--"
"Hold your tongue. What is it?" said Fairway.
"Hoi-i-i-i!" cried a voice from the darkness.
"Halloo-o-o-o!" said Fairway.
"Is there any cart track up across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's,
of Blooms-End?" came to them in the same voice, as a long, slim
indistinct figure approached the barrow.
"Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours, as 'tis
getting late?" said Christian. "Not run away from one another, you
know; run close together, I mean."
"Scrape up a few stray locks of furze, and make a blaze, so that we
can see who the man is," said Fairway.
When the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight raiment, and red
from top to toe. "Is there a track across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's
house?" he repeated.
"Ay--keep along the path down there."
"I mean a way two horses and a van can travel over?"
"Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. The track
is rough, but if you've got a light your horses may pick along wi'
care. Have ye brought your cart far up, neighbour reddleman?"
"I've left it in the bottom, about half a mile back. I stepped on in
front to make sure of the way, as 'tis night-time, and I han't been
here for so long."
"Oh, well, you can get up," said Fairway. "What a turn it did give me
when I saw him!" he added to the whole group, the reddleman included.
"Lord's sake, I thought, whatever fiery mommet is this come to trouble
us? No slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye bain't bad-looking in
the groundwork, though the finish is queer. My meaning is just to
say how curious I felt. I half thought it 'twas the devil or the red
ghost the boy told of."
"It gied me a turn likewise," said Susan Nunsuch, "for I had a dream
last night of a death's head."
"Don't ye talk o't no more," said Christian. "If he had handkerchief
over his head he'd look for all the world like the Devil in the
picture of the Temptation."
"Well, thank you for telling me," said the young reddleman, smiling
faintly. "And good night t'ye all."
He withdrew from their sight down the barrow.
"I fancy I've seen that young man's face before," said Humphrey. "But
where, or how, or what his name is, I don't know."
The reddleman had not been gone more than a few minutes when another
person approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved to be a
well-known and respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a standing
which can only be expressed by the word genteel. Her face,
encompassed by the blackness of the receding heath, showed whitely,
and without half-lights, like a cameo.
She was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features of the type
usually found where perspicacity is the chief quality enthroned
within. At moments she seemed to be regarding issues from a Nebo
denied to others around. She had something of an estranged mien; the
solitude exhaled from the heath was concentrated in this face that
had risen from it. The air with which she looked at the heathmen
betokened a certain unconcern at their presence, or at what might be
their opinions of her for walking in that lonely spot at such an hour,
this indirectly implying that in some respect or other they were not
up to her level. The explanation lay in the fact that though her
husband had been a small farmer she herself was a curate's daughter,
who had once dreamt of doing better things.
Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their
atmospheres along with them in their orbits; and the matron who
entered now upon the scene could, and usually did, bring her own
tone into a company. Her normal manner among the heathfolk had
that reticence which results from the consciousness of superior
communicative power. But the effect of coming into society and light
after lonely wandering in darkness is a sociability in the comer above
its usual pitch, expressed in the features even more than in words.
"Why, 'tis Mis'ess Yeobright," said Fairway. "Mis'ess Yeobright, not
ten minutes ago a man was here asking for you--a reddleman."
"What did he want?" said she.
"He didn't tell us."
"Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am at a loss to
understand."
"I am glad to hear that your son Mr. Clym is coming home at Christmas,
ma'am," said Sam, the turf-cutter. "What a dog he used to be for
bonfires!"
"Yes. I believe he is coming," she said.
"He must be a fine fellow by this time," said Fairway.
"He is a man now," she replied quietly.
"'Tis very lonesome for 'ee in the heth tonight, mis'ess," said
Christian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto maintained.
"Mind you don't get lost. Egdon Heth is a bad place to get lost in,
and the winds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard 'em afore.
Them that know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times."
"Is that you, Christian?" said Mrs. Yeobright. "What made you hide
away from me?"
"'Twas that I didn't know you in this light, mis'ess; and being a
man of the mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that's all.
Oftentimes if you could see how terrible down I get in my mind,
'twould make 'ee quite nervous for fear I should die by my hand."
"You don't take after your father," said Mrs. Yeobright, looking
towards the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of
originality, was dancing by himself among the sparks, as the others
had done before.
"Now, Grandfer," said Timothy Fairway, "we are ashamed of ye. A
reverent old patriarch man as you be--seventy if a day--to go
hornpiping like that by yourself!"
"A harrowing old man, Mis'ess Yeobright," said Christian despondingly.
"I wouldn't live with him a week, so playward as he is, if I could get
away."
"'Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome Mis'ess
Yeobright, and you the venerablest here, Grandfer Cantle," said the
besom-woman.
"Faith, and so it would," said the reveller checking himself
repentantly. "I've such a bad memory, Mis'ess Yeobright, that I
forget how I'm looked up to by the rest of 'em. My spirits must be
wonderful good, you'll say? But not always. 'Tis a weight upon a man
to be looked up to as commander, and I often feel it."
"I am sorry to stop the talk," said Mrs. Yeobright. "But I must be
leaving you now. I was passing down the Anglebury Road, towards my
niece's new home, who is returning tonight with her husband; and
seeing the bonfire and hearing Olly's voice among the rest I came up
here to learn what was going on. I should like her to walk with me, as
her way is mine."
"Ay, sure, ma'am, I'm just thinking of moving," said Olly.
"Why, you'll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye of," said
Fairway. "He's only gone back to get his van. We heard that your
niece and her husband were coming straight home as soon as they were
married, and we are going down there shortly, to give 'em a song o'
welcome."
"Thank you indeed," said Mrs. Yeobright.
"But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you can go
with long clothes; so we won't trouble you to wait."
"Very well--are you ready, Olly?"
"Yes, ma'am. And there's a light shining from your niece's window,
see. It will help to keep us in the path."
She indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley which
Fairway had pointed out; and the two women descended the tumulus.
IV
The Halt on the Turnpike Road
Down, downward they went, and yet further down--their descent at each
step seeming to outmeasure their advance. Their skirts were scratched
noisily by the furze, their shoulders brushed by the ferns, which,
though dead and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient winter
weather having as yet arrived to beat them down. Their Tartarean
situation might by some have been called an imprudent one for two
unattended women. But these shaggy recesses were at all seasons a
familiar surrounding to Olly and Mrs. Yeobright; and the addition of
darkness lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.
"And so Tamsin has married him at last," said Olly, when the incline
had become so much less steep that their footsteps no longer required
undivided attention.
Mrs. Yeobright answered slowly, "Yes: at last."
"How you will miss her--living with 'ee as a daughter, as she always
have."
"I do miss her."
Olly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely,
was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive.
Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask with
impunity. This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright's acquiescence in the
revival of an evidently sore subject.
"I was quite strook to hear you'd agreed to it, ma'am, that I was,"
continued the besom-maker.
"You were not more struck by it than I should have been last year this
time, Olly. There are a good many sides to that wedding. I could not
tell you all of them, even if I tried."
"I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough to mate with your
family. Keeping an inn--what is it? But 'a's clever, that's true, and
they say he was an engineering gentleman once, but has come down by
being too outwardly given."
"I saw that, upon the whole, it would be better she should marry where
she wished."
"Poor little thing, her feelings got the better of her, no doubt.
'Tis nature. Well, they may call him what they will--he've several
acres of heth-ground broke up here, besides the public house, and the
heth-croppers, and his manners be quite like a gentleman's. And what's
done cannot be undone."
"It cannot," said Mrs. Yeobright. "See, here's the waggon-track at
last. Now we shall get along better."
The wedding subject was no further dwelt upon; and soon a faint
diverging path was reached, where they parted company, Olly first
begging her companion to remind Mr. Wildeve that he had not sent
her sick husband the bottle of wine promised on the occasion of his
marriage. The besom-maker turned to the left towards her own house,
behind a spur of the hill, and Mrs. Yeobright followed the straight
track, which further on joined the highway by the Quiet Woman Inn,
whither she supposed her niece to have returned with Wildeve from
their wedding at Anglebury that day.
She first reached Wildeve's Patch, as it was called, a plot of land
redeemed from the heath, and after long and laborious years brought
into cultivation. The man who had discovered that it could be tilled
died of the labour; the man who succeeded him in possession ruined
himself in fertilizing it. Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci, and
received the honours due to those who had gone before.
When Mrs. Yeobright had drawn near to the inn, and was about to enter,
she saw a horse and vehicle some two hundred yards beyond it, coming
towards her, a man walking alongside with a lantern in his hand. It
was soon evident that this was the reddleman who had inquired for her.
Instead of entering the inn at once, she walked by it and towards the
van.
The conveyance came close, and the man was about to pass her with
little notice, when she turned to him and said, "I think you have been
inquiring for me? I am Mrs. Yeobright of Blooms-End."
The reddleman started, and held up his finger. He stopped the horses,
and beckoned to her to withdraw with him a few yards aside, which she
did, wondering.
"You don't know me, ma'am, I suppose?" he said.
"I do not," said she. "Why, yes, I do! You are young Venn--your
father was a dairyman somewhere here?"
"Yes; and I knew your niece, Miss Tamsin, a little. I have something
bad to tell you."
"About her--no! She has just come home, I believe, with her husband.
They arranged to return this afternoon--to the inn beyond here."
"She's not there."
"How do you know?"
"Because she's here. She's in my van," he added slowly.
"What new trouble has come?" murmured Mrs. Yeobright, putting her hand
over her eyes.
"I can't explain much, ma'am. All I know is that, as I was going
along the road this morning, about a mile out of Anglebury, I heard
something trotting after me like a doe, and looking round there she
was, white as death itself. 'Oh, Diggory Venn!' she said, 'I thought
'twas you: will you help me? I am in trouble.'"
"How did she know your Christian name?" said Mrs. Yeobright
doubtingly.
"I had met her as a lad before I went away in this trade. She asked
then if she might ride, and then down she fell in a faint. I picked
her up and put her in, and there she has been ever since. She has
cried a good deal, but she has hardly spoke; all she has told me being
that she was to have been married this morning. I tried to get her to
eat something, but she couldn't; and at last she fell asleep."
"Let me see her at once," said Mrs. Yeobright, hastening towards the
van.
The reddleman followed with the lantern, and, stepping up first,
assisted Mrs. Yeobright to mount beside him. On the door being
opened she perceived at the end of the van an extemporized couch,
around which was hung apparently all the drapery that the reddleman
possessed, to keep the occupant of the little couch from contact with
the red materials of his trade. A young girl lay thereon, covered
with a cloak. She was asleep, and the light of the lantern fell upon
her features.
A fair, sweet, and honest country face was revealed, reposing in a
nest of wavy chestnut hair. It was between pretty and beautiful.
Though her eyes were closed, one could easily imagine the light
necessarily shining in them as the culmination of the luminous
workmanship around. The groundwork of the face was hopefulness; but
over it now lay like a foreign substance a film of anxiety and grief.
The grief had been there so shortly as to have abstracted nothing
of the bloom, and had as yet but given a dignity to what it might
eventually undermine. The scarlet of her lips had not had time to
abate, and just now it appeared still more intense by the absence of
the neighbouring and more transient colour of her cheek. The lips
frequently parted, with a murmur of words. She seemed to belong
rightly to a madrigal--to require viewing through rhyme and harmony.
One thing at least was obvious: she was not made to be looked at thus.
The reddleman had appeared conscious of as much, and, while Mrs.
Yeobright looked in upon her, he cast his eyes aside with a delicacy
which well became him. The sleeper apparently thought so too, for the
next moment she opened her own.
The lips then parted with something of anticipation, something more
of doubt; and her several thoughts and fractions of thoughts, as
signalled by the changes on her face, were exhibited by the light to
the utmost nicety. An ingenuous, transparent life was disclosed, as
if the flow of her existence could be seen passing within her. She
understood the scene in a moment.
"O yes, it is I, aunt," she cried. "I know how frightened you are,
and how you cannot believe it; but all the same, it is I who have come
home like this!"
"Tamsin, Tamsin!" said Mrs. Yeobright, stooping over the young woman
and kissing her. "O my dear girl!"
Thomasin was now on the verge of a sob, but by an unexpected
self-command she uttered no sound. With a gentle panting breath she
sat upright.
"I did not expect to see you in this state, any more than you me," she
went on quickly. "Where am I, aunt?"
"Nearly home, my dear. In Egdon Bottom. What dreadful thing is it?"
"I'll tell you in a moment. So near, are we? Then I will get out and
walk. I want to go home by the path."
"But this kind man who has done so much will, I am sure, take you
right on to my house?" said the aunt, turning to the reddleman, who
had withdrawn from the front of the van on the awakening of the girl,
and stood in the road.
"Why should you think it necessary to ask me? I will, of course,"
said he.
"He is indeed kind," murmured Thomasin. "I was once acquainted with
him, aunt, and when I saw him today I thought I should prefer his van
to any conveyance of a stranger. But I'll walk now. Reddleman, stop
the horses, please."
The man regarded her with tender reluctance, but stopped them.
Aunt and niece then descended from the van, Mrs. Yeobright saying to
its owner, "I quite recognize you now. What made you change from the
nice business your father left you?"
"Well, I did," he said, and looked at Thomasin, who blushed a little.
"Then you'll not be wanting me any more to-night, ma'am?"
Mrs. Yeobright glanced around at the dark sky, at the hills, at the
perishing bonfires, and at the lighted window of the inn they had
neared. "I think not," she said, "since Thomasin wishes to walk. We
can soon run up the path and reach home: we know it well."
And after a few further words they parted, the reddleman moving
onwards with his van, and the two women remaining standing in the
road. As soon as the vehicle and its driver had withdrawn so far as
to be beyond all possible reach of her voice, Mrs. Yeobright turned
to her niece.
"Now, Thomasin," she said sternly, "what's the meaning of this
disgraceful performance?"
V
Perplexity among Honest People
Thomasin looked as if quite overcome by her aunt's change of manner.
"It means just what it seems to mean: I am--not married," she replied
faintly. "Excuse me--for humiliating you, aunt, by this mishap: I am
sorry for it. But I cannot help it."
"Me? Think of yourself first."
"It was nobody's fault. When we got there the parson wouldn't marry
us because of some trifling irregularity in the license."
"What irregularity?"
"I don't know. Mr. Wildeve can explain. I did not think when I went
away this morning that I should come back like this." It being dark,
Thomasin allowed her emotion to escape her by the silent way of tears,
which could roll down her cheek unseen.
"I could almost say that it serves you right--if I did not feel that
you don't deserve it," continued Mrs. Yeobright, who, possessing two
distinct moods in close contiguity, a gentle mood and an angry, flew
from one to the other without the least warning. "Remember, Thomasin,
this business was none of my seeking; from the very first, when you
began to feel foolish about that man, I warned you he would not make
you happy. I felt it so strongly that I did what I would never have
believed myself capable of doing--stood up in the church, and made
myself the public talk for weeks. But having once consented, I don't
submit to these fancies without good reason. Marry him you must after
this."
"Do you think I wish to do otherwise for one moment?" said Thomasin,
with a heavy sigh. "I know how wrong it was of me to love him, but
don't pain me by talking like that, aunt! You would not have had me
stay there with him, would you?--and your house is the only home I
have to return to. He says we can be married in a day or two."
"I wish he had never seen you."
"Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world, and not
let him see me again. No, I won't have him!"
"It is too late to speak so. Come with me. I am going to the inn to
see if he has returned. Of course I shall get to the bottom of this
story at once. Mr. Wildeve must not suppose he can play tricks upon
me, or any belonging to me."
"It was not that. The license was wrong, and he couldn't get another
the same day. He will tell you in a moment how it was, if he comes."
"Why didn't he bring you back?"
"That was me!" again sobbed Thomasin. "When I found we could not be
married I didn't like to come back with him, and I was very ill. Then
I saw Diggory Venn, and was glad to get him to take me home. I cannot
explain it any better, and you must be angry with me if you will."
"I shall see about that," said Mrs. Yeobright; and they turned towards
the inn, known in the neighbourhood as the Quiet Woman, the sign of
which represented the figure of a matron carrying her head under her
arm, beneath which gruesome design was written the couplet so well
known to frequenters of the inn:--
SINCE THE WOMAN'S QUIET
LET NO MAN BREED A RIOT.
The front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow, whose
dark shape seemed to threaten it from the sky. Upon the door was
a neglected brass plate, bearing the unexpected inscription, "Mr.
Wildeve, Engineer"--a useless yet cherished relic from the time when
he had been started in that profession in an office at Budmouth by
those who had hoped much from him, and had been disappointed. The
garden was at the back, and behind this ran a still deep stream,
forming the margin of the heath in that direction, meadow-land
appearing beyond the stream.
But the thick obscurity permitted only skylines to be visible of
any scene at present. The water at the back of the house could be
heard, idly spinning whirpools in its creep between the rows of dry
feather-headed reeds which formed a stockade along each bank. Their
presence was denoted by sounds as of a congregation praying humbly,
produced by their rubbing against each other in the slow wind.
The window, whence the candlelight had shone up the vale to the eyes
of the bonfire group, was uncurtained, but the sill lay too high for
a pedestrian on the outside to look over it into the room. A vast
shadow, in which could be dimly traced portions of a masculine
contour, blotted half the ceiling.
"He seems to be at home," said Mrs. Yeobright.
"Must I come in, too, aunt?" asked Thomasin faintly. "I suppose not;
it would be wrong."
"You must come, certainly--to confront him, so that he may make no
false representations to me. We shall not be five minutes in the
house, and then we'll walk home."
Entering the open passage she tapped at the door of the private
parlour, unfastened it, and looked in.
The back and shoulders of a man came between Mrs. Yeobright's eyes and
the fire. Wildeve, whose form it was, immediately turned, arose, and
advanced to meet his visitors.
He was quite a young man, and of the two properties, form and motion,
the latter first attracted the eye in him. The grace of his movement
was singular: it was the pantomimic expression of a lady-killing
career. Next came into notice the more material qualities, among
which was a profuse crop of hair impending over the top of his face,
lending to his forehead the high-cornered outline of an early Gothic
shield; and a neck which was smooth and round as a cylinder. The lower
half of his figure was of light build. Altogether he was one in whom
no man would have seen anything to admire, and in whom no woman would
have seen anything to dislike.
He discerned the young girl's form in the passage, and said,
"Thomasin, then, has reached home. How could you leave me in that
way, darling?" And turning to Mrs. Yeobright: "It was useless to argue
with her. She would go, and go alone."
"But what's the meaning of it all?" demanded Mrs. Yeobright haughtily.
"Take a seat," said Wildeve, placing chairs for the two women. "Well,
it was a very stupid mistake, but such mistakes will happen. The
license was useless at Anglebury. It was made out for Budmouth, but
as I didn't read it I wasn't aware of that."
"But you had been staying at Anglebury?"
"No. I had been at Budmouth--till two days ago--and that was where I
had intended to take her; but when I came to fetch her we decided upon
Anglebury, forgetting that a new license would be necessary. There was
not time to get to Budmouth afterwards."
"I think you are very much to blame," said Mrs. Yeobright.
"It was quite my fault we chose Anglebury," Thomasin pleaded. "I
proposed it because I was not known there."
"I know so well that I am to blame that you need not remind me of it,"
replied Wildeve shortly.
"Such things don't happen for nothing," said the aunt. "It is a great
slight to me and my family; and when it gets known there will be a
very unpleasant time for us. How can she look her friends in the face
tomorrow? It is a very great injury, and one I cannot easily forgive.
It may even reflect on her character."
"Nonsense," said Wildeve.
Thomasin's large eyes had flown from the face of one to the face of
the other during this discussion, and she now said anxiously, "Will
you allow me, aunt, to talk it over alone with Damon for five minutes?
Will you, Damon?"
"Certainly, dear," said Wildeve, "if your aunt will excuse us." He led
her into an adjoining room, leaving Mrs. Yeobright by the fire.
As soon as they were alone, and the door closed, Thomasin said,
turning up her pale, tearful face to him, "It is killing me, this,
Damon! I did not mean to part from you in anger at Anglebury this
morning; but I was frightened, and hardly knew what I said. I've not
let aunt know how much I have suffered to-day; and it is so hard to
command my face and voice, and to smile as if it were a slight thing
to me; but I try to do so, that she may not be still more indignant
with you. I know you could not help it, dear, whatever aunt may
think."
"She is very unpleasant."
"Yes," Thomasin murmured, "and I suppose I seem so now... Damon, what
do you mean to do about me?"
"Do about you?"
"Yes. Those who don't like you whisper things which at moments make me
doubt you. We mean to marry, I suppose, don't we?"
"Of course we do. We have only to go to Budmouth on Monday, and we
marry at once."
"Then do let us go!--O Damon, what you make me say!" She hid her
face in her handkerchief. "Here am I asking you to marry me, when
by rights you ought to be on your knees imploring me, your cruel
mistress, not to refuse you, and saying it would break your heart if I
did. I used to think it would be pretty and sweet like that; but how
different!"
"Yes, real life is never at all like that."
"But I don't care personally if it never takes place," she added with
a little dignity; "no, I can live without you. It is aunt I think of.
She is so proud, and thinks so much of her family respectability,
that she will be cut down with mortification if this story should
get abroad before--it is done. My cousin Clym, too, will be much
wounded."
"Then he will be very unreasonable. In fact, you are all rather
unreasonable."
Thomasin coloured a little, and not with love. But whatever the
momentary feeling which caused that flush in her, it went as it came,
and she humbly said, "I never mean to be, if I can help it. I merely
feel that you have my aunt to some extent in your power at last."
"As a matter of justice it is almost due to me," said Wildeve. "Think
what I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is
to any man to have the banns forbidden: the double insult to a man
unlucky enough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons,
and Heaven knows what, as I am. I can never forget those banns. A
harsher man would rejoice now in the power I have of turning upon your
aunt by going no further in the business."
She looked wistfully at him with her sorrowful eyes as he said those
words, and her aspect showed that more than one person in the room
could deplore the possession of sensitiveness. Seeing that she was
really suffering he seemed disturbed and added, "This is merely a
reflection you know. I have not the least intention to refuse to
complete the marriage, Tamsie mine--I could not bear it."
"You could not, I know!" said the fair girl, brightening. "You, who
cannot bear the sight of pain in even an insect, or any disagreeable
sound, or unpleasant smell even, will not long cause pain to me and
mine."
"I will not, if I can help it."
"Your hand upon it, Damon."
He carelessly gave her his hand.
"Ah, by my crown, what's that?" he said suddenly.
There fell upon their ears the sound of numerous voices singing in
front of the house. Among these, two made themselves prominent by
their peculiarity: one was a very strong bass, the other a wheezy thin
piping. Thomasin recognized them as belonging to Timothy Fairway and
Grandfer Cantle respectively.
"What does it mean--it is not skimmity-riding, I hope?" she said, with
a frightened gaze at Wildeve.
"Of course not; no, it is that the heath-folk have come to sing to
us a welcome. This is intolerable!" He began pacing about, the men
outside singing cheerily--
"He told´ her that she´ was the joy´ of his life´.
And if´ she'd con-sent´ he would make her his wife´;
She could´ not refuse´ him; to church´ so they went´,
Young Will was forgot´, and young Sue´ was content´;
And then´ was she kiss'd´ and set down´ on his knee´,
No man´ in the world´ was so lov´-ing as he´!"
Mrs. Yeobright burst in from the outer room. "Thomasin, Thomasin!"
she said, looking indignantly at Wildeve; "here's a pretty exposure!
Let us escape at once. Come!"
It was, however, too late to get away by the passage. A rugged
knocking had begun upon the door of the front room. Wildeve, who had
gone to the window, came back.
"Stop!" he said imperiously, putting his hand upon Mrs. Yeobright's
arm. "We are regularly besieged. There are fifty of them out there
if there's one. You stay in this room with Thomasin; I'll go out and
face them. You must stay now, for my sake, till they are gone, so
that it may seem as if all was right. Come, Tamsie dear, don't go
making a scene--we must marry after this; that you can see as well as
I. Sit still, that's all--and don't speak much. I'll manage them.
Blundering fools!"
He pressed the agitated girl into a seat, returned to the outer room
and opened the door. Immediately outside, in the passage, appeared
Grandfer Cantle singing in concert with those still standing in
front of the house. He came into the room and nodded abstractedly
to Wildeve, his lips still parted, and his features excruciatingly
strained in the emission of the chorus. This being ended, he said
heartily, "Here's welcome to the newmade couple, and God bless 'em!"
"Thank you," said Wildeve, with dry resentment, his face as gloomy as
a thunderstorm.
At the Grandfer's heels now came the rest of the group, which included
Fairway, Christian, Sam the turf-cutter, Humphrey, and a dozen others.
All smiled upon Wildeve, and upon his tables and chairs likewise,
from a general sense of friendliness towards the articles as well as
towards their owner.
"We be not here afore Mrs. Yeobright after all," said Fairway,
recognizing the matron's bonnet through the glass partition which
divided the public apartment they had entered from the room where the
women sat. "We struck down across, d'ye see, Mr. Wildeve, and she
went round by the path."
"And I see the young bride's little head!" said Grandfer, peeping in
the same direction, and discerning Thomasin, who was waiting beside
her aunt in a miserable and awkward way. "Not quite settled in
yet--well, well, there's plenty of time."
Wildeve made no reply; and probably feeling that the sooner he treated
them the sooner they would go, he produced a stone jar, which threw a
warm halo over matters at once.
"That's a drop of the right sort, I can see," said Grandfer Cantle,
with the air of a man too well-mannered to show any hurry to taste
it.
"Yes," said Wildeve, "'tis some old mead. I hope you will like it."
"O ay!" replied the guests, in the hearty tones natural when the words
demanded by politeness coincide with those of deepest feeling. "There
isn't a prettier drink under the sun."
"I'll take my oath there isn't," added Grandfer Cantle. "All that can
be said against mead is that 'tis rather heady, and apt to lie about a
man a good while. But tomorrow's Sunday, thank God."
"I feel'd for all the world like some bold soldier after I had had
some once," said Christian.
"You shall feel so again," said Wildeve, with condescension, "Cups or
glasses, gentlemen?"
"Well, if you don't mind, we'll have the beaker, and pass 'en round;
'tis better than heling it out in dribbles."
"Jown the slippery glasses," said Grandfer Cantle. "What's the good
of a thing that you can't put down in the ashes to warm, hey,
neighbours; that's what I ask?"
"Right, Grandfer," said Sam; and the mead then circulated.
"Well," said Timothy Fairway, feeling demands upon his praise in some
form or other, "'tis a worthy thing to be married, Mr. Wildeve; and
the woman you've got is a dimant, so says I. Yes," he continued, to
Grandfer Cantle, raising his voice so as to be heard through the
partition, "her father (inclining his head towards the inner room) was
as good a feller as ever lived. He always had his great indignation
ready against anything underhand."
"Is that very dangerous?" said Christian.
"And there were few in these parts that were upsides with him," said
Sam. "Whenever a club walked he'd play the clarinet in the band that
marched before 'em as if he'd never touched anything but a clarinet
all his life. And then, when they got to church door he'd throw down
the clarinet, mount the gallery, snatch up the bass-viol, and rozum
away as if he'd never played anything but a bass-viol. Folk would
say--folk that knowed what a true stave was--'Surely, surely that's
never the same man that I saw handling the clarinet so masterly by
now!"
"I can mind it," said the furze-cutter. "'Twas a wonderful thing that
one body could hold it all and never mix the fingering."
"There was Kingsbere church likewise," Fairway recommenced, as one
opening a new vein of the same mine of interest.
Wildeve breathed the breath of one intolerably bored, and glanced
through the partition at the prisoners.
"He used to walk over there of a Sunday afternoon to visit his old
acquaintance Andrew Brown, the first clarinet there; a good man
enough, but rather screechy in his music, if you can mind?"
"'A was."
"And neighbour Yeobright would take Andrey's place for some part of
the service, to let Andrey have a bit of a nap, as any friend would
naturally do."
"As any friend would," said Grandfer Cantle, the other listeners
expressing the same accord by the shorter way of nodding their heads.
"No sooner was Andrey asleep and the first whiff of neighbour
Yeobright's wind had got inside Andrey's clarinet than everyone in
church feeled in a moment there was a great soul among 'em. All heads
would turn, and they'd say, 'Ah, I thought 'twas he!' One Sunday I can
well mind--a bass-viol day that time, and Yeobright had brought his
own. 'Twas the Hundred-and-thirty-third to 'Lydia'; and when they'd
come to 'Ran down his beard and o'er his robes its costly moisture
shed,' neighbour Yeobright, who had just warmed to his work, drove his
bow into them strings that glorious grand that he e'en a'most sawed
the bass-viol into two pieces. Every winder in church rattled as if
'twere a thunderstorm. Old Pa'son Williams lifted his hands in his
great holy surplice as natural as if he'd been in common clothes, and
seemed to say to hisself, 'O for such a man in our parish!' But not a
soul in Kingsbere could hold a candle to Yeobright."
"Was it quite safe when the winder shook?" Christian inquired.
He received no answer, all for the moment sitting rapt in admiration
of the performance described. As with Farinelli's singing before the
princesses, Sheridan's renowned Begum Speech, and other such examples,
the fortunate condition of its being for ever lost to the world
invested the deceased Mr. Yeobright's _tour de force_ on that
memorable afternoon with a cumulative glory which comparative
criticism, had that been possible, might considerably have shorn down.
"He was the last you'd have expected to drop off in the prime of
life," said Humphrey.
"Ah, well: he was looking for the earth some months afore he went. At
that time women used to run for smocks and gown-pieces at Greenhill
Fair, and my wife that is now, being a long-legged slittering maid,
hardly husband-high, went with the rest of the maidens, for 'a was
a good runner afore she got so heavy. When she came home I said--we
were then just beginning to walk together--'What have ye got, my
honey?' 'I've won--well, I've won--a gown-piece,' says she, her
colours coming up in a moment. 'Tis a smock for a crown, I thought;
and so it turned out. Ay, when I think what she'll say to me now
without a mossel of red in her face, it do seem strange that 'a
wouldn't say such a little thing then... However, then she went on,
and that's what made me bring up the story. 'Well, whatever clothes
I've won, white or figured, for eyes to see or for eyes not to see'
('a could do a pretty stroke of modesty in those days), 'I'd sooner
have lost it than have seen what I have. Poor Mr. Yeobright was took
bad directly he reached the fair ground, and was forced to go home
again.' That was the last time he ever went out of the parish."
"'A faltered on from one day to another, and then we heard he was
gone."
"D'ye think he had great pain when 'a died?" said Christian.
"O no: quite different. Nor any pain of mind. He was lucky enough to
be God A'mighty's own man."
"And other folk--d'ye think 'twill be much pain to 'em, Mister
Fairway?"
"That depends on whether they be afeard."
"I bain't afeard at all, I thank God!" said Christian strenuously.
"I'm glad I bain't, for then 'twon't pain me... I don't think I be
afeard--or if I be I can't help it, and I don't deserve to suffer. I
wish I was not afeard at all!"
There was a solemn silence, and looking from the window, which was
unshuttered and unblinded, Timothy said, "Well, what a fess little
bonfire that one is, out by Cap'n Vye's! 'Tis burning just the same
now as ever, upon my life."
All glances went through the window, and nobody noticed that Wildeve
disguised a brief, telltale look. Far away up the sombre valley of
heath, and to the right of Rainbarrow, could indeed be seen the light,
small, but steady and persistent as before.
"It was lighted before ours was," Fairway continued; "and yet every
one in the country round is out afore 'n."
"Perhaps there's meaning in it!" murmured Christian.
"How meaning?" said Wildeve sharply.
Christian was too scattered to reply, and Timothy helped him.
"He means, sir, that the lonesome dark-eyed creature up there that
some say is a witch--ever I should call a fine young woman such a
name--is always up to some odd conceit or other; and so perhaps 'tis
she."
"I'd be very glad to ask her in wedlock, if she'd hae me, and take
the risk of her wild dark eyes ill-wishing me," said Grandfer Cantle
staunchly.
"Don't ye say it, father!" implored Christian.
"Well, be dazed if he who do marry the maid won't hae an uncommon
picture for his best parlour," said Fairway in a liquid tone, placing
down the cup of mead at the end of a good pull.
"And a partner as deep as the North Star," said Sam, taking up the cup
and finishing the little that remained. "Well, really, now I think we
must be moving," said Humphrey, observing the emptiness of the vessel.
"But we'll gie 'em another song?" said Grandfer Cantle. "I'm as full
of notes as a bird!"
"Thank you, Grandfer," said Wildeve. "But we will not trouble you
now. Some other day must do for that--when I have a party."
"Be jown'd if I don't learn ten new songs for't, or I won't learn a
line!" said Grandfer Cantle. "And you may be sure I won't disappoint
ye by biding away, Mr. Wildeve."
"I quite believe you," said that gentleman.
All then took their leave, wishing their entertainer long life and
happiness as a married man, with recapitulations which occupied some
time. Wildeve attended them to the door, beyond which the deep-dyed
upward stretch of heath stood awaiting them, an amplitude of darkness
reigning from their feet almost to the zenith, where a definite form
first became visible in the lowering forehead of Rainbarrow. Diving
into the dense obscurity in a line headed by Sam the turf-cutter, they
pursued their trackless way home.
When the scratching of the furze against their leggings had fainted
upon the ear, Wildeve returned to the room where he had left Thomasin
and her aunt. The women were gone.
They could only have left the house in one way, by the back window;
and this was open.
Wildeve laughed to himself, remained a moment thinking, and idly
returned to the front room. Here his glance fell upon a bottle of
wine which stood on the mantelpiece. "Ah--old Dowden!" he murmured;
and going to the kitchen door shouted, "Is anybody here who can take
something to old Dowden?"
There was no reply. The room was empty, the lad who acted as his
factotum having gone to bed. Wildeve came back put on his hat, took
the bottle, and left the house, turning the key in the door, for there
was no guest at the inn tonight. As soon as he was on the road the
little bonfire on Mistover Knap again met his eye.
"Still waiting, are you, my lady?" he murmured.
However, he did not proceed that way just then; but leaving the hill
to the left of him, he stumbled over a rutted road that brought him to
a cottage which, like all other habitations on the heath at this hour,
was only saved from being visible by a faint shine from its bedroom
window. This house was the home of Olly Dowden, the besom-maker, and
he entered.
The lower room was in darkness; but by feeling his way he found a
table, whereon he placed the bottle, and a minute later emerged again
upon the heath. He stood and looked north-east at the undying little
fire--high up above him, though not so high as Rainbarrow.
We have been told what happens when a woman deliberates; and the
epigram is not always terminable with woman, provided that one be in
the case, and that a fair one. Wildeve stood, and stood longer, and
breathed perplexedly, and then said to himself with resignation,
"Yes--by Heaven, I must go to her, I suppose!"
Instead of turning in the direction of home he pressed on rapidly by a
path under Rainbarrow towards what was evidently a signal light.
VI
The Figure against the Sky
When the whole Egdon concourse had left the site of the bonfire to its
accustomed loneliness, a closely wrapped female figure approached the
barrow from that quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay.
Had the reddleman been watching he might have recognized her as the
woman who had first stood there so singularly, and vanished at the
approach of strangers. She ascended to her old position at the top,
where the red coals of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes
in the corpse of day. There she stood still, around her stretching the
vast night atmosphere, whose incomplete darkness in comparison with
the total darkness of the heath below it might have represented a
venial beside a mortal sin.
That she was tall and straight in build, that she was lady-like in
her movements, was all that could be learnt of her just now, her form
being wrapped in a shawl folded in the old cornerwise fashion, and
her head in a large kerchief, a protection not superfluous at this
hour and place. Her back was towards the wind, which blew from the
north-west; but whether she had avoided that aspect because of the
chilly gusts which played about her exceptional position, or because
her interest lay in the south-east, did not at first appear.
Her reason for standing so dead still as the pivot of this circle
of heath-country was just as obscure. Her extraordinary fixity, her
conspicuous loneliness, her heedlessness of night, betokened among
other things an utter absence of fear. A tract of country unaltered
from that sinister condition which made Caesar anxious every year
to get clear of its glooms before the autumnal equinox, a kind of
landscape and weather which leads travellers from the South to
describe our island as Homer's Cimmerian land, was not, on the face
of it, friendly to women.
It might reasonably have been supposed that she was listening to the
wind, which rose somewhat as the night advanced, and laid hold of the
attention. The wind, indeed, seemed made for the scene, as the scene
seemed made for the hour. Part of its tone was quite special; what
was heard there could be heard nowhere else. Gusts in innumerable
series followed each other from the north-west, and when each one
of them raced past the sound of its progress resolved into three.
Treble, tenor, and bass notes were to be found therein. The general
ricochet of the whole over pits and prominences had the gravest pitch
of the chime. Next there could be heard the baritone buzz of a holly
tree. Below these in force, above them in pitch, a dwindled voice
strove hard at a husky tune, which was the peculiar local sound
alluded to. Thinner and less immediately traceable than the other
two, it was far more impressive than either. In it lay what may be
called the linguistic peculiarity of the heath; and being audible
nowhere on earth off a heath, it afforded a shadow of reason for the
woman's tenseness, which continued as unbroken as ever.
Throughout the blowing of these plaintive November winds that note
bore a great resemblance to the ruins of human song which remain
to the throat of fourscore and ten. It was a worn whisper, dry and
papery, and it brushed so distinctly across the ear that, by the
accustomed, the material minutiae in which it originated could be
realized as by touch. It was the united products of infinitesimal
vegetable causes, and these were neither stems, leaves, fruit, blades,
prickles, lichen, nor moss.
They were the mummied heath-bells of the past summer, originally
tender and purple, now washed colourless by Michaelmas rains, and
dried to dead skins by October suns. So low was an individual sound
from these that a combination of hundreds only just emerged from
silence, and the myriads of the whole declivity reached the woman's
ear but as a shrivelled and intermittent recitative. Yet scarcely a
single accent among the many afloat to-night could have such power to
impress a listener with thoughts of its origin. One inwardly saw the
infinity of those combined multitudes; and perceived that each of the
tiny trumpets was seized on, entered, scoured and emerged from by the
wind as thoroughly as if it were as vast as a crater.
"The spirit moved them." A meaning of the phrase forced itself upon
the attention; and an emotional listener's fetichistic mood might have
ended in one of more advanced quality. It was not, after all, that
the left-hand expanse of old blooms spoke, or the right-hand, or those
of the slope in front; but it was the single person of something else
speaking through each at once.
Suddenly, on the barrow, there mingled with all this wild rhetoric
of night a sound which modulated so naturally into the rest that its
beginning and ending were hardly to be distinguished. The bluffs, and
the bushes, and the heather-bells had broken silence; at last, so did
the woman; and her articulation was but as another phrase of the same
discourse as theirs. Thrown out on the winds it became twined in with
them, and with them it flew away.
What she uttered was a lengthened sighing, apparently at something in
her mind which had led to her presence here. There was a spasmodic
abandonment about it as if, in allowing herself to utter the sound.
the woman's brain had authorized what it could not regulate. One
point was evident in this; that she had been existing in a suppressed
state, and not in one of languor, or stagnation.
Far away down the valley the faint shine from the window of the inn
still lasted on; and a few additional moments proved that the window,
or what was within it, had more to do with the woman's sigh than had
either her own actions or the scene immediately around. She lifted
her left hand, which held a closed telescope. This she rapidly
extended, as if she were well accustomed to the operation, and raising
it to her eye directed it towards the light beaming from the inn.
The handkerchief which had hooded her head was now a little thrown
back, her face being somewhat elevated. A profile was visible against
the dull monochrome of cloud around her; and it was as though side
shadows from the features of Sappho and Mrs. Siddons had converged
upwards from the tomb to form an image like neither but suggesting
both. This, however, was mere superficiality. In respect of
character a face may make certain admissions by its outline; but
it fully confesses only in its changes. So much is this the case
that what is called the play of the features often helps more in
understanding a man or woman than the earnest labours of all the other
members together. Thus the night revealed little of her whose form it
was embracing, for the mobile parts of her countenance could not be
seen.
At last she gave up her spying attitude, closed the telescope, and
turned to the decaying embers. From these no appreciable beams now
radiated, except when a more than usually smart gust brushed over
their faces and raised a fitful glow which came and went like the
blush of a girl. She stooped over the silent circle, and selecting
from the brands a piece of stick which bore the largest live coal at
its end, brought it to where she had been standing before.
She held the brand to the ground, blowing the red coal with her mouth
at the same time; till it faintly illuminated the sod, and revealed
a small object, which turned out to be an hourglass, though she wore
a watch. She blew long enough to show that the sand had all slipped
through.
"Ah!" she said, as if surprised.
The light raised by her breath had been very fitful, and a momentary
irradiation of flesh was all that it had disclosed of her face. That
consisted of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head being still
enveloped. She threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand, the
telescope under her arm, and moved on.
Along the ridge ran a faint foot-track, which the lady followed.
Those who knew it well called it a path; and, while a mere visitor
would have passed it unnoticed even by day, the regular haunters of
the heath were at no loss for it at midnight. The whole secret of
following these incipient paths, when there was not light enough in
the atmosphere to show a turnpike-road, lay in the development of the
sense of touch in the feet, which comes with years of night-rambling
in little-trodden spots. To a walker practised in such places a
difference between impact on maiden herbage, and on the crippled
stalks of a slight footway, is perceptible through the thickest boot
or shoe.
The solitary figure who walked this beat took no notice of the windy
tune still played on the dead heath-bells. She did not turn her head
to look at a group of dark creatures further on, who fled from her
presence as she skirted a ravine where they fed. They were about a
score of the small wild ponies known as heath-croppers. They roamed at
large on the undulations of Egdon, but in numbers too few to detract
much from the solitude.
The pedestrian noticed nothing just now, and a clue to her abstraction
was afforded by a trivial incident. A bramble caught hold of her
skirt, and checked her progress. Instead of putting it off and
hastening along, she yielded herself up to the pull, and stood
passively still. When she began to extricate herself it was by
turning round and round, and so unwinding the prickly switch. She was
in a desponding reverie.
Her course was in the direction of the small undying fire which had
drawn the attention of the men on Rainbarrow and of Wildeve in the
valley below. A faint illumination from its rays began to glow upon
her face, and the fire soon revealed itself to be lit, not on the
level ground, but on a salient corner or redan of earth, at the
junction of two converging bank fences. Outside was a ditch, dry
except immediately under the fire, where there was a large pool,
bearded all round by heather and rushes. In the smooth water of the
pool the fire appeared upside down.
The banks meeting behind were bare of a hedge, save such as was formed
by disconnected tufts of furze, standing upon stems along the top,
like impaled heads above a city wall. A white mast, fitted up with
spars and other nautical tackle, could be seen rising against the
dark clouds whenever the flames played brightly enough to reach it.
Altogether the scene had much the appearance of a fortification upon
which had been kindled a beacon fire.
Nobody was visible; but ever and anon a whitish something moved above
the bank from behind, and vanished again. This was a small human
hand, in the act of lifting pieces of fuel into the fire; but for all
that could be seen the hand, like that which troubled Belshazzar, was
there alone. Occasionally an ember rolled off the bank, and dropped
with a hiss into the pool.
At one side of the pool rough steps built of clods enabled any one
who wished to do so to mount the bank; which the woman did. Within
was a paddock in an uncultivated state, though bearing evidence of
having once been tilled; but the heath and fern had insidiously crept
in, and were reasserting their old supremacy. Further ahead were
dimly visible an irregular dwelling-house, garden, and outbuildings,
backed by a clump of firs.
The young lady--for youth had revealed its presence in her buoyant
bound up the bank--walked along the top instead of descending inside,
and came to the corner where the fire was burning. One reason for the
permanence of the blaze was now manifest: the fuel consisted of hard
pieces of wood, cleft and sawn--the knotty boles of old thorn trees
which grew in twos and threes about the hillsides. A yet unconsumed
pile of these lay in the inner angle of the bank; and from this corner
the upturned face of a little boy greeted her eyes. He was dilatorily
throwing up a piece of wood into the fire every now and then, a
business which seemed to have engaged him a considerable part of the
evening, for his face was somewhat weary.
"I am glad you have come, Miss Eustacia," he said, with a sigh of
relief. "I don't like biding by myself."
"Nonsense. I have only been a little way for a walk. I have been gone
only twenty minutes."
"It seemed long," murmured the sad boy. "And you have been so many
times."
"Why, I thought you would be pleased to have a bonfire. Are you not
much obliged to me for making you one?"
"Yes; but there's nobody here to play wi' me."
"I suppose nobody has come while I've been away?"
"Nobody except your grandfather: he looked out of doors once for 'ee.
I told him you were walking round upon the hill to look at the other
bonfires."
"A good boy."
"I think I hear him coming again, miss."
An old man came into the remoter light of the fire from the direction
of the homestead. He was the same who had overtaken the reddleman on
the road that afternoon. He looked wistfully to the top of the bank at
the woman who stood there, and his teeth, which were quite unimpaired,
showed like parian from his parted lips.
"When are you coming indoors, Eustacia?" he asked. "'Tis almost
bedtime. I've been home these two hours, and am tired out. Surely
'tis somewhat childish of you to stay out playing at bonfires so long,
and wasting such fuel. My precious thorn roots, the rarest of all
firing, that I laid by on purpose for Christmas--you have burnt 'em
nearly all!"
"I promised Johnny a bonfire, and it pleases him not to let it go out
just yet," said Eustacia, in a way which told at once that she was
absolute queen here. "Grandfather, you go in to bed. I shall follow
you soon. You like the fire, don't you, Johnny?"
The boy looked up doubtfully at her and murmured, "I don't think I
want it any longer."
Her grandfather had turned back again, and did not hear the boy's
reply. As soon as the white-haired man had vanished she said in a
tone of pique to the child, "Ungrateful little boy, how can you
contradict me? Never shall you have a bonfire again unless you keep
it up now. Come, tell me you like to do things for me, and don't deny
it."
The repressed child said, "Yes, I do, miss," and continued to stir the
fire perfunctorily.
"Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooked six-pence," said
Eustacia, more gently. "Put in one piece of wood every two or three
minutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge
a little longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a
frog jump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure
you run and tell me, because it is a sign of rain."
"Yes, Eustacia."
"Miss Vye, sir."
"Miss Vy--stacia."
"That will do. Now put in one stick more."
The little slave went on feeding the fire as before. He seemed a
mere automaton, galvanized into moving and speaking by the wayward
Eustacia's will. He might have been the brass statue which Albertus
Magnus is said to have animated just so far as to make it chatter,
and move, and be his servant.
Before going on her walk again the young girl stood still on the
bank for a few instants and listened. It was to the full as lonely a
place as Rainbarrow, though at rather a lower level; and it was more
sheltered from wind and weather on account of the few firs to the
north. The bank which enclosed the homestead, and protected it from
the lawless state of the world without, was formed of thick square
clods, dug from the ditch on the outside, and built up with a slight
batter or incline, which forms no slight defense where hedges will not
grow because of the wind and the wilderness, and where wall materials
are unattainable. Otherwise the situation was quite open, commanding
the whole length of the valley which reached to the river behind
Wildeve's house. High above this to the right, and much nearer
thitherward than the Quiet Woman Inn, the blurred contour of
Rainbarrow obstructed the sky.
After her attentive survey of the wild slopes and hollow ravines a
gesture of impatience escaped Eustacia. She vented petulant words
every now and then, but there were sighs between her words, and sudden
listenings between her sighs. Descending from her perch she again
sauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though this time she did not go the
whole way.
Twice she reappeared at intervals of a few minutes and each time she
said--
"Not any flounce into the pond yet, little man?"
"No, Miss Eustacia," the child replied.
"Well," she said at last, "I shall soon be going in, and then I will
give you the crooked sixpence, and let you go home."
"Thank'ee, Miss Eustacia," said the tired stoker, breathing more
easily. And Eustacia again strolled away from the fire, but this time
not towards Rainbarrow. She skirted the bank and went round to the
wicket before the house, where she stood motionless, looking at the
scene.
Fifty yards off rose the corner of the two converging banks, with the
fire upon it; within the bank, lifting up to the fire one stick at
a time, just as before, the figure of the little child. She idly
watched him as he occasionally climbed up in the nook of the bank and
stood beside the brands. The wind blew the smoke, and the child's
hair, and the corner of his pinafore, all in the same direction; the
breeze died, and the pinafore and hair lay still, and the smoke went
up straight.
While Eustacia looked on from this distance the boy's form visibly
started: he slid down the bank and ran across towards the white gate.
"Well?" said Eustacia.
"A hop-frog have jumped into the pond. Yes, I heard 'en!"
"Then it is going to rain, and you had better go home. You will not
be afraid?" She spoke hurriedly, as if her heart had leapt into her
throat at the boy's words.
"No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence."
"Yes, here it is. Now run as fast as you can--not that way--through
the garden here. No other boy in the heath has had such a bonfire as
yours."
The boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing, marched away
into the shadows with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving
her telescope and hour-glass by the gate, brushed forward from the
wicket towards the angle of the bank, under the fire.
Here, screened by the outwork, she waited. In a few moments a splash
was audible from the pond outside. Had the child been there he would
have said that a second frog had jumped in; but by most people the
sound would have been likened to the fall of a stone into the water.
Eustacia stepped upon the bank.
"Yes?" she said, and held her breath.
Thereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against the
low-reaching sky over the valley, beyond the outer margin of the pool.
He came round it and leapt upon the bank beside her. A low laugh
escaped her--the third utterance which the girl had indulged in
tonight. The first, when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed
anxiety; the second, on the ridge, had expressed impatience; the
present was one of triumphant pleasure. She let her joyous eyes rest
upon him without speaking, as upon some wondrous thing she had created
out of chaos.
"I have come," said the man, who was Wildeve. "You give me no peace.
Why do you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the
evening." The words were not without emotion, and retained their
level tone as if by a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.
At this unexpectedly repressing manner in her lover the girl seemed to
repress herself also. "Of course you have seen my fire," she answered
with languid calmness, artificially maintained. "Why shouldn't I have
a bonfire on the Fifth of November, like other denizens of the heath?"
"I knew it was meant for me."
"How did you know it? I have had no word with you since you--you
chose her, and walked about with her, and deserted me entirely, as if
I had never been yours life and soul so irretrievably!"
"Eustacia! could I forget that last autumn at this same day of the
month and at this same place you lighted exactly such a fire as a
signal for me to come and see you? Why should there have been a
bonfire again by Captain Vye's house if not for the same purpose?"
"Yes, yes--I own it," she cried under her breath, with a drowsy
fervour of manner and tone which was quite peculiar to her. "Don't
begin speaking to me as you did, Damon; you will drive me to say words
I would not wish to say to you. I had given you up, and resolved not
to think of you any more; and then I heard the news, and I came out
and got the fire ready because I thought that you had been faithful to
me."
"What have you heard to make you think that?" said Wildeve,
astonished.
"That you did not marry her!" she murmured exultingly. "And I knew it
was because you loved me best, and couldn't do it... Damon, you have
been cruel to me to go away, and I have said I would never forgive
you. I do not think I can forgive you entirely, even now--it is too
much for a woman of any spirit to quite overlook."
"If I had known you wished to call me up here only to reproach me, I
wouldn't have come."
"But I don't mind it, and I do forgive you now that you have not
married her, and have come back to me!"
"Who told you that I had not married her?"
"My grandfather. He took a long walk today, and as he was coming home
he overtook some person who told him of a broken-off wedding: he
thought it might be yours, and I knew it was."
"Does anybody else know?"
"I suppose not. Now Damon, do you see why I lit my signal fire? You
did not think I would have lit it if I had imagined you to have become
the husband of this woman. It is insulting my pride to suppose that."
Wildeve was silent; it was evident that he had supposed as much.
"Did you indeed think I believed you were married?" she again demanded
earnestly. "Then you wronged me; and upon my life and heart I can
hardly bear to recognize that you have such ill thoughts of me! Damon,
you are not worthy of me: I see it, and yet I love you. Never mind,
let it go--I must bear your mean opinion as best I may... It is true,
is it not," she added with ill-concealed anxiety, on his making no
demonstration, "that you could not bring yourself to give me up, and
are still going to love me best of all?"
"Yes; or why should I have come?" he said touchily. "Not that
fidelity will be any great merit in me after your kind speech
about my unworthiness, which should have been said by myself if by
anybody, and comes with an ill grace from you. However, the curse
of inflammability is upon me, and I must live under it, and take
any snub from a woman. It has brought me down from engineering to
innkeeping: what lower stage it has in store for me I have yet to
learn." He continued to look upon her gloomily.
She seized the moment, and throwing back the shawl so that the
firelight shone full upon her face and throat, said with a smile,
"Have you seen anything better than that in your travels?"
Eustacia was not one to commit herself to such a position without good
ground. He said quietly, "No."
"Not even on the shoulders of Thomasin?"
"Thomasin is a pleasing and innocent woman."
"That's nothing to do with it," she cried with quick passionateness.
"We will leave her out; there are only you and me now to think of."
After a long look at him she resumed with the old quiescent warmth:
"Must I go on weakly confessing to you things a woman ought to
conceal; and own that no words can express how gloomy I have been
because of that dreadful belief I held till two hours ago--that you
had quite deserted me?"
"I am sorry I caused you that pain."
"But perhaps it is not wholly because of you that I get gloomy," she
archly added. "It is in my nature to feel like that. It was born in
my blood, I suppose."
"Hypochondriasis."
"Or else it was coming into this wild heath. I was happy enough at
Budmouth. O the times, O the days at Budmouth! But Egdon will be
brighter again now."
"I hope it will," said Wildeve moodily. "Do you know the consequence
of this recall to me, my old darling? I shall come to see you again
as before, at Rainbarrow."
"Of course you will."
"And yet I declare that until I got here tonight I intended, after
this one good-bye, never to meet you again."
"I don't thank you for that," she said, turning away, while
indignation spread through her like subterranean heat. "You may come
again to Rainbarrow if you like, but you won't see me; and you may
call, but I shall not listen; and you may tempt me, but I won't give
myself to you any more."
"You have said as much before, sweet; but such natures as yours don't
so easily adhere to their words. Neither, for the matter of that, do
such natures as mine."
"This is the pleasure I have won by my trouble," she whispered
bitterly. "Why did I try to recall you? Damon, a strange warring
takes place in my mind occasionally. I think when I become calm after
your woundings, 'Do I embrace a cloud of common fog after all?' You
are a chameleon, and now you are at your worst colour. Go home, or I
shall hate you!"
He looked absently towards Rainbarrow while one might have counted
twenty, and said, as if he did not much mind all this, "Yes, I will go
home. Do you mean to see me again?"
"If you own to me that the wedding is broken off because you love me
best."
"I don't think it would be good policy," said Wildeve, smiling. "You
would get to know the extent of your power too clearly."
"But tell me!"
"You know."
"Where is she now?"
"I don't know. I prefer not to speak of her to you. I have not yet
married her; I have come in obedience to your call. That is enough."
"I merely lit that fire because I was dull, and thought I would get
a little excitement by calling you up and triumphing over you as the
Witch of Endor called up Samuel. I determined you should come; and you
have come! I have shown my power. A mile and half hither, and a mile
and half back again to your home--three miles in the dark for me.
Have I not shown my power?"
He shook his head at her. "I know you too well, my Eustacia; I know
you too well. There isn't a note in you which I don't know; and that
hot little bosom couldn't play such a coldblooded trick to save its
life. I saw a woman on Rainbarrow at dusk looking down towards my
house. I think I drew out you before you drew out me."
The revived embers of an old passion glowed clearly in Wildeve now;
and he leant forward as if about to put his face towards her cheek.
"O no," she said, intractably moving to the other side of the decayed
fire. "What did you mean by that?"
"Perhaps I may kiss your hand?"
"No, you may not."
"Then I may shake your hand?"
"No."
"Then I wish you good night without caring for either. Good-bye,
good-bye."
She returned no answer, and with the bow of a dancing-master he
vanished on the other side of the pool as he had come.
Eustacia sighed: it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a sigh which
shook her like a shiver. Whenever a flash of reason darted like an
electric light upon her lover--as it sometimes would--and showed his
imperfections, she shivered thus. But it was over in a second, and
she loved on. She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved on.
She scattered the half-burnt brands, went indoors immediately, and up
to her bedroom without a light. Amid the rustles which denoted her to
be undressing in the darkness other heavy breaths frequently came; and
the same kind of shudder occasionally moved through her when, ten
minutes later, she lay on her bed asleep.
VII
Queen of Night
Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would
have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and
instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not
quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind
to be entirely in her grasp for a while, had she handled the distaff,
the spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world
would have noticed the change of government. There would have been
the same inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here,
of contumely there, the same generosity before justice, the same
perpetual dilemmas, the same captious alteration of caresses and blows
that we endure now.
She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness,
as without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hair
was to fancy that a whole winter did not contain darkness enough
to form its shadow: it closed over her forehead like nightfall
extinguishing the western glow.
Her nerves extended into those tresses, and her temper could always
be softened by stroking them down. When her hair was brushed she
would instantly sink into stillness and look like the Sphinx. If, in
passing under one of the Egdon banks, any of its thick skeins were
caught, as they sometimes were, by a prickly tuft of the large _Ulex
Europaeus_--which will act as a sort of hairbrush--she would go back
a few steps, and pass against it a second time.
She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries, and their light, as
it came and went, and came again, was partially hampered by their
oppressive lids and lashes; and of these the under lid was much fuller
than it usually is with English women. This enabled her to indulge in
reverie without seeming to do so: she might have been believed capable
of sleeping without closing them up. Assuming that the souls of
men and women were visible essences, you could fancy the colour of
Eustacia's soul to be flame-like. The sparks from it that rose into
her dark pupils gave the same impression.
The mouth seemed formed less to speak than to quiver, less to quiver
than to kiss. Some might have added, less to kiss than to curl.
Viewed sideways, the closing-line of her lips formed, with almost
geometric precision, the curve so well known in the arts of design as
the cima-recta, or ogee. The sight of such a flexible bend as that
on grim Egdon was quite an apparition. It was felt at once that the
mouth did not come over from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates
whose lips met like the two halves of a muffin. One had fancied that
such lip-curves were mostly lurking underground in the South as
fragments of forgotten marbles. So fine were the lines of her lips
that, though full, each corner of her mouth was as clearly cut as the
point of a spear. This keenness of corner was only blunted when she
was given over to sudden fits of gloom, one of the phases of the
night-side of sentiment which she knew too well for her years.
Her presence brought memories of such things as Bourbon roses, rubies,
and tropical midnights; her moods recalled lotus-eaters and the march
in "Athalie"; her motions, the ebb and flow of the sea; her voice, the
viola. In a dim light, and with a slight rearrangement of her hair,
her general figure might have stood for that of either of the higher
female deities. The new moon behind her head, an old helmet upon
it, a diadem of accidental dewdrops round her brow, would have been
adjuncts sufficient to strike the note of Artemis, Athena, or Hera
respectively, with as close an approximation to the antique as that
which passes muster on many respected canvases.
But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be
somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited, and
the consciousness of this limitation had biassed her development.
Egdon was her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of
what was dark in its tone, though inwardly and eternally unreconciled
thereto. Her appearance accorded well with this smouldering
rebelliousness, and the shady splendour of her beauty was the real
surface of the sad and stifled warmth within her. A true Tartarean
dignity sat upon her brow, and not factitiously or with marks of
constraint, for it had grown in her with years.
Across the upper part of her head she wore a thin fillet of black
velvet, restraining the luxuriance of her shady hair, in a way which
added much to this class of majesty by irregularly clouding her
forehead. "Nothing can embellish a beautiful face more than a narrow
band drawn over the brow," says Richter. Some of the neighbouring
girls wore coloured ribbon for the same purpose, and sported metallic
ornaments elsewhere; but if anyone suggested coloured ribbon and
metallic ornaments to Eustacia Vye she laughed and went on.
Why did a woman of this sort live on Egdon Heath? Budmouth was her
native place, a fashionable seaside resort at that date. She was the
daughter of the bandmaster of a regiment which had been quartered
there--a Corfiote by birth, and a fine musician--who met his future
wife during her trip thither with her father the captain, a man of
good family. The marriage was scarcely in accord with the old man's
wishes, for the bandmaster's pockets were as light as his occupation.
But the musician did his best; adopted his wife's name, made England
permanently his home, took great trouble with his child's education,
the expenses of which were defrayed by the grandfather, and throve as
the chief local musician till her mother's death, when he left off
thriving, drank, and died also. The girl was left to the care of
her grandfather, who, since three of his ribs became broken in a
shipwreck, had lived in this airy perch on Egdon, a spot which had
taken his fancy because the house was to be had for next to nothing,
and because a remote blue tinge on the horizon between the hills,
visible from the cottage door, was traditionally believed to be the
English Channel. She hated the change; she felt like one banished;
but here she was forced to abide.
Thus it happened that in Eustacia's brain were juxtaposed the
strangest assortment of ideas, from old time and from new. There was
no middle distance in her perspective: romantic recollections of
sunny afternoons on an esplanade, with military bands, officers, and
gallants around, stood like gilded letters upon the dark tablet of
surrounding Egdon. Every bizarre effect that could result from the
random intertwining of watering-place glitter with the grand solemnity
of a heath, was to be found in her. Seeing nothing of human life now,
she imagined all the more of what she had seen.
Where did her dignity come from? By a latent vein from Alcinous'
line, her father hailing from Phaeacia's isle?--or from Fitzalan and
De Vere, her maternal grandfather having had a cousin in the peerage?
Perhaps it was the gift of Heaven--a happy convergence of natural
laws. Among other things opportunity had of late years been denied
her of learning to be undignified, for she lived lonely. Isolation on
a heath renders vulgarity well-nigh impossible. It would have been as
easy for the heath-ponies, bats, and snakes to be vulgar as for her.
A narrow life in Budmouth might have completely demeaned her.
The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it
over is to look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to a
triumph. In the captain's cottage she could suggest mansions she had
never seen. Perhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansion
than any of them, the open hills. Like the summer condition of the
place around her, she was an embodiment of the phrase "a populous
solitude"--apparently so listless, void, and quiet, she was really
busy and full.
To be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her the
one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days.
And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more
than for any particular lover.
She could show a most reproachful look at times, but it was directed
less against human beings than against certain creatures of her mind,
the chief of these being Destiny, through whose interference she
dimly fancied it arose that love alighted only on gliding youth--that
any love she might win would sink simultaneously with the sand in
the glass. She thought of it with an ever-growing consciousness of
cruelty, which tended to breed actions of reckless unconventionality,
framed to snatch a year's, a week's, even an hour's passion from
anywhere while it could be won. Through want of it she had sung
without being merry, possessed without enjoying, outshone without
triumphing. Her loneliness deepened her desire. On Egdon, coldest
and meanest kisses were at famine prices; and where was a mouth
matching hers to be found?
Fidelity in love for fidelity's sake had less attraction for her than
for most women: fidelity because of love's grip had much. A blaze of
love, and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same
which should last long years. On this head she knew by prevision what
most women learn only by experience: she had mentally walked round
love, told the towers thereof, considered its palaces, and concluded
that love was but a doleful joy. Yet she desired it, as one in a
desert would be thankful for brackish water.
She often repeated her prayers; not at particular times, but, like the
unaffectedly devout, when she desired to pray. Her prayer was always
spontaneous, and often ran thus, "O deliver my heart from this fearful
gloom and loneliness; send me great love from somewhere, else I shall
die."
Her high gods were William the Conqueror, Strafford, and Napoleon
Buonaparte, as they had appeared in the Lady's History used at the
establishment in which she was educated. Had she been a mother she
would have christened her boys such names as Saul or Sisera in
preference to Jacob or David, neither of whom she admired. At school
she had used to side with the Philistines in several battles, and had
wondered if Pontius Pilate were as handsome as he was frank and fair.
Thus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed, weighed in
relation to her situation among the very rearward of thinkers, very
original. Her instincts towards social non-comformity were at the
root of this. In the matter of holidays, her mood was that of horses
who, when turned out to grass, enjoy looking upon their kind at work
on the highway. She only valued rest to herself when it came in the
midst of other people's labour. Hence she hated Sundays when all was
at rest, and often said they would be the death of her. To see the
heathmen in their Sunday condition, that is, with their hands in their
pockets, their boots newly oiled, and not laced up (a particularly
Sunday sign), walking leisurely among the turves and furze-faggots
they had cut during the week, and kicking them critically as if
their use were unknown, was a fearful heaviness to her. To relieve
the tedium of this untimely day she would overhaul the cupboards
containing her grandfather's old charts and other rubbish, humming
Saturday-night ballads of the country people the while. But on
Saturday nights she would frequently sing a psalm, and it was always
on a week-day that she read the Bible, that she might be unoppressed
with a sense of doing her duty.
Such views of life were to some extent the natural begettings of her
situation upon her nature. To dwell on a heath without studying its
meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue.
The subtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only
caught its vapours. An environment which would have made a contented
woman a poet, a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist,
even a giddy woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.
Eustacia had got beyond the vision of some marriage of inexpressible
glory; yet, though her emotions were in full vigour, she cared for
no meaner union. Thus we see her in a strange state of isolation. To
have lost the godlike conceit that we may do what we will, and not to
have acquired a homely zest for doing what we can, shows a grandeur
of temper which cannot be objected to in the abstract, for it
denotes a mind that, though disappointed, forswears compromise.
But, if congenial to philosophy, it is apt to be dangerous to
the commonwealth. In a world where doing means marrying, and the
commonwealth is one of hearts and hands, the same peril attends the
condition.
And so we see our Eustacia--for at times she was not altogether
unlovable--arriving at that stage of enlightenment which feels
that nothing is worth while, and filling up the spare hours of her
existence by idealizing Wildeve for want of a better object. This was
the sole reason of his ascendency: she knew it herself. At moments
her pride rebelled against her passion for him, and she even had
longed to be free. But there was only one circumstance which could
dislodge him, and that was the advent of a greater man.
For the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits, and took
slow walks to recover them, in which she carried her grandfather's
telescope and her grandmother's hourglass--the latter because of a
peculiar pleasure she derived from watching a material representation
of time's gradual glide away. She seldom schemed, but when she did
scheme, her plans showed rather the comprehensive strategy of a
general than the small arts called womanish, though she could utter
oracles of Delphian ambiguity when she did not choose to be direct.
In heaven she will probably sit between the Héloïses and the
Cleopatras.
VIII
Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody
As soon as the sad little boy had withdrawn from the fire he clasped
the money tight in the palm of his hand, as if thereby to fortify his
courage, and began to run. There was really little danger in allowing
a child to go home alone on this part of Egdon Heath. The distance
to the boy's house was not more than three-eighths of a mile, his
father's cottage, and one other a few yards further on, forming part
of the small hamlet of Mistover Knap: the third and only remaining
house was that of Captain Vye and Eustacia, which stood quite away
from the small cottages, and was the loneliest of lonely houses on
these thinly populated slopes.
He ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming more courageous,
walked leisurely along, singing in an old voice a little song about a
sailor-boy and a fair one, and bright gold in store. In the middle of
this the child stopped: from a pit under the hill ahead of him shone a
light, whence proceeded a cloud of floating dust and a smacking noise.
Only unusual sights and sounds frightened the boy. The shrivelled
voice of the heath did not alarm him, for that was familiar. The
thorn-bushes which arose in his path from time to time were less
satisfactory, for they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit
after dark of putting on the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawling
giants, and hideous cripples. Lights were not uncommon this evening,
but the nature of all of them was different from this. Discretion
rather than terror prompted the boy to turn back instead of passing
the light, with a view of asking Miss Eustacia Vye to let her servant
accompany him home.
When the boy had reascended to the top of the valley he found the fire
to be still burning on the bank, though lower than before. Beside it,
instead of Eustacia's solitary form, he saw two persons, the second
being a man. The boy crept along under the bank to ascertain from
the nature of the proceedings if it would be prudent to interrupt so
splendid a creature as Miss Eustacia on his poor trivial account.
After listening under the bank for some minutes to the talk he turned
in a perplexed and doubting manner and began to withdraw as silently
as he had come. That he did not, upon the whole, think it advisable
to interrupt her conversation with Wildeve, without being prepared to
bear the whole weight of her displeasure, was obvious.
Here was a Scyllaeo-Charybdean position for a poor boy. Pausing
when again safe from discovery, he finally decided to face the pit
phenomenon as the lesser evil. With a heavy sigh he retraced the
slope, and followed the path he had followed before.
The light had gone, the rising dust had disappeared--he hoped for
ever. He marched resolutely along, and found nothing to alarm him
till, coming within a few yards of the sandpit, he heard a slight
noise in front, which led him to halt. The halt was but momentary,
for the noise resolved itself into the steady bites of two animals
grazing.
"Two he'th-croppers down here," he said aloud. "I have never known
'em come down so far afore."
The animals were in the direct line of his path, but that the child
thought little of; he had played round the fetlocks of horses from his
infancy. On coming nearer, however, the boy was somewhat surprised to
find that the little creatures did not run off, and that each wore a
clog, to prevent his going astray; this signified that they had been
broken in. He could now see the interior of the pit, which, being in
the side of the hill, had a level entrance. In the innermost corner
the square outline of a van appeared, with its back towards him. A
light came from the interior, and threw a moving shadow upon the
vertical face of gravel at the further side of the pit into which the
vehicle faced.
The child assumed that this was the cart of a gipsy, and his dread
of those wanderers reached but to that mild pitch which titillates
rather than pains. Only a few inches of mud wall kept him and his
family from being gipsies themselves. He skirted the gravel-pit at
a respectful distance, ascended the slope, and came forward upon
the brow, in order to look into the open door of the van and see the
original of the shadow.
The picture alarmed the boy. By a little stove inside the van sat
a figure red from head to heels--the man who had been Thomasin's
friend. He was darning a stocking, which was red like the rest of him.
Moreover, as he darned he smoked a pipe, the stem and bowl of which
were red also.
At this moment one of the heath-croppers feeding in the outer shadows
was audibly shaking off the clog attached to its foot. Aroused by the
sound the reddleman laid down his stocking, lit a lantern which hung
beside him, and came out from the van. In sticking up the candle he
lifted the lantern to his face, and the light shone into the whites
of his eyes and upon his ivory teeth, which, in contrast with the
red surrounding, lent him a startling aspect enough to the gaze of a
juvenile. The boy knew too well for his peace of mind upon whose lair
he had lighted. Uglier persons than gipsies were known to cross Egdon
at times, and a reddleman was one of them.
"How I wish 'twas only a gipsy!" he murmured.
The man was by this time coming back from the horses. In his fear of
being seen the boy rendered detection certain by nervous motion. The
heather and peat stratum overhung the brow of the pit in mats, hiding
the actual verge. The boy had stepped beyond the solid ground; the
heather now gave way, and down he rolled over the scarp of grey sand
to the very foot of the man.
The red man opened the lantern and turned it upon the figure of the
prostrate boy.
"Who be ye?" he said.
"Johnny Nunsuch, master!"
"What were you doing up there?"
"I don't know."
"Watching me, I suppose?"
"Yes, master."
"What did you watch me for?"
"Because I was coming home from Miss Vye's bonfire."
"Beest hurt?"
"No."
"Why, yes, you be: your hand is bleeding. Come under my tilt and let
me tie it up."
"Please let me look for my sixpence."
"How did you come by that?"
"Miss Vye gied it to me for keeping up her bonfire."
The sixpence was found, and the man went to the van, the boy behind,
almost holding his breath.
The man took a piece of rag from a satchel containing sewing
materials, tore off a strip, which, like everything else, was tinged
red, and proceeded to bind up the wound.
"My eyes have got foggy-like--please may I sit down, master?" said the
boy.
"To be sure, poor chap. 'Tis enough to make you feel fainty. Sit on
that bundle."
The man finished tying up the gash, and the boy said, "I think I'll go
home now, master."
"You are rather afraid of me. Do you know what I be?"
The child surveyed his vermilion figure up and down with much
misgiving and finally said, "Yes."
"Well, what?"
"The reddleman!" he faltered.
"Yes, that's what I be. Though there's more than one. You little
children think there's only one cuckoo, one fox, one giant, one devil,
and one reddleman, when there's lots of us all."
"Is there? You won't carry me off in your bags, will ye, master?
'Tis said that the reddleman will sometimes."
"Nonsense. All that reddlemen do is sell reddle. You see all these
bags at the back of my cart? They are not full of little boys--only
full of red stuff."
"Was you born a reddleman?"
"No, I took to it. I should be as white as you if I were to give up
the trade--that is, I should be white in time--perhaps six months: not
at first, because 'tis grow'd into my skin and won't wash out. Now,
you'll never be afraid of a reddleman again, will ye?"
"No, never. Willy Orchard said he seed a red ghost here t'other
day--perhaps that was you?"
"I was here t'other day."
"Were you making that dusty light I saw by now?"
"Oh yes: I was beating out some bags. And have you had a good bonfire
up there? I saw the light. Why did Miss Vye want a bonfire so bad
that she should give you sixpence to keep it up?"
"I don't know. I was tired, but she made me bide and keep up the fire
just the same, while she kept going up across Rainbarrow way."
"And how long did that last?"
"Until a hopfrog jumped into the pond."
The reddleman suddenly ceased to talk idly. "A hopfrog?" he inquired.
"Hopfrogs don't jump into ponds this time of year."
"They do, for I heard one."
"Certain-sure?"
"Yes. She told me afore that I should hear'n; and so I did. They say
she's clever and deep, and perhaps she charmed 'en to come."
"And what then?"
"Then I came down here, and I was afeard, and I went back; but I
didn't like to speak to her, because of the gentleman, and I came on
here again."
"A gentleman--ah! What did she say to him, my man?"
"Told him she supposed he had not married the other woman because he
liked his old sweetheart best; and things like that."
"What did the gentleman say to her, my sonny?"
"He only said he did like her best, and how he was coming to see her
again under Rainbarrow o' nights."
"Ha!" cried the reddleman, slapping his hand against the side of his
van so that the whole fabric shook under the blow. "That's the secret
o't!"
The little boy jumped clean from the stool.
"My man, don't you be afraid," said the dealer in red, suddenly
becoming gentle. "I forgot you were here. That's only a curious way
reddlemen have of going mad for a moment; but they don't hurt anybody.
And what did the lady say then?"
"I can't mind. Please, Master Reddleman, may I go home-along now?"
"Ay, to be sure you may. I'll go a bit of ways with you."
He conducted the boy out of the gravel-pit and into the path leading
to his mother's cottage. When the little figure had vanished in the
darkness the reddleman returned, resumed his seat by the fire, and
proceeded to darn again.
IX
Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy
Reddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen. Since the
introduction of railways Wessex farmers have managed to do without
these Mephistophelian visitants, and the bright pigment so largely
used by shepherds in preparing sheep for the fair is obtained by other
routes. Even those who yet survive are losing the poetry of existence
which characterized them when the pursuit of the trade meant
periodical journeys to the pit whence the material was dug, a regular
camping out from month to month, except in the depth of winter, a
peregrination among farms which could be counted by the hundred,
and in spite of this Arab existence the preservation of that
respectability which is insured by the never-failing production of a
well-lined purse.
Reddle spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on, and
stamps unmistakably, as with the mark of Cain, any person who has
handled it half an hour.
A child's first sight of a reddleman was an epoch in his life. That
blood-coloured figure was a sublimation of all the horrid dreams
which had afflicted the juvenile spirit since imagination began. "The
reddleman is coming for you!" had been the formulated threat of Wessex
mothers for many generations. He was successfully supplanted for a
while, at the beginning of the present century, by Buonaparte; but as
process of time rendered the latter personage stale and ineffective
the older phrase resumed its early prominence. And now the reddleman
has in his turn followed Buonaparte to the land of worn-out bogeys,
and his place is filled by modern inventions.
The reddleman lived like a gipsy; but gipsies he scorned. He was
about as thriving as travelling basket and mat makers; but he had
nothing to do with them. He was more decently born and brought up
than the cattle-drovers who passed and repassed him in his wanderings;
but they merely nodded to him. His stock was more valuable than that
of pedlars; but they did not think so, and passed his cart with eyes
straight ahead. He was such an unnatural colour to look at that the
men of round-abouts and wax-work shows seemed gentlemen beside him;
but he considered them low company, and remained aloof. Among all
these squatters and folks of the road the reddleman continually found
himself; yet he was not of them. His occupation tended to isolate
him, and isolated he was mostly seen to be.
It was sometimes suggested that reddlemen were criminals for whose
misdeeds other men had wrongfully suffered: that in escaping the law
they had not escaped their own consciences, and had taken to the trade
as a lifelong penance. Else why should they have chosen it? In the
present case such a question would have been particularly apposite.
The reddleman who had entered Egdon that afternoon was an instance of
the pleasing being wasted to form the ground-work of the singular,
when an ugly foundation would have done just as well for that purpose.
The one point that was forbidding about this reddleman was his colour.
Freed from that he would have been as agreeable a specimen of rustic
manhood as one would often see. A keen observer might have been
inclined to think--which was, indeed, partly the truth--that he had
relinquished his proper station in life for want of interest in it.
Moreover, after looking at him one would have hazarded the guess
that good-nature, and an acuteness as extreme as it could be without
verging on craft, formed the frame-work of his character.
While he darned the stocking his face became rigid with thought.
Softer expressions followed this, and then again recurred the tender
sadness which had sat upon him during his drive along the highway that
afternoon. Presently his needle stopped. He laid down the stocking,
arose from his seat, and took a leather pouch from a hook in the
corner of the van. This contained among other articles a brown-paper
packet, which, to judge from the hinge-like character of its worn
folds, seemed to have been carefully opened and closed a good many
times. He sat down on a three-legged milking stool that formed the
only seat in the van, and, examining his packet by the light of a
candle, took thence an old letter and spread it open. The writing had
originally been traced on white paper, but the letter had now assumed
a pale red tinge from the accident of its situation; and the black
strokes of writing thereon looked like the twigs of a winter hedge
against a vermilion sunset. The letter bore a date some two years
previous to that time, and was signed "Thomasin Yeobright." It ran as
follows:--
DEAR DIGGORY VENN,--The question you put when you overtook
me coming home from Pond-close gave me such a surprise that
I am afraid I did not make you exactly understand what I
meant. Of course, if my aunt had not met me I could have
explained all then at once, but as it was there was no
chance. I have been quite uneasy since, as you know I do
not wish to pain you, yet I fear I shall be doing so now in
contradicting what I seemed to say then. I cannot, Diggory,
marry you, or think of letting you call me your sweetheart.
I could not, indeed, Diggory. I hope you will not much mind
my saying this, and feel in a great pain. It makes me very
sad when I think it may, for I like you very much, and I
always put you next to my cousin Clym in my mind. There are
so many reasons why we cannot be married that I can hardly
name them all in a letter. I did not in the least expect
that you were going to speak on such a thing when you
followed me, because I had never thought of you in the
sense of a lover at all. You must not becall me for laughing
when you spoke; you mistook when you thought I laughed at
you as a foolish man. I laughed because the idea was so odd,
and not at you at all. The great reason with my own personal
self for not letting you court me is, that I do not feel the
things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk with you
with the meaning of being your wife. It is not as you think,
that I have another in my mind, for I do not encourage
anybody, and never have in my life. Another reason is my
aunt. She would not, I know, agree to it, even if I wished
to have you. She likes you very well, but she will want me
to look a little higher than a small dairy-farmer, and marry
a professional man. I hope you will not set your heart
against me for writing plainly, but I felt you might try to
see me again, and it is better that we should not meet. I
shall always think of you as a good man, and be anxious for
your well-doing. I send this by Jane Orchard's little maid,
--And remain Diggory, your faithful friend,
THOMASIN YEOBRIGHT
To MR. VENN, Dairy-farmer
Since the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn morning long
ago, the reddleman and Thomasin had not met till today. During the
interval he had shifted his position even further from hers than it
had originally been, by adopting the reddle trade; though he was
really in very good circumstances still. Indeed, seeing that his
expenditure was only one-fourth of his income, he might have been
called a prosperous man.
Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; and
the business to which he had cynically devoted himself was in many
ways congenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere stress of old
emotions, had frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he never
intruded upon her who attracted him thither. To be in Thomasin's
heath, and near her, yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasure
left to him.
Then came the incident of that day, and the reddleman, still loving
her well, was excited by this accidental service to her at a critical
juncture to vow an active devotion to her cause, instead of, as
hitherto, sighing and holding aloof. After what had happened, it
was impossible that he should not doubt the honesty of Wildeve's
intentions. But her hope was apparently centred upon him; and
dismissing his regrets Venn determined to aid her to be happy in
her own chosen way. That this way was, of all others, the most
distressing to himself, was awkward enough; but the reddleman's love
was generous.
His first active step in watching over Thomasin's interests was taken
about seven o'clock the next evening, and was dictated by the news
which he had learnt from the sad boy. That Eustacia was somehow the
cause of Wildeve's carelessness in relation to the marriage had at
once been Venn's conclusion on hearing of the secret meeting between
them. It did not occur to his mind that Eustacia's love-signal
to Wildeve was the tender effect upon the deserted beauty of the
intelligence which her grandfather had brought home. His instinct was
to regard her as a conspirator against rather than as an antecedent
obstacle to Thomasin's happiness.
During the day he had been exceedingly anxious to learn the condition
of Thomasin; but he did not venture to intrude upon a threshold to
which he was a stranger, particularly at such an unpleasant moment as
this. He had occupied his time in moving with his ponies and load to
a new point in the heath, eastward to his previous station; and here
he selected a nook with a careful eye to shelter from wind and rain,
which seemed to mean that his stay there was to be a comparatively
extended one. After this he returned on foot some part of the way
that he had come; and, it being now dark, he diverged to the left till
he stood behind a holly-bush on the edge of a pit not twenty yards
from Rainbarrow.
He watched for a meeting there, but he watched in vain. Nobody except
himself came near the spot that night.
But the loss of his labour produced little effect upon the reddleman.
He had stood in the shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look upon
a certain mass of disappointment as the natural preface to all
realizations, without which preface they would give cause for alarm.
The same hour the next evening found him again at the same place; but
Eustacia and Wildeve, the expected trysters, did not appear.
He pursued precisely the same course yet four nights longer, and
without success. But on the next, being the day-week of their
previous meeting, he saw a female shape floating along the ridge and
the outline of a young man ascending from the valley. They met in the
little ditch encircling the tumulus--the original excavation from
which it had been thrown up by the ancient British people.
The reddleman, stung with suspicion of wrong to Thomasin, was aroused
to strategy in a moment. He instantly left the bush and crept forward
on his hands and knees. When he had got as close as he might safely
venture without discovery he found that, owing to a cross-wind, the
conversation of the trysting pair could not be overheard.
Near him, as in divers places about the heath, were areas strewn with
large turves, which lay edgeways and upside down awaiting removal by
Timothy Fairway, previous to the winter weather. He took two of these
as he lay, and dragged them over him till one covered his head and
shoulders, the other his back and legs. The reddleman would now have
been quite invisible, even by daylight; the turves, standing upon him
with the heather upwards, looked precisely as if they were growing.
He crept along again, and the turves upon his back crept with him.
Had he approached without any covering the chances are that he would
not have been perceived in the dusk; approaching thus, it was as
though he burrowed underground. In this manner he came quite close to
where the two were standing.
"Wish to consult me on the matter?" reached his ears in the rich,
impetuous accents of Eustacia Vye. "Consult me? It is an indignity
to me to talk so: I won't bear it any longer!" She began weeping.
"I have loved you, and have shown you that I loved you, much to my
regret; and yet you can come and say in that frigid way that you wish
to consult with me whether it would not be better to marry Thomasin.
Better--of course it would be. Marry her: she is nearer to your own
position in life than I am!"
"Yes, yes; that's very well," said Wildeve peremptorily. "But we
must look at things as they are. Whatever blame may attach to me for
having brought it about, Thomasin's position is at present much worse
than yours. I simply tell you that I am in a strait."
"But you shall not tell me! You must see that it is only harassing me.
Damon, you have not acted well; you have sunk in my opinion. You have
not valued my courtesy--the courtesy of a lady in loving you--who used
to think of far more ambitious things. But it was Thomasin's fault.
She won you away from me, and she deserves to suffer for it. Where
is she staying now? Not that I care, nor where I am myself. Ah, if I
were dead and gone how glad she would be! Where is she, I ask?"
"Thomasin is now staying at her aunt's shut up in a bedroom, and
keeping out of everybody's sight," he said indifferently.
"I don't think you care much about her even now," said Eustacia with
sudden joyousness: "for if you did you wouldn't talk so coolly about
her. Do you talk so coolly to her about me? Ah, I expect you do! Why
did you originally go away from me? I don't think I can ever forgive
you, except on one condition, that whenever you desert me, you come
back again, sorry that you served me so."
"I never wish to desert you."
"I do not thank you for that. I should hate it to be all smooth.
Indeed, I think I like you to desert me a little once now and then.
Love is the dismallest thing where the lover is quite honest. O, it
is a shame to say so; but it is true!" She indulged in a little laugh.
"My low spirits begin at the very idea. Don't you offer me tame love,
or away you go!"
"I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman," said
Wildeve, "so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a worthy
person. It is I who am the sinner after all; I am not worth the
little finger of either of you."
"But you must not sacrifice yourself to her from any sense of
justice," replied Eustacia quickly. "If you do not love her it is the
most merciful thing in the long run to leave her as she is. That's
always the best way. There, now I have been unwomanly, I suppose.
When you have left me I am always angry with myself for things that I
have said to you."
Wildeve walked a pace or two among the heather without replying. The
pause was filled up by the intonation of a pollard thorn a little way
to windward, the breezes filtering through its unyielding twigs as
through a strainer. It was as if the night sang dirges with clenched
teeth.
She continued, half sorrowfully, "Since meeting you last, it has
occurred to me once or twice that perhaps it was not for love of me
you did not marry her. Tell me, Damon: I'll try to bear it. Had I
nothing whatever to do with the matter?"
"Do you press me to tell?"
"Yes, I must know. I see I have been too ready to believe in my own
power."
"Well, the immediate reason was that the license would not do for the
place, and before I could get another she ran away. Up to that point
you had nothing to do with it. Since then her aunt has spoken to me
in a tone which I don't at all like."
"Yes, yes! I am nothing in it--I am nothing in it. You only trifle
with me. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think so
much of you!"
"Nonsense; do not be so passionate... Eustacia, how we roved among
these bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the shades
of the hills kept us almost invisible in the hollows!"
She remained in moody silence till she said, "Yes; and how I used to
laugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made me
suffer for that since."
"Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found some
one fairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia."
"Do you still think you found somebody fairer?"
"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The scales are balanced so nicely
that a feather would turn them."
"But don't you really care whether I meet you or whether I don't?" she
said slowly.
"I care a little, but not enough to break my rest," replied the young
man languidly. "No, all that's past. I find there are two flowers
where I thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three, or four,
or any number as good as the first... Mine is a curious fate. Who
would have thought that all this could happen to me?"
She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or anger
seemed an equally possible issue, "Do you love me now?"
"Who can say?"
"Tell me; I will know it!"
"I do, and I do not," said he mischievously. "That is, I have my
times and my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment you
are too do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another
I don't know what, except--that you are not the whole world to me that
you used to be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know, and nice
to meet, and I dare say as sweet as ever--almost."
Eustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said, in a
voice of suspended mightiness, "I am for a walk, and this is my way."
"Well, I can do worse than follow you."
"You know you can't do otherwise, for all your moods and changes!"
she answered defiantly. "Say what you will; try as you may; keep away
from me all that you can--you will never forget me. You will love me
all your life long. You would jump to marry me!"
"So I would!" said Wildeve. "Such strange thoughts as I've had from
time to time, Eustacia; and they come to me this moment. You hate the
heath as much as ever; that I know."
"I do," she murmured deeply. "'Tis my cross, my shame, and will be my
death!"
"I abhor it too," said he. "How mournfully the wind blows round us
now!"
She did not answer. Its tone was indeed solemn and pervasive.
Compound utterances addressed themselves to their senses, and it was
possible to view by ear the features of the neighbourhood. Acoustic
pictures were returned from the darkened scenery; they could hear
where the tracts of heather began and ended; where the furze was
growing stalky and tall; where it had been recently cut; in what
direction the fir-clump lay, and how near was the pit in which the
hollies grew; for these differing features had their voices no less
than their shapes and colours.
"God, how lonely it is!" resumed Wildeve. "What are picturesque
ravines and mists to us who see nothing else? Why should we stay
here? Will you go with me to America? I have kindred in Wisconsin."
"That wants consideration."
"It seems impossible to do well here, unless one were a wild bird or a
landscape-painter. Well?"
"Give me time," she softly said, taking his hand. "America is so far
away. Are you going to walk with me a little way?"
As Eustacia uttered the latter words she retired from the base of the
barrow, and Wildeve followed her, so that the reddleman could hear no
more.
He lifted the turves and arose. Their black figures sank and
disappeared from against the sky. They were as two horns which the
sluggish heath had put forth from its crown, like a mollusc, and had
now again drawn in.
The reddleman's walk across the vale, and over into the next where his
cart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four.
His spirit was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around his
mouth in that walk carried off upon them the accents of a commination.
He entered the van, where there was a fire in a stove. Without
lighting his candle he sat down at once on the three-legged stool, and
pondered on what he had seen and heard touching that still loved-one
of his. He uttered a sound which was neither sigh nor sob, but was
even more indicative than either of a troubled mind.
"My Tamsie," he whispered heavily. "What can be done? Yes, I will see
that Eustacia Vye."
X
A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion
The next morning, at the time when the height of the sun appeared very
insignificant from any part of the heath as compared with the altitude
of Rainbarrow, and when all the little hills in the lower levels were
like an archipelago in a fog-formed Aegean, the reddleman came from
the brambled nook which he had adopted as his quarters and ascended
the slopes of Mistover Knap.
Though these shaggy hills were apparently so solitary, several keen
round eyes were always ready on such a wintry morning as this to
converge upon a passer-by. Feathered species sojourned here in hiding
which would have created wonder if found elsewhere. A bustard haunted
the spot, and not many years before this five and twenty might have
been seen in Egdon at one time. Marsh-harriers looked up from the
valley by Wildeve's. A cream-coloured courser had used to visit this
hill, a bird so rare that not more than a dozen have ever been seen
in England; but a barbarian rested neither night nor day till he had
shot the African truant, and after that event cream-coloured coursers
thought fit to enter Egdon no more.
A traveller who should walk and observe any of these visitants as Venn
observed them now could feel himself to be in direct communication
with regions unknown to man. Here in front of him was a wild
mallard--just arrived from the home of the north wind. The creature
brought within him an amplitude of Northern knowledge. Glacial
catastrophes, snowstorm episodes, glittering auroral effects, Polaris
in the zenith, Franklin underfoot,--the category of his commonplaces
was wonderful. But the bird, like many other philosophers, seemed
as he looked at the reddleman to think that a present moment of
comfortable reality was worth a decade of memories.
Venn passed on through these towards the house of the isolated beauty
who lived up among them and despised them. The day was Sunday; but
as going to church, except to be married or buried, was exceptional
at Egdon, this made little difference. He had determined upon the
bold stroke of asking for an interview with Miss Vye--to attack
her position as Thomasin's rival either by art or by storm,
showing therein, somewhat too conspicuously, the want of gallantry
characteristic of a certain astute sort of men, from clowns to kings.
The great Frederick making war on the beautiful Archduchess, Napoleon
refusing terms to the beautiful Queen of Prussia, were not more dead
to difference of sex than the reddleman was, in his peculiar way, in
planning the displacement of Eustacia.
To call at the captain's cottage was always more or less an
undertaking for the inferior inhabitants. Though occasionally chatty,
his moods were erratic, and nobody could be certain how he would
behave at any particular moment. Eustacia was reserved, and lived
very much to herself. Except the daughter of one of the cotters, who
was their servant, and a lad who worked in the garden and stable,
scarcely anyone but themselves ever entered the house. They were the
only genteel people of the district except the Yeobrights, and though
far from rich, they did not feel that necessity for preserving a
friendly face towards every man, bird, and beast which influenced
their poorer neighbours.
When the reddleman entered the garden the old man was looking through
his glass at the stain of blue sea in the distant landscape, the
little anchors on his buttons twinkling in the sun. He recognized
Venn as his companion on the highway, but made no remark on that
circumstance, merely saying, "Ah, reddleman--you here? Have a glass
of grog?"
Venn declined, on the plea of it being too early, and stated that
his business was with Miss Vye. The captain surveyed him from cap
to waistcoat and from waistcoat to leggings for a few moments, and
finally asked him to go indoors.
Miss Vye was not to be seen by anybody just then; and the reddleman
waited in the window-bench of the kitchen, his hands hanging across
his divergent knees, and his cap hanging from his hands.
"I suppose the young lady is not up yet?" he presently said to the
servant.
"Not quite yet. Folks never call upon ladies at this time of day."
"Then I'll step outside," said Venn. "If she is willing to see me,
will she please send out word, and I'll come in."
The reddleman left the house and loitered on the hill adjoining.
A considerable time elapsed, and no request for his presence was
brought. He was beginning to think that his scheme had failed, when
he beheld the form of Eustacia herself coming leisurely towards him.
A sense of novelty in giving audience to that singular figure had been
sufficient to draw her forth.
She seemed to feel, after a bare look at Diggory Venn, that the man
had come on a strange errand, and that he was not so mean as she
had thought him; for her close approach did not cause him to writhe
uneasily, or shift his feet, or show any of those little signs which
escape an ingenuous rustic at the advent of the uncommon in womankind.
On his inquiring if he might have a conversation with her she replied,
"Yes, walk beside me," and continued to move on.
Before they had gone far it occurred to the perspicacious
reddleman that he would have acted more wisely by appearing less
unimpressionable, and he resolved to correct the error as soon as he
could find opportunity.
"I have made so bold, miss, as to step across and tell you some
strange news which has come to my ears about that man."
"Ah! what man?"
He jerked his elbow to the south-east--the direction of the Quiet
Woman.
Eustacia turned quickly to him. "Do you mean Mr. Wildeve?"
"Yes, there is trouble in a household on account of him, and I have
come to let you know of it, because I believe you might have power to
drive it away."
"I? What is the trouble?"
"It is quite a secret. It is that he may refuse to marry Thomasin
Yeobright after all."
Eustacia, though set inwardly pulsing by his words, was equal to her
part in such a drama as this. She replied coldly, "I do not wish to
listen to this, and you must not expect me to interfere."
"But, miss, you will hear one word?"
"I cannot. I am not interested in the marriage, and even if I were I
could not compel Mr. Wildeve to do my bidding."
"As the only lady on the heath I think you might," said Venn with
subtle indirectness. "This is how the case stands. Mr. Wildeve would
marry Thomasin at once, and make all matters smooth, if so be there
were not another woman in the case. This other woman is some person
he has picked up with, and meets on the heath occasionally, I believe.
He will never marry her, and yet through her he may never marry the
woman who loves him dearly. Now, if you, miss, who have so much sway
over us men-folk, were to insist that he should treat your young
neighbour Tamsin with honourable kindness and give up the other woman,
he would perhaps do it, and save her a good deal of misery."
"Ah, my life!" said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips
so that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it
a similar scarlet fire. "You think too much of my influence over
men-folk indeed, reddleman. If I had such a power as you imagine I
would go straight and use it for the good of anybody who has been
kind to me--which Thomasin Yeobright has not particularly, to my
knowledge."
"Can it be that you really don't know of it--how much she had always
thought of you?"
"I have never heard a word of it. Although we live only two miles
apart I have never been inside her aunt's house in my life."
The superciliousness that lurked in her manner told Venn that thus far
he had utterly failed. He inwardly sighed and felt it necessary to
unmask his second argument.
"Well, leaving that out of the question, 'tis in your power, I assure
you, Miss Vye, to do a great deal of good to another woman."
She shook her head.
"Your comeliness is law with Mr. Wildeve. It is law with all men who
see 'ee. They say, 'This well-favoured lady coming--what's her name?
How handsome!' Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright," the reddleman
persisted, saying to himself, "God forgive a rascal for lying!" And
she was handsomer, but the reddleman was far from thinking so. There
was a certain obscurity in Eustacia's beauty, and Venn's eye was not
trained. In her winter dress, as now, she was like the tiger-beetle,
which, when observed in dull situations, seems to be of the quietest
neutral colour, but under a full illumination blazes with dazzling
splendour.
Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered
her dignity thereby. "Many women are lovelier than Thomasin," she
said, "so not much attaches to that."
The reddleman suffered the wound and went on: "He is a man who
notices the looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like
withywind, if you only had the mind."
"Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him I cannot do
living up here away from him."
The reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face. "Miss Vye!" he
said.
"Why do you say that--as if you doubted me?" She spoke faintly, and
her breathing was quick. "The idea of your speaking in that tone to
me!" she added, with a forced smile of hauteur. "What could have been
in your mind to lead you to speak like that?"
"Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don't know this
man?--I know why, certainly. He is beneath you, and you are ashamed."
"You are mistaken. What do you mean?"
The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. "I was at the
meeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word," he said. "The
woman that stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself."
It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of
Candaules' wife glowed in her. The moment had arrived when her lip
would tremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer
be kept down.
"I am unwell," she said hurriedly. "No--it is not that--I am not in a
humour to hear you further. Leave me, please."
"I must speak, Miss Vye, in spite of paining you. What I would put
before you is this. However it may come about--whether she is to
blame, or you--her case is without doubt worse than yours. Your
giving up Mr. Wildeve will be a real advantage to you, for how could
you marry him? Now she cannot get off so easily--everybody will blame
her if she loses him. Then I ask you--not because her right is best,
but because her situation is worst--to give him up to her."
"No--I won't, I won't!" she said impetuously, quite forgetful of her
previous manner towards the reddleman as an underling. "Nobody has
ever been served so! It was going on well--I will not be beaten
down--by an inferior woman like her. It is very well for you to come
and plead for her, but is she not herself the cause of all her own
trouble? Am I not to show favour to any person I may choose without
asking permission of a parcel of cottagers? She has come between me
and my inclination, and now that she finds herself rightly punished
she gets you to plead for her!"
"Indeed," said Venn earnestly, "she knows nothing whatever about it.
It is only I who ask you to give him up. It will be better for her
and you both. People will say bad things if they find out that a lady
secretly meets a man who has ill-used another woman."
"I have NOT injured her--he was mine before he was hers! He came
back--because--because he liked me best!" she said wildly. "But I
lose all self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way to!"
"I can keep secrets," said Venn gently. "You need not fear. I am the
only man who knows of your meetings with him. There is but one thing
more to speak of, and then I will be gone. I heard you say to him
that you hated living here--that Egdon Heath was a jail to you."
"I did say so. There is a sort of beauty in the scenery, I know; but
it is a jail to me. The man you mention does not save me from that
feeling, though he lives here. I should have cared nothing for him
had there been a better person near."
The reddleman looked hopeful; after these words from her his third
attempt seemed promising. "As we have now opened our minds a bit,
miss," he said, "I'll tell you what I have got to propose. Since I
have taken to the reddle trade I travel a good deal, as you know."
She inclined her head, and swept round so that her eyes rested in the
misty vale beneath them.
"And in my travels I go near Budmouth. Now Budmouth is a wonderful
place--wonderful--a great salt sheening sea bending into the land
like a bow--thousands of gentlepeople walking up and down--bands of
music playing--officers by sea and officers by land walking among the
rest--out of every ten folks you meet nine of 'em in love."
"I know it," she said disdainfully. "I know Budmouth better than you.
I was born there. My father came to be a military musician there from
abroad. Ah, my soul, Budmouth! I wish I was there now."
The reddleman was surprised to see how a slow fire could blaze on
occasion. "If you were, miss," he replied, "in a week's time you
would think no more of Wildeve than of one of those he'th-croppers
that we see yond. Now, I could get you there."
"How?" said Eustacia, with intense curiosity in her heavy eyes.
"My uncle has been for five and twenty years the trusty man of a rich
widow-lady who has a beautiful house facing the sea. This lady has
become old and lame, and she wants a young company-keeper to read and
sing to her, but can't get one to her mind to save her life, though
she've advertised in the papers, and tried half a dozen. She would
jump to get you, and uncle would make it all easy."
"I should have to work, perhaps?"
"No, not real work: you'd have a little to do, such as reading and
that. You would not be wanted till New Year's Day."
"I knew it meant work," she said, drooping to languor again.
"I confess there would be a trifle to do in the way of amusing her;
but though idle people might call it work, working people would call
it play. Think of the company and the life you'd lead, miss; the
gaiety you'd see, and the gentleman you'd marry. My uncle is to
inquire for a trustworthy young lady from the country, as she don't
like town girls."
"It is to wear myself out to please her! and I won't go. O, if I
could live in a gay town as a lady should, and go my own ways, and do
my own doings, I'd give the wrinkled half of my life! Yes, reddleman,
that would I."
"Help me to get Thomasin happy, miss, and the chance shall be yours,"
urged her companion.
"Chance--'tis no chance," she said proudly. "What can a poor man like
you offer me, indeed?--I am going indoors. I have nothing more to
say. Don't your horses want feeding, or your reddlebags want mending,
or don't you want to find buyers for your goods, that you stay idling
here like this?"
Venn spoke not another word. With his hands behind him he turned
away, that she might not see the hopeless disappointment in his face.
The mental clearness and power he had found in this lonely girl had
indeed filled his manner with misgiving even from the first few
minutes of close quarters with her. Her youth and situation had led
him to expect a simplicity quite at the beck of his method. But a
system of inducement which might have carried weaker country lasses
along with it had merely repelled Eustacia. As a rule, the word
Budmouth meant fascination on Egdon. That Royal port and watering
place, if truly mirrored in the minds of the heath-folk, must have
combined, in a charming and indescribable manner, a Carthaginian
bustle of building with Tarentine luxuriousness and Baian health and
beauty. Eustacia felt little less extravagantly about the place; but
she would not sink her independence to get there.
When Diggory Venn had gone quite away, Eustacia walked to the bank and
looked down the wild and picturesque vale towards the sun, which was
also in the direction of Wildeve's. The mist had now so far collapsed
that the tips of the trees and bushes around his house could just be
discerned, as if boring upwards through a vast white cobweb which
cloaked them from the day. There was no doubt that her mind was
inclined thitherward; indefinitely, fancifully--twining and untwining
about him as the single object within her horizon on which dreams
might crystallize. The man who had begun by being merely her
amusement, and would never have been more than her hobby but for his
skill in deserting her at the right moments, was now again her desire.
Cessation in his love-making had revivified her love. Such feeling
as Eustacia had idly given to Wildeve was dammed into a flood by
Thomasin. She had used to tease Wildeve, but that was before another
had favoured him. Often a drop of irony into an indifferent situation
renders the whole piquant.
"I will never give him up--never!" she said impetuously.
The reddleman's hint that rumour might show her to disadvantage had
no permanent terror for Eustacia. She was as unconcerned at that
contingency as a goddess at a lack of linen. This did not originate
in inherent shamelessness, but in her living too far from the world to
feel the impact of public opinion. Zenobia in the desert could hardly
have cared what was said about her at Rome. As far as social ethics
were concerned Eustacia approached the savage state, though in emotion
she was all the while an epicure. She had advanced to the secret
recesses of sensuousness, yet had hardly crossed the threshold of
conventionality.
XI
The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman
The reddleman had left Eustacia's presence with desponding views on
Thomasin's future happiness; but he was awakened to the fact that one
other channel remained untried by seeing, as he followed the way to
his van, the form of Mrs. Yeobright slowly walking towards the Quiet
Woman. He went across to her; and could almost perceive in her anxious
face that this journey of hers to Wildeve was undertaken with the same
object as his own to Eustacia.
She did not conceal the fact. "Then," said the reddleman, "you may as
well leave it alone, Mrs. Yeobright."
"I half think so myself," she said. "But nothing else remains to be
done besides pressing the question upon him."
"I should like to say a word first," said Venn firmly. "Mr. Wildeve
is not the only man who has asked Thomasin to marry him; and why
should not another have a chance? Mrs. Yeobright, I should be glad
to marry your niece, and would have done it any time these last two
years. There, now it is out, and I have never told anybody before but
herself."
Mrs. Yeobright was not demonstrative, but her eyes involuntarily
glanced towards his singular though shapely figure.
"Looks are not everything," said the reddleman, noticing the glance.
"There's many a calling that don't bring in so much as mine, if it
comes to money; and perhaps I am not so much worse off than Wildeve.
There is nobody so poor as these professional fellows who have failed;
and if you shouldn't like my redness--well, I am not red by birth, you
know; I only took to this business for a freak; and I might turn my
hand to something else in good time."
"I am much obliged to you for your interest in my niece; but I fear
there would be objections. More than that, she is devoted to this
man."
"True; or I shouldn't have done what I have this morning."
"Otherwise there would be no pain in the case, and you would not see
me going to his house now. What was Thomasin's answer when you told
her of your feelings?"
"She wrote that you would object to me; and other things."
"She was in a measure right. You must not take this unkindly: I
merely state it as a truth. You have been good to her, and we do not
forget it. But as she was unwilling on her own account to be your
wife, that settles the point without my wishes being concerned."
"Yes. But there is a difference between then and now, ma'am. She is
distressed now, and I have thought that if you were to talk to her
about me, and think favourably of me yourself, there might be a chance
of winning her round, and getting her quite independent of this
Wildeve's backward and forward play, and his not knowing whether he'll
have her or no."
Mrs. Yeobright shook her head. "Thomasin thinks, and I think with
her, that she ought to be Wildeve's wife, if she means to appear
before the world without a slur upon her name. If they marry soon,
everybody will believe that an accident did really prevent the
wedding. If not, it may cast a shade upon her character--at any rate
make her ridiculous. In short, if it is anyhow possible they must
marry now."
"I thought that till half an hour ago. But, after all, why should
her going off with him to Anglebury for a few hours do her any harm?
Anybody who knows how pure she is will feel any such thought to
be quite unjust. I have been trying this morning to help on this
marriage with Wildeve--yes, I, ma'am--in the belief that I ought to
do it, because she was so wrapped up in him. But I much question if
I was right, after all. However, nothing came of it. And now I offer
myself."
Mrs. Yeobright appeared disinclined to enter further into the
question. "I fear I must go on," she said. "I do not see that
anything else can be done."
And she went on. But though this conversation did not divert
Thomasin's aunt from her purposed interview with Wildeve, it made a
considerable difference in her mode of conducting that interview. She
thanked God for the weapon which the reddleman had put into her hands.
Wildeve was at home when she reached the inn. He showed her silently
into the parlour, and closed the door. Mrs. Yeobright began--
"I have thought it my duty to call today. A new proposal has been
made to me, which has rather astonished me. It will affect Thomasin
greatly; and I have decided that it should at least be mentioned to
you."
"Yes? What is it?" he said civilly.
"It is, of course, in reference to her future. You may not be aware
that another man has shown himself anxious to marry Thomasin. Now,
though I have not encouraged him yet, I cannot conscientiously refuse
him a chance any longer. I don't wish to be short with you; but I
must be fair to him and to her."
"Who is the man?" said Wildeve with surprise.
"One who has been in love with her longer than she has with you. He
proposed to her two years ago. At that time she refused him."
"Well?"
"He has seen her lately, and has asked me for permission to pay his
addresses to her. She may not refuse him twice."
"What is his name?"
Mrs. Yeobright declined to say. "He is a man Thomasin likes," she
added, "and one whose constancy she respects at least. It seems to me
that what she refused then she would be glad to get now. She is much
annoyed at her awkward position."
"She never once told me of this old lover."
"The gentlest women are not such fools as to show EVERY card."
"Well, if she wants him I suppose she must have him."
"It is easy enough to say that; but you don't see the difficulty. He
wants her much more than she wants him; and before I can encourage
anything of the sort I must have a clear understanding from you that
you will not interfere to injure an arrangement which I promote in the
belief that it is for the best. Suppose, when they are engaged, and
everything is smoothly arranged for their marriage, that you should
step between them and renew your suit? You might not win her back,
but you might cause much unhappiness."
"Of course I should do no such thing," said Wildeve "But they are not
engaged yet. How do you know that Thomasin would accept him?"
"That's a question I have carefully put to myself; and upon the whole
the probabilities are in favour of her accepting him in time. I
flatter myself that I have some influence over her. She is pliable,
and I can be strong in my recommendations of him."
"And in your disparagement of me at the same time."
"Well, you may depend upon my not praising you," she said drily. "And
if this seems like manoeuvring, you must remember that her position is
peculiar, and that she has been hardly used. I shall also be helped
in making the match by her own desire to escape from the humiliation
of her present state; and a woman's pride in these cases will lead
her a very great way. A little managing may be required to bring her
round; but I am equal to that, provided that you agree to the one
thing indispensable; that is, to make a distinct declaration that she
is to think no more of you as a possible husband. That will pique her
into accepting him."
"I can hardly say that just now, Mrs. Yeobright. It is so sudden."
"And so my whole plan is interfered with! It is very inconvenient
that you refuse to help my family even to the small extent of saying
distinctly you will have nothing to do with us."
Wildeve reflected uncomfortably. "I confess I was not prepared for
this," he said. "Of course I'll give her up if you wish, if it is
necessary. But I thought I might be her husband."
"We have heard that before."
"Now, Mrs. Yeobright, don't let us disagree. Give me a fair time. I
don't want to stand in the way of any better chance she may have; only
I wish you had let me know earlier. I will write to you or call in a
day or two. Will that suffice?"
"Yes," she replied, "provided you promise not to communicate with
Thomasin without my knowledge."
"I promise that," he said. And the interview then terminated, Mrs.
Yeobright returning homeward as she had come.
By far the greatest effect of her simple strategy on that day was, as
often happens, in a quarter quite outside her view when arranging it.
In the first place, her visit sent Wildeve the same evening after dark
to Eustacia's house at Mistover.
At this hour the lonely dwelling was closely blinded and shuttered
from the chill and darkness without. Wildeve's clandestine plan with
her was to take a little gravel in his hand and hold it to the crevice
at the top of the window shutter, which was on the outside, so that it
should fall with a gentle rustle, resembling that of a mouse, between
shutter and glass. This precaution in attracting her attention was to
avoid arousing the suspicions of her grandfather.
The soft words, "I hear; wait for me," in Eustacia's voice from within
told him that she was alone.
He waited in his customary manner by walking round the enclosure and
idling by the pool, for Wildeve was never asked into the house by his
proud though condescending mistress. She showed no sign of coming
out in a hurry. The time wore on, and he began to grow impatient. In
the course of twenty minutes she appeared from round the corner, and
advanced as if merely taking an airing.
"You would not have kept me so long had you known what I come about,"
he said with bitterness. "Still, you are worth waiting for."
"What has happened?" said Eustacia. "I did not know you were in
trouble. I too am gloomy enough."
"I am not in trouble," said he. "It is merely that affairs have come
to a head, and I must take a clear course."
"What course is that?" she asked with attentive interest.
"And can you forget so soon what I proposed to you the other night?
Why, take you from this place, and carry you away with me abroad."
"I have not forgotten. But why have you come so unexpectedly to
repeat the question, when you only promised to come next Saturday? I
thought I was to have plenty of time to consider."
"Yes, but the situation is different now."
"Explain to me."
"I don't want to explain, for I may pain you."
"But I must know the reason of this hurry."
"It is simply my ardour, dear Eustacia. Everything is smooth now."
"Then why are you so ruffled?"
"I am not aware of it. All is as it should be. Mrs. Yeobright--but
she is nothing to us."
"Ah, I knew she had something to do with it! Come, I don't like
reserve."
"No--she has nothing. She only says she wishes me to give up Thomasin
because another man is anxious to marry her. The woman, now she no
longer needs me, actually shows off!" Wildeve's vexation had escaped
him in spite of himself.
Eustacia was silent a long while. "You are in the awkward position of
an official who is no longer wanted," she said in a changed tone.
"It seems so. But I have not yet seen Thomasin."
"And that irritates you. Don't deny it, Damon. You are actually
nettled by this slight from an unexpected quarter."
"Well?"
"And you come to get me because you cannot get her. This is certainly
a new position altogether. I am to be a stop-gap."
"Please remember that I proposed the same thing the other day."
Eustacia again remained in a sort of stupefied silence. What curious
feeling was this coming over her? Was it really possible that her
interest in Wildeve had been so entirely the result of antagonism that
the glory and the dream departed from the man with the first sound
that he was no longer coveted by her rival? She was, then, secure
of him at last. Thomasin no longer required him. What a humiliating
victory! He loved her best, she thought; and yet--dared she to murmur
such treacherous criticism ever so softly?--what was the man worth
whom a woman inferior to herself did not value? The sentiment which
lurks more or less in all animate nature--that of not desiring the
undesired of others--was lively as a passion in the super-subtle,
epicurean heart of Eustacia. Her social superiority over him, which
hitherto had scarcely ever impressed her, became unpleasantly
insistent, and for the first time she felt that she had stooped in
loving him.
"Well, darling, you agree?" said Wildeve.
"If it could be London, or even Budmouth, instead of America," she
murmured languidly. "Well, I will think. It is too great a thing for
me to decide offhand. I wish I hated the heath less--or loved you
more."
"You can be painfully frank. You loved me a month ago warmly enough
to go anywhere with me."
"And you loved Thomasin."
"Yes, perhaps that was where the reason lay," he returned, with almost
a sneer. "I don't hate her now."
"Exactly. The only thing is that you can no longer get her."
"Come--no taunts, Eustacia, or we shall quarrel. If you don't agree
to go with me, and agree shortly, I shall go by myself."
"Or try Thomasin again. Damon, how strange it seems that you could
have married her or me indifferently, and only have come to me because
I am--cheapest! Yes, yes--it is true. There was a time when I should
have exclaimed against a man of that sort, and been quite wild; but it
is all past now."
"Will you go, dearest? Come secretly with me to Bristol, marry me,
and turn our backs upon this dog-hole of England for ever? Say Yes."
"I want to get away from here at almost any cost," she said with
weariness, "but I don't like to go with you. Give me more time to
decide."
"I have already," said Wildeve. "Well, I give you one more week."
"A little longer, so that I may tell you decisively. I have to
consider so many things. Fancy Thomasin being anxious to get rid of
you! I cannot forget it."
"Never mind that. Say Monday week. I will be here precisely at this
time."
"Let it be at Rainbarrow," said she. "This is too near home; my
grandfather may be walking out."
"Thank you, dear. On Monday week at this time I will be at the
Barrow. Till then good-bye."
"Good-bye. No, no, you must not touch me now. Shaking hands is enough
till I have made up my mind."
Eustacia watched his shadowy form till it had disappeared. She placed
her hand to her forehead and breathed heavily; and then her rich,
romantic lips parted under that homely impulse--a yawn. She was
immediately angry at having betrayed even to herself the possible
evanescence of her passion for him. She could not admit at once that
she might have overestimated Wildeve, for to perceive his mediocrity
now was to admit her own great folly heretofore. And the discovery
that she was the owner of a disposition so purely that of the dog in
the manger had something in it which at first made her ashamed.
The fruit of Mrs. Yeobright's diplomacy was indeed remarkable, though
not as yet of the kind she had anticipated. It had appreciably
influenced Wildeve, but it was influencing Eustacia far more. Her
lover was no longer to her an exciting man whom many women strove
for, and herself could only retain by striving with them. He was a
superfluity.
She went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which is not exactly
grief, and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the
latter days of an ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that
the end of the dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come,
is one of the most wearisome as well as the most curious stages along
the course between the beginning of a passion and its end.
Her grandfather had returned, and was busily engaged in pouring some
gallons of newly arrived rum into the square bottles of his square
cellaret. Whenever these home supplies were exhausted he would go to
the Quiet Woman, and, standing with his back to the fire, grog in
hand, tell remarkable stories of how he had lived seven years under
the water-line of his ship, and other naval wonders, to the natives,
who hoped too earnestly for a treat of ale from the teller to exhibit
any doubts of his truth.
He had been there this evening. "I suppose you have heard the Egdon
news, Eustacia?" he said, without looking up from the bottles. "The
men have been talking about it at the Woman as if it were of national
importance."
"I have heard none," she said.
"Young Clym Yeobright, as they call him, is coming home next week to
spend Christmas with his mother. He is a fine fellow by this time, it
seems. I suppose you remember him?"
"I never saw him in my life."
"Ah, true; he left before you came here. I well remember him as a
promising boy."
"Where has he been living all these years?"
"In that rookery of pomp and vanity, Paris, I believe."
BOOK SECOND
THE ARRIVAL
I
Tidings of the Comer
On fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain ephemeral
operations were apt to disturb, in their trifling way, the majestic
calm of Egdon Heath. They were activities which, beside those of a
town, a village, or even a farm, would have appeared as the ferment of
stagnation merely, a creeping of the flesh of somnolence. But here,
away from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among which mere
walking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man could imagine
himself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they attracted the
attention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep,
and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks at a
safe distance.
The performance was that of bringing together and building into a
stack the furze-faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for the
captain's use during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at the
end of the dwelling, and the men engaged in building it were Humphrey
and Sam, the old man looking on.
It was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o'clock; but the winter
solstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun caused
the hour to seem later than it actually was, there being little here
to remind an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experience
of the sky as a dial. In the course of many days and weeks sunrise
had advanced its quarters from north-east to south-east, sunset had
receded from north-west to south-west; but Egdon had hardly heeded the
change.
Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like a
kitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping chimney-corner. The air was
still, and while she lingered a moment here alone sounds of voices in
conversation came to her ears directly down the chimney. She entered
the recess, and, listening, looked up the old irregular shaft, with
its cavernous hollows, where the smoke blundered about on its way
to the square bit of sky at the top, from which the daylight struck
down with a pallid glare upon the tatters of soot draping the flue as
seaweed drapes a rocky fissure.
She remembered: the furze-stack was not far from the chimney, and the
voices were those of the workers.
Her grandfather joined in the conversation. "That lad ought never to
have left home. His father's occupation would have suited him best,
and the boy should have followed on. I don't believe in these new
moves in families. My father was a sailor, so was I, and so should my
son have been if I had had one."
"The place he's been living at is Paris," said Humphrey, "and they
tell me 'tis where the king's head was cut off years ago. My poor
mother used to tell me about that business. 'Hummy,' she used to say,
'I was a young maid then, and as I was at home ironing mother's caps
one afternoon the parson came in and said, "They've cut the king's
head off, Jane; and what 'twill be next God knows."'"
"A good many of us knew as well as He before long," said the captain,
chuckling. "I lived seven years under water on account of it in my
boyhood--in that damned surgery of the _Triumph_, seeing men brought
down to the cockpit with their legs and arms blown to Jericho... And
so the young man has settled in Paris. Manager to a diamond merchant,
or some such thing, is he not?"
"Yes, sir, that's it. 'Tis a blazing great business that he belongs
to, so I've heard his mother say--like a king's palace, as far as
diments go."
"I can well mind when he left home," said Sam.
"'Tis a good thing for the feller," said Humphrey. "A sight of times
better to be selling diments than nobbling about here."
"It must cost a good few shillings to deal at such a place."
"A good few indeed, my man," replied the captain. "Yes, you may make
away with a deal of money and be neither drunkard nor glutton."
"They say, too, that Clym Yeobright is become a real perusing man,
with the strangest notions about things. There, that's because he
went to school early, such as the school was."
"Strange notions, has he?" said the old man. "Ah, there's too much
of that sending to school in these days! It only does harm. Every
gatepost and barn's door you come to is sure to have some bad word or
other chalked upon it by the young rascals: a woman can hardly pass
for shame some times. If they'd never been taught how to write they
wouldn't have been able to scribble such villainy. Their fathers
couldn't do it, and the country was all the better for it."
"Now, I should think, cap'n, that Miss Eustacia had about as much in
her head that comes from books as anybody about here?"
"Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic nonsense in her head
it would be better for her," said the captain shortly; after which he
walked away.
"I say, Sam," observed Humphrey when the old man was gone, "she and
Clym Yeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair--hey? If they
wouldn't I'll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for certain,
and learned in print, and always thinking about high doctrine--there
couldn't be a better couple if they were made o' purpose. Clym's
family is as good as hers. His father was a farmer, that's true; but
his mother was a sort of lady, as we know. Nothing would please me
better than to see them two man and wife."
"They'd look very natty, arm-in-crook together, and their best clothes
on, whether or no, if he's at all the well-favoured fellow he used to
be."
"They would, Humphrey. Well, I should like to see the chap terrible
much after so many years. If I knew for certain when he was coming
I'd stroll out three or four miles to meet him and help carry anything
for'n; though I suppose he's altered from the boy he was. They say he
can talk French as fast as a maid can eat blackberries; and if so,
depend upon it we who have stayed at home shall seem no more than
scroff in his eyes."
"Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn't he?"
"Yes; but how he's coming from Budmouth I don't know."
"That's a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. I wonder such a
nice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come home into it. What a
nunnywatch we were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren't married
at all, after singing to 'em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if I
should like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by a
man. It makes the family look small."
"Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. Her health is
suffering from it, I hear, for she will bide entirely indoors. We
never see her out now, scampering over the furze with a face as red
as a rose, as she used to do."
"I've heard she wouldn't have Wildeve now if he asked her."
"You have? 'Tis news to me."
While the furze-gatherers had desultorily conversed thus Eustacia's
face gradually bent to the hearth in a profound reverie, her toe
unconsciously tapping the dry turf which lay burning at her feet.
The subject of their discourse had been keenly interesting to her. A
young and clever man was coming into that lonely heath from, of all
contrasting places in the world, Paris. It was like a man coming from
heaven. More singular still, the heathmen had instinctively coupled
her and this man together in their minds as a pair born for each
other.
That five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia with visions
enough to fill the whole blank afternoon. Such sudden alternations
from mental vacuity do sometimes occur thus quietly. She could never
have believed in the morning that her colourless inner world would
before night become as animated as water under a microscope, and
that without the arrival of a single visitor. The words of Sam and
Humphrey on the harmony between the unknown and herself had on her
mind the effect of the invading Bard's prelude in the "Castle of
Indolence," at which myriads of imprisoned shapes arose where had
previously appeared the stillness of a void.
Involved in these imaginings she knew nothing of time. When she became
conscious of externals it was dusk. The furze-rick was finished; the
men had gone home. Eustacia went upstairs, thinking that she would
take a walk at this her usual time; and she determined that her walk
should be in the direction of Blooms-End, the birthplace of young
Yeobright and the present home of his mother. She had no reason for
walking elsewhere, and why should she not go that way? The scene of a
day-dream is sufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen. To look at the
palings before the Yeobrights' house had the dignity of a necessary
performance. Strange that such a piece of idling should have seemed
an important errand.
She put on her bonnet, and, leaving the house, descended the hill on
the side towards Blooms-End, where she walked slowly along the valley
for a distance of a mile and a half. This brought her to a spot in
which the green bottom of the dale began to widen, the furze bushes
to recede yet further from the path on each side, till they were
diminished to an isolated one here and there by the increasing
fertility of the soil. Beyond the irregular carpet of grass was a
row of white palings, which marked the verge of the heath in this
latitude. They showed upon the dusky scene that they bordered as
distinctly as white lace on velvet. Behind the white palings was a
little garden; behind the garden an old, irregular, thatched house,
facing the heath, and commanding a full view of the valley. This was
the obscure, removed spot to which was about to return a man whose
latter life had been passed in the French capital--the centre and
vortex of the fashionable world.
II
The People at Blooms-End Make Ready
All that afternoon the expected arrival of the subject of Eustacia's
ruminations created a bustle of preparation at Blooms-End. Thomasin
had been persuaded by her aunt, and by an instinctive impulse of
loyalty towards her cousin Clym, to bestir herself on his account
with an alacrity unusual in her during these most sorrowful days of
her life. At the time that Eustacia was listening to the rickmakers'
conversation on Clym's return, Thomasin was climbing into a loft over
her aunt's fuel-house, where the store-apples were kept, to search out
the best and largest of them for the coming holiday-time.
The loft was lighted by a semicircular hole, through which the pigeons
crept to their lodgings in the same high quarters of the premises; and
from this hole the sun shone in a bright yellow patch upon the figure
of the maiden as she knelt and plunged her naked arms into the soft
brown fern, which, from its abundance, was used on Egdon in packing
away stores of all kinds. The pigeons were flying about her head with
the greatest unconcern, and the face of her aunt was just visible
above the floor of the loft, lit by a few stray motes of light, as she
stood half-way up the ladder, looking at a spot into which she was not
climber enough to venture.
"Now a few russets, Tamsin. He used to like them almost as well as
ribstones."
Thomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook, where
more mellow fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. Before picking
them out she stopped a moment.
"Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?" she said, gazing
abstractedly at the pigeon-hole, which admitted the sunlight so
directly upon her brown hair and transparent tissues that it almost
seemed to shine through her.
"If he could have been dear to you in another way," said Mrs.
Yeobright from the ladder, "this might have been a happy meeting."
"Is there any use in saying what can do no good, aunt?"
"Yes," said her aunt, with some warmth. "To thoroughly fill the air
with the past misfortune, so that other girls may take warning and
keep clear of it."
Thomasin lowered her face to the apples again. "I am a warning to
others, just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are," she said in
a low voice. "What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to them?
'Tis absurd! Yet why, aunt, does everybody keep on making me think
that I do, by the way they behave towards me? Why don't people judge
me by my acts? Now, look at me as I kneel here, picking up these
apples--do I look like a lost woman?... I wish all good women were as
good as I!" she added vehemently.
"Strangers don't see you as I do," said Mrs. Yeobright; "they judge
from false report. Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly to
blame."
"How quickly a rash thing can be done!" replied the girl. Her lips
were quivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that
she could hardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued
industriously searching to hide her weakness.
"As soon as you have finished getting the apples," her aunt said,
descending the ladder, "come down, and we'll go for the holly. There
is nobody on the heath this afternoon, and you need not fear being
stared at. We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in
our preparations."
Thomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together they
went through the white palings to the heath beyond. The open hills
were airy and clear, and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it often
appears on a fine winter day, in distinct planes of illumination
independently toned, the rays which lit the nearer tracts of landscape
streaming visibly across those further off; a stratum of ensaffroned
light was imposed on a stratum of deep blue, and behind these lay
still remoter scenes wrapped in frigid grey.
They reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a conical
pit, so that the tops of the trees were not much above the general
level of the ground. Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the
bushes, as she had done under happier circumstances on many similar
occasions, and with a small chopper that they had brought she began to
lop off the heavily-berried boughs.
"Don't scratch your face," said her aunt, who stood at the edge of the
pit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green and
scarlet masses of the tree. "Will you walk with me to meet him this
evening?"
"I should like to. Else it would seem as if I had forgotten him,"
said Thomasin, tossing out a bough. "Not that that would matter much;
I belong to one man; nothing can alter that. And that man I must
marry, for my pride's sake."
"I am afraid--" began Mrs. Yeobright.
"Ah, you think, 'That weak girl--how is she going to get a man to
marry her when she chooses?' But let me tell you one thing, aunt: Mr.
Wildeve is not a profligate man, any more than I am an improper woman.
He has an unfortunate manner, and doesn't try to make people like him
if they don't wish to do it of their own accord."
"Thomasin," said Mrs. Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye upon her
niece, "do you think you deceive me in your defence of Mr. Wildeve?"
"How do you mean?"
"I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has changed its
colour since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him,
and that you act a part to me."
"He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him."
"Now, I put it to you: would you at this present moment agree to be
his wife if that had not happened to entangle you with him?"
Thomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed. "Aunt," she
said presently, "I have, I think, a right to refuse to answer that
question."
"Yes, you have."
"You may think what you choose. I have never implied to you by word
or deed that I have grown to think otherwise of him, and I never will.
And I shall marry him."
"Well, wait till he repeats his offer. I think he may do it, now that
he knows--something I told him. I don't for a moment dispute that
it is the most proper thing for you to marry him. Much as I have
objected to him in bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure.
It is the only way out of a false position, and a very galling one."
"What did you tell him?"
"That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours."
"Aunt," said Thomasin, with round eyes, "what DO you mean?"
"Don't be alarmed; it was my duty. I can say no more about it now,
but when it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I
said it."
Thomasin was perforce content.
"And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for
the present?" she next asked.
"I have given my word to. But what is the use of it? He must soon
know what has happened. A mere look at your face will show him that
something is wrong."
Thomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree. "Now, hearken to
me," she said, her delicate voice expanding into firmness by a force
which was other than physical. "Tell him nothing. If he finds out
that I am not worthy to be his cousin, let him. But, since he loved
me once, we will not pain him by telling him my trouble too soon. The
air is full of the story, I know; but gossips will not dare to speak
of it to him for the first few days. His closeness to me is the very
thing that will hinder the tale from reaching him early. If I am not
made safe from sneers in a week or two I will tell him myself."
The earnestness with which Thomasin spoke prevented further
objections. Her aunt simply said, "Very well. He should by rights
have been told at the time that the wedding was going to be. He will
never forgive you for your secrecy."
"Yes, he will, when he knows it was because I wished to spare him, and
that I did not expect him home so soon. And you must not let me stand
in the way of your Christmas party. Putting it off would only make
matters worse."
"Of course I shall not. I do not wish to show myself beaten before
all Egdon, and the sport of a man like Wildeve. We have enough
berries now, I think, and we had better take them home. By the time
we have decked the house with this and hung up the mistletoe, we must
think of starting to meet him."
Thomasin came out of the tree, shook from her hair and dress the loose
berries which had fallen thereon, and went down the hill with her
aunt, each woman bearing half the gathered boughs. It was now nearly
four o'clock, and the sunlight was leaving the vales. When the west
grew red the two relatives came again from the house and plunged into
the heath in a different direction from the first, towards a point in
the distant highway along which the expected man was to return.
III
How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream
Eustacia stood just within the heath, straining her eyes in the
direction of Mrs. Yeobright's house and premises. No light, sound, or
movement was perceptible there. The evening was chilly; the spot was
dark and lonely. She inferred that the guest had not yet come; and
after lingering ten or fifteen minutes she turned again towards home.
She had not far retraced her steps when sounds in front of her
betokened the approach of persons in conversation along the same path.
Soon their heads became visible against the sky. They were walking
slowly; and though it was too dark for much discovery of character
from aspect, the gait of them showed that they were not workers on the
heath. Eustacia stepped a little out of the foot-track to let them
pass. They were two women and a man; and the voices of the women were
those of Mrs. Yeobright and Thomasin.
They went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared to discern her
dusky form. There came to her ears in a masculine voice, "Good
night!"
She murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round. She could
not, for a moment, believe that chance, unrequested, had brought into
her presence the soul of the house she had gone to inspect, the man
without whom her inspection would not have been thought of.
She strained her eyes to see them, but was unable. Such was her
intentness, however, that it seemed as if her ears were performing
the functions of seeing as well as hearing. This extension of power
can almost be believed in at such moments. The deaf Dr. Kitto was
probably under the influence of a parallel fancy when he described his
body as having become, by long endeavour, so sensitive to vibrations
that he had gained the power of perceiving by it as by ears.
She could follow every word that the ramblers uttered. They were
talking no secrets. They were merely indulging in the ordinary
vivacious chat of relatives who have long been parted in person though
not in soul. But it was not to the words that Eustacia listened; she
could not even have recalled, a few minutes later, what the words
were. It was to the alternating voice that gave out about one-tenth of
them--the voice that had wished her good night. Sometimes this throat
uttered Yes, sometimes it uttered No; sometimes it made inquiries
about a timeworn denizen of the place. Once it surprised her notions
by remarking upon the friendliness and geniality written in the faces
of the hills around.
The three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her ear.
Thus much had been granted her; and all besides withheld. No event
could have been more exciting. During the greater part of the
afternoon she had been entrancing herself by imagining the fascination
which must attend a man come direct from beautiful Paris--laden with
its atmosphere, familiar with its charms. And this man had greeted
her.
With the departure of the figures the profuse articulations of the
women wasted away from her memory; but the accents of the other stayed
on. Was there anything in the voice of Mrs. Yeobright's son--for Clym
it was--startling as a sound? No; it was simply comprehensive. All
emotional things were possible to the speaker of that "good night."
Eustacia's imagination supplied the rest--except the solution to one
riddle. What COULD the tastes of that man be who saw friendliness and
geniality in these shaggy hills?
On such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through a highly
charged woman's head; and they indicate themselves on her face; but
the changes, though actual, are minute. Eustacia's features went
through a rhythmical succession of them. She glowed; remembering the
mendacity of the imagination, she flagged; then she freshened; then
she fired; then she cooled again. It was a cycle of aspects, produced
by a cycle of visions.
Eustacia entered her own house; she was excited. Her grandfather was
enjoying himself over the fire, raking about the ashes and exposing
the red-hot surface of the turves, so that their lurid glare
irradiated the chimney-corner with the hues of a furnace.
"Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?" she said,
coming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth. "I wish
we were. They seem to be very nice people."
"Be hanged if I know why," said the captain. "I liked the old man
well enough, though he was as rough as a hedge. But you would never
have cared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. They sit in
the kitchen, drink mead and elderwine, and sand the floor to keep it
clean. A sensible way of life; but would you like it?"
"I thought Mrs. Yeobright was a ladylike woman? A curate's daughter,
was she not?"
"Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did; and I suppose
she has taken kindly to it by this time. Ah, I recollect that I once
accidentally offended her, and I have never seen her since."
That night was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one which she
hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from
Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable
one. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was
certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia's situation before.
It had as many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many
fluctuations as the Northern Lights, as much colour as a parterre
in June, and was as crowded with figures as a coronation. To Queen
Scheherazade the dream might have seemed not far removed from
commonplace; and to a girl just returned from all the courts of
Europe it might have seemed not more than interesting. But amid the
circumstances of Eustacia's life it was as wonderful as a dream could
be.
There was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation scenes a
less extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly appeared behind the
general brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to wondrous music,
and her partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her
through the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being
closed. The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came
into her ear from under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman
in Paradise. Suddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers,
dived into one of the pools of the heath, and came out somewhere
beneath into an iridescent hollow, arched with rainbows. "It must
be here," said the voice by her side, and blushingly looking up she
saw him removing his casque to kiss her. At that moment there was a
cracking noise, and his figure fell into fragments like a pack of
cards.
She cried aloud. "O that I had seen his face!"
Eustacia awoke. The cracking had been that of the window shutter
downstairs, which the maid-servant was opening to let in the day, now
slowly increasing to Nature's meagre allowance at this sickly time of
the year. "O that I had seen his face!" she said again. "'Twas meant
for Mr. Yeobright!"
When she became cooler she perceived that many of the phases of the
dream had naturally arisen out of the images and fancies of the day
before. But this detracted little from its interest, which lay in the
excellent fuel it provided for newly kindled fervour. She was at the
modulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called
"having a fancy for." It occurs once in the history of the most
gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of
the weakest will.
The perfervid woman was by this time half in love with a vision. The
fantastic nature of her passion, which lowered her as an intellect,
raised her as a soul. If she had had a little more self-control she
would have attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning, and
so have killed it off. If she had had a little less pride she might
have gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights' premises at Blooms-End
at any maidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But Eustacia did
neither of these things. She acted as the most exemplary might have
acted, being so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day
upon the Egdon hills, and kept her eyes employed.
The first occasion passed, and he did not come that way.
She promenaded a second time, and was again the sole wanderer there.
The third time there was a dense fog; she looked around, but without
much hope. Even if he had been walking within twenty yards of her she
could not have seen him.
At the fourth attempt to encounter him it began to rain in torrents,
and she turned back.
The fifth sally was in the afternoon: it was fine, and she remained
out long, walking to the very top of the valley in which Blooms-End
lay. She saw the white paling about half a mile off; but he did not
appear. It was almost with heart-sickness that she came home and with
a sense of shame at her weakness. She resolved to look for the man
from Paris no more.
But Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner had
Eustacia formed this resolve than the opportunity came which, while
sought, had been entirely withholden.
IV
Eustacia Is Led On to an Adventure
In the evening of this last day of expectation, which was the
twenty-third of December, Eustacia was at home alone. She had
passed the recent hour in lamenting over a rumour newly come to
her ears--that Yeobright's visit to his mother was to be of short
duration, and would end some time the next week. "Naturally," she
said to herself. A man in the full swing of his activities in a gay
city could not afford to linger long on Egdon Heath. That she would
behold face to face the owner of the awakening voice within the limits
of such a holiday was most unlikely, unless she were to haunt the
environs of his mother's house like a robin, to do which was difficult
and unseemly.
The customary expedient of provincial girls and men in such
circumstances is churchgoing. In an ordinary village or country town
one can safely calculate that, either on Christmas-day or the Sunday
contiguous, any native home for the holidays, who has not through age
or _ennui_ lost the appetite for seeing and being seen, will turn
up in some pew or other, shining with hope, self-consciousness, and
new clothes. Thus the congregation on Christmas morning is mostly
a Tussaud collection of celebrities who have been born in the
neighbourhood. Hither the mistress, left neglected at home all the
year, can steal and observe the development of the returned lover who
has forgotten her, and think as she watches him over her prayer-book
that he may throb with a renewed fidelity when novelties have lost
their charm. And hither a comparatively recent settler like Eustacia
may betake herself to scrutinize the person of a native son who left
home before her advent upon the scene, and consider if the friendship
of his parents be worth cultivating during his next absence in order
to secure a knowledge of him on his next return.
But these tender schemes were not feasible among the scattered
inhabitants of Egdon Heath. In name they were parishioners, but
virtually they belonged to no parish at all. People who came to these
few isolated houses to keep Christmas with their friends remained in
their friends' chimney-corners drinking mead and other comforting
liquors till they left again for good and all. Rain, snow, ice, mud
everywhere around, they did not care to trudge two or three miles to
sit wet-footed and splashed to the nape of their necks among those
who, though in some measure neighbours, lived close to the church, and
entered it clean and dry. Eustacia knew it was ten to one that Clym
Yeobright would go to no church at all during his few days of leave,
and that it would be a waste of labour for her to go driving the pony
and gig over a bad road in hope to see him there.
It was dusk, and she was sitting by the fire in the dining-room or
hall, which they occupied at this time of the year in preference to
the parlour, because of its large hearth, constructed for turf-fires,
a fuel the captain was partial to in the winter season. The only
visible articles in the room were those on the window-sill, which
showed their shapes against the low sky: the middle article being the
old hourglass, and the other two a pair of ancient British urns which
had been dug from a barrow near, and were used as flower-pots for two
razor-leaved cactuses. Somebody knocked at the door. The servant was
out; so was her grandfather. The person, after waiting a minute, came
in and tapped at the door of the room.
"Who's there?" said Eustacia.
"Please, Cap'n Vye, will you let us--"
Eustacia arose and went to the door. "I cannot allow you to come in
so boldly. You should have waited."
"The cap'n said I might come in without any fuss," was answered in a
lad's pleasant voice.
"Oh, did he?" said Eustacia more gently. "What do you want, Charley?"
"Please will your grandfather lend us his fuel-house to try over our
parts in, tonight at seven o'clock?"
"What, are you one of the Egdon mummers for this year?"
"Yes, miss. The cap'n used to let the old mummers practise here."
"I know it. Yes, you may use the fuel-house if you like," said
Eustacia languidly.
The choice of Captain Vye's fuel-house as the scene of rehearsal was
dictated by the fact that his dwelling was nearly in the centre of the
heath. The fuel-house was as roomy as a barn, and was a most desirable
place for such a purpose. The lads who formed the company of players
lived at different scattered points around, and by meeting in this
spot the distances to be traversed by all the comers would be about
equally proportioned.
For mummers and mumming Eustacia had the greatest contempt. The
mummers themselves were not afflicted with any such feeling for
their art, though at the same time they were not enthusiastic. A
traditional pastime is to be distinguished from a mere revival in no
more striking feature than in this, that while in the revival all is
excitement and fervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity
and absence of stir which sets one wondering why a thing that is done
so perfunctorily should be kept up at all. Like Balaam and other
unwilling prophets, the agents seem moved by an inner compulsion
to say and do their allotted parts whether they will or no. This
unweeting manner of performance is the true ring by which, in this
refurbishing age, a fossilized survival may be known from a spurious
reproduction.
The piece was the well-known play of "Saint George," and all who were
behind the scenes assisted in the preparations, including the women
of each household. Without the cooperation of sisters and sweethearts
the dresses were likely to be a failure; but on the other hand, this
class of assistance was not without its drawbacks. The girls could
never be brought to respect tradition in designing and decorating the
armour; they insisted on attaching loops and bows of silk and velvet
in any situation pleasing to their taste. Gorget, gusset, basinet,
cuirass, gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of these feminine
eyes were practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps of fluttering
colour.
It might be that Joe, who fought on the side of Christendom, had a
sweetheart, and that Jim, who fought on the side of the Moslem, had
one likewise. During the making of the costumes it would come to the
knowledge of Joe's sweetheart that Jim's was putting brilliant silk
scallops at the bottom of her lover's surcoat, in addition to the
ribbons of the visor, the bars of which, being invariably formed of
coloured strips about half an inch wide hanging before the face,
were mostly of that material. Joe's sweetheart straightway placed
brilliant silk on the scallops of the hem in question, and, going a
little further, added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces. Jim's, not
to be outdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere.
The result was that in the end the Valiant Soldier, of the Christian
army, was distinguished by no peculiarity of accoutrement from the
Turkish Knight; and what was worse, on a casual view Saint George
himself might be mistaken for his deadly enemy, the Saracen. The
guisers themselves, though inwardly regretting this confusion of
persons, could not afford to offend those by whose assistance they
so largely profited, and the innovations were allowed to stand.
There was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity.
The Leech or Doctor preserved his character intact: his darker
habiliments, peculiar hat, and the bottle of physic slung under his
arm, could never be mistaken. And the same might be said of the
conventional figure of Father Christmas, with his gigantic club, an
older man, who accompanied the band as general protector in long night
journeys from parish to parish, and was bearer of the purse.
Seven o'clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in a short
time Eustacia could hear voices in the fuel-house. To dissipate in
some trifling measure her abiding sense of the murkiness of human life
she went to the "linhay" or lean-to-shed, which formed the root-store
of their dwelling and abutted on the fuel-house. Here was a small
rough hole in the mud wall, originally made for pigeons, through which
the interior of the next shed could be viewed. A light came from it
now; and Eustacia stepped upon a stool to look in upon the scene.
On a ledge in the fuel-house stood three tall rush-lights and by the
light of them seven or eight lads were marching about, haranguing, and
confusing each other, in endeavours to perfect themselves in the play.
Humphrey and Sam, the furze and turf cutters, were there looking on,
so also was Timothy Fairway, who leant against the wall and prompted
the boys from memory, interspersing among the set words remarks and
anecdotes of the superior days when he and others were the Egdon
mummers-elect that these lads were now.
"Well, ye be as well up to it as ever ye will be," he said. "Not that
such mumming would have passed in our time. Harry as the Saracen
should strut a bit more, and John needn't holler his inside out.
Beyond that perhaps you'll do. Have you got all your clothes ready?"
"We shall by Monday."
"Your first outing will be Monday night, I suppose?"
"Yes. At Mrs. Yeobright's."
"Oh, Mrs. Yeobright's. What makes her want to see ye? I should think
a middle-aged woman was tired of mumming."
"She's got up a bit of a party, because 'tis the first Christmas that
her son Clym has been home for a long time."
"To be sure, to be sure--her party! I am going myself. I almost
forgot it, upon my life."
Eustacia's face flagged. There was to be a party at the Yeobrights';
she, naturally, had nothing to do with it. She was a stranger to
all such local gatherings, and had always held them as scarcely
appertaining to her sphere. But had she been going, what an
opportunity would have been afforded her of seeing the man whose
influence was penetrating her like summer sun! To increase that
influence was coveted excitement; to cast it off might be to regain
serenity; to leave it as it stood was tantalizing.
The lads and men prepared to leave the premises, and Eustacia returned
to her fireside. She was immersed in thought, but not for long. In a
few minutes the lad Charley, who had come to ask permission to use the
place, returned with the key to the kitchen. Eustacia heard him, and
opening the door into the passage said, "Charley, come here."
The lad was surprised. He entered the front room not without
blushing; for he, like many, had felt the power of this girl's face
and form.
She pointed to a seat by the fire, and entered the other side of the
chimney-corner herself. It could be seen in her face that whatever
motive she might have had in asking the youth indoors would soon
appear.
"Which part do you play, Charley--the Turkish Knight, do you not?"
inquired the beauty, looking across the smoke of the fire to him on
the other side.
"Yes, miss, the Turkish Knight," he replied diffidently.
"Is yours a long part?"
"Nine speeches, about."
"Can you repeat them to me? If so I should like to hear them."
The lad smiled into the glowing turf and began--
"Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
Who learnt in Turkish land to fight,"
continuing the discourse throughout the scenes to the concluding
catastrophe of his fall by the hand of Saint George.
Eustacia had occasionally heard the part recited before. When the lad
ended she began, precisely in the same words, and ranted on without
hitch or divergence till she too reached the end. It was the same
thing, yet how different. Like in form, it had the added softness
and finish of a Raffaelle after Perugino, which, while faithfully
reproducing the original subject, entirely distances the original art.
Charley's eyes rounded with surprise. "Well, you be a clever lady!"
he said, in admiration. "I've been three weeks learning mine."
"I have heard it before," she quietly observed. "Now, would you do
anything to please me, Charley?"
"I'd do a good deal, miss."
"Would you let me play your part for one night?"
"Oh, miss! But your woman's gown--you couldn't."
"I can get boy's clothes--at least all that would be wanted besides
the mumming dress. What should I have to give you to lend me your
things, to let me take your place for an hour or two on Monday night,
and on no account to say a word about who or what I am? You would, of
course, have to excuse yourself from playing that night, and to say
that somebody--a cousin of Miss Vye's--would act for you. The other
mummers have never spoken to me in their lives, so that it would be
safe enough; and if it were not, I should not mind. Now, what must I
give you to agree to this? Half a crown?"
The youth shook his head
"Five shillings?"
He shook his head again. "Money won't do it," he said, brushing the
iron head of the fire-dog with the hollow of his hand.
"What will, then, Charley?" said Eustacia in a disappointed tone.
"You know what you forbade me at the Maypoling, miss," murmured the
lad, without looking at her, and still stroking the firedog's head.
"Yes," said Eustacia, with a little more hauteur. "You wanted to join
hands with me in the ring, if I recollect?"
"Half an hour of that, and I'll agree, miss."
Eustacia regarded the youth steadfastly. He was three years younger
than herself, but apparently not backward for his age. "Half an hour
of what?" she said, though she guessed what.
"Holding your hand in mine."
She was silent. "Make it a quarter of an hour," she said.
"Yes, Miss Eustacia--I will, if I may kiss it too. A quarter of an
hour. And I'll swear to do the best I can to let you take my place
without anybody knowing. Don't you think somebody might know your
tongue, miss?"
"It is possible. But I will put a pebble in my mouth to make is less
likely. Very well; you shall be allowed to have my hand as soon as
you bring the dress and your sword and staff. I don't want you any
longer now."
Charley departed, and Eustacia felt more and more interest in life.
Here was something to do: here was some one to see, and a charmingly
adventurous way to see him. "Ah," she said to herself, "want of an
object to live for--that's all is the matter with me!"
Eustacia's manner was as a rule of a slumberous sort, her passions
being of the massive rather than the vivacious kind. But when aroused
she would make a dash which, just for the time, was not unlike the
move of a naturally lively person.
On the question of recognition she was somewhat indifferent. By
the acting lads themselves she was not likely to be known. With the
guests who might be assembled she was hardly so secure. Yet detection,
after all, would be no such dreadful thing. The fact only could be
detected, her true motive never. It would be instantly set down as the
passing freak of a girl whose ways were already considered singular.
That she was doing for an earnest reason what would most naturally be
done in jest was at any rate a safe secret.
The next evening Eustacia stood punctually at the fuel-house door,
waiting for the dusk which was to bring Charley with the trappings.
Her grandfather was at home tonight, and she would be unable to ask
her confederate indoors.
He appeared on the dark ridge of heathland, like a fly on a negro,
bearing the articles with him, and came up breathless with his walk.
"Here are the things," he whispered, placing them upon the threshold.
"And now, Miss Eustacia--"
"The payment. It is quite ready. I am as good as my word."
She leant against the door-post, and gave him her hand. Charley took
it in both his own with a tenderness beyond description, unless it was
like that of a child holding a captured sparrow.
"Why, there's a glove on it!" he said in a deprecating way.
"I have been walking," she observed.
"But, miss!"
"Well--it is hardly fair." She pulled off the glove, and gave him her
bare hand.
They stood together minute after minute, without further speech, each
looking at the blackening scene, and each thinking his and her own
thoughts.
"I think I won't use it all up tonight," said Charley devotedly, when
six or eight minutes had been passed by him caressing her hand. "May
I have the other few minutes another time?"
"As you like," said she without the least emotion. "But it must be
over in a week. Now, there is only one thing I want you to do: to wait
while I put on the dress, and then to see if I do my part properly.
But let me look first indoors."
She vanished for a minute or two, and went in. Her grandfather was
safely asleep in his chair. "Now, then," she said, on returning,
"walk down the garden a little way, and when I am ready I'll call
you."
Charley walked and waited, and presently heard a soft whistle. He
returned to the fuel-house door.
"Did you whistle, Miss Vye?"
"Yes; come in," reached him in Eustacia's voice from a back quarter.
"I must not strike a light till the door is shut, or it may be seen
shining. Push your hat into the hole through to the wash-house, if
you can feel your way across."
Charley did as commanded, and she struck the light, revealing herself
to be changed in sex, brilliant in colours, and armed from top to
toe. Perhaps she quailed a little under Charley's vigorous gaze, but
whether any shyness at her male attire appeared upon her countenance
could not be seen by reason of the strips of ribbon which used to
cover the face in mumming costumes, representing the barred visor of
the mediaeval helmet.
"It fits pretty well," she said, looking down at the white overalls,
"except that the tunic, or whatever you call it, is long in the
sleeve. The bottom of the overalls I can turn up inside. Now pay
attention."
Eustacia then proceeded in her delivery, striking the sword against
the staff or lance at the minatory phrases, in the orthodox mumming
manner, and strutting up and down. Charley seasoned his admiration
with criticism of the gentlest kind, for the touch of Eustacia's hand
yet remained with him.
"And now for your excuse to the others," she said. "Where do you meet
before you go to Mrs. Yeobright's?"
"We thought of meeting here, miss, if you have nothing to say against
it. At eight o'clock, so as to get there by nine."
"Yes. Well, you of course must not appear. I will march in about five
minutes late, ready-dressed, and tell them that you can't come. I
have decided that the best plan will be for you to be sent somewhere
by me, to make a real thing of the excuse. Our two heath-croppers are
in the habit of straying into the meads, and tomorrow evening you can
go and see if they are gone there. I'll manage the rest. Now you may
leave me."
"Yes, miss. But I think I'll have one minute more of what I am owed,
if you don't mind."
Eustacia gave him her hand as before.
"One minute," she said, and counted on till she reached seven or eight
minutes. Hand and person she then withdrew to a distance of several
feet, and recovered some of her old dignity. The contract completed,
she raised between them a barrier impenetrable as a wall.
"There, 'tis all gone; and I didn't mean quite all," he said, with a
sigh.
"You had good measure," said she, turning away.
"Yes, miss. Well, 'tis over, and now I'll get home-along."
V
Through the Moonlight
The next evening the mummers were assembled in the same spot, awaiting
the entrance of the Turkish Knight.
"Twenty minutes after eight by the Quiet Woman, and Charley not come."
"Ten minutes past by Blooms-End."
"It wants ten minutes to, by Grandfer Cantle's watch."
"And 'tis five minutes past by the captain's clock."
On Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day. The time at any
moment was a number of varying doctrines professed by the different
hamlets, some of them having originally grown up from a common root,
and then become divided by secession, some having been alien from the
beginning. West Egdon believed in Blooms-End time, East Egdon in the
time of the Quiet Woman Inn. Grandfer Cantle's watch had numbered
many followers in years gone by, but since he had grown older faiths
were shaken. Thus, the mummers having gathered hither from scattered
points each came with his own tenets on early and late; and they
waited a little longer as a compromise.
Eustacia had watched the assemblage through the hole; and seeing that
now was the proper moment to enter, she went from the "linhay" and
boldly pulled the bobbin of the fuel-house door. Her grandfather was
safe at the Quiet Woman.
"Here's Charley at last! How late you be, Charley."
"'Tis not Charley," said the Turkish Knight from within his visor.
"'Tis a cousin of Miss Vye's, come to take Charley's place from
curiosity. He was obliged to go and look for the heath-croppers that
have got into the meads, and I agreed to take his place, as he knew he
couldn't come back here again tonight. I know the part as well as he."
Her graceful gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner in general won
the mummers to the opinion that they had gained by the exchange, if
the newcomer were perfect in his part.
"It don't matter--if you be not too young," said Saint George.
Eustacia's voice had sounded somewhat more juvenile and fluty than
Charley's.
"I know every word of it, I tell you," said Eustacia decisively. Dash
being all that was required to carry her triumphantly through, she
adopted as much as was necessary. "Go ahead, lads, with the try-over.
I'll challenge any of you to find a mistake in me."
The play was hastily rehearsed, whereupon the other mummers were
delighted with the new knight. They extinguished the candles at
half-past eight, and set out upon the heath in the direction of Mrs.
Yeobright's house at Bloom's-End.
There was a slight hoar-frost that night, and the moon, though not
more than half full, threw a spirited and enticing brightness upon
the fantastic figures of the mumming band, whose plumes and ribbons
rustled in their walk like autumn leaves. Their path was not over
Rainbarrow now, but down a valley which left that ancient elevation
a little to the east. The bottom of the vale was green to a width of
ten yards or thereabouts, and the shining facets of frost upon the
blades of grass seemed to move on with the shadows of those they
surrounded. The masses of furze and heath to the right and left were
dark as ever; a mere half-moon was powerless to silver such sable
features as theirs.
Half-an-hour of walking and talking brought them to the spot in the
valley where the grass riband widened and led down to the front of
the house. At sight of the place Eustacia, who had felt a few passing
doubts during her walk with the youths, again was glad that the
adventure had been undertaken. She had come out to see a man who
might possibly have the power to deliver her soul from a most deadly
oppression. What was Wildeve? Interesting, but inadequate. Perhaps
she would see a sufficient hero tonight.
As they drew nearer to the front of the house the mummers became aware
that music and dancing were briskly flourishing within. Every now
and then a long low note from the serpent, which was the chief wind
instrument played at these times, advanced further into the heath than
the thin treble part, and reached their ears alone; and next a more
than usually loud tread from a dancer would come the same way. With
nearer approach these fragmentary sounds became pieced together,
and were found to be the salient points of the tune called "Nancy's
Fancy."
He was there, of course. Who was she that he danced with? Perhaps
some unknown woman, far beneath herself in culture, was by that most
subtle of lures sealing his fate this very instant. To dance with a
man is to concentrate a twelve-month's regulation fire upon him in the
fragment of an hour. To pass to courtship without acquaintance, to
pass to marriage without courtship, is a skipping of terms reserved
for those alone who tread this royal road. She would see how his heart
lay by keen observation of them all.
The enterprising lady followed the mumming company through the gate
in the white paling, and stood before the open porch. The house was
encrusted with heavy thatchings, which dropped between the upper
windows; the front, upon which the moonbeams directly played, had
originally been white; but a huge pyracanth now darkened the greater
portion.
It became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately
within the surface of the door, no apartment intervening. The brushing
of skirts and elbows, sometimes the bumping of shoulders, could be
heard against the very panels. Eustacia, though living within two
miles of the place, had never seen the interior of this quaint old
habitation. Between Captain Vye and the Yeobrights there had never
existed much acquaintance, the former having come as a stranger and
purchased the long-empty house at Mistover Knap not long before
the death of Mrs. Yeobright's husband; and with that event and the
departure of her son such friendship as had grown up became quite
broken off.
"Is there no passage inside the door, then?" asked Eustacia as they
stood within the porch.
"No," said the lad who played the Saracen. "The door opens right upon
the front sitting-room, where the spree's going on."
"So that we cannot open the door without stopping the dance."
"That's it. Here we must bide till they have done, for they always
bolt the back door after dark."
"They won't be much longer," said Father Christmas.
This assertion, however, was hardly borne out by the event. Again the
instruments ended the tune; again they recommenced with as much fire
and pathos as if it were the first strain. The air was now that one
without any particular beginning, middle, or end, which perhaps, among
all the dances which throng an inspired fiddler's fancy, best conveys
the idea of the interminable--the celebrated "Devil's Dream." The
fury of personal movement that was kindled by the fury of the notes
could be approximately imagined by these outsiders under the moon,
from the occasional kicks of toes and heels against the door, whenever
the whirl round had been of more than customary velocity.
The first five minutes of listening was interesting enough to the
mummers. The five minutes extended to ten minutes, and these to a
quarter of an hour; but no signs of ceasing were audible in the lively
Dream. The bumping against the door, the laughter, the stamping, were
all as vigorous as ever, and the pleasure in being outside lessened
considerably.
"Why does Mrs. Yeobright give parties of this sort?" Eustacia asked,
a little surprised to hear merriment so pronounced.
"It is not one of her bettermost parlour-parties. She's asked the
plain neighbours and workpeople without drawing any lines, just to
give 'em a good supper and such like. Her son and she wait upon the
folks."
"I see," said Eustacia.
"'Tis the last strain, I think," said Saint George, with his ear to
the panel. "A young man and woman have just swung into this corner,
and he's saying to her, 'Ah, the pity; 'tis over for us this time, my
own.'"
"Thank God!" said the Turkish Knight, stamping, and taking from the
wall the conventional lance that each of the mummers carried. Her
boots being thinner than those of the young men, the hoar had damped
her feet and made them cold.
"Upon my song 'tis another ten minutes for us," said the Valiant
Soldier, looking through the keyhole as the tune modulated into
another without stopping. "Grandfer Cantle is standing in this
corner, waiting his turn."
"'Twon't be long; 'tis a six-handed reel," said the Doctor.
"Why not go in, dancing or no? They sent for us," said the Saracen.
"Certainly not," said Eustacia authoritatively, as she paced smartly
up and down from door to gate to warm herself. "We should burst into
the middle of them and stop the dance, and that would be unmannerly."
"He thinks himself somebody because he has had a bit more schooling
than we," said the Doctor.
"You may go to the deuce!" said Eustacia.
There was a whispered conversation between three or four of them, and
one turned to her.
"Will you tell us one thing?" he said, not without gentleness. "Be
you Miss Vye? We think you must be."
"You may think what you like," said Eustacia slowly. "But honourable
lads will not tell tales upon a lady."
"We'll say nothing, miss. That's upon our honour."
"Thank you," she replied.
At this moment the fiddles finished off with a screech, and the
serpent emitted a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from
the comparative quiet within, the mummers judged that the dancers had
taken their seats, Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and
put his head inside the door.
"Ah, the mummers, the mummers!" cried several guests at once. "Clear
a space for the mummers."
Hump-backed Father Christmas then made a complete entry, swinging his
huge club, and in a general way clearing the stage for the actors
proper, while he informed the company in smart verse that he was come,
welcome or welcome not; concluding his speech with
"Make room, make room, my gallant boys,
And give us space to rhyme;
We've come to show Saint George's play,
Upon this Christmas time."
The guests were now arranging themselves at one end of the room, the
fiddler was mending a string, the serpent-player was emptying his
mouthpiece, and the play began. First of those outside the Valiant
Soldier entered, in the interest of Saint George--
"Here come I, the Valiant Soldier;
Slasher is my name;"
and so on. This speech concluded with a challenge to the infidel,
at the end of which it was Eustacia's duty to enter as the Turkish
Knight. She, with the rest who were not yet on, had hitherto remained
in the moonlight which streamed under the porch. With no apparent
effort or backwardness she came in, beginning--
"Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
Who learnt in Turkish land to fight;
I'll fight this man with courage bold:
If his blood's hot I'll make it cold!"
During her declamation Eustacia held her head erect, and spoke as
roughly as she could, feeling pretty secure from observation. But
the concentration upon her part necessary to prevent discovery, the
newness of the scene, the shine of the candles, and the confusing
effect upon her vision of the ribboned visor which hid her features,
left her absolutely unable to perceive who were present as spectators.
On the further side of a table bearing candles she could faintly
discern faces, and that was all.
Meanwhile Jim Starks as the Valiant Soldier had come forward, and,
with a glare upon the Turk, replied--
"If, then, thou art that Turkish Knight,
Draw out thy sword, and let us fight!"
And fight they did; the issue of the combat being that the Valiant
Soldier was slain by a preternaturally inadequate thrust from
Eustacia, Jim, in his ardour for genuine histrionic art, coming down
like a log upon the stone floor with force enough to dislocate his
shoulder. Then, after more words from the Turkish Knight, rather too
faintly delivered, and statements that he'd fight Saint George and
all his crew, Saint George himself magnificently entered with the
well-known flourish--
"Here come I, Saint George, the valiant man,
With naked sword and spear in hand,
Who fought the dragon and brought him to the slaughter,
And by this won fair Sabra, the King of Egypt's daughter;
What mortal man would dare to stand
Before me with my sword in hand?"
This was the lad who had first recognized Eustacia; and when she now,
as the Turk, replied with suitable defiance, and at once began the
combat, the young fellow took especial care to use his sword as gently
as possible. Being wounded, the Knight fell upon one knee, according
to the direction. The Doctor now entered, restored the Knight by
giving him a draught from the bottle which he carried, and the
fight was again resumed, the Turk sinking by degrees until quite
overcome--dying as hard in this venerable drama as he is said to do at
the present day.
This gradual sinking to the earth was, in fact, one reason why
Eustacia had thought that the part of the Turkish Knight, though not
the shortest, would suit her best. A direct fall from upright to
horizontal, which was the end of the other fighting characters, was
not an elegant or decorous part for a girl. But it was easy to die
like a Turk, by a dogged decline.
Eustacia was now among the number of the slain, though not on the
floor, for she had managed to sink into a sloping position against the
clock-case, so that her head was well elevated. The play proceeded
between Saint George, the Saracen, the Doctor, and Father Christmas;
and Eustacia, having no more to do, for the first time found leisure
to observe the scene round, and to search for the form that had drawn
her hither.
VI
The Two Stand Face to Face
The room had been arranged with a view to the dancing, the large
oak table having been moved back till it stood as a breastwork to
the fireplace. At each end, behind, and in the chimney-corner were
grouped the guests, many of them being warm-faced and panting, among
whom Eustacia cursorily recognized some well-to-do persons from
beyond the heath. Thomasin, as she had expected, was not visible, and
Eustacia recollected that a light had shone from an upper window when
they were outside--the window, probably, of Thomasin's room. A nose,
chin, hands, knees, and toes projected from the seat within the
chimney opening, which members she found to unite in the person of
Grandfer Cantle, Mrs. Yeobright's occasional assistant in the garden,
and therefore one of the invited. The smoke went up from an Etna of
peat in front of him, played round the notches of the chimney-crook,
struck against the saltbox, and got lost among the flitches.
Another part of the room soon riveted her gaze. At the other side of
the chimney stood the settle, which is the necessary supplement to a
fire so open that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up the
smoke. It is, to the hearths of old-fashioned cavernous fireplaces,
what the east belt of trees is to the exposed country estate, or the
north wall to the garden. Outside the settle candles gutter, locks
of hair wave, young women shiver, and old men sneeze. Inside is
Paradise. Not a symptom of a draught disturbs the air; the sitters'
backs are as warm as their faces, and songs and old tales are drawn
from the occupants by the comfortable heat, like fruit from melon
plants in a frame.
It was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that Eustacia
was concerned. A face showed itself with marked distinctness against
the dark-tanned wood of the upper part. The owner, who was leaning
against the settle's outer end, was Clement Yeobright, or Clym, as
he was called here; she knew it could be nobody else. The spectacle
constituted an area of two feet in Rembrandt's intensest manner. A
strange power in the lounger's appearance lay in the fact that, though
his whole figure was visible, the observer's eye was only aware of his
face.
To one of middle age the countenance was that of a young man, though a
youth might hardly have seen any necessity for the term of immaturity.
But it was really one of those faces which convey less the idea of so
many years as its age than of so much experience as its store. The
number of their years may have adequately summed up Jared, Mahalaleel,
and the rest of the antediluvians, but the age of a modern man is to
be measured by the intensity of his history.
The face was well shaped, even excellently. But the mind within was
beginning to use it as a mere waste tablet whereon to trace its
idiosyncrasies as they developed themselves. The beauty here visible
would in no long time be ruthlessly over-run by its parasite, thought,
which might just as well have fed upon a plainer exterior where there
was nothing it could harm. Had Heaven preserved Yeobright from a
wearing habit of meditation, people would have said, "A handsome man."
Had his brain unfolded under sharper contours they would have said, "A
thoughtful man." But an inner strenuousness was preying upon an outer
symmetry, and they rated his look as singular.
Hence people who began by beholding him ended by perusing him.
His countenance was overlaid with legible meanings. Without being
thought-worn he yet had certain marks derived from a perception of his
surroundings, such as are not unfrequently found on men at the end of
the four or five years of endeavour which follow the close of placid
pupilage. He already showed that thought is a disease of flesh, and
indirectly bore evidence that ideal physical beauty is incompatible
with emotional development and a full recognition of the coil of
things. Mental luminousness must be fed with the oil of life, even
though there is already a physical need for it; and the pitiful sight
of two demands on one supply was just showing itself here.
When standing before certain men the philosopher regrets that thinkers
are but perishable tissue, the artist that perishable tissue has to
think. Thus to deplore, each from his point of view, the mutually
destructive interdependence of spirit and flesh would have been
instinctive with these in critically observing Yeobright.
As for his look, it was a natural cheerfulness striving against
depression from without, and not quite succeeding. The look suggested
isolation, but it revealed something more. As is usual with bright
natures, the deity that lies ignominiously chained within an ephemeral
human carcase shone out of him like a ray.
The effect upon Eustacia was palpable. The extraordinary pitch of
excitement that she had reached beforehand would, indeed, have caused
her to be influenced by the most commonplace man. She was troubled at
Yeobright's presence.
The remainder of the play ended: the Saracen's head was cut off, and
Saint George stood as victor. Nobody commented, any more than they
would have commented on the fact of mushrooms coming in autumn or
snowdrops in spring. They took the piece as phlegmatically as did the
actors themselves. It was a phase of cheerfulness which was, as a
matter of course, to be passed through every Christmas; and there was
no more to be said.
They sang the plaintive chant which follows the play, during which all
the dead men rise to their feet in a silent and awful manner, like
the ghosts of Napoleon's soldiers in the Midnight Review. Afterwards
the door opened, and Fairway appeared on the threshold, accompanied
by Christian and another. They had been waiting outside for the
conclusion of the play, as the players had waited for the conclusion
of the dance.
"Come in, come in," said Mrs. Yeobright; and Clym went forward to
welcome them. "How is it you are so late? Grandfer Cantle has been
here ever so long, and we thought you'd have come with him, as you
live so near one another."
"Well, I should have come earlier," Mr. Fairway said, and paused to
look along the beam of the ceiling for a nail to hang his hat on; but,
finding his accustomed one to be occupied by the mistletoe, and all
the nails in the walls to be burdened with bunches of holly, he at
last relieved himself of the hat by ticklishly balancing it between
the candlebox and the head of the clock-case. "I should have come
earlier, ma'am," he resumed, with a more composed air, "but I know
what parties be, and how there's none too much room in folks' houses
at such times, so I thought I wouldn't come till you'd got settled a
bit."
"And I thought so too, Mrs. Yeobright," said Christian earnestly, "but
father there was so eager that he had no manners at all, and left home
almost afore 'twas dark. I told him 'twas barely decent in a' old man
to come so oversoon; but words be wind."
"Klk! I wasn't going to bide waiting about, till half the game was
over! I'm as light as a kite when anything's going on!" crowed
Grandfer Cantle from the chimney-seat.
Fairway had meanwhile concluded a critical gaze at Yeobright. "Now,
you may not believe it," he said to the rest of the room, "but I
should never have knowed this gentleman if I had met him anywhere off
his own he'th--he's altered so much."
"You too have altered, and for the better, I think Timothy," said
Yeobright, surveying the firm figure of Fairway.
"Master Yeobright, look me over too. I have altered for the better,
haven't I, hey?" said Grandfer Cantle, rising and placing himself
something above half a foot from Clym's eye, to induce the most
searching criticism.
"To be sure we will," said Fairway, taking the candle and moving it
over the surface of the Grandfer's countenance, the subject of his
scrutiny irradiating himself with light and pleasant smiles, and
giving himself jerks of juvenility.
"You haven't changed much," said Yeobright.
"If there's any difference, Grandfer is younger," appended Fairway
decisively.
"And yet not my own doing, and I feel no pride in it," said the
pleased ancient. "But I can't be cured of my vagaries; them I plead
guilty to. Yes, Master Cantle always was that, as we know. But I am
nothing by the side of you, Mister Clym."
"Nor any o' us," said Humphrey, in a low rich tone of admiration, not
intended to reach anybody's ears.
"Really, there would have been nobody here who could have stood as
decent second to him, or even third, if I hadn't been a soldier in the
Bang-up Locals (as we was called for our smartness)," said Grandfer
Cantle. "And even as 'tis we all look a little scammish beside him.
But in the year four 'twas said there wasn't a finer figure in
the whole South Wessex than I, as I looked when dashing past the
shop-winders with the rest of our company on the day we ran out o'
Budmouth because it was thoughted that Boney had landed round the
point. There was I, straight as a young poplar, wi' my firelock, and
my bag-net, and my spatter-dashes, and my stock sawing my jaws off,
and my accoutrements sheening like the seven stars! Yes, neighbours,
I was a pretty sight in my soldiering days. You ought to have seen me
in four!"
"'Tis his mother's side where Master Clym's figure comes from, bless
ye," said Timothy. "I know'd her brothers well. Longer coffins were
never made in the whole country of South Wessex, and 'tis said that
poor George's knees were crumpled up a little e'en as 'twas."
"Coffins, where?" inquired Christian, drawing nearer. "Have the ghost
of one appeared to anybody, Master Fairway?"
"No, no. Don't let your mind so mislead your ears, Christian; and be
a man," said Timothy reproachfully.
"I will." said Christian. "But now I think o't my shadder last night
seemed just the shape of a coffin. What is it a sign of when your
shade's like a coffin, neighbours? It can't be nothing to be afeared
of, I suppose?"
"Afeared, no!" said the Grandfer. "Faith, I was never afeard of
nothing except Boney, or I shouldn't ha' been the soldier I was. Yes,
'tis a thousand pities you didn't see me in four!"
By this time the mummers were preparing to leave; but Mrs. Yeobright
stopped them by asking them to sit down and have a little supper. To
this invitation Father Christmas, in the name of them all, readily
agreed.
Eustacia was happy in the opportunity of staying a little longer.
The cold and frosty night without was doubly frigid to her. But the
lingering was not without its difficulties. Mrs. Yeobright, for want
of room in the larger apartment, placed a bench for the mummers
half-way through the pantry door, which opened from the sitting-room.
Here they seated themselves in a row, the door being left open: thus
they were still virtually in the same apartment. Mrs. Yeobright
now murmured a few words to her son, who crossed the room to the
pantry-door, striking his head against the mistletoe as he passed, and
brought the mummers beef and bread, cake pastry, mead, and elder-wine,
the waiting being done by him and his mother, that the little
maid-servant might sit as guest. The mummers doffed their helmets,
and began to eat and drink.
"But you will surely have some?" said Clym to the Turkish Knight,
as he stood before that warrior, tray in hand. She had refused, and
still sat covered, only the sparkle of her eyes being visible between
the ribbons which covered her face.
"None, thank you," replied Eustacia.
"He's quite a youngster," said the Saracen apologetically, "and you
must excuse him. He's not one of the old set, but have jined us
because t'other couldn't come."
"But he will take something?" persisted Yeobright. "Try a glass of
mead or elder-wine."
"Yes, you had better try that," said the Saracen. "It will keep the
cold out going home-along."
Though Eustacia could not eat without uncovering her face she
could drink easily enough beneath her disguise. The elder-wine was
accordingly accepted, and the glass vanished inside the ribbons.
At moments during this performance Eustacia was half in doubt about
the security of her position; yet it had a fearful joy. A series of
attentions paid to her, and yet not to her but to some imaginary
person, by the first man she had ever been inclined to adore,
complicated her emotions indescribably. She had loved him partly
because he was exceptional in this scene, partly because she had
determined to love him, chiefly because she was in desperate need of
loving somebody after wearying of Wildeve. Believing that she must
love him in spite of herself, she had been influenced after the
fashion of the second Lord Lyttleton and other persons, who have
dreamed that they were to die on a certain day, and by stress of a
morbid imagination have actually brought about that event. Once let
a maiden admit the possibility of her being stricken with love for
some one at a certain hour and place, and the thing is as good as
done.
Did anything at this moment suggest to Yeobright the sex of the
creature whom that fantastic guise inclosed, how extended was her
scope both in feeling and in making others feel, and how far her
compass transcended that of her companions in the band? When the
disguised Queen of Love appeared before Aeneas a preternatural
perfume accompanied her presence and betrayed her quality. If such a
mysterious emanation ever was projected by the emotions of an earthly
woman upon their object, it must have signified Eustacia's presence to
Yeobright now. He looked at her wistfully, then seemed to fall into
a reverie, as if he were forgetting what he observed. The momentary
situation ended, he passed on, and Eustacia sipped her wine without
knowing what she drank. The man for whom she had predetermined to
nourish a passion went into the small room, and across it to the
further extremity.
The mummers, as has been stated, were seated on a bench, one end of
which extended into the small apartment, or pantry, for want of space
in the outer room. Eustacia, partly from shyness, had chosen the
midmost seat, which thus commanded a view of the interior of the
pantry as well as the room containing the guests. When Clym passed
down the pantry her eyes followed him in the gloom which prevailed
there. At the remote end was a door which, just as he was about to
open it for himself, was opened by somebody within; and light streamed
forth.
The person was Thomasin, with a candle, looking anxious, pale, and
interesting. Yeobright appeared glad to see her, and pressed her
hand. "That's right, Tamsie," he said heartily, as though recalled
to himself by the sight of her, "you have decided to come down. I am
glad of it."
"Hush--no, no," she said quickly. "I only came to speak to you."
"But why not join us?"
"I cannot. At least I would rather not. I am not well enough, and we
shall have plenty of time together now you are going to be home a good
long holiday."
"It isn't nearly so pleasant without you. Are you really ill?"
"Just a little, my old cousin--here," she said, playfully sweeping her
hand across her heart.
"Ah, mother should have asked somebody else to be present tonight,
perhaps?"
"O no, indeed. I merely stepped down, Clym, to ask you--" Here he
followed her through the doorway into the private room beyond, and,
the door closing, Eustacia and the mummer who sat next to her, the
only other witness of the performance, saw and heard no more.
The heat flew to Eustacia's head and cheeks. She instantly guessed
that Clym, having been home only these two or three days, had not as
yet been made acquainted with Thomasin's painful situation with regard
to Wildeve; and seeing her living there just as she had been living
before he left home, he naturally suspected nothing. Eustacia felt
a wild jealousy of Thomasin on the instant. Though Thomasin might
possibly have tender sentiments towards another man as yet, how long
could they be expected to last when she was shut up here with this
interesting and travelled cousin of hers? There was no knowing what
affection might not soon break out between the two, so constantly
in each other's society, and not a distracting object near. Clym's
boyish love for her might have languished, but it might easily be
revived again.
Eustacia was nettled by her own contrivances. What a sheer waste of
herself to be dressed thus while another was shining to advantage! Had
she known the full effect of the encounter she would have moved heaven
and earth to get here in a natural manner. The power of her face all
lost, the charm of her emotions all disguised, the fascinations of her
coquetry denied existence, nothing but a voice left to her; she had a
sense of the doom of Echo. "Nobody here respects me," she said. She
had overlooked the fact that, in coming as a boy among other boys, she
would be treated as a boy. The slight, though of her own causing, and
self-explanatory, she was unable to dismiss as unwittingly shown, so
sensitive had the situation made her.
Women have done much for themselves in histrionic dress. To look far
below those who, like a certain fair personator of Polly Peachum early
in the last century, and another of Lydia Languish early in this, have
won not only love but ducal coronets into the bargain, whole shoals of
them have reached to the initial satisfaction of getting love almost
whence they would. But the Turkish Knight was denied even the chance
of achieving this by the fluttering ribbons which she dared not brush
aside.
Yeobright returned to the room without his cousin. When within two or
three feet of Eustacia he stopped, as if again arrested by a thought.
He was gazing at her. She looked another way, disconcerted, and
wondered how long this purgatory was to last. After lingering a few
seconds he passed on again.
To court their own discomfiture by love is a common instinct with
certain perfervid women. Conflicting sensations of love, fear, and
shame reduced Eustacia to a state of the utmost uneasiness. To escape
was her great and immediate desire. The other mummers appeared to be
in no hurry to leave; and murmuring to the lad who sat next to her
that she preferred waiting for them outside the house, she moved to
the door as imperceptibly as possible, opened it, and slipped out.
The calm, lone scene reassured her. She went forward to the palings
and leant over them, looking at the moon. She had stood thus but a
little time when the door again opened. Expecting to see the remainder
of the band Eustacia turned; but no--Clym Yeobright came out as softly
as she had done, and closed the door behind him.
He advanced and stood beside her. "I have an odd opinion," he said,
"and should like to ask you a question. Are you a woman--or am I
wrong?"
"I am a woman."
His eyes lingered on her with great interest. "Do girls often play as
mummers now? They never used to."
"They don't now."
"Why did you?"
"To get excitement and shake off depression," she said in low tones.
"What depressed you?"
"Life."
"That's a cause of depression a good many have to put up with."
"Yes."
A long silence. "And do you find excitement?" asked Clym at last.
"At this moment, perhaps."
"Then you are vexed at being discovered?"
"Yes; though I thought I might be."
"I would gladly have asked you to our party had I known you wished to
come. Have I ever been acquainted with you in my youth?"
"Never."
"Won't you come in again, and stay as long as you like?"
"No. I wish not to be further recognized."
"Well, you are safe with me." After remaining in thought a minute he
added gently, "I will not intrude upon you longer. It is a strange
way of meeting, and I will not ask why I find a cultivated woman
playing such a part as this."
She did not volunteer the reason which he seemed to hope for, and
he wished her good night, going thence round to the back of the
house, where he walked up and down by himself for some time before
re-entering.
Eustacia, warmed with an inner fire, could not wait for her companions
after this. She flung back the ribbons from her face, opened the
gate, and at once struck into the heath. She did not hasten along.
Her grandfather was in bed at this hour, for she so frequently walked
upon the hills on moonlight nights that he took no notice of her
comings and goings, and, enjoying himself in his own way, left her to
do likewise. A more important subject than that of getting indoors
now engrossed her. Yeobright, if he had the least curiosity, would
infallibly discover her name. What then? She first felt a sort of
exultation at the way in which the adventure had terminated, even
though at moments between her exultations she was abashed and
blushful. Then this consideration recurred to chill her: What was
the use of her exploit? She was at present a total stranger to the
Yeobright family. The unreasonable nimbus of romance with which she
had encircled that man might be her misery. How could she allow
herself to become so infatuated with a stranger? And to fill the
cup of her sorrow there would be Thomasin, living day after day in
inflammable proximity to him; for she had just learnt that, contrary
to her first belief, he was going to stay at home some considerable
time.
She reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before opening it she
turned and faced the heath once more. The form of Rainbarrow stood
above the hills, and the moon stood above Rainbarrow. The air was
charged with silence and frost. The scene reminded Eustacia of a
circumstance which till that moment she had totally forgotten. She
had promised to meet Wildeve by the Barrow this very night at eight,
to give a final answer to his pleading for an elopement.
She herself had fixed the evening and the hour. He had probably come
to the spot, waited there in the cold, and been greatly disappointed.
"Well, so much the better: it did not hurt him," she said serenely.
Wildeve had at present the rayless outline of the sun through smoked
glass, and she could say such things as that with the greatest
facility.
She remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin's winning manner towards
her cousin arose again upon Eustacia's mind.
"O that she had been married to Damon before this!" she said. "And
she would if it hadn't been for me! If I had only known--if I had only
known!"
Eustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to the moonlight, and,
sighing that tragic sigh of hers which was so much like a shudder,
entered the shadow of the roof. She threw off her trappings in the
out-house, rolled them up, and went indoors to her chamber.
VII
A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness
The old captain's prevailing indifference to his granddaughter's
movements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so
happened that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why
she had walked out so late.
"Only in search of events, grandfather," she said, looking out of the
window with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much
force behind it whenever the trigger was pressed.
"Search of events--one would think you were one of the bucks I knew at
one-and-twenty."
"It is so lonely here."
"So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would
be taken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have
been home when I returned from the Woman."
"I won't conceal what I did. I wanted an adventure, and I went with
the mummers. I played the part of the Turkish Knight."
"No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn't expect it of you, Eustacia."
"It was my first performance, and it certainly will be my last. Now I
have told you--and remember it is a secret."
"Of course. But, Eustacia, you never did--ha! ha! Dammy, how 'twould
have pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my girl.
You may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you
don't bother me; but no figuring in breeches again."
"You need have no fear for me, grandpapa."
Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia's moral training never
exceeding in severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever
became profitable to good works, would be a result not dear at the
price. But her thoughts soon strayed far from her own personality;
and, full of a passionate and indescribable solicitude for one to whom
she was not even a name, she went forth into the amplitude of tanned
wild around her, restless as Ahasuerus the Jew. She was about half a
mile from her residence when she beheld a sinister redness arising
from a ravine a little way in advance--dull and lurid like a flame in
sunlight and she guessed it to signify Diggory Venn.
When the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock of reddle
during the last month had inquired where Venn was to be found, people
replied, "On Egdon Heath." Day after day the answer was the same.
Now, since Egdon was populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters
rather than with sheep and shepherds, and the downs where most of the
latter were to be found lay some to the north, some to the west of
Egdon, his reason for camping about there like Israel in Zin was not
apparent. The position was central and occasionally desirable. But
the sale of reddle was not Diggory's primary object in remaining on
the heath, particularly at so late a period of the year, when most
travellers of his class had gone into winter quarters.
Eustacia looked at the lonely man. Wildeve had told her at their last
meeting that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs. Yeobright as one
ready and anxious to take his place as Thomasin's betrothed. His
figure was perfect, his face young and well outlined, his eyes bright,
his intelligence keen, and his position one which he could readily
better if he chose. But in spite of possibilities it was not likely
that Thomasin would accept this Ishmaelitish creature while she had a
cousin like Yeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the same time not
absolutely indifferent. Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor
Mrs. Yeobright, in her anxiety for her niece's future, had mentioned
this lover to stimulate the zeal of the other. Eustacia was on the
side of the Yeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt's
desire.
"Good morning, miss," said the reddleman, taking off his cap of
hareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-will from recollection of
their last meeting.
"Good morning, reddleman," she said, hardly troubling to lift her
heavily shaded eyes to his. "I did not know you were so near. Is
your van here too?"
Venn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of
purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost
to form a dell. Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly
shelter in early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes
to lose their leaves. The roof and chimney of Venn's caravan showed
behind the tracery and tangles of the brake.
"You remain near this part?" she asked with more interest.
"Yes, I have business here."
"Not altogether the selling of reddle?"
"It has nothing to do with that."
"It has to do with Miss Yeobright?"
Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said
frankly, "Yes, miss; it is on account of her."
"On account of your approaching marriage with her?"
Venn flushed through his stain. "Don't make sport of me, Miss Vye,"
he said.
"It isn't true?"
"Certainly not."
She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere _pis aller_ in
Mrs. Yeobright's mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed
of his promotion to that lowly standing. "It was a mere notion of
mine," she said quietly; and was about to pass by without further
speech, when, looking round to the right, she saw a painfully
well-known figure serpentining upwards by one of the little paths
which led to the top where she stood. Owing to the necessary windings
of his course his back was at present towards them. She glanced
quickly round; to escape that man there was only one way. Turning to
Venn, she said, "Would you allow me to rest a few minutes in your van?
The banks are damp for sitting on."
"Certainly, miss; I'll make a place for you."
She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling,
into which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within
the door.
"That is the best I can do for you," he said, stepping down and
retiring to the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he
walked up and down.
Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from
view on the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing
of other feet than the reddleman's, a not very friendly "Good day"
uttered by two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling
of the footfall of one of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia
stretched her neck forward till she caught a glimpse of a receding
back and shoulders; and she felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew
not why. It was the sickening feeling which, if the changed heart has
any generosity at all in its composition, accompanies the sudden sight
of a once-loved one who is beloved no more.
When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near.
"That was Mr. Wildeve who passed, miss," he said slowly, and expressed
by his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting
unseen.
"Yes, I saw him coming up the hill," replied Eustacia. "Why should you
tell me that?" It was a bold question, considering the reddleman's
knowledge of her past love; but her undemonstrative manner had power
to repress the opinions of those she treated as remote from her.
"I am glad to hear that you can ask it," said the reddleman bluntly.
"And, now I think of it, it agrees with what I saw last night."
"Ah--what was that?" Eustacia wished to leave him, but wished to know.
"Mr. Wildeve stayed at Rainbarrow a long time waiting for a lady who
didn't come."
"You waited too, it seems?"
"Yes, I always do. I was glad to see him disappointed. He will be
there again tonight."
"To be again disappointed. The truth is, reddleman, that that lady,
so far from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin's marriage with
Mr. Wildeve, would be very glad to promote it."
Venn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did not show it
clearly; that exhibition may greet remarks which are one remove from
expectation, but it is usually withheld in complicated cases of two
removes and upwards. "Indeed, miss," he replied.
"How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow again
tonight?" she asked.
"I heard him say to himself that he would. He's in a regular temper."
Eustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured, lifting
her deep dark eyes anxiously to his, "I wish I knew what to do. I
don't want to be uncivil to him; but I don't wish to see him again;
and I have some few little things to return to him."
"If you choose to send 'em by me, miss, and a note to tell him that
you wish to say no more to him, I'll take it for you quite privately.
That would be the most straightforward way of letting him know your
mind."
"Very well," said Eustacia. "Come towards my house, and I will bring
it out to you."
She went on, and as the path was an infinitely small parting in the
shaggy locks of the heath, the reddleman followed exactly in her
trail. She saw from a distance that the captain was on the bank
sweeping the horizon with his telescope; and bidding Venn to wait
where he stood she entered the house alone.
In ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note, and said, in
placing them in his hand, "Why are you so ready to take these for me?"
"Can you ask that?"
"I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. Are you as
anxious as ever to help on her marriage?"
Venn was a little moved. "I would sooner have married her myself," he
said in a low voice. "But what I feel is that if she cannot be happy
without him I will do my duty in helping her to get him, as a man
ought."
Eustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. What
a strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of
selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion,
and sometimes its only one! The reddleman's disinterestedness was so
well deserving of respect that it overshot respect by being barely
comprehended; and she almost thought it absurd.
"Then we are both of one mind at last," she said.
"Yes," replied Venn gloomily. "But if you would tell me, miss, why
you take such an interest in her, I should be easier. It is so sudden
and strange."
Eustacia appeared at a loss. "I cannot tell you that, reddleman," she
said coldly.
Venn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia,
went away.
Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended
the long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew
up from the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia's
emissary. He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young
innkeeper and ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch of
Ithuriel's spear.
"The meeting is always at eight o'clock, at this place," said Venn,
"and here we are--we three."
"We three?" said Wildeve, looking quickly round.
"Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she." He held up the letter and
parcel.
Wildeve took them wonderingly. "I don't quite see what this means,"
he said. "How do you come here? There must be some mistake."
"It will be cleared from your mind when you have read the letter.
Lanterns for one." The reddleman struck a light, kindled an inch of
tallow-candle which he had brought, and sheltered it with his cap.
"Who are you?" said Wildeve, discerning by the candlelight an
obscure rubicundity of person in his companion. "You are the
reddleman I saw on the hill this morning--why, you are the man
who--"
"Please read the letter."
"If you had come from the other one I shouldn't have been surprised,"
murmured Wildeve as he opened the letter and read. His face grew
serious.
TO MR. WILDEVE.
After some thought I have decided once and for all that we
must hold no further communication. The more I consider the
matter the more I am convinced that there must be an end
to our acquaintance. Had you been uniformly faithful to me
throughout these two years you might now have some ground
for accusing me of heartlessness; but if you calmly consider
what I bore during the period of your desertion, and how I
passively put up with your courtship of another without once
interfering, you will, I think, own that I have a right to
consult my own feelings when you come back to me again. That
these are not what they were towards you may, perhaps, be a
fault in me, but it is one which you can scarcely reproach
me for when you remember how you left me for Thomasin.
The little articles you gave me in the early part of our
friendship are returned by the bearer of this letter. They
should rightly have been sent back when I first heard of
your engagement to her.
EUSTACIA
By the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness with which he
had read the first half of the letter intensified to mortification.
"I am made a great fool of, one way and another," he said pettishly.
"Do you know what is in this letter?"
The reddleman hummed a tune.
"Can't you answer me?" asked Wildeve warmly.
"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang the reddleman.
Wildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn's feet, till he
allowed his eyes to travel upwards over Diggory's form, as illuminated
by the candle, to his head and face. "Ha-ha! Well, I suppose I
deserve it, considering how I have played with them both," he said at
last, as much to himself as to Venn. "But of all the odd things that
ever I knew, the oddest is that you should so run counter to your own
interests as to bring this to me."
"My interests?"
"Certainly. 'Twas your interest not to do anything which would send me
courting Thomasin again, now she has accepted you--or something like
it. Mrs. Yeobright says you are to marry her. 'Tisn't true, then?"
"Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn't believe it. When did
she say so?"
Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.
"I don't believe it now," cried Venn.
"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang Wildeve.
"O Lord--how we can imitate!" said Venn contemptuously. "I'll have
this out. I'll go straight to her."
Diggory withdrew with an emphatic step, Wildeve's eye passing
over his form in withering derision, as if he were no more than a
heath-cropper. When the reddleman's figure could no longer be seen,
Wildeve himself descended and plunged into the rayless hollow of the
vale.
To lose the two women--he who had been the well-beloved of both--was
too ironical an issue to be endured. He could only decently save
himself by Thomasin; and once he became her husband, Eustacia's
repentance, he thought, would set in for a long and bitter term. It
was no wonder that Wildeve, ignorant of the new man at the back of the
scene, should have supposed Eustacia to be playing a part. To believe
that the letter was not the result of some momentary pique, to infer
that she really gave him up to Thomasin, would have required previous
knowledge of her transfiguration by that man's influence. Who was to
know that she had grown generous in the greediness of a new passion,
that in coveting one cousin she was dealing liberally with another,
that in her eagerness to appropriate she gave way?
Full of this resolve to marry in haste, and wring the heart of the
proud girl, Wildeve went his way.
Meanwhile Diggory Venn had returned to his van, where he stood looking
thoughtfully into the stove. A new vista was opened up to him.
But, however promising Mrs. Yeobright's views of him might be as a
candidate for her niece's hand, one condition was indispensable to the
favour of Thomasin herself, and that was a renunciation of his present
wild mode of life. In this he saw little difficulty.
He could not afford to wait till the next day before seeing Thomasin
and detailing his plan. He speedily plunged himself into toilet
operations, pulled a suit of cloth clothes from a box, and in about
twenty minutes stood before the van-lantern as a reddleman in nothing
but his face, the vermilion shades of which were not to be removed in
a day. Closing the door and fastening it with a padlock, Venn set off
towards Blooms-End.
He had reached the white palings and laid his hand upon the gate when
the door of the house opened, and quickly closed again. A female
form had glided in. At the same time a man, who had seemingly been
standing with the woman in the porch, came forward from the house till
he was face to face with Venn. It was Wildeve again.
"Man alive, you've been quick at it," said Diggory sarcastically.
"And you slow, as you will find," said Wildeve. "And," lowering his
voice, "you may as well go back again now. I've claimed her, and got
her. Good night, reddleman!" Thereupon Wildeve walked away.
Venn's heart sank within him, though it had not risen unduly high.
He stood leaning over the palings in an indecisive mood for nearly
a quarter of an hour. Then he went up the garden path, knocked, and
asked for Mrs. Yeobright.
Instead of requesting him to enter she came to the porch. A discourse
was carried on between them in low measured tones for the space of
ten minutes or more. At the end of the time Mrs. Yeobright went in,
and Venn sadly retraced his steps into the heath. When he had again
regained his van he lit the lantern, and with an apathetic face at
once began to pull off his best clothes, till in the course of a few
minutes he reappeared as the confirmed and irretrievable reddleman
that he had seemed before.
VIII
Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart
On that evening the interior of Blooms-End, though cosy and
comfortable, had been rather silent. Clym Yeobright was not at home.
Since the Christmas party he had gone on a few days' visit to a friend
about ten miles off.
The shadowy form seen by Venn to part from Wildeve in the porch, and
quickly withdraw into the house, was Thomasin's. On entering she threw
down a cloak which had been carelessly wrapped round her, and came
forward to the light, where Mrs. Yeobright sat at her work-table,
drawn up within the settle, so that part of it projected into the
chimney-corner.
"I don't like your going out after dark alone, Tamsin," said her aunt
quietly, without looking up from her work.
"I have only been just outside the door."
"Well?" inquired Mrs. Yeobright, struck by a change in the tone of
Thomasin's voice, and observing her. Thomasin's cheek was flushed to
a pitch far beyond that which it had reached before her troubles, and
her eyes glittered.
"It was HE who knocked," she said.
"I thought as much."
"He wishes the marriage to be at once."
"Indeed! What--is he anxious?" Mrs. Yeobright directed a searching
look upon her niece. "Why did not Mr. Wildeve come in?"
"He did not wish to. You are not friends with him, he says. He would
like the wedding to be the day after tomorrow, quite privately; at the
church of his parish--not at ours."
"Oh! And what did you say?"
"I agreed to it," Thomasin answered firmly. "I am a practical woman
now. I don't believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under any
circumstances since--since Clym's letter."
A letter was lying on Mrs. Yeobright's work-basket, and at Thomasin's
word her aunt reopened it, and silently read for the tenth time that
day:--
What is the meaning of this silly story that people are
circulating about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve? I should call
such a scandal humiliating if there was the least chance
of its being true. How could such a gross falsehood have
arisen? It is said that one should go abroad to hear
news of home, and I appear to have done it. Of course I
contradict the tale everywhere; but it is very vexing,
and I wonder how it could have originated. It is too
ridiculous that such a girl as Thomasin could so mortify
us as to get jilted on the wedding-day. What has she done?
"Yes," Mrs. Yeobright said sadly, putting down the letter. "If you
think you can marry him, do so. And since Mr. Wildeve wishes it to
be unceremonious, let it be that too. I can do nothing. It is all in
your own hands now. My power over your welfare came to an end when you
left this house to go with him to Anglebury." She continued, half in
bitterness, "I may almost ask, why do you consult me in the matter at
all? If you had gone and married him without saying a word to me, I
could hardly have been angry--simply because, poor girl, you can't do
a better thing."
"Don't say that and dishearten me."
"You are right: I will not."
"I do not plead for him, aunt. Human nature is weak, and I am not a
blind woman to insist that he is perfect. I did think so, but I don't
now. But I know my course, and you know that I know it. I hope for
the best."
"And so do I, and we will both continue to," said Mrs. Yeobright,
rising and kissing her. "Then the wedding, if it comes off, will be
on the morning of the very day Clym comes home?"
"Yes. I decided that it ought to be over before he came. After that
you can look him in the face, and so can I. Our concealments will
matter nothing."
Mrs. Yeobright moved her head in thoughtful assent, and presently
said, "Do you wish me to give you away? I am willing to undertake
that, you know, if you wish, as I was last time. After once
forbidding the banns I think I can do no less."
"I don't think I will ask you to come," said Thomasin reluctantly, but
with decision. "It would be unpleasant, I am almost sure. Better let
there be only strangers present, and none of my relations at all. I
would rather have it so. I do not wish to do anything which may touch
your credit, and I feel that I should be uncomfortable if you were
there, after what has passed. I am only your niece, and there is no
necessity why you should concern yourself more about me."
"Well, he has beaten us," her aunt said. "It really seems as if he
had been playing with you in this way in revenge for my humbling him
as I did by standing up against him at first."
"O no, aunt," murmured Thomasin.
They said no more on the subject then. Diggory Venn's knock came soon
after; and Mrs. Yeobright, on returning from her interview with him
in the porch, carelessly observed, "Another lover has come to ask for
you."
"No?"
"Yes, that queer young man Venn."
"Asks to pay his addresses to me?"
"Yes; and I told him he was too late."
Thomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. "Poor Diggory!" she
said, and then aroused herself to other things.
The next day was passed in mere mechanical deeds of preparation, both
the women being anxious to immerse themselves in these to escape the
emotional aspect of the situation. Some wearing apparel and other
articles were collected anew for Thomasin, and remarks on domestic
details were frequently made, so as to obscure any inner misgivings
about her future as Wildeve's wife.
The appointed morning came. The arrangement with Wildeve was that
he should meet her at the church to guard against any unpleasant
curiosity which might have affected them had they been seen walking
off together in the usual country way.
Aunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride was
dressing. The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of
Thomasin's hair, which she always wore braided. It was braided
according to a calendric system: the more important the day the more
numerous the strands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she
braided it in threes; on ordinary Sundays in fours; at May-polings,
gipsyings, and the like, she braided it in fives. Years ago she had
said that when she married she would braid it in sevens. She had
braided it in sevens today.
"I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all," she
said. "It IS my wedding day, even though there may be something
sad about the time. I mean," she added, anxious to correct any
wrong impression, "not sad in itself, but in its having had great
disappointment and trouble before it."
Mrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called a sigh.
"I almost wish Clym had been at home," she said. "Of course you chose
the time because of his absence."
"Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not telling him
all; but, as it was done not to grieve him, I thought I would carry
out the plan to its end, and tell the whole story when the sky was
clear."
"You are a practical little woman," said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling.
"I wish you and he--no, I don't wish anything. There, it is nine
o'clock," she interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging downstairs.
"I told Damon I would leave at nine," said Thomasin, hastening out of
the room.
Her aunt followed. When Thomasin was going up the little walk from
the door to the wicket-gate, Mrs. Yeobright looked reluctantly at her,
and said, "It is a shame to let you go alone."
"It is necessary," said Thomasin.
"At any rate," added her aunt with forced cheerfulness, "I shall call
upon you this afternoon, and bring the cake with me. If Clym has
returned by that time he will perhaps come too. I wish to show Mr.
Wildeve that I bear him no ill-will. Let the past be forgotten. Well,
God bless you! There, I don't believe in old superstitions, but I'll
do it." She threw a slipper at the retreating figure of the girl, who
turned, smiled, and went on again.
A few steps further, and she looked back. "Did you call me, aunt?"
she tremulously inquired. "Good-bye!"
Moved by an uncontrollable feeling as she looked upon Mrs. Yeobright's
worn, wet face, she ran back, when her aunt came forward, and they met
again. "O--Tamsie," said the elder, weeping, "I don't like to let you
go."
"I--I--am--" Thomasin began, giving way likewise. But, quelling her
grief, she said "Good-bye!" again and went on.
Then Mrs. Yeobright saw a little figure wending its way between
the scratching furze-bushes, and diminishing far up the valley--a
pale-blue spot in a vast field of neutral brown, solitary and
undefended except by the power of her own hope.
But the worst feature in the case was one which did not appear in the
landscape; it was the man.
The hour chosen for the ceremony by Thomasin and Wildeve had been so
timed as to enable her to escape the awkwardness of meeting her cousin
Clym, who was returning the same morning. To own to the partial truth
of what he had heard would be distressing as long as the humiliating
position resulting from the event was unimproved. It was only after a
second and successful journey to the altar that she could lift up her
head and prove the failure of the first attempt a pure accident.
She had not been gone from Blooms-End more than half an hour when
Yeobright came by the meads from the other direction and entered the
house.
"I had an early breakfast," he said to his mother after greeting her.
"Now I could eat a little more."
They sat down to the repeated meal, and he went on in a low, anxious
voice, apparently imagining that Thomasin had not yet come downstairs,
"What's this I have heard about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?"
"It is true in many points," said Mrs. Yeobright quietly; "but it is
all right now, I hope." She looked at the clock.
"True?"
"Thomasin is gone to him today."
Clym pushed away his breakfast. "Then there is a scandal of some
sort, and that's what's the matter with Thomasin. Was it this that
made her ill?"
"Yes. Not a scandal: a misfortune. I will tell you all about it,
Clym. You must not be angry, but you must listen, and you'll find
that what we have done has been done for the best."
She then told him the circumstances. All that he had known of the
affair before he returned from Paris was that there had existed an
attachment between Thomasin and Wildeve, which his mother had at first
discountenanced, but had since, owing to the arguments of Thomasin,
looked upon in a little more favourable light. When she, therefore,
proceeded to explain all he was greatly surprised and troubled.
"And she determined that the wedding should be over before you came
back," said Mrs. Yeobright, "that there might be no chance of her
meeting you, and having a very painful time of it. That's why she has
gone to him; they have arranged to be married this morning."
"But I can't understand it," said Yeobright, rising. "'Tis so unlike
her. I can see why you did not write to me after her unfortunate
return home. But why didn't you let me know when the wedding was
going to be--the first time?"
"Well, I felt vexed with her just then. She seemed to me to be
obstinate; and when I found that you were nothing in her mind I vowed
that she should be nothing in yours. I felt that she was only my
niece after all; I told her she might marry, but that I should take no
interest in it, and should not bother you about it either."
"It wouldn't have been bothering me. Mother, you did wrong."
"I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that you might
throw up your situation, or injure your prospects in some way because
of it, so I said nothing. Of course, if they had married at that time
in a proper manner, I should have told you at once."
"Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!"
"Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did the first time.
It may, considering he's the same man."
"Yes, and I believe it will. Was it right to let her go? Suppose
Wildeve is really a bad fellow?"
"Then he won't come, and she'll come home again."
"You should have looked more into it."
"It is useless to say that," his mother answered with an impatient
look of sorrow. "You don't know how bad it has been here with us all
these weeks, Clym. You don't know what a mortification anything of
that sort is to a woman. You don't know the sleepless nights we've
had in this house, and the almost bitter words that have passed
between us since that Fifth of November. I hope never to pass seven
such weeks again. Tamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have
been ashamed to look anybody in the face; and now you blame me for
letting her do the only thing that can be done to set that trouble
straight."
"No," he said slowly. "Upon the whole I don't blame you. But just
consider how sudden it seems to me. Here was I, knowing nothing; and
then I am told all at once that Tamsie is gone to be married. Well,
I suppose there was nothing better to do. Do you know, mother," he
continued after a moment or two, looking suddenly interested in his
own past history, "I once thought of Tamsin as a sweetheart? Yes, I
did. How odd boys are! And when I came home and saw her this time she
seemed so much more affectionate than usual, that I was quite reminded
of those days, particularly on the night of the party, when she was
unwell. We had the party just the same--was not that rather cruel to
her?"
"It made no difference. I had arranged to give one, and it was not
worth while to make more gloom than necessary. To begin by shutting
ourselves up and telling you of Tamsin's misfortunes would have been
a poor sort of welcome."
Clym remained thinking. "I almost wish you had not had that party,"
he said; "and for other reasons. But I will tell you in a day or two.
We must think of Tamsin now."
They lapsed into silence. "I'll tell you what," said Yeobright again,
in a tone which showed some slumbering feeling still. "I don't think
it kind to Tamsin to let her be married like this, and neither of
us there to keep up her spirits or care a bit about her. She hasn't
disgraced herself, or done anything to deserve that. It is bad enough
that the wedding should be so hurried and unceremonious, without our
keeping away from it in addition. Upon my soul, 'tis almost a shame.
I'll go."
"It is over by this time," said his mother with a sigh; "unless they
were late, or he--"
"Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don't quite like
your keeping me in ignorance, mother, after all. Really, I half hope
he has failed to meet her!"
"And ruined her character?"
"Nonsense: that wouldn't ruin Thomasin."
He took up his hat and hastily left the house. Mrs. Yeobright looked
rather unhappy, and sat still, deep in thought. But she was not long
left alone. A few minutes later Clym came back again, and in his
company came Diggory Venn.
"I find there isn't time for me to get there," said Clym.
"Is she married?" Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the reddleman
a face in which a strange strife of wishes, for and against, was
apparent.
Venn bowed. "She is, ma'am."
"How strange it sounds," murmured Clym.
"And he didn't disappoint her this time?" said Mrs. Yeobright.
"He did not. And there is now no slight on her name. I was hastening
ath'art to tell you at once, as I saw you were not there."
"How came you to be there? How did you know it?" she asked.
"I have been in that neighbourhood for some time, and I saw them go
in," said the reddleman. "Wildeve came up to the door, punctual as
the clock. I didn't expect it of him." He did not add, as he might
have added, that how he came to be in that neighbourhood was not by
accident; that, since Wildeve's resumption of his right to Thomasin,
Venn, with the thoroughness which was part of his character, had
determined to see the end of the episode.
"Who was there?" said Mrs. Yeobright.
"Nobody hardly. I stood right out of the way, and she did not see
me." The reddleman spoke huskily, and looked into the garden.
"Who gave her away?"
"Miss Vye."
"How very remarkable! Miss Vye! It is to be considered an honour,
I suppose?"
"Who's Miss Vye?" said Clym.
"Captain Vye's granddaughter, of Mistover Knap."
"A proud girl from Budmouth," said Mrs. Yeobright. "One not much to
my liking. People say she's a witch, but of course that's absurd."
The reddleman kept to himself his acquaintance with that fair
personage, and also that Eustacia was there because he went to fetch
her, in accordance with a promise he had given as soon as he learnt
that the marriage was to take place. He merely said, in continuation
of the story--
"I was sitting on the churchyard wall when they came up, one from one
way, the other from the other; and Miss Vye was walking thereabouts,
looking at the head-stones. As soon as they had gone in I went to
the door, feeling I should like to see it, as I knew her so well. I
pulled off my boots because they were so noisy, and went up into the
gallery. I saw then that the parson and clerk were already there."
"How came Miss Vye to have anything to do with it, if she was only on
a walk that way?"
"Because there was nobody else. She had gone into the church just
before me, not into the gallery. The parson looked round before
beginning, and as she was the only one near he beckoned to her, and
she went up to the rails. After that, when it came to signing the
book, she pushed up her veil and signed; and Tamsin seemed to thank
her for her kindness." The reddleman told the tale thoughtfully,
for there lingered upon his vision the changing colour of Wildeve,
when Eustacia lifted the thick veil which had concealed her from
recognition and looked calmly into his face. "And then," said Diggory
sadly, "I came away, for her history as Tamsin Yeobright was over."
"I offered to go," said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully. "But she said it
was not necessary."
"Well, it is no matter," said the reddleman. "The thing is done at
last as it was meant to be at first, and God send her happiness. Now
I'll wish you good morning."
He placed his cap on his head and went out.
From that instant of leaving Mrs. Yeobright's door, the reddleman was
seen no more in or about Egdon Heath for a space of many months. He
vanished entirely. The nook among the brambles where his van had been
standing was as vacant as ever the next morning, and scarcely a sign
remained to show that he had been there, excepting a few straws, and a
little redness on the turf, which was washed away by the next storm of
rain.
The report that Diggory had brought of the wedding, correct as far
as it went, was deficient in one significant particular, which had
escaped him through his being at some distance back in the church.
When Thomasin was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had
flung towards Eustacia a glance that said plainly, "I have punished
you now." She had replied in a low tone--and he little thought how
truly--"You mistake; it gives me sincerest pleasure to see her your
wife today."
BOOK THIRD
THE FASCINATION
I
"My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"
In Clym Yeobright's face could be dimly seen the typical countenance
of the future. Should there be a classic period to art hereafter, its
Pheidias may produce such faces. The view of life as a thing to be
put up with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intense
in early civilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the
constitution of the advanced races that its facial expression will
become accepted as a new artistic departure. People already feel that
a man who lives without disturbing a curve of feature, or setting
a mark of mental concern anywhere upon himself, is too far removed
from modern perceptiveness to be a modern type. Physically beautiful
men--the glory of the race when it was young--are almost an
anachronism now; and we may wonder whether, at some time or other,
physically beautiful women may not be an anachronism likewise.
The truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive centuries has
permanently displaced the Hellenic idea of life, or whatever it may
be called. What the Greeks only suspected we know well; what their
Aeschylus imagined our nursery children feel. That old-fashioned
revelling in the general situation grows less and less possible as we
uncover the defects of natural laws, and see the quandary that man is
in by their operation.
The lineaments which will get embodied in ideals based upon this
new recognition will probably be akin to those of Yeobright. The
observer's eye was arrested, not by his face as a picture, but by
his face as a page; not by what it was, but by what it recorded.
His features were attractive in the light of symbols, as sounds
intrinsically common become attractive in language, and as shapes
intrinsically simple become interesting in writing.
He had been a lad of whom something was expected. Beyond this all had
been chaos. That he would be successful in an original way, or that
he would go to the dogs in an original way, seemed equally probable.
The only absolute certainty about him was that he would not stand
still in the circumstances amid which he was born.
Hence, when his name was casually mentioned by neighbouring yeomen,
the listener said, "Ah, Clym Yeobright: what is he doing now?" When
the instinctive question about a person is, What is he doing? it is
felt that he will be found to be, like most of us, doing nothing in
particular. There is an indefinite sense that he must be invading
some region of singularity, good or bad. The devout hope is that he
is doing well. The secret faith is that he is making a mess of it.
Half a dozen comfortable marketmen, who were habitual callers at the
Quiet Woman as they passed by in their carts, were partial to the
topic. In fact, though they were not Egdon men, they could hardly
avoid it while they sucked their long clay tubes and regarded the
heath through the window. Clym had been so inwoven with the heath in
his boyhood that hardly anybody could look upon it without thinking of
him. So the subject recurred: if he were making a fortune and a name,
so much the better for him; if he were making a tragical figure in the
world, so much the better for a narrative.
The fact was that Yeobright's fame had spread to an awkward extent
before he left home. "It is bad when your fame outruns your means,"
said the Spanish Jesuit Gracian. At the age of six he had asked a
Scripture riddle: "Who was the first man known to wear breeches?"
and applause had resounded from the very verge of the heath. At
seven he painted the Battle of Waterloo with tiger-lily pollen and
black-currant juice, in the absence of water-colours. By the time
he reached twelve he had in this manner been heard of as artist
and scholar for at least two miles round. An individual whose fame
spreads three or four thousand yards in the time taken by the fame
of others similarly situated to travel six or eight hundred, must of
necessity have something in him. Possibly Clym's fame, like Homer's,
owed something to the accidents of his situation; nevertheless famous
he was.
He grew up and was helped out in life. That waggery of fate which
started Clive as a writing clerk, Gay as a linen-draper, Keats as a
surgeon, and a thousand others in a thousand other odd ways, banished
the wild and ascetic heath lad to a trade whose sole concern was with
the especial symbols of self-indulgence and vainglory.
The details of this choice of a business for him it is not necessary
to give. At the death of his father a neighbouring gentleman had
kindly undertaken to give the boy a start, and this assumed the form
of sending him to Budmouth. Yeobright did not wish to go there, but
it was the only feasible opening. Thence he went to London; and
thence, shortly after, to Paris, where he had remained till now.
Something being expected of him, he had not been at home many days
before a great curiosity as to why he stayed on so long began to
arise in the heath. The natural term of a holiday had passed, yet
he still remained. On the Sunday morning following the week of
Thomasin's marriage a discussion on this subject was in progress at
a hair-cutting before Fairway's house. Here the local barbering was
always done at this hour on this day, to be followed by the great
Sunday wash of the inhabitants at noon, which in its turn was followed
by the great Sunday dressing an hour later. On Egdon Heath Sunday
proper did not begin till dinner-time, and even then it was a somewhat
battered specimen of the day.
These Sunday-morning hair-cuttings were performed by Fairway; the
victim sitting on a chopping-block in front of the house, without a
coat, and the neighbours gossiping around, idly observing the locks
of hair as they rose upon the wind after the snip, and flew away out
of sight to the four quarters of the heavens. Summer and winter the
scene was the same, unless the wind were more than usually blusterous,
when the stool was shifted a few feet round the corner. To complain
of cold in sitting out of doors, hatless and coatless, while Fairway
told true stories between the cuts of the scissors, would have been
to pronounce yourself no man at once. To flinch, exclaim, or move a
muscle of the face at the small stabs under the ear received from
those instruments, or at scarifications of the neck by the comb, would
have been thought a gross breach of good manners, considering that
Fairway did it all for nothing. A bleeding about the poll on Sunday
afternoons was amply accounted for by the explanation. "I have had my
hair cut, you know."
The conversation on Yeobright had been started by a distant view of
the young man rambling leisurely across the heath before them.
"A man who is doing well elsewhere wouldn't bide here two or three
weeks for nothing," said Fairway. "He's got some project in's
head--depend upon that."
"Well, 'a can't keep a diment shop here," said Sam.
"I don't see why he should have had them two heavy boxes home if he
had not been going to bide; and what there is for him to do here the
Lord in heaven knows."
Before many more surmises could be indulged in Yeobright had come
near; and seeing the hair-cutting group he turned aside to join them.
Marching up, and looking critically at their faces for a moment, he
said, without introduction, "Now, folks, let me guess what you have
been talking about."
"Ay, sure, if you will," said Sam.
"About me."
"Now, it is a thing I shouldn't have dreamed of doing, otherwise,"
said Fairway in a tone of integrity; "but since you have named it,
Master Yeobright, I'll own that we was talking about 'ee. We were
wondering what could keep you home here mollyhorning about when you
have made such a world-wide name for yourself in the nick-nack
trade--now, that's the truth o't."
"I'll tell you," said Yeobright, with unexpected earnestness. "I am
not sorry to have the opportunity. I've come home because, all things
considered, I can be a trifle less useless here than anywhere else.
But I have only lately found this out. When I first got away from
home I thought this place was not worth troubling about. I thought
our life here was contemptible. To oil your boots instead of blacking
them, to dust your coat with a switch instead of a brush: was there
ever anything more ridiculous? I said."
"So 'tis; so 'tis!"
"No, no--you are wrong; it isn't."
"Beg your pardon, we thought that was your maning?"
"Well, as my views changed my course became very depressing. I found
that I was trying to be like people who had hardly anything in common
with myself. I was endeavouring to put off one sort of life for
another sort of life, which was not better than the life I had known
before. It was simply different."
"True; a sight different," said Fairway.
"Yes, Paris must be a taking place," said Humphrey. "Grand
shop-winders, trumpets, and drums; and here be we out of doors in all
winds and weathers--"
"But you mistake me," pleaded Clym. "All this was very depressing.
But not so depressing as something I next perceived--that my business
was the idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that ever a man
could be put to. That decided me: I would give it up and try to
follow some rational occupation among the people I knew best, and
to whom I could be of most use. I have come home; and this is how I
mean to carry out my plan. I shall keep a school as near to Egdon as
possible, so as to be able to walk over here and have a night-school
in my mother's house. But I must study a little at first, to get
properly qualified. Now, neighbours, I must go."
And Clym resumed his walk across the heath.
"He'll never carry it out in the world," said Fairway. "In a few weeks
he'll learn to see things otherwise."
"'Tis good-hearted of the young man," said another. "But, for my
part, I think he had better mind his business."
II
The New Course Causes Disappointment
Yeobright loved his kind. He had a conviction that the want of most
men was knowledge of a sort which brings wisdom rather than affluence.
He wished to raise the class at the expense of individuals rather than
individuals at the expense of the class. What was more, he was ready
at once to be the first unit sacrificed.
In passing from the bucolic to the intellectual life the intermediate
stages are usually two at least, frequently many more; and one of
those stages is almost sure to be worldly advance. We can hardly
imagine bucolic placidity quickening to intellectual aims without
imagining social aims as the transitional phase. Yeobright's local
peculiarity was that in striving at high thinking he still cleaved
to plain living--nay, wild and meagre living in many respects, and
brotherliness with clowns.
He was a John the Baptist who took ennoblement rather than repentance
for his text. Mentally he was in a provincial future, that is, he was
in many points abreast with the central town thinkers of his date.
Much of this development he may have owed to his studious life in
Paris, where he had become acquainted with ethical systems popular at
the time.
In consequence of this relatively advanced position, Yeobright might
have been called unfortunate. The rural world was not ripe for him.
A man should be only partially before his time: to be completely to
the vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip's warlike son
been intellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilization
without bloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike hero that he
seemed, but nobody would have heard of an Alexander.
In the interests of renown the forwardness should lie chiefly in the
capacity to handle things. Successful propagandists have succeeded
because the doctrine they bring into form is that which their
listeners have for some time felt without being able to shape. A man
who advocates aesthetic effort and deprecates social effort is only
likely to be understood by a class to which social effort has become a
stale matter. To argue upon the possibility of culture before luxury
to the bucolic world may be to argue truly, but it is an attempt
to disturb a sequence to which humanity has been long accustomed.
Yeobright preaching to the Egdon eremites that they might rise to
a serene comprehensiveness without going through the process of
enriching themselves, was not unlike arguing to ancient Chaldeans that
in ascending from earth to the pure empyrean it was not necessary to
pass first into the intervening heaven of ether.
Was Yeobright's mind well-proportioned? No. A well-proportioned mind
is one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely
say that it will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman,
tortured as a heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the
other hand, that it will never cause him to be applauded as a prophet,
revered as a priest, or exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are
happiness and mediocrity. It produces the poetry of Rogers, the
paintings of West, the statecraft of North, the spiritual guidance
of Tomline; enabling its possessors to find their way to wealth, to
wind up well, to step with dignity off the stage, to die comfortably
in their beds, and to get the decent monument which, in many
cases, they deserve. It never would have allowed Yeobright to do
such a ridiculous thing as throw up his business to benefit his
fellow-creatures.
He walked along towards home without attending to paths. If anyone
knew the heath well it was Clym. He was permeated with its scenes,
with its substance, and with its odours. He might be said to be its
product. His eyes had first opened thereon; with its appearance all
the first images of his memory were mingled; his estimate of life
had been coloured by it: his toys had been the flint knives and
arrow-heads which he found there, wondering why stones should "grow"
to such odd shapes; his flowers, the purple bells and yellow furze;
his animal kingdom, the snakes and croppers; his society, its human
haunters. Take all the varying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards the
heath, and translate them into loves, and you have the heart of Clym.
He gazed upon the wide prospect as he walked, and was glad.
To many persons this Egdon was a place which had slipped out of its
century generations ago, to intrude as an uncouth object into this.
It was an obsolete thing, and few cared to study it. How could this
be otherwise in the days of square fields, plashed hedges, and meadows
watered on a plan so rectangular that on a fine day they looked
like silver gridirons? The farmer, in his ride, who could smile at
artificial grasses, look with solicitude at the coming corn, and sigh
with sadness at the fly-eaten turnips, bestowed upon the distant
upland of heath nothing better than a frown. But as for Yeobright,
when he looked from the heights on his way he could not help indulging
in a barbarous satisfaction at observing that, in some of the attempts
at reclamation from the waste, tillage, after holding on for a year
or two, had receded again in despair, the ferns and furze-tufts
stubbornly reasserting themselves.
He descended into the valley, and soon reached his home at Blooms-End.
His mother was snipping dead leaves from the window-plants. She looked
up at him as if she did not understand the meaning of his long stay
with her; her face had worn that look for several days. He could
perceive that the curiosity which had been shown by the hair-cutting
group amounted in his mother to concern. But she had asked no question
with her lips, even when the arrival of his trunk suggested that he
was not going to leave her soon. Her silence besought an explanation
of him more loudly than words.
"I am not going back to Paris again, mother," he said. "At least, in
my old capacity. I have given up the business."
Mrs. Yeobright turned in pained surprise. "I thought something was
amiss, because of the boxes. I wonder you did not tell me sooner."
"I ought to have done it. But I have been in doubt whether you would
be pleased with my plan. I was not quite clear on a few points
myself. I am going to take an entirely new course."
"I am astonished, Clym. How can you want to do better than you've
been doing?"
"Very easily. But I shall not do better in the way you mean; I
suppose it will be called doing worse. But I hate that business of
mine, and I want to do some worthy thing before I die. As a
schoolmaster I think to do it--a school-master to the poor and
ignorant, to teach them what nobody else will."
"After all the trouble that has been taken to give you a start, and
when there is nothing to do but to keep straight on towards affluence,
you say you will be a poor man's schoolmaster. Your fancies will be
your ruin, Clym."
Mrs. Yeobright spoke calmly, but the force of feeling behind the words
was but too apparent to one who knew her as well as her son did. He
did not answer. There was in his face that hopelessness of being
understood which comes when the objector is constitutionally beyond
the reach of a logic that, even under favouring conditions, is almost
too coarse a vehicle for the subtlety of the argument.
No more was said on the subject till the end of dinner. His mother
then began, as if there had been no interval since the morning. "It
disturbs me, Clym, to find that you have come home with such thoughts
as those. I hadn't the least idea that you meant to go backward in
the world by your own free choice. Of course, I have always supposed
you were going to push straight on, as other men do--all who deserve
the name--when they have been put in a good way of doing well."
"I cannot help it," said Clym, in a troubled tone. "Mother, I hate
the flashy business. Talk about men who deserve the name, can any man
deserving the name waste his time in that effeminate way, when he sees
half the world going to ruin for want of somebody to buckle to and
teach them how to breast the misery they are born to? I get up every
morning and see the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain,
as St. Paul says, and yet there am I, trafficking in glittering
splendours with wealthy women and titled libertines, and pandering
to the meanest vanities--I, who have health and strength enough for
anything. I have been troubled in my mind about it all the year, and
the end is that I cannot do it any more."
"Why can't you do it as well as others?"
"I don't know, except that there are many things other people care
for which I don't; and that's partly why I think I ought to do this.
For one thing, my body does not require much of me. I cannot enjoy
delicacies; good things are wasted upon me. Well, I ought to turn
that defect to advantage, and by being able to do without what other
people require I can spend what such things cost upon anybody else."
Now, Yeobright, having inherited some of these very instincts from
the woman before him, could not fail to awaken a reciprocity in her
through her feelings, if not by arguments, disguise it as she might
for his good. She spoke with less assurance. "And yet you might have
been a wealthy man if you had only persevered. Manager to that large
diamond establishment--what better can a man wish for? What a post of
trust and respect! I suppose you will be like your father; like him,
you are getting weary of doing well."
"No," said her son, "I am not weary of that, though I am weary of what
you mean by it. Mother, what is doing well?"
Mrs. Yeobright was far too thoughtful a woman to be content with ready
definitions, and, like the "What is wisdom?" of Plato's Socrates, and
the "What is truth?" of Pontius Pilate, Yeobright's burning question
received no answer.
The silence was broken by the clash of the garden gate, a tap at the
door, and its opening. Christian Cantle appeared in the room in his
Sunday clothes.
It was the custom on Egdon to begin the preface to a story before
absolutely entering the house, so as to be well in for the body of
the narrative by the time visitor and visited stood face to face.
Christian had been saying to them while the door was leaving its
latch, "To think that I, who go from home but once in a while, and
hardly then, should have been there this morning!"
"'Tis news you have brought us, then, Christian?" said Mrs. Yeobright.
"Ay, sure, about a witch, and ye must overlook my time o' day; for,
says I, 'I must go and tell 'em, though they won't have half done
dinner.' I assure ye it made me shake like a driven leaf. Do ye think
any harm will come o't?"
"Well--what?"
"This morning at church we was all standing up, and the pa'son said,
'Let us pray.' 'Well,' thinks I, 'one may as well kneel as stand';
so down I went; and, more than that, all the rest were as willing to
oblige the man as I. We hadn't been hard at it for more than a minute
when a most terrible screech sounded through church, as if somebody
had just gied up their heart's blood. All the folk jumped up and
then we found that Susan Nunsuch had pricked Miss Vye with a long
stocking-needle, as she had threatened to do as soon as ever she could
get the young lady to church, where she don't come very often. She've
waited for this chance for weeks, so as to draw her blood and put an
end to the bewitching of Susan's children that has been carried on so
long. Sue followed her into church, sat next to her, and as soon as
she could find a chance in went the stocking-needle into my lady's
arm."
"Good heaven, how horrid!" said Mrs. Yeobright.
"Sue pricked her that deep that the maid fainted away; and as I was
afeard there might be some tumult among us, I got behind the bass-viol
and didn't see no more. But they carried her out into the air, 'tis
said; but when they looked round for Sue she was gone. What a scream
that girl gied, poor thing! There were the pa'son in his surplice
holding up his hand and saying, 'Sit down, my good people, sit down!'
But the deuce a bit would they sit down. O, and what d'ye think I
found out, Mrs. Yeobright? The pa'son wears a suit of clothes under
his surplice!--I could see his black sleeves when he held up his arm."
"'Tis a cruel thing," said Yeobright.
"Yes," said his mother.
"The nation ought to look into it," said Christian. "Here's Humphrey
coming, I think."
In came Humphrey. "Well, have ye heard the news? But I see you have.
'Tis a very strange thing that whenever one of Egdon folk goes to
church some rum job or other is sure to be doing. The last time one
of us was there was when neighbour Fairway went in the fall; and that
was the day you forbad the banns, Mrs. Yeobright."
"Has this cruelly treated girl been able to walk home?" said Clym.
"They say she got better, and went home very well. And now I've told
it I must be moving homeward myself."
"And I," said Humphrey. "Truly now we shall see if there's anything
in what folks say about her."
When they were gone into the heath again Yeobright said quietly to his
mother, "Do you think I have turned teacher too soon?"
"It is right that there should be schoolmasters, and missionaries, and
all such men," she replied. "But it is right, too, that I should try
to lift you out of this life into something richer, and that you
should not come back again, and be as if I had not tried at all."
Later in the day Sam, the turf-cutter, entered. "I've come
a-borrowing, Mrs. Yeobright. I suppose you have heard what's been
happening to the beauty on the hill?"
"Yes, Sam: half a dozen have been telling us."
"Beauty?" said Clym.
"Yes, tolerably well-favoured," Sam replied. "Lord! all the country
owns that 'tis one of the strangest things in the world that such a
woman should have come to live up there."
"Dark or fair?"
"Now, though I've seen her twenty times, that's a thing I cannot call
to mind."
"Darker than Tamsin," murmured Mrs. Yeobright.
"A woman who seems to care for nothing at all, as you may say."
"She is melancholy, then?" inquired Clym.
"She mopes about by herself, and don't mix in with the people."
"Is she a young lady inclined for adventures?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"Doesn't join in with the lads in their games, to get some sort of
excitement in this lonely place?"
"No."
"Mumming, for instance?"
"No. Her notions be different. I should rather say her thoughts were
far away from here, with lords and ladies she'll never know, and
mansions she'll never see again."
Observing that Clym appeared singularly interested Mrs. Yeobright said
rather uneasily to Sam, "You see more in her than most of us do. Miss
Vye is to my mind too idle to be charming. I have never heard that
she is of any use to herself or to other people. Good girls don't get
treated as witches even on Egdon."
"Nonsense--that proves nothing either way," said Yeobright.
"Well, of course I don't understand such niceties," said Sam,
withdrawing from a possibly unpleasant argument; "and what she is we
must wait for time to tell us. The business that I have really called
about is this, to borrow the longest and strongest rope you have. The
captain's bucket has dropped into the well, and they are in want of
water; and as all the chaps are at home today we think we can get it
out for him. We have three cart-ropes already, but they won't reach
to the bottom."
Mrs. Yeobright told him that he might have whatever ropes he could
find in the outhouse, and Sam went out to search. When he passed by
the door Clym joined him, and accompanied him to the gate.
"Is this young witch-lady going to stay long at Mistover?" he asked.
"I should say so."
"What a cruel shame to ill-use her, She must have suffered
greatly--more in mind than in body."
"'Twas a graceless trick--such a handsome girl, too. You ought to see
her, Mr. Yeobright, being a young man come from far, and with a little
more to show for your years than most of us."
"Do you think she would like to teach children?" said Clym.
Sam shook his head. "Quite a different sort of body from that, I
reckon."
"O, it was merely something which occurred to me. It would of course
be necessary to see her and talk it over--not an easy thing, by the
way, for my family and hers are not very friendly."
"I'll tell you how you mid see her, Mr. Yeobright," said Sam. "We are
going to grapple for the bucket at six o'clock tonight at her house,
and you could lend a hand. There's five or six coming, but the well is
deep, and another might be useful, if you don't mind appearing in that
shape. She's sure to be walking round."
"I'll think of it," said Yeobright; and they parted.
He thought of it a good deal; but nothing more was said about Eustacia
inside the house at that time. Whether this romantic martyr to
superstition and the melancholy mummer he had conversed with under the
full moon were one and the same person remained as yet a problem.
III
The First Act in a Timeworn Drama
The afternoon was fine, and Yeobright walked on the heath for an hour
with his mother. When they reached the lofty ridge which divided the
valley of Blooms-End from the adjoining valley they stood still and
looked round. The Quiet Woman Inn was visible on the low margin of the
heath in one direction, and afar on the other hand rose Mistover Knap.
"You mean to call on Thomasin?" he inquired.
"Yes. But you need not come this time," said his mother.
"In that case I'll branch off here, mother. I am going to Mistover."
Mrs. Yeobright turned to him inquiringly.
"I am going to help them get the bucket out of the captain's well," he
continued. "As it is so very deep I may be useful. And I should like
to see this Miss Vye--not so much for her good looks as for another
reason."
"Must you go?" his mother asked.
"I thought to."
And they parted. "There is no help for it," murmured Clym's mother
gloomily as he withdrew. "They are sure to see each other. I wish
Sam would carry his news to other houses than mine."
Clym's retreating figure got smaller and smaller as it rose and fell
over the hillocks on his way. "He is tender-hearted," said Mrs.
Yeobright to herself while she watched him; "otherwise it would matter
little. How he's going on!"
He was, indeed, walking with a will over the furze, as straight as a
line, as if his life depended upon it. His mother drew a long breath,
and, abandoning the visit to Thomasin, turned back. The evening films
began to make nebulous pictures of the valleys, but the high lands
still were raked by the declining rays of the winter sun, which
glanced on Clym as he walked forward, eyed by every rabbit and
fieldfare around, a long shadow advancing in front of him.
On drawing near to the furze-covered bank and ditch which fortified
the captain's dwelling he could hear voices within, signifying that
operations had been already begun. At the side-entrance gate he
stopped and looked over.
Half a dozen able-bodied men were standing in a line from the
well-mouth, holding a rope which passed over the well-roller into the
depths below. Fairway, with a piece of smaller rope round his body,
made fast to one of the standards, to guard against accidents, was
leaning over the opening, his right hand clasping the vertical rope
that descended into the well.
"Now, silence, folks," said Fairway.
The talking ceased, and Fairway gave a circular motion to the rope, as
if he were stirring batter. At the end of a minute a dull splashing
reverberated from the bottom of the well; the helical twist he had
imparted to the rope had reached the grapnel below.
"Haul!" said Fairway; and the men who held the rope began to gather it
over the wheel.
"I think we've got sommat," said one of the haulers-in.
"Then pull steady," said Fairway.
They gathered up more and more, till a regular dripping into the well
could be heard below. It grew smarter with the increasing height of
the bucket, and presently a hundred and fifty feet of rope had been
pulled in.
Fairway then lit a lantern, tied it to another cord, and began
lowering it into the well beside the first. Clym came forward and
looked down. Strange humid leaves, which knew nothing of the seasons
of the year, and quaint-natured mosses were revealed on the wellside
as the lantern descended; till its rays fell upon a confused mass of
rope and bucket dangling in the dank, dark air.
"We've only got en by the edge of the hoop--steady, for God's sake!"
said Fairway.
They pulled with the greatest gentleness, till the wet bucket appeared
about two yards below them, like a dead friend come to earth again.
Three or four hands were stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz
went the wheel, the two foremost haulers fell backward, the beating of
a falling body was heard, receding down the sides of the well, and a
thunderous uproar arose at the bottom. The bucket was gone again.
"Damn the bucket!" said Fairway.
"Lower again," said Sam.
"I'm as stiff as a ram's horn stooping so long," said Fairway,
standing up and stretching himself till his joints creaked.
"Rest a few minutes, Timothy," said Yeobright. "I'll take your
place."
The grapnel was again lowered. Its smart impact upon the distant
water reached their ears like a kiss, whereupon Yeobright knelt down,
and leaning over the well began dragging the grapnel round and round
as Fairway had done.
"Tie a rope round him--it is dangerous!" cried a soft and anxious
voice somewhere above them.
Everybody turned. The speaker was a woman, gazing down upon the group
from an upper window, whose panes blazed in the ruddy glare from the
west. Her lips were parted and she appeared for the moment to forget
where she was.
The rope was accordingly tied round his waist, and the work proceeded.
At the next haul the weight was not heavy, and it was discovered that
they had only secured a coil of the rope detached from the bucket.
The tangled mass was thrown into the background. Humphrey took
Yeobright's place, and the grapnel was lowered again.
Yeobright retired to the heap of recovered rope in a meditative mood.
Of the identity between the lady's voice and that of the melancholy
mummer he had not a moment's doubt. "How thoughtful of her!" he said
to himself.
Eustacia, who had reddened when she perceived the effect of her
exclamation upon the group below, was no longer to be seen at the
window, though Yeobright scanned it wistfully. While he stood there
the men at the well succeeded in getting up the bucket without a
mishap. One of them went to inquire for the captain, to learn what
orders he wished to give for mending the well-tackle. The captain
proved to be away from home, and Eustacia appeared at the door and
came out. She had lapsed into an easy and dignified calm, far removed
from the intensity of life in her words of solicitude for Clym's
safety.
"Will it be possible to draw water here tonight?" she inquired.
"No, miss; the bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out. And as we
can do no more now we'll leave off, and come again tomorrow morning."
"No water," she murmured, turning away.
"I can send you up some from Blooms-End," said Clym, coming forward
and raising his hat as the men retired.
Yeobright and Eustacia looked at each other for one instant, as if
each had in mind those few moments during which a certain moonlight
scene was common to both. With the glance the calm fixity of her
features sublimed itself to an expression of refinement and warmth:
it was like garish noon rising to the dignity of sunset in a couple
of seconds.
"Thank you; it will hardly be necessary," she replied.
"But if you have no water?"
"Well, it is what I call no water," she said, blushing, and lifting
her long-lashed eyelids as if to lift them were a work requiring
consideration. "But my grandfather calls it water enough. I'll show
you what I mean."
She moved away a few yards, and Clym followed. When she reached the
corner of the enclosure, where the steps were formed for mounting the
boundary bank, she sprang up with a lightness which seemed strange
after her listless movement towards the well. It incidentally showed
that her apparent languor did not arise from lack of force.
Clym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt patch at the
top of the bank. "Ashes?" he said.
"Yes," said Eustacia. "We had a little bonfire here last Fifth of
November, and those are the marks of it."
On that spot had stood the fire she had kindled to attract Wildeve.
"That's the only kind of water we have," she continued, tossing a
stone into the pool, which lay on the outside of the bank like the
white of an eye without its pupil. The stone fell with a flounce,
but no Wildeve appeared on the other side, as on a previous occasion
there. "My grandfather says he lived for more than twenty years at
sea on water twice as bad as that," she went on, "and considers it
quite good enough for us here on an emergency."
"Well, as a matter of fact there are no impurities in the water of
these pools at this time of the year. It has only just rained into
them."
She shook her head. "I am managing to exist in a wilderness, but I
cannot drink from a pond," she said.
Clym looked towards the well, which was now deserted, the men having
gone home. "It is a long way to send for spring-water," he said,
after a silence. "But since you don't like this in the pond, I'll try
to get you some myself." He went back to the well. "Yes, I think I
could do it by tying on this pail."
"But, since I would not trouble the men to get it, I cannot in
conscience let you."
"I don't mind the trouble at all."
He made fast the pail to the long coil of rope, put it over the wheel,
and allowed it to descend by letting the rope slip through his hands.
Before it had gone far, however, he checked it.
"I must make fast the end first, or we may lose the whole," he said to
Eustacia, who had drawn near. "Could you hold this a moment, while I
do it--or shall I call your servant?"
"I can hold it," said Eustacia; and he placed the rope in her hands,
going then to search for the end.
"I suppose I may let it slip down?" she inquired.
"I would advise you not to let it go far," said Clym. "It will get
much heavier, you will find."
However, Eustacia had begun to pay out. While he was tying she cried,
"I cannot stop it!"
Clym ran to her side, and found he could only check the rope by
twisting the loose part round the upright post, when it stopped with a
jerk. "Has it hurt you?"
"Yes," she replied.
"Very much?"
"No; I think not." She opened her hands. One of them was bleeding;
the rope had dragged off the skin. Eustacia wrapped it in her
handkerchief.
"You should have let go," said Yeobright. "Why didn't you?"
"You said I was to hold on... This is the second time I have been
wounded today."
"Ah, yes; I have heard of it. I blush for my native Egdon. Was it a
serious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?"
There was such an abundance of sympathy in Clym's tone that Eustacia
slowly drew up her sleeve and disclosed her round white arm. A bright
red spot appeared on its smooth surface, like a ruby on Parian marble.
"There it is," she said, putting her finger against the spot.
"It was dastardly of the woman," said Clym. "Will not Captain Vye get
her punished?"
"He is gone from home on that very business. I did not know that I
had such a magic reputation."
"And you fainted?" said Clym, looking at the scarlet little puncture
as if he would like to kiss it and make it well.
"Yes, it frightened me. I had not been to church for a long time.
And now I shall not go again for ever so long--perhaps never. I
cannot face their eyes after this. Don't you think it dreadfully
humiliating? I wished I was dead for hours after, but I don't mind
now."
"I have come to clean away these cobwebs," said Yeobright. "Would you
like to help me--by high-class teaching? We might benefit them much."
"I don't quite feel anxious to. I have not much love for my
fellow-creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them."
"Still I think that if you were to hear my scheme you might take an
interest in it. There is no use in hating people--if you hate
anything, you should hate what produced them."
"Do you mean Nature? I hate her already. But I shall be glad to hear
your scheme at any time."
The situation had now worked itself out, and the next natural thing
was for them to part. Clym knew this well enough, and Eustacia made a
move of conclusion; yet he looked at her as if he had one word more
to say. Perhaps if he had not lived in Paris it would never have been
uttered.
"We have met before," he said, regarding her with rather more interest
than was necessary.
"I do not own it," said Eustacia, with a repressed, still look.
"But I may think what I like."
"Yes."
"You are lonely here."
"I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season. The heath is
a cruel taskmaster to me."
"Can you say so?" he asked. "To my mind it is most exhilarating, and
strengthening, and soothing. I would rather live on these hills than
anywhere else in the world."
"It is well enough for artists; but I never would learn to draw."
"And there is a very curious Druidical stone just out there." He threw
a pebble in the direction signified. "Do you often go to see it?"
"I was not even aware there existed any such curious Druidical stone.
I am aware that there are boulevards in Paris."
Yeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground. "That means much," he
said.
"It does indeed," said Eustacia.
"I remember when I had the same longing for town bustle. Five years
of a great city would be a perfect cure for that."
"Heaven send me such a cure! Now, Mr. Yeobright, I will go indoors and
plaster my wounded hand."
They separated, and Eustacia vanished in the increasing shade. She
seemed full of many things. Her past was a blank, her life had begun.
The effect upon Clym of this meeting he did not fully discover till
some time after. During his walk home his most intelligible sensation
was that his scheme had somehow become glorified. A beautiful woman
had been intertwined with it.
On reaching the house he went up to the room which was to be made his
study, and occupied himself during the evening in unpacking his books
from the boxes and arranging them on shelves. From another box he
drew a lamp and a can of oil. He trimmed the lamp, arranged his
table, and said, "Now, I am ready to begin."
He rose early the next morning, read two hours before breakfast by the
light of his lamp--read all the morning, all the afternoon. Just when
the sun was going down his eyes felt weary, and he leant back in his
chair.
His room overlooked the front of the premises and the valley of the
heath beyond. The lowest beams of the winter sun threw the shadow of
the house over the palings, across the grass margin of the heath,
and far up the vale, where the chimney outlines and those of the
surrounding treetops stretched forth in long dark prongs. Having
been seated at work all day, he decided to take a turn upon the hills
before it got dark; and, going out forthwith, he struck across the
heath towards Mistover.
It was an hour and a half later when he again appeared at the garden
gate. The shutters of the house were closed, and Christian Cantle,
who had been wheeling manure about the garden all day, had gone home.
On entering he found that his mother, after waiting a long time for
him, had finished her meal.
"Where have you been, Clym?" she immediately said. "Why didn't you
tell me that you were going away at this time?"
"I have been on the heath."
"You'll meet Eustacia Vye if you go up there."
Clym paused a minute. "Yes, I met her this evening," he said, as
though it were spoken under the sheer necessity of preserving honesty.
"I wondered if you had."
"It was no appointment."
"No; such meetings never are."
"But you are not angry, mother?"
"I can hardly say that I am not. Angry? No. But when I consider the
usual nature of the drag which causes men of promise to disappoint the
world I feel uneasy."
"You deserve credit for the feeling, mother. But I can assure you
that you need not be disturbed by it on my account."
"When I think of you and your new crotchets," said Mrs. Yeobright,
with some emphasis, "I naturally don't feel so comfortable as I did a
twelvemonth ago. It is incredible to me that a man accustomed to the
attractive women of Paris and elsewhere should be so easily worked
upon by a girl in a heath. You could just as well have walked another
way."
"I had been studying all day."
"Well, yes," she added more hopefully, "I have been thinking that you
might get on as a schoolmaster, and rise that way, since you really
are determined to hate the course you were pursuing."
Yeobright was unwilling to disturb this idea, though his scheme was
far enough removed from one wherein the education of youth should be
made a mere channel of social ascent. He had no desires of that sort.
He had reached the stage in a young man's life when the grimness of
the general human situation first becomes clear; and the realization
of this causes ambition to halt awhile. In France it is not
uncustomary to commit suicide at this stage; in England we do much
better, or much worse, as the case may be.
The love between the young man and his mother was strangely invisible
now. Of love it may be said, the less earthly the less demonstrative.
In its absolutely indestructible form it reaches a profundity in
which all exhibition of itself is painful. It was so with these. Had
conversations between them been overheard, people would have said,
"How cold they are to each other!"
His theory and his wishes about devoting his future to teaching
had made an impression on Mrs. Yeobright. Indeed, how could it be
otherwise when he was a part of her--when their discourses were as if
carried on between the right and the left hands of the same body? He
had despaired of reaching her by argument; and it was almost as a
discovery to him that he could reach her by a magnetism which was as
superior to words as words are to yells.
Strangely enough he began to feel now that it would not be so hard
to persuade her who was his best friend that comparative poverty was
essentially the higher course for him, as to reconcile to his feelings
the act of persuading her. From every provident point of view his
mother was so undoubtedly right, that he was not without a sickness of
heart in finding he could shake her.
She had a singular insight into life, considering that she had never
mixed with it. There are instances of persons who, without clear
ideas of the things they criticize, have yet had clear ideas of the
relations of those things. Blacklock, a poet blind from his birth,
could describe visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who
was also blind, gave excellent lectures on colour, and taught others
the theory of ideas which they had and he had not. In the social
sphere these gifted ones are mostly women; they can watch a world
which they never saw, and estimate forces of which they have only
heard. We call it intuition.
What was the great world to Mrs. Yeobright? A multitude whose
tendencies could be perceived, though not its essences. Communities
were seen by her as from a distance; she saw them as we see the
throngs which cover the canvases of Sallaert, Van Alsloot, and
others of that school--vast masses of beings, jostling, zigzagging,
and processioning in definite directions, but whose features are
indistinguishable by the very comprehensiveness of the view.
One could see that, as far as it had gone, her life was very complete
on its reflective side. The philosophy of her nature, and its
limitation by circumstances, was almost written in her movements.
They had a majestic foundation, though they were far from being
majestic; and they had a groundwork of assurance, but they were not
assured. As her once elastic walk had become deadened by time, so had
her natural pride of life been hindered in its blooming by her
necessities.
The next slight touch in the shaping of Clym's destiny occurred a few
days after. A barrow was opened on the heath, and Yeobright attended
the operation, remaining away from his study during several hours. In
the afternoon Christian returned from a journey in the same direction,
and Mrs. Yeobright questioned him.
"They have dug a hole, and they have found things like flowerpots
upside down, Mis'ess Yeobright; and inside these be real charnel
bones. They have carried 'em off to men's houses; but I shouldn't
like to sleep where they will bide. Dead folks have been known to come
and claim their own. Mr. Yeobright had got one pot of the bones, and
was going to bring 'em home--real skellington bones--but 'twas ordered
otherwise. You'll be relieved to hear that he gave away his pot
and all, on second thoughts; and a blessed thing for ye, Mis'ess
Yeobright, considering the wind o' nights."
"Gave it away?"
"Yes. To Miss Vye. She has a cannibal taste for such churchyard
furniture seemingly."
"Miss Vye was there too?"
"Ay, 'a b'lieve she was."
When Clym came home, which was shortly after, his mother said, in a
curious tone, "The urn you had meant for me you gave away."
Yeobright made no reply; the current of her feeling was too pronounced
to admit it.
The early weeks of the year passed on. Yeobright certainly studied at
home, but he also walked much abroad, and the direction of his walk
was always towards some point of a line between Mistover and
Rainbarrow.
The month of March arrived, and the heath showed its first signs of
awakening from winter trance. The awakening was almost feline in its
stealthiness. The pool outside the bank by Eustacia's dwelling, which
seemed as dead and desolate as ever to an observer who moved and made
noises in his observation, would gradually disclose a state of great
animation when silently watched awhile. A timid animal world had come
to life for the season. Little tadpoles and efts began to bubble up
through the water, and to race along beneath it; toads made noises
like very young ducks, and advanced to the margin in twos and threes;
overhead, bumble-bees flew hither and thither in the thickening light,
their drone coming and going like the sound of a gong.
On an evening such as this Yeobright descended into the Blooms-End
valley from beside that very pool, where he had been standing with
another person quite silently and quite long enough to hear all this
puny stir of resurrection in nature; yet he had not heard it. His
walk was rapid as he came down, and he went with a springy tread.
Before entering upon his mother's premises he stopped and breathed.
The light which shone forth on him from the window revealed that
his face was flushed and his eye bright. What it did not show was
something which lingered upon his lips like a seal set there. The
abiding presence of this impress was so real that he hardly dared to
enter the house, for it seemed as if his mother might say, "What red
spot is that glowing upon your mouth so vividly?"
But he entered soon after. The tea was ready, and he sat down
opposite his mother. She did not speak many words; and as for him,
something had been just done and some words had been just said on
the hill which prevented him from beginning a desultory chat. His
mother's taciturnity was not without ominousness, but he appeared not
to care. He knew why she said so little, but he could not remove the
cause of her bearing towards him. These half-silent sittings were far
from uncommon with them now. At last Yeobright made a beginning of
what was intended to strike at the whole root of the matter.
"Five days have we sat like this at meals with scarcely a word.
What's the use of it, mother?"
"None," said she, in a heart-swollen tone. "But there is only too
good a reason."
"Not when you know all. I have been wanting to speak about this, and
I am glad the subject is begun. The reason, of course, is Eustacia
Vye. Well, I confess I have seen her lately, and have seen her a good
many times."
"Yes, yes; and I know what that amounts to. It troubles me, Clym.
You are wasting your life here; and it is solely on account of her.
If it had not been for that woman you would never have entertained
this teaching scheme at all."
Clym looked hard at his mother. "You know that is not it," he said.
"Well, I know you had decided to attempt it before you saw her; but
that would have ended in intentions. It was very well to talk of, but
ridiculous to put in practice. I fully expected that in the course of
a month or two you would have seen the folly of such self-sacrifice,
and would have been by this time back again to Paris in some business
or other. I can understand objections to the diamond trade--I really
was thinking that it might be inadequate to the life of a man like you
even though it might have made you a millionaire. But now I see how
mistaken you are about this girl I doubt if you could be correct about
other things."
"How am I mistaken in her?"
"She is lazy and dissatisfied. But that is not all of it. Supposing
her to be as good a woman as any you can find, which she certainly is
not, why do you wish to connect yourself with anybody at present?"
"Well, there are practical reasons," Clym began, and then almost broke
off under an overpowering sense of the weight of argument which could
be brought against his statement. "If I take a school an educated
woman would be invaluable as a help to me."
"What! you really mean to marry her?"
"It would be premature to state that plainly. But consider what
obvious advantages there would be in doing it. She--"
"Don't suppose she has any money. She hasn't a farthing."
"She is excellently educated, and would make a good matron in a
boarding-school. I candidly own that I have modified my views a
little, in deference to you; and it should satisfy you. I no longer
adhere to my intention of giving with my own mouth rudimentary
education to the lowest class. I can do better. I can establish a
good private school for farmers' sons, and without stopping the
school I can manage to pass examinations. By this means, and by the
assistance of a wife like her--"
"Oh, Clym!"
"I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one of the best schools
in the county."
Yeobright had enunciated the word "her" with a fervour which, in
conversation with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. Hardly a
maternal heart within the four seas could, in such circumstances, have
helped being irritated at that ill-timed betrayal of feeling for a new
woman.
"You are blinded, Clym," she said warmly. "It was a bad day for you
when you first set eyes on her. And your scheme is merely a castle in
the air built on purpose to justify this folly which has seized you,
and to salve your conscience on the irrational situation you are in."
"Mother, that's not true," he firmly answered.
"Can you maintain that I sit and tell untruths, when all I wish to do
is to save you from sorrow? For shame, Clym! But it is all through
that woman--a hussy!"
Clym reddened like fire and rose. He placed his hand upon his
mother's shoulder and said, in a tone which hung strangely between
entreaty and command, "I won't hear it. I may be led to answer you in
a way which we shall both regret."
His mother parted her lips to begin some other vehement truth, but on
looking at him she saw that in his face which led her to leave the
words unsaid. Yeobright walked once or twice across the room, and
then suddenly went out of the house. It was eleven o'clock when he
came in, though he had not been further than the precincts of the
garden. His mother was gone to bed. A light was left burning on the
table, and supper was spread. Without stopping for any food he
secured the doors and went upstairs.
IV
An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness
The next day was gloomy enough at Blooms-End. Yeobright remained in
his study, sitting over the open books; but the work of those hours
was miserably scant. Determined that there should be nothing in his
conduct towards his mother resembling sullenness, he had occasionally
spoken to her on passing matters, and would take no notice of the
brevity of her replies. With the same resolve to keep up a show of
conversation he said, about seven o'clock in the evening, "There's an
eclipse of the moon tonight. I am going out to see it." And, putting
on his overcoat, he left her.
The low moon was not as yet visible from the front of the house, and
Yeobright climbed out of the valley until he stood in the full flood
of her light. But even now he walked on, and his steps were in the
direction of Rainbarrow.
In half an hour he stood at the top. The sky was clear from verge to
verge, and the moon flung her rays over the whole heath, but without
sensibly lighting it, except where paths and water-courses had laid
bare the white flints and glistening quartz sand, which made streaks
upon the general shade. After standing awhile he stooped and felt the
heather. It was dry, and he flung himself down upon the barrow, his
face towards the moon, which depicted a small image of herself in each
of his eyes.
He had often come up here without stating his purpose to his mother;
but this was the first time that he had been ostensibly frank as to
his purpose while really concealing it. It was a moral situation
which, three months earlier, he could hardly have credited of himself.
In returning to labour in this sequestered spot he had anticipated
an escape from the chafing of social necessities; yet behold they
were here also. More than ever he longed to be in some world where
personal ambition was not the only recognized form of progress--such,
perhaps, as might have been the case at some time or other in the
silvery globe then shining upon him. His eye travelled over the
length and breadth of that distant country--over the Bay of Rainbows,
the sombre Sea of Crises, the Ocean of Storms, the Lake of Dreams, the
vast Walled Plains, and the wondrous Ring Mountains--till he almost
felt himself to be voyaging bodily through its wild scenes, standing
on its hollow hills, traversing its deserts, descending its vales and
old sea bottoms, or mounting to the edges of its craters.
While he watched the far-removed landscape a tawny stain grew into
being on the lower verge: the eclipse had begun. This marked a
preconcerted moment: for the remote celestial phenomenon had been
pressed into sublunary service as a lover's signal. Yeobright's mind
flew back to earth at the sight; he arose, shook himself and listened.
Minute after minute passed by, perhaps ten minutes passed, and the
shadow on the moon perceptibly widened. He heard a rustling on his
left hand, a cloaked figure with an upturned face appeared at the base
of the Barrow, and Clym descended. In a moment the figure was in his
arms, and his lips upon hers.
"My Eustacia!"
"Clym, dearest!"
Such a situation had less than three months brought forth.
They remained long without a single utterance, for no language could
reach the level of their condition: words were as the rusty implements
of a by-gone barbarous epoch, and only to be occasionally tolerated.
"I began to wonder why you did not come," said Yeobright, when she had
withdrawn a little from his embrace.
"You said ten minutes after the first mark of shade on the edge of the
moon, and that's what it is now."
"Well, let us only think that here we are."
Then, holding each other's hand, they were again silent, and the
shadow on the moon's disc grew a little larger.
"Has it seemed long since you last saw me?" she asked.
"It has seemed sad."
"And not long? That's because you occupy yourself, and so blind
yourself to my absence. To me, who can do nothing, it has been like
living under stagnant water."
"I would rather bear tediousness, dear, than have time made short by
such means as have shortened mine."
"In what way is that? You have been thinking you wished you did not
love me."
"How can a man wish that, and yet love on? No, Eustacia."
"Men can, women cannot."
"Well, whatever I may have thought, one thing is certain--I
do love you--past all compass and description. I love you to
oppressiveness--I, who have never before felt more than a pleasant
passing fancy for any woman I have ever seen. Let me look right into
your moonlit face and dwell on every line and curve in it! Only a
few hair-breadths make the difference between this face and faces I
have seen many times before I knew you; yet what a difference--the
difference between everything and nothing at all. One touch on that
mouth again! there, and there, and there. Your eyes seem heavy,
Eustacia."
"No, it is my general way of looking. I think it arises from my
feeling sometimes an agonizing pity for myself that I ever was born."
"You don't feel it now?"
"No. Yet I know that we shall not love like this always. Nothing can
ensure the continuance of love. It will evaporate like a spirit, and
so I feel full of fears."
"You need not."
"Ah, you don't know. You have seen more than I, and have been into
cities and among people that I have only heard of, and have lived more
years than I; but yet I am older at this than you. I loved another
man once, and now I love you."
"In God's mercy don't talk so, Eustacia!"
"But I do not think I shall be the one who wearies first. It will, I
fear, end in this way: your mother will find out that you meet me, and
she will influence you against me!"
"That can never be. She knows of these meetings already."
"And she speaks against me?"
"I will not say."
"There, go away! Obey her. I shall ruin you. It is foolish of you to
meet me like this. Kiss me, and go away for ever. For ever--do you
hear?--for ever!"
"Not I."
"It is your only chance. Many a man's love has been a curse to him."
"You are desperate, full of fancies, and wilful; and you
misunderstand. I have an additional reason for seeing you tonight
besides love of you. For though, unlike you, I feel our affection
may be eternal, I feel with you in this, that our present mode of
existence cannot last."
"Oh! 'tis your mother. Yes, that's it! I knew it."
"Never mind what it is. Believe this, I cannot let myself lose you.
I must have you always with me. This very evening I do not like to
let you go. There is only one cure for this anxiety, dearest--you
must be my wife."
She started: then endeavoured to say calmly, "Cynics say that cures
the anxiety by curing the love."
"But you must answer me. Shall I claim you some day--I don't mean at
once?"
"I must think," Eustacia murmured. "At present speak of Paris to me.
Is there any place like it on earth?"
"It is very beautiful. But will you be mine?"
"I will be nobody else's in the world--does that satisfy you?"
"Yes, for the present."
"Now tell me of the Tuileries, and the Louvre," she continued
evasively.
"I hate talking of Paris! Well, I remember one sunny room in the
Louvre which would make a fitting place for you to live in--the
Galerie d'Apollon. Its windows are mainly east; and in the early
morning, when the sun is bright, the whole apartment is in a perfect
blaze of splendour. The rays bristle and dart from the encrustations
of gilding to the magnificent inlaid coffers, from the coffers to
the gold and silver plate, from the plate to the jewels and precious
stones, from these to the enamels, till there is a perfect network of
light which quite dazzles the eye. But now, about our marriage--"
"And Versailles--the King's Gallery is some such gorgeous room, is it
not?"
"Yes. But what's the use of talking of gorgeous rooms? By the way, the
Little Trianon would suit us beautifully to live in, and you might
walk in the gardens in the moonlight and think you were in some
English shrubbery; it is laid out in English fashion."
"I should hate to think that!"
"Then you could keep to the lawn in front of the Grand Palace.
All about there you would doubtless feel in a world of historical
romance."
He went on, since it was all new to her, and described Fontainebleau,
St. Cloud, the Bois, and many other familiar haunts of the Parisians;
till she said--
"When used you to go to these places?"
"On Sundays."
"Ah, yes. I dislike English Sundays. How I should chime in with
their manners over there! Dear Clym, you'll go back again?"
Clym shook his head, and looked at the eclipse.
"If you'll go back again I'll--be something," she said tenderly,
putting her head near his breast. "If you'll agree I'll give my
promise, without making you wait a minute longer."
"How extraordinary that you and my mother should be of one mind about
this!" said Yeobright. "I have vowed not to go back, Eustacia. It is
not the place I dislike; it is the occupation."
"But you can go in some other capacity."
"No. Besides, it would interfere with my scheme. Don't press that,
Eustacia. Will you marry me?"
"I cannot tell."
"Now--never mind Paris; it is no better than other spots. Promise,
sweet!"
"You will never adhere to your education plan, I am quite sure; and
then it will be all right for me; and so I promise to be yours for
ever and ever."
Clym brought her face towards his by a gentle pressure of the hand,
and kissed her.
"Ah! but you don't know what you have got in me," she said.
"Sometimes I think there is not that in Eustacia Vye which will make
a good homespun wife. Well, let it go--see how our time is slipping,
slipping, slipping!" She pointed towards the half eclipsed moon.
"You are too mournful."
"No. Only I dread to think of anything beyond the present. What is, we
know. We are together now, and it is unknown how long we shall be so;
the unknown always fills my mind with terrible possibilities, even
when I may reasonably expect it to be cheerful... Clym, the eclipsed
moonlight shines upon your face with a strange foreign colour, and
shows its shape as if it were cut out in gold. That means that you
should be doing better things than this."
"You are ambitious, Eustacia--no, not exactly ambitious, luxurious. I
ought to be of the same vein, to make you happy, I suppose. And yet,
far from that, I could live and die in a hermitage here, with proper
work to do."
There was that in his tone which implied distrust of his position as a
solicitous lover, a doubt if he were acting fairly towards one whose
tastes touched his own only at rare and infrequent points. She saw
his meaning, and whispered, in a low, full accent of eager assurance
"Don't mistake me, Clym: though I should like Paris, I love you for
yourself alone. To be your wife and live in Paris would be heaven to
me; but I would rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be
yours at all. It is gain to me either way, and very great gain.
There's my too candid confession."
"Spoken like a woman. And now I must soon leave you. I'll walk with
you towards your house."
"But must you go home yet?" she asked. "Yes, the sand has nearly
slipped away, I see, and the eclipse is creeping on more and more.
Don't go yet! Stop till the hour has run itself out; then I will not
press you any more. You will go home and sleep well; I keep sighing
in my sleep! Do you ever dream of me?"
"I cannot recollect a clear dream of you."
"I see your face in every scene of my dreams, and hear your voice in
every sound. I wish I did not. It is too much what I feel. They say
such love never lasts. But it must! And yet once, I remember, I saw
an officer of the Hussars ride down the street at Budmouth, and though
he was a total stranger and never spoke to me, I loved him till I
thought I should really die of love--but I didn't die, and at last I
left off caring for him. How terrible it would be if a time should
come when I could not love you, my Clym!"
"Please don't say such reckless things. When we see such a time at
hand we will say, 'I have outlived my faith and purpose,' and die.
There, the hour has expired: now let us walk on."
Hand in hand they went along the path towards Mistover. When they
were near the house he said, "It is too late for me to see your
grandfather tonight. Do you think he will object to it?"
"I will speak to him. I am so accustomed to be my own mistress that
it did not occur to me that we should have to ask him."
Then they lingeringly separated, and Clym descended towards
Blooms-End.
And as he walked further and further from the charmed atmosphere of
his Olympian girl his face grew sad with a new sort of sadness. A
perception of the dilemma in which his love had placed him came back
in full force. In spite of Eustacia's apparent willingness to wait
through the period of an unpromising engagement, till he should be
established in his new pursuit, he could not but perceive at moments
that she loved him rather as a visitant from a gay world to which she
rightly belonged than as a man with a purpose opposed to that recent
past of his which so interested her. Often at their meetings a word or
a sigh escaped her. It meant that, though she made no conditions as to
his return to the French capital, this was what she secretly longed
for in the event of marriage; and it robbed him of many an otherwise
pleasant hour. Along with that came the widening breach between
himself and his mother. Whenever any little occurrence had brought
into more prominence than usual the disappointment that he was causing
her it had sent him on lone and moody walks; or he was kept awake
a great part of the night by the turmoil of spirit which such a
recognition created. If Mrs. Yeobright could only have been led to see
what a sound and worthy purpose this purpose of his was and how little
it was being affected by his devotions to Eustacia, how differently
would she regard him!
Thus as his sight grew accustomed to the first blinding halo
kindled about him by love and beauty, Yeobright began to perceive
what a strait he was in. Sometimes he wished that he had never
known Eustacia, immediately to retract the wish as brutal. Three
antagonistic growths had to be kept alive: his mother's trust in him,
his plan for becoming a teacher, and Eustacia's happiness. His fervid
nature could not afford to relinquish one of these, though two of the
three were as many as he could hope to preserve. Though his love was
as chaste as that of Petrarch for his Laura, it had made fetters of
what previously was only a difficulty. A position which was not
too simple when he stood wholehearted had become indescribably
complicated by the addition of Eustacia. Just when his mother was
beginning to tolerate one scheme he had introduced another still
bitterer than the first, and the combination was more than she could
bear.
V
Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues
When Yeobright was not with Eustacia he was sitting slavishly over
his books; when he was not reading he was meeting her. These meetings
were carried on with the greatest secrecy.
One afternoon his mother came home from a morning visit to Thomasin.
He could see from a disturbance in the lines of her face that
something had happened.
"I have been told an incomprehensible thing," she said mournfully.
"The captain has let out at the Woman that you and Eustacia Vye are
engaged to be married."
"We are," said Yeobright. "But it may not be yet for a very long
time."
"I should hardly think it WOULD be yet for a very long time! You will
take her to Paris, I suppose?" She spoke with weary hopelessness.
"I am not going back to Paris."
"What will you do with a wife, then?"
"Keep a school in Budmouth, as I have told you."
"That's incredible! The place is overrun with schoolmasters. You have
no special qualifications. What possible chance is there for such as
you?"
"There is no chance of getting rich. But with my system of education,
which is as new as it is true, I shall do a great deal of good to my
fellow-creatures."
"Dreams, dreams! If there had been any system left to be invented they
would have found it out at the universities long before this time."
"Never, mother. They cannot find it out, because their teachers don't
come in contact with the class which demands such a system--that
is, those who have had no preliminary training. My plan is one for
instilling high knowledge into empty minds without first cramming them
with what has to be uncrammed again before true study begins."
"I might have believed you if you had kept yourself free from
entanglements; but this woman--if she had been a good girl it would
have been bad enough; but being--"
"She is a good girl."
"So you think. A Corfu bandmaster's daughter! What has her life been?
Her surname even is not her true one."
"She is Captain Vye's granddaughter, and her father merely took her
mother's name. And she is a lady by instinct."
"They call him 'captain,' but anybody is captain."
"He was in the Royal Navy!"
"No doubt he has been to sea in some tub or other. Why doesn't he
look after her? No lady would rove about the heath at all hours of
the day and night as she does. But that's not all of it. There was
something queer between her and Thomasin's husband at one time--I am
as sure of it as that I stand here."
"Eustacia has told me. He did pay her a little attention a year ago;
but there's no harm in that. I like her all the better."
"Clym," said his mother with firmness, "I have no proofs against her,
unfortunately. But if she makes you a good wife, there has never been
a bad one."
"Believe me, you are almost exasperating," said Yeobright vehemently.
"And this very day I had intended to arrange a meeting between you.
But you give me no peace; you try to thwart my wishes in everything."
"I hate the thought of any son of mine marrying badly! I wish I had
never lived to see this; it is too much for me--it is more than I
dreamt!" She turned to the window. Her breath was coming quickly, and
her lips were pale, parted, and trembling.
"Mother," said Clym, "whatever you do, you will always be dear to
me--that you know. But one thing I have a right to say, which is,
that at my age I am old enough to know what is best for me."
Mrs. Yeobright remained for some time silent and shaken, as if she
could say no more. Then she replied, "Best? Is it best for you to
injure your prospects for such a voluptuous, idle woman as that?
Don't you see that by the very fact of your choosing her you prove
that you do not know what is best for you? You give up your whole
thought--you set your whole soul--to please a woman."
"I do. And that woman is you."
"How can you treat me so flippantly!" said his mother, turning again
to him with a tearful look. "You are unnatural, Clym, and I did not
expect it."
"Very likely," said he cheerlessly. "You did not know the measure you
were going to mete me, and therefore did not know the measure that
would be returned to you again."
"You answer me; you think only of her. You stick to her in all
things."
"That proves her to be worthy. I have never yet supported what is
bad. And I do not care only for her. I care for you and for myself,
and for anything that is good. When a woman once dislikes another she
is merciless!"
"O Clym! please don't go setting down as my fault what is your
obstinate wrong-headedness. If you wished to connect yourself with an
unworthy person why did you come home here to do it? Why didn't you
do it in Paris?--it is more the fashion there. You have come only to
distress me, a lonely woman, and shorten my days! I wish that you
would bestow your presence where you bestow your love!"
Clym said huskily, "You are my mother. I will say no more--beyond
this, that I beg your pardon for having thought this my home. I will
no longer inflict myself upon you; I'll go." And he went out with
tears in his eyes.
It was a sunny afternoon at the beginning of summer, and the moist
hollows of the heath had passed from their brown to their green stage.
Yeobright walked to the edge of the basin which extended down from
Mistover and Rainbarrow. By this time he was calm, and he looked
over the landscape. In the minor valleys, between the hillocks which
diversified the contour of the vale, the fresh young ferns were
luxuriantly growing up, ultimately to reach a height of five or six
feet. He descended a little way, flung himself down in a spot where a
path emerged from one of the small hollows, and waited. Hither it was
that he had promised Eustacia to bring his mother this afternoon, that
they might meet and be friends. His attempt had utterly failed.
He was in a nest of vivid green. The ferny vegetation round him,
though so abundant, was quite uniform: it was a grove of machine-made
foliage, a world of green triangles with saw-edges, and not a single
flower. The air was warm with a vaporous warmth, and the stillness
was unbroken. Lizards, grasshoppers, and ants were the only living
things to be beheld. The scene seemed to belong to the ancient world
of the carboniferous period, when the forms of plants were few, and of
the fern kind; when there was neither bud nor blossom, nothing but a
monotonous extent of leafage, amid which no bird sang.
When he had reclined for some considerable time, gloomily pondering,
he discerned above the ferns a drawn bonnet of white silk approaching
from the left, and Yeobright knew directly that it covered the head of
her he loved. His heart awoke from its apathy to a warm excitement,
and, jumping to his feet, he said aloud, "I knew she was sure to
come."
She vanished in a hollow for a few moments, and then her whole form
unfolded itself from the brake.
"Only you here?" she exclaimed, with a disappointed air, whose
hollowness was proved by her rising redness and her half-guilty low
laugh. "Where is Mrs. Yeobright?"
"She has not come," he replied in a subdued tone.
"I wish I had known that you would be here alone," she said seriously,
"and that we were going to have such an idle, pleasant time as this.
Pleasure not known beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is to
double it. I have not thought once today of having you all to myself
this afternoon, and the actual moment of a thing is so soon gone."
"It is indeed."
"Poor Clym!" she continued, looking tenderly into his face. "You are
sad. Something has happened at your home. Never mind what is--let us
only look at what seems."
"But, darling, what shall we do?" said he.
"Still go on as we do now--just live on from meeting to meeting,
never minding about another day. You, I know, are always thinking of
that--I can see you are. But you must not--will you, dear Clym?"
"You are just like all women. They are ever content to build their
lives on any incidental position that offers itself; whilst men would
fain make a globe to suit them. Listen to this, Eustacia. There is a
subject I have determined to put off no longer. Your sentiment on the
wisdom of _Carpe diem_ does not impress me today. Our present mode of
life must shortly be brought to an end."
"It is your mother!"
"It is. I love you none the less in telling you; it is only right you
should know."
"I have feared my bliss," she said, with the merest motion of her
lips. "It has been too intense and consuming."
"There is hope yet. There are forty years of work in me yet, and why
should you despair? I am only at an awkward turning. I wish people
wouldn't be so ready to think that there is no progress without
uniformity."
"Ah--your mind runs off to the philosophical side of it. Well, these
sad and hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable
us to look with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves
to indulge in. I have heard of people, who, upon coming suddenly into
happiness, have died from anxiety lest they should not live to enjoy
it. I felt myself in that whimsical state of uneasiness lately; but I
shall be spared it now. Let us walk on."
Clym took the hand which was already bared for him--it was a favourite
way with them to walk bare hand in bare hand--and led her through the
ferns. They formed a very comely picture of love at full flush, as
they walked along the valley that late afternoon, the sun sloping down
on their right, and throwing their thin spectral shadows, tall as
poplar trees, far out across the furze and fern. Eustacia went with
her head thrown back fancifully, a certain glad and voluptuous air of
triumph pervading her eyes at having won by her own unaided self a man
who was her perfect complement in attainment, appearance, and age. On
the young man's part, the paleness of face which he had brought with
him from Paris, and the incipient marks of time and thought, were
less perceptible than when he returned, the healthful and energetic
sturdiness which was his by nature having partially recovered its
original proportions. They wandered onward till they reached the
nether margin of the heath, where it became marshy and merged in
moorland.
"I must part from you here, Clym," said Eustacia.
They stood still and prepared to bid each other farewell. Everything
before them was on a perfect level. The sun, resting on the horizon
line, streamed across the ground from between copper-coloured and
lilac clouds, stretched out in flats beneath a sky of pale soft green.
All dark objects on the earth that lay towards the sun were overspread
by a purple haze, against which groups of wailing gnats shone out,
rising upwards and dancing about like sparks of fire.
"O! this leaving you is too hard to bear!" exclaimed Eustacia in a
sudden whisper of anguish. "Your mother will influence you too much;
I shall not be judged fairly, it will get afloat that I am not a good
girl, and the witch story will be added to make me blacker!"
"They cannot. Nobody dares to speak disrespectfully of you or of me."
"Oh how I wish I was sure of never losing you--that you could not be
able to desert me anyhow!"
Clym stood silent a moment. His feelings were high, the moment was
passionate, and he cut the knot.
"You shall be sure of me, darling," he said, folding her in his arms.
"We will be married at once."
"O Clym!"
"Do you agree to it?"
"If--if we can."
"We certainly can, both being of full age. And I have not followed my
occupation all these years without having accumulated money; and if
you will agree to live in a tiny cottage somewhere on the heath, until
I take a house in Budmouth for the school, we can do it at a very
little expense."
"How long shall we have to live in the tiny cottage, Clym?"
"About six months. At the end of that time I shall have finished my
reading--yes, we will do it, and this heartaching will be over. We
shall, of course, live in absolute seclusion, and our married life
will only begin to outward view when we take the house in Budmouth,
where I have already addressed a letter on the matter. Would your
grandfather allow you?"
"I think he would--on the understanding that it should not last longer
than six months."
"I will guarantee that, if no misfortune happens."
"If no misfortune happens," she repeated slowly.
"Which is not likely. Dearest, fix the exact day."
And then they consulted on the question, and the day was chosen. It
was to be a fortnight from that time.
This was the end of their talk, and Eustacia left him. Clym watched
her as she retired towards the sun. The luminous rays wrapped her up
with her increasing distance, and the rustle of her dress over the
sprouting sedge and grass died away. As he watched, the dead flat
of the scenery overpowered him, though he was fully alive to the
beauty of that untarnished early summer green which was worn for the
nonce by the poorest blade. There was something in its oppressive
horizontality which too much reminded him of the arena of life; it
gave him a sense of bare equality with, and no superiority to, a
single living thing under the sun.
Eustacia was now no longer the goddess but the woman to him, a being
to fight for, support, help, be maligned for. Now that he had reached
a cooler moment he would have preferred a less hasty marriage; but
the card was laid, and he determined to abide by the game. Whether
Eustacia was to add one other to the list of those who love too hotly
to love long and well, the forthcoming event was certainly a ready way
of proving.
VI
Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete
All that evening smart sounds denoting an active packing up came from
Yeobright's room to the ears of his mother downstairs.
Next morning he departed from the house and again proceeded across the
heath. A long day's march was before him, his object being to secure
a dwelling to which he might take Eustacia when she became his wife.
Such a house, small, secluded, and with its windows boarded up, he had
casually observed a month earlier, about two miles beyond the village
of East Egdon, and six miles distant altogether; and thither he
directed his steps today.
The weather was far different from that of the evening before. The
yellow and vapoury sunset which had wrapped up Eustacia from his
parting gaze had presaged change. It was one of those not infrequent
days of an English June which are as wet and boisterous as November.
The cold clouds hastened on in a body, as if painted on a moving
slide. Vapours from other continents arrived upon the wind, which
curled and parted round him as he walked on.
At length Clym reached the margin of a fir and beech plantation that
had been enclosed from heath land in the year of his birth. Here
the trees, laden heavily with their new and humid leaves, were now
suffering more damage than during the highest winds of winter,
when the boughs are especially disencumbered to do battle with the
storm. The wet young beeches were undergoing amputations, bruises,
cripplings, and harsh lacerations, from which the wasting sap would
bleed for many a day to come, and which would leave scars visible till
the day of their burning. Each stem was wrenched at the root, where
it moved like a bone in its socket, and at every onset of the gale
convulsive sounds came from the branches, as if pain were felt. In a
neighbouring brake a finch was trying to sing; but the wind blew under
his feathers till they stood on end, twisted round his little tail,
and made him give up his song.
Yet a few yards to Yeobright's left, on the open heath, how
ineffectively gnashed the storm! Those gusts which tore the trees
merely waved the furze and heather in a light caress. Egdon was made
for such times as these.
Yeobright reached the empty house about mid-day. It was almost as
lonely as that of Eustacia's grandfather, but the fact that it stood
near a heath was disguised by a belt of firs which almost enclosed
the premises. He journeyed on about a mile further to the village
in which the owner lived, and, returning with him to the house,
arrangements were completed, and the man undertook that one room at
least should be ready for occupation the next day. Clym's intention
was to live there alone until Eustacia should join him on their
wedding day.
Then he turned to pursue his way homeward through the drizzle that had
so greatly transformed the scene. The ferns, among which he had lain
in comfort yesterday, were dripping moisture from every frond, wetting
his legs through as he brushed past; and the fur of the rabbits
leaping before him was clotted into dark locks by the same watery
surrounding.
He reached home damp and weary enough after his ten-mile walk. It
had hardly been a propitious beginning, but he had chosen his course,
and would show no swerving. The evening and the following morning
were spent in concluding arrangements for his departure. To stay at
home a minute longer than necessary after having once come to his
determination would be, he felt, only to give new pain to his mother
by some word, look, or deed.
He had hired a conveyance and sent off his goods by two o'clock that
day. The next step was to get some furniture, which, after serving
for temporary use in the cottage, would be available for the house
at Budmouth when increased by goods of a better description. A mart
extensive enough for the purpose existed at Anglebury, some miles
beyond the spot chosen for his residence, and there he resolved to
pass the coming night.
It now only remained to wish his mother good-bye. She was sitting by
the window as usual when he came downstairs.
"Mother, I am going to leave you," he said, holding out his hand.
"I thought you were, by your packing," replied Mrs. Yeobright in a
voice from which every particle of emotion was painfully excluded.
"And you will part friends with me?"
"Certainly, Clym."
"I am going to be married on the twenty-fifth."
"I thought you were going to be married."
"And then--and then you must come and see us. You will understand me
better after that, and our situation will not be so wretched as it is
now."
"I do not think it likely I shall come to see you."
"Then it will not be my fault or Eustacia's, mother. Good-bye!"
He kissed her cheek, and departed in great misery, which was several
hours in lessening itself to a controllable level. The position had
been such that nothing more could be said without, in the first place,
breaking down a barrier; and that was not to be done.
No sooner had Yeobright gone from his mother's house than her face
changed its rigid aspect for one of blank despair. After a while she
wept, and her tears brought some relief. During the rest of the day
she did nothing but walk up and down the garden path in a state
bordering on stupefaction. Night came, and with it but little rest.
The next day, with an instinct to do something which should reduce
prostration to mournfulness, she went to her son's room, and with her
own hands arranged it in order, for an imaginary time when he should
return again. She gave some attention to her flowers, but it was
perfunctorily bestowed, for they no longer charmed her.
It was a great relief when, early in the afternoon, Thomasin paid
her an unexpected visit. This was not the first meeting between the
relatives since Thomasin's marriage; and past blunders having been
in a rough way rectified, they could always greet each other with
pleasure and ease.
The oblique band of sunlight which followed her through the door
became the young wife well. It illuminated her as her presence
illuminated the heath. In her movements, in her gaze, she reminded
the beholder of the feathered creatures who lived around her home.
All similes and allegories concerning her began and ended with birds.
There was as much variety in her motions as in their flight. When she
was musing she was a kestrel, which hangs in the air by an invisible
motion of its wings. When she was in a high wind her light body was
blown against trees and banks like a heron's. When she was frightened
she darted noiselessly like a kingfisher. When she was serene she
skimmed like a swallow, and that is how she was moving now.
"You are looking very blithe, upon my word, Tamsie," said Mrs.
Yeobright, with a sad smile. "How is Damon?"
"He is very well."
"Is he kind to you, Thomasin?" And Mrs. Yeobright observed her
narrowly.
"Pretty fairly."
"Is that honestly said?"
"Yes, aunt. I would tell you if he were unkind." She added, blushing,
and with hesitation, "He--I don't know if I ought to complain to you
about this, but I am not quite sure what to do. I want some money,
you know, aunt--some to buy little things for myself--and he doesn't
give me any. I don't like to ask him; and yet, perhaps, he doesn't
give it me because he doesn't know. Ought I to mention it to him,
aunt?"
"Of course you ought. Have you never said a word on the matter?"
"You see, I had some of my own," said Thomasin evasively, "and I have
not wanted any of his until lately. I did just say something about it
last week; but he seems--not to remember."
"He must be made to remember. You are aware that I have a little box
full of spade-guineas, which your uncle put into my hands to divide
between yourself and Clym whenever I chose. Perhaps the time has come
when it should be done. They can be turned into sovereigns at any
moment."
"I think I should like to have my share--that is, if you don't mind."
"You shall, if necessary. But it is only proper that you should first
tell your husband distinctly that you are without any, and see what he
will do."
"Very well, I will... Aunt, I have heard about Clym. I know you are
in trouble about him, and that's why I have come."
Mrs. Yeobright turned away, and her features worked in her attempt to
conceal her feelings. Then she ceased to make any attempt, and said,
weeping, "O Thomasin, do you think he hates me? How can he bear to
grieve me so, when I have lived only for him through all these years?"
"Hate you--no," said Thomasin soothingly. "It is only that he loves
her too well. Look at it quietly--do. It is not so very bad of him.
Do you know, I thought it not the worst match he could have made.
Miss Vye's family is a good one on her mother's side; and her father
was a romantic wanderer--a sort of Greek Ulysses."
"It is no use, Thomasin; it is no use. Your intention is good; but
I will not trouble you to argue. I have gone through the whole that
can be said on either side times, and many times. Clym and I have
not parted in anger; we have parted in a worse way. It is not a
passionate quarrel that would have broken my heart; it is the steady
opposition and persistence in going wrong that he has shown. O
Thomasin, he was so good as a little boy--so tender and kind!"
"He was, I know."
"I did not think one whom I called mine would grow up to treat me like
this. He spoke to me as if I opposed him to injure him. As though I
could wish him ill!"
"There are worse women in the world than Eustacia Vye."
"There are too many better; that's the agony of it. It was she,
Thomasin, and she only, who led your husband to act as he did: I would
swear it!"
"No," said Thomasin eagerly. "It was before he knew me that he
thought of her, and it was nothing but a mere flirtation."
"Very well; we will let it be so. There is little use in unravelling
that now. Sons must be blind if they will. Why is it that a woman
can see from a distance what a man cannot see close? Clym must do as
he will--he is nothing more to me. And this is maternity--to give
one's best years and best love to ensure the fate of being despised!"
"You are too unyielding. Think how many mothers there are whose sons
have brought them to public shame by real crimes before you feel so
deeply a case like this."
"Thomasin, don't lecture me--I can't have it. It is the excess above
what we expect that makes the force of the blow, and that may not
be greater in their case than in mine: they may have foreseen the
worst... I am wrongly made, Thomasin," she added, with a mournful
smile. "Some widows can guard against the wounds their children give
them by turning their hearts to another husband and beginning life
again. But I always was a poor, weak, one-idea'd creature--I had not
the compass of heart nor the enterprise for that. Just as forlorn and
stupefied as I was when my husband's spirit flew away I have sat ever
since--never attempting to mend matters at all. I was comparatively a
young woman then, and I might have had another family by this time,
and have been comforted by them for the failure of this one son."
"It is more noble in you that you did not."
"The more noble, the less wise."
"Forget it, and be soothed, dear aunt. And I shall not leave you
alone for long. I shall come and see you every day."
And for one week Thomasin literally fulfilled her word. She
endeavoured to make light of the wedding; and brought news of the
preparations, and that she was invited to be present. The next week
she was rather unwell, and did not appear. Nothing had as yet been
done about the guineas, for Thomasin feared to address her husband
again on the subject, and Mrs. Yeobright had insisted upon this.
One day just before this time Wildeve was standing at the door of
the Quiet Woman. In addition to the upward path through the heath to
Rainbarrow and Mistover, there was a road which branched from the
highway a short distance below the inn, and ascended to Mistover by a
circuitous and easy incline. This was the only route on that side for
vehicles to the captain's retreat. A light cart from the nearest town
descended the road, and the lad who was driving pulled up in front of
the inn for something to drink.
"You come from Mistover?" said Wildeve.
"Yes. They are taking in good things up there. Going to be a
wedding." And the driver buried his face in his mug.
Wildeve had not received an inkling of the fact before, and a sudden
expression of pain overspread his face. He turned for a moment into
the passage to hide it. Then he came back again.
"Do you mean Miss Vye?" he said. "How is it--that she can be married
so soon?"
"By the will of God and a ready young man, I suppose."
"You don't mean Mr. Yeobright?"
"Yes. He has been creeping about with her all the spring."
"I suppose--she was immensely taken with him?"
"She is crazy about him, so their general servant of all work tells
me. And that lad Charley that looks after the horse is all in a daze
about it. The stun-poll has got fondlike of her."
"Is she lively--is she glad? Going to be married so soon--well!"
"It isn't so very soon."
"No; not so very soon."
Wildeve went indoors to the empty room, a curious heartache within
him. He rested his elbow upon the mantelpiece and his face upon his
hand. When Thomasin entered the room he did not tell her of what
he had heard. The old longing for Eustacia had reappeared in his
soul; and it was mainly because he had discovered that it was another
man's intention to possess her.
To be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that offered; to care
for the remote, to dislike the near; it was Wildeve's nature always.
This is the true mark of the man of sentiment. Though Wildeve's
fevered feeling had not been elaborated to real poetical compass, it
was of the standard sort. He might have been called the Rousseau of
Egdon.
VII
The Morning and the Evening of a Day
The wedding morning came. Nobody would have imagined from appearances
that Blooms-End had any interest in Mistover that day. A solemn
stillness prevailed around the house of Clym's mother, and there
was no more animation indoors. Mrs. Yeobright, who had declined to
attend the ceremony, sat by the breakfast table in the old room which
communicated immediately with the porch, her eyes listlessly directed
towards the open door. It was the room in which, six months earlier,
the merry Christmas party had met, to which Eustacia came secretly and
as a stranger. The only living thing that entered now was a sparrow;
and seeing no movements to cause alarm, he hopped boldly round the
room, endeavoured to go out by the window, and fluttered among the
pot-flowers. This roused the lonely sitter, who got up, released
the bird, and went to the door. She was expecting Thomasin, who had
written the night before to state that the time had come when she
would wish to have the money, and that she would if possible call this
day.
Yet Thomasin occupied Mrs. Yeobright's thoughts but slightly as she
looked up the valley of the heath, alive with butterflies, and with
grasshoppers whose husky noises on every side formed a whispered
chorus. A domestic drama, for which the preparations were now being
made a mile or two off, was but little less vividly present to her
eyes than if enacted before her. She tried to dismiss the vision, and
walked about the garden plot; but her eyes ever and anon sought out
the direction of the parish church to which Mistover belonged, and
her excited fancy clove the hills which divided the building from
her eyes. The morning wore away. Eleven o'clock struck: could it
be that the wedding was then in progress? It must be so. She went
on imagining the scene at the church, which he had by this time
approached with his bride. She pictured the little group of children
by the gate as the pony-carriage drove up in which, as Thomasin had
learnt, they were going to perform the short journey. Then she saw
them enter and proceed to the chancel and kneel; and the service
seemed to go on.
She covered her face with her hands. "O, it is a mistake!" she
groaned. "And he will rue it some day, and think of me!"
While she remained thus, overcome by her forebodings, the old clock
indoors whizzed forth twelve strokes. Soon after, faint sounds floated
to her ear from afar over the hills. The breeze came from that
quarter, and it had brought with it the notes of distant bells, gaily
starting off in a peal: one, two, three, four, five. The ringers at
East Egdon were announcing the nuptials of Eustacia and her son.
"Then it is over," she murmured. "Well, well! and life too will be
over soon. And why should I go on scalding my face like this? Cry
about one thing in life, cry about all; one thread runs through the
whole piece. And yet we say, 'a time to laugh!'"
Towards evening Wildeve came. Since Thomasin's marriage Mrs. Yeobright
had shown towards him that grim friendliness which at last arises in
all such cases of undesired affinity. The vision of what ought to
have been is thrown aside in sheer weariness, and browbeaten human
endeavour listlessly makes the best of the fact that is. Wildeve, to
do him justice, had behaved very courteously to his wife's aunt; and
it was with no surprise that she saw him enter now.
"Thomasin has not been able to come, as she promised to do," he
replied to her inquiry, which had been anxious, for she knew that
her niece was badly in want of money. "The captain came down last
night and personally pressed her to join them today. So, not to be
unpleasant, she determined to go. They fetched her in the pony-chaise,
and are going to bring her back."
"Then it is done," said Mrs. Yeobright. "Have they gone to their new
home?"
"I don't know. I have had no news from Mistover since Thomasin left
to go."
"You did not go with her?" said she, as if there might be good reasons
why.
"I could not," said Wildeve, reddening slightly. "We could not both
leave the house; it was rather a busy morning, on account of Anglebury
Great Market. I believe you have something to give to Thomasin? If
you like, I will take it."
Mrs. Yeobright hesitated, and wondered if Wildeve knew what the
something was. "Did she tell you of this?" she inquired.
"Not particularly. She casually dropped a remark about having
arranged to fetch some article or other."
"It is hardly necessary to send it. She can have it whenever she
chooses to come."
"That won't be yet. In the present state of her health she must not
go on walking so much as she has done." He added, with a faint twang
of sarcasm, "What wonderful thing is it that I cannot be trusted to
take?"
"Nothing worth troubling you with."
"One would think you doubted my honesty," he said, with a laugh,
though his colour rose in a quick resentfulness frequent with him.
"You need think no such thing," said she drily. "It is simply that
I, in common with the rest of the world, feel that there are certain
things which had better be done by certain people than by others."
"As you like, as you like," said Wildeve laconically. "It is not
worth arguing about. Well, I think I must turn homeward again, as the
inn must not be left long in charge of the lad and the maid only."
He went his way, his farewell being scarcely so courteous as his
greeting. But Mrs. Yeobright knew him thoroughly by this time, and
took little notice of his manner, good or bad.
When Wildeve was gone Mrs. Yeobright stood and considered what would
be the best course to adopt with regard to the guineas, which she had
not liked to entrust to Wildeve. It was hardly credible that Thomasin
had told him to ask for them, when the necessity for them had arisen
from the difficulty of obtaining money at his hands. At the same time
Thomasin really wanted them, and might be unable to come to Blooms-End
for another week at least. To take or send the money to her at the
inn would be impolite, since Wildeve would pretty surely be present,
or would discover the transaction; and if, as her aunt suspected, he
treated her less kindly than she deserved to be treated, he might then
get the whole sum out of her gentle hands. But on this particular
evening Thomasin was at Mistover, and anything might be conveyed to
her there without the knowledge of her husband. Upon the whole the
opportunity was worth taking advantage of.
Her son, too, was there, and was now married. There could be no more
proper moment to render him his share of the money than the present.
And the chance that would be afforded her, by sending him this gift,
of showing how far she was from bearing him ill-will, cheered the sad
mother's heart.
She went upstairs and took from a locked drawer a little box, out of
which she poured a hoard of broad unworn guineas that had lain there
many a year. There were a hundred in all, and she divided them into
two heaps, fifty in each. Tying up these in small canvas bags, she
went down to the garden and called to Christian Cantle, who was
loitering about in hope of a supper which was not really owed him.
Mrs. Yeobright gave him the moneybags, charged him to go to Mistover,
and on no account to deliver them into any one's hands save her son's
and Thomasin's. On further thought she deemed it advisable to tell
Christian precisely what the two bags contained, that he might
be fully impressed with their importance. Christian pocketed the
money-bags, promised the greatest carefulness, and set out on his way.
"You need not hurry," said Mrs. Yeobright. "It will be better not to
get there till after dusk, and then nobody will notice you. Come back
here to supper, if it is not too late."
It was nearly nine o'clock when he began to ascend the vale towards
Mistover; but the long days of summer being at their climax, the first
obscurity of evening had only just begun to tan the landscape. At
this point of his journey Christian heard voices, and found that they
proceeded from a company of men and women who were traversing a hollow
ahead of him, the tops only of their heads being visible.
He paused and thought of the money he carried. It was almost too
early even for Christian seriously to fear robbery; nevertheless he
took a precaution which ever since his boyhood he had adopted whenever
he carried more than two or three shillings upon his person--a
precaution somewhat like that of the owner of the Pitt Diamond when
filled with similar misgivings. He took off his boots, untied the
guineas, and emptied the contents of one little bag into the right
boot, and of the other into the left, spreading them as flatly as
possible over the bottom of each, which was really a spacious coffer
by no means limited to the size of the foot. Pulling them on again
and lacing them to the very top, he proceeded on his way, more easy
in his head than under his soles.
His path converged towards that of the noisy company, and on coming
nearer he found to his relief that they were several Egdon people whom
he knew very well, while with them walked Fairway, of Blooms-End.
"What! Christian going too?" said Fairway as soon as he recognized the
newcomer. "You've got no young woman nor wife to your name to gie a
gown-piece to, I'm sure."
"What d'ye mean?" said Christian.
"Why, the raffle. The one we go to every year. Going to the raffle
as well as ourselves?"
"Never knew a word o't. Is it like cudgel-playing or other sportful
forms of bloodshed? I don't want to go, thank you, Mister Fairway,
and no offence."
"Christian don't know the fun o't, and 'twould be a fine sight for
him," said a buxom woman. "There's no danger at all, Christian.
Every man puts in a shilling apiece, and one wins a gown-piece for
his wife or sweetheart if he's got one."
"Well, as that's not my fortune there's no meaning in it to me. But I
should like to see the fun, if there's nothing of the black art in it,
and if a man may look on without cost or getting into any dangerous
wrangle?"
"There will be no uproar at all," said Timothy. "Sure, Christian, if
you'd like to come we'll see there's no harm done."
"And no ba'dy gaieties, I suppose? You see, neighbours, if so, it
would be setting father a bad example, as he is so light moral'd. But
a gown-piece for a shilling, and no black art--'tis worth looking
in to see, and it wouldn't hinder me half an hour. Yes, I'll come,
if you'll step a little way towards Mistover with me afterwards,
supposing night should have closed in, and nobody else is going that
way?"
One or two promised; and Christian, diverging from his direct path,
turned round to the right with his companions towards the Quiet Woman.
When they entered the large common room of the inn they found
assembled there about ten men from among the neighbouring population,
and the group was increased by the new contingent to double that
number. Most of them were sitting round the room in seats divided by
wooden elbows like those of crude cathedral stalls, which were carved
with the initials of many an illustrious drunkard of former times who
had passed his days and his nights between them, and now lay as an
alcoholic cinder in the nearest churchyard. Among the cups on the
long table before the sitters lay an open parcel of light drapery--the
gown-piece, as it was called--which was to be raffled for. Wildeve
was standing with his back to the fireplace smoking a cigar; and the
promoter of the raffle, a packman from a distant town, was expatiating
upon the value of the fabric as material for a summer dress.
"Now, gentlemen," he continued, as the newcomers drew up to the table,
"there's five have entered, and we want four more to make up the
number. I think, by the faces of those gentlemen who have just come
in, that they are shrewd enough to take advantage of this rare
opportunity of beautifying their ladies at a very trifling expense."
Fairway, Sam, and another placed their shillings on the table, and the
man turned to Christian.
"No, sir," said Christian, drawing back, with a quick gaze of
misgiving. "I am only a poor chap come to look on, an it please ye,
sir. I don't so much as know how you do it. If so be I was sure of
getting it I would put down the shilling; but I couldn't otherwise."
"I think you might almost be sure," said the pedlar. "In fact, now I
look into your face, even if I can't say you are sure to win, I can
say that I never saw anything look more like winning in my life."
"You'll anyhow have the same chance as the rest of us," said Sam.
"And the extra luck of being the last comer," said another.
"And I was born wi' a caul, and perhaps can be no more ruined than
drowned?" Christian added, beginning to give way.
Ultimately Christian laid down his shilling, the raffle began, and
the dice went round. When it came to Christian's turn he took the box
with a trembling hand, shook it fearfully, and threw a pair-royal.
Three of the others had thrown common low pairs, and all the rest mere
points.
"The gentleman looked like winning, as I said," observed the chapman
blandly. "Take it, sir; the article is yours."
"Haw-haw-haw!" said Fairway. "I'm damned if this isn't the quarest
start that ever I knowed!"
"Mine?" asked Christian, with a vacant stare from his target eyes.
"I--I haven't got neither maid, wife, nor widder belonging to me at
all, and I'm afeard it will make me laughed at to ha'e it, Master
Traveller. What with being curious to join in I never thought of that!
What shall I do wi' a woman's clothes in my bedroom, and not lose my
decency!"
"Keep 'em, to be sure," said Fairway, "if it is only for luck.
Perhaps 'twill tempt some woman that thy poor carcase had no power
over when standing empty-handed."
"Keep it, certainly," said Wildeve, who had idly watched the scene
from a distance.
The table was then cleared of the articles, and the men began to
drink.
"Well, to be sure!" said Christian, half to himself. "To think I
should have been born so lucky as this, and not have found it out
until now! What curious creatures these dice be--powerful rulers of
us all, and yet at my command! I am sure I never need be afeared of
anything after this." He handled the dice fondly one by one. "Why,
sir," he said in a confidential whisper to Wildeve, who was near his
left hand, "if I could only use this power that's in me of multiplying
money I might do some good to a near relation of yours, seeing what
I've got about me of hers--eh?" He tapped one of his money-laden boots
upon the floor.
"What do you mean?" said Wildeve.
"That's a secret. Well, I must be going now." He looked anxiously
towards Fairway.
"Where are you going?" Wildeve asked.
"To Mistover Knap. I have to see Mrs. Thomasin there--that's all."
"I am going there, too, to fetch Mrs. Wildeve. We can walk together."
Wildeve became lost in thought, and a look of inward illumination came
into his eyes. It was money for his wife that Mrs. Yeobright could
not trust him with. "Yet she could trust this fellow," he said to
himself. "Why doesn't that which belongs to the wife belong to the
husband too?"
He called to the pot-boy to bring him his hat, and said, "Now,
Christian, I am ready."
"Mr. Wildeve," said Christian timidly, as he turned to leave the room,
"would you mind lending me them wonderful little things that carry my
luck inside 'em, that I might practise a bit by myself, you know?" He
looked wistfully at the dice and box lying on the mantlepiece.
"Certainly," said Wildeve carelessly. "They were only cut out by some
lad with his knife, and are worth nothing." And Christian went back
and privately pocketed them.
Wildeve opened the door and looked out. The night was warm and
cloudy. "By Gad! 'tis dark," he continued. "But I suppose we shall
find our way."
"If we should lose the path it might be awkward," said Christian. "A
lantern is the only shield that will make it safe for us."
"Let's have a lantern by all means." The stable lantern was fetched
and lighted. Christian took up his gownpiece, and the two set out to
ascend the hill.
Within the room the men fell into chat till their attention was for a
moment drawn to the chimney-corner. This was large, and, in addition
to its proper recess, contained within its jambs, like many on
Egdon, a receding seat, so that a person might sit there absolutely
unobserved, provided there was no fire to light him up, as was the
case now and throughout the summer. From the niche a single object
protruded into the light from the candles on the table. It was a clay
pipe, and its colour was reddish. The men had been attracted to this
object by a voice behind the pipe asking for a light.
"Upon my life, it fairly startled me when the man spoke!" said
Fairway, handing a candle. "Oh--'tis the reddleman! You've kept a
quiet tongue, young man."
"Yes, I had nothing to say," observed Venn. In a few minutes he arose
and wished the company good night.
Meanwhile Wildeve and Christian had plunged into the heath.
It was a stagnant, warm, and misty night, full of all the heavy
perfumes of new vegetation not yet dried by hot sun, and among
these particularly the scent of the fern. The lantern, dangling
from Christian's hand, brushed the feathery fronds in passing by,
disturbing moths and other winged insects, which flew out and alighted
upon its horny panes.
"So you have money to carry to Mrs. Wildeve?" said Christian's
companion, after a silence. "Don't you think it very odd that it
shouldn't be given to me?"
"As man and wife be one flesh, 'twould have been all the same, I
should think," said Christian. "But my strict documents was, to give
the money into Mrs. Wildeve's hand--and 'tis well to do things right."
"No doubt," said Wildeve. Any person who had known the circumstances
might have perceived that Wildeve was mortified by the discovery that
the matter in transit was money, and not, as he had supposed when at
Blooms-End, some fancy nick-nack which only interested the two women
themselves. Mrs. Yeobright's refusal implied that his honour was not
considered to be of sufficiently good quality to make him a safer
bearer of his wife's property.
"How very warm it is tonight, Christian!" he said, panting, when they
were nearly under Rainbarrow. "Let us sit down for a few minutes, for
Heaven's sake."
Wildeve flung himself down on the soft ferns; and Christian, placing
the lantern and parcel on the ground, perched himself in a cramped
position hard by, his knees almost touching his chin. He presently
thrust one hand into his coat-pocket and began shaking it about.
"What are you rattling in there?" said Wildeve.
"Only the dice, sir," said Christian, quickly withdrawing his hand.
"What magical machines these little things be, Mr. Wildeve! 'Tis a
game I should never get tired of. Would you mind my taking 'em out
and looking at 'em for a minute, to see how they are made? I didn't
like to look close before the other men, for fear they should think it
bad manners in me." Christian took them out and examined them in the
hollow of his hand by the lantern light. "That these little things
should carry such luck, and such charm, and such a spell, and such
power in 'em, passes all I ever heard or zeed," he went on, with a
fascinated gaze at the dice, which, as is frequently the case in
country places, were made of wood, the points being burnt upon each
face with the end of a wire.
"They are a great deal in a small compass, You think?"
"Yes. Do ye suppose they really be the devil's playthings, Mr.
Wildeve? If so, 'tis no good sign that I be such a lucky man."
"You ought to win some money, now that you've got them. Any woman
would marry you then. Now is your time, Christian, and I would
recommend you not to let it slip. Some men are born to luck, some are
not. I belong to the latter class."
"Did you ever know anybody who was born to it besides myself?"
"O yes. I once heard of an Italian, who sat down at a gaming table
with only a louis (that's a foreign sovereign) in his pocket. He
played on for twenty-four hours, and won ten thousand pounds,
stripping the bank he had played against. Then there was another man
who had lost a thousand pounds, and went to the broker's next day to
sell stock, that he might pay the debt. The man to whom he owed the
money went with him in a hackney-coach; and to pass the time they
tossed who should pay the fare. The ruined man won, and the other was
tempted to continue the game, and they played all the way. When the
coachman stopped he was told to drive home again: the whole thousand
pounds had been won back by the man who was going to sell."
"Ha--ha--splendid!" exclaimed Christian. "Go on--go on!"
"Then there was a man of London, who was only a waiter at White's
clubhouse. He began playing first half-crown stakes, and then higher
and higher, till he became very rich, got an appointment in India,
and rose to be Governor of Madras. His daughter married a member of
Parliament, and the Bishop of Carlisle stood godfather to one of the
children."
"Wonderful! wonderful!"
"And once there was a young man in America who gambled till he had
lost his last dollar. He staked his watch and chain, and lost as
before; staked his umbrella, lost again; staked his hat, lost again;
staked his coat and stood in his shirt-sleeve; lost again. Began
taking off his breeches, and then a looker-on gave him a trifle for
his pluck. With this he won. Won back his coat, won back his hat,
won back his umbrella, his watch, his money, and went out of the door
a rich man."
"Oh, 'tis too good--it takes away my breath! Mr. Wildeve, I think
I will try another shilling with you, as I am one of that sort; no
danger can come o't, and you can afford to lose."
"Very well," said Wildeve, rising. Searching about with the lantern,
he found a large flat stone, which he placed between himself and
Christian, and sat down again. The lantern was opened to give more
light, and it's rays directed upon the stone. Christian put down
a shilling, Wildeve another, and each threw. Christian won. They
played for two, Christian won again.
"Let us try four," said Wildeve. They played for four. This time the
stakes were won by Wildeve.
"Ah, those little accidents will, of course, sometimes happen, to the
luckiest man," he observed.
"And now I have no more money!" explained Christian excitedly. "And
yet, if I could go on, I should get it back again, and more. I wish
this was mine." He struck his boot upon the ground, so that the
guineas chinked within.
"What! you have not put Mrs. Wildeve's money there?"
"Yes. 'Tis for safety. Is it any harm to raffle with a married lady's
money when, if I win, I shall only keep my winnings, and give her her
own all the same; and if t'other man wins, her money will go to the
lawful owner?"
"None at all."
Wildeve had been brooding ever since they started on the mean
estimation in which he was held by his wife's friends; and it cut his
heart severely. As the minutes passed he had gradually drifted into a
revengeful intention without knowing the precise moment of forming it.
This was to teach Mrs. Yeobright a lesson, as he considered it to be;
in other words, to show her if he could, that her niece's husband was
the proper guardian of her niece's money.
"Well, here goes!" said Christian, beginning to unlace one boot. "I
shall dream of it nights and nights, I suppose; but I shall always
swear my flesh don't crawl when I think o't!"
He thrust his hand into the boot and withdrew one of poor Thomasin's
precious guineas, piping hot. Wildeve had already placed a sovereign
on the stone. The game was then resumed. Wildeve won first, and
Christian ventured another, winning himself this time. The game
fluctuated, but the average was in Wildeve's favour. Both men became
so absorbed in the game that they took no heed of anything but the
pigmy objects immediately beneath their eyes, the flat stone, the open
lantern, the dice, and the few illuminated fern-leaves which lay under
the light, were the whole world to them.
At length Christian lost rapidly; and presently, to his horror, the
whole fifty guineas belonging to Thomasin had been handed over to his
adversary.
"I don't care--I don't care!" he moaned, and desperately set about
untying his left boot to get at the other fifty. "The devil will toss
me into the flames on his three-pronged fork for this night's work,
I know! But perhaps I shall win yet, and then I'll get a wife to sit
up with me o' nights, and I won't be afeard, I won't! Here's another
for'ee, my man!" He slapped another guinea down upon the stone, and
the dice-box was rattled again.
Time passed on. Wildeve began to be as excited as Christian himself.
When commencing the game his intention had been nothing further than
a bitter practical joke on Mrs. Yeobright. To win the money, fairly
or otherwise, and to hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her aunt's
presence, had been the dim outline of his purpose. But men are drawn
from their intentions even in the course of carrying them out, and
it was extremely doubtful, by the time the twentieth guinea had been
reached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention than
that of winning for his own personal benefit. Moreover, he was now no
longer gambling for his wife's money, but for Yeobright's; though of
this fact Christian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till
afterwards.
It was nearly eleven o'clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian
placed Yeobright's last gleaming guinea upon the stone. In thirty
seconds it had gone the way of its companions.
Christian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of
remorse, "O, what shall I do with my wretched self?" he groaned.
"What shall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked
soul?"
"Do? Live on just the same."
"I won't live on just the same! I'll die! I say you are a--a--"
"A man sharper than my neighbour."
"Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!"
"Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly."
"I don't know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You've got
money that isn't your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr. Clym's."
"How's that?"
"Because I had to gie fifty of 'em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said so."
"Oh?... Well, 'twould have been more graceful of her to have given
them to his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now."
Christian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could
be heard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and
tottered away out of sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to
return to the house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to
meet his wife, who was to be driven home in the captain's four-wheel.
While he was closing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a
neighbouring bush and came forward into the lantern light. It was the
reddleman approaching.
VIII
A New Force Disturbs the Current
Wildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a
word being spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian
had been seated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a
sovereign, and laid it on the stone.
"You have been watching us from behind that bush?" said Wildeve.
The reddleman nodded. "Down with your stake," he said. "Or haven't
you pluck enough to go on?"
Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily
begun with full pockets than left off with the same; and though
Wildeve in a cooler temper might have prudently declined this
invitation, the excitement of his recent success carried him
completely away. He placed one of the guineas on a slab beside the
reddleman's sovereign. "Mine is a guinea," he said.
"A guinea that's not your own," said Venn sarcastically.
"It is my own," answered Wildeve haughtily. "It is my wife's, and
what is hers is mine."
"Very well; let's make a beginning." He shook the box, and threw
eight, ten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.
This encouraged Wildeve. He took the box; and his three casts
amounted to forty-five.
Down went another of the reddleman's sovereigns against his first one
which Wildeve laid. This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no
pair. The reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed
the stakes.
"Here you are again," said Wildeve contemptuously. "Double the
stakes." He laid two of Thomasin's guineas, and the reddleman his two
pounds. Venn won again. New stakes were laid on the stone, and the
gamblers proceeded as before.
Wildeve was a nervous and excitable man, and the game was beginning
to tell upon his temper. He writhed, fumed, shifted his seat; and
the beating of his heart was almost audible. Venn sat with lips
impassively closed and eyes reduced to a pair of unimportant twinkles;
he scarcely appeared to breathe. He might have been an Arab, or an
automaton; he would have been like a red sandstone statue but for the
motion of his arm with the dice-box.
The game fluctuated, now in favour of one, now in favour of the other,
without any great advantage on the side of either. Nearly twenty
minutes were passed thus. The light of the candle had by this time
attracted heathflies, moths, and other winged creatures of night,
which floated round the lantern, flew into the flame, or beat about
the faces of the two players.
But neither of the men paid much attention to these things, their eyes
being concentrated upon the little flat stone, which to them was an
arena vast and important as a battlefield. By this time a change had
come over the game; the reddleman won continually. At length sixty
guineas--Thomasin's fifty, and ten of Clym's--had passed into his
hands. Wildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated.
"'Won back his coat,'" said Venn slily.
Another throw, and the money went the same way.
"'Won back his hat,'" continued Venn.
"Oh, oh!" said Wildeve.
"'Won back his watch, won back his money, and went out of the door
a rich man,'" added Venn sentence by sentence, as stake after stake
passed over to him.
"Five more!" shouted Wildeve, dashing down the money. "And three
casts be hanged--one shall decide."
The red automaton opposite lapsed into silence, nodded, and followed
his example. Wildeve rattled the box, and threw a pair of sixes and
five points. He clapped his hands; "I have done it this
time--hurrah!"
"There are two playing, and only one has thrown," said the reddleman,
quietly bringing down the box. The eyes of each were then so intently
converged upon the stone that one could fancy their beams were
visible, like rays in a fog.
Venn lifted the box, and behold a triplet of sixes was disclosed.
Wildeve was full of fury. While the reddleman was grasping the stakes
Wildeve seized the dice and hurled them, box and all, into the
darkness, uttering a fearful imprecation. Then he arose and began
stamping up and down like a madman.
"It is all over, then?" said Venn.
"No, no!" cried Wildeve. "I mean to have another chance yet. I
must!"
"But, my good man, what have you done with the dice?"
"I threw them away--it was a momentary irritation. What a fool I am!
Here--come and help me to look for them--we must find them again."
Wildeve snatched up the lantern and began anxiously prowling among the
furze and fern.
"You are not likely to find them there," said Venn, following. "What
did you do such a crazy thing as that for? Here's the box. The dice
can't be far off."
Wildeve turned the light eagerly upon the spot where Venn had found
the box, and mauled the herbage right and left. In the course of a few
minutes one of the dice was found. They searched on for some time,
but no other was to be seen.
"Never mind," said Wildeve; "let's play with one."
"Agreed," said Venn.
Down they sat again, and recommenced with single guinea stakes; and
the play went on smartly. But Fortune had unmistakably fallen in love
with the reddleman tonight. He won steadily, till he was the owner of
fourteen more of the gold pieces. Seventy-nine of the hundred guineas
were his, Wildeve possessing only twenty-one. The aspect of the two
opponents was now singular. Apart from motions, a complete diorama
of the fluctuations of the game went on in their eyes. A diminutive
candle-flame was mirrored in each pupil, and it would have been
possible to distinguish therein between the moods of hope and the
moods of abandonment, even as regards the reddleman, though his facial
muscles betrayed nothing at all. Wildeve played on with the
recklessness of despair.
"What's that?" he suddenly exclaimed, hearing a rustle; and they both
looked up.
They were surrounded by dusky forms between four and five feet high,
standing a few paces beyond the rays of the lantern. A moment's
inspection revealed that the encircling figures were heath-croppers,
their heads being all towards the players, at whom they gazed
intently.
"Hoosh!" said Wildeve, and the whole forty or fifty animals at once
turned and galloped away. Play was again resumed.
Ten minutes passed away. Then a large death's head moth advanced from
the obscure outer air, wheeled twice round the lantern, flew straight
at the candle, and extinguished it by the force of the blow. Wildeve
had just thrown, but had not lifted the box to see what he had cast;
and now it was impossible.
"What the infernal!" he shrieked. "Now, what shall we do? Perhaps I
have thrown six--have you any matches?"
"None," said Venn.
"Christian had some--I wonder where he is. Christian!"
But there was no reply to Wildeve's shout, save a mournful whining
from the herons which were nesting lower down the vale. Both men
looked blankly round without rising. As their eyes grew accustomed to
the darkness they perceived faint greenish points of light among the
grass and fern. These lights dotted the hillside like stars of a low
magnitude.
"Ah--glowworms," said Wildeve. "Wait a minute. We can continue the
game."
Venn sat still, and his companion went hither and thither till he had
gathered thirteen glowworms--as many as he could find in a space of
four or five minutes--upon a foxglove leaf which he pulled for the
purpose. The reddleman vented a low humorous laugh when he saw his
adversary return with these. "Determined to go on, then?" he said
drily.
"I always am!" said Wildeve angrily. And shaking the glowworms from
the leaf he ranged them with a trembling hand in a circle on the
stone, leaving a space in the middle for the descent of the dice-box,
over which the thirteen tiny lamps threw a pale phosphoric shine. The
game was again renewed. It happened to be that season of the year at
which glowworms put forth their greatest brilliancy, and the light
they yielded was more than ample for the purpose, since it is possible
on such nights to read the handwriting of a letter by the light of two
or three.
The incongruity between the men's deeds and their environment was
great. Amid the soft juicy vegetation of the hollow in which they
sat, the motionless and the uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink
of guineas, the rattle of dice, the exclamations of the reckless
players.
Wildeve had lifted the box as soon as the lights were obtained, and
the solitary die proclaimed that the game was still against him.
"I won't play any more--you've been tampering with the dice," he
shouted.
"How--when they were your own?" said the reddleman.
"We'll change the game: the lowest point shall win the stake--it may
cut off my ill luck. Do you refuse?"
"No--go on," said Venn.
"O, there they are again--damn them!" cried Wildeve, looking up. The
heath-croppers had returned noiselessly, and were looking on with
erect heads just as before, their timid eyes fixed upon the scene, as
if they were wondering what mankind and candle-light could have to do
in these haunts at this untoward hour.
"What a plague those creatures are--staring at me so!" he said, and
flung a stone, which scattered them; when the game was continued as
before.
Wildeve had now ten guineas left; and each laid five. Wildeve threw
three points; Venn two, and raked in the coins. The other seized the
die, and clenched his teeth upon it in sheer rage, as if he would
bite it in pieces. "Never give in--here are my last five!" he cried,
throwing them down. "Hang the glowworms--they are going out. Why
don't you burn, you little fools? Stir them up with a thorn."
He probed the glowworms with a bit of stick, and rolled them over,
till the bright side of their tails was upwards.
"There's light enough. Throw on," said Venn.
Wildeve brought down the box within the shining circle and looked
eagerly. He had thrown ace. "Well done!--I said it would turn, and
it has turned." Venn said nothing; but his hand shook slightly.
He threw ace also.
"O!" said Wildeve. "Curse me!"
The die smacked the stone a second time. It was ace again. Venn
looked gloomy, threw: the die was seen to be lying in two pieces,
the cleft sides uppermost.
"I've thrown nothing at all," he said.
"Serves me right--I split the die with my teeth. Here--take your
money. Blank is less than one."
"I don't wish it."
"Take it, I say--you've won it!" And Wildeve threw the stakes against
the reddleman's chest. Venn gathered them up, arose, and withdrew
from the hollow, Wildeve sitting stupefied.
When he had come to himself he also arose, and, with the extinguished
lantern in his hand, went towards the high-road. On reaching it he
stood still. The silence of night pervaded the whole heath except in
one direction; and that was towards Mistover. There he could hear the
noise of light wheels, and presently saw two carriage-lamps descending
the hill. Wildeve screened himself under a bush and waited.
The vehicle came on and passed before him. It was a hired carriage,
and behind the coachman were two persons whom he knew well. There sat
Eustacia and Yeobright, the arm of the latter being round her waist.
They turned the sharp corner at the bottom towards the temporary home
which Clym had hired and furnished, about five miles to the eastward.
Wildeve forgot the loss of the money at the sight of his lost
love, whose preciousness in his eyes was increasing in geometrical
progression with each new incident that reminded him of their hopeless
division. Brimming with the subtilized misery that he was capable of
feeling, he followed the opposite way towards the inn.
About the same moment that Wildeve stepped into the highway Venn also
had reached it at a point a hundred yards further on; and he, hearing
the same wheels, likewise waited till the carriage should come up.
When he saw who sat therein he seemed to be disappointed. Reflecting
a minute or two, during which interval the carriage rolled on, he
crossed the road, and took a short cut through the furze and heath to
a point where the turnpike-road bent round in ascending a hill. He
was now again in front of the carriage, which presently came up at a
walking pace. Venn stepped forward and showed himself.
Eustacia started when the lamp shone upon him, and Clym's arm was
involuntarily withdrawn from her waist. He said, "What, Diggory? You
are having a lonely walk."
"Yes--I beg your pardon for stopping you," said Venn. "But I am
waiting about for Mrs. Wildeve: I have something to give her from Mrs.
Yeobright. Can you tell me if she's gone home from the party yet?"
"No. But she will be leaving soon. You may possibly meet her at the
corner."
Venn made a farewell obeisance, and walked back to his former
position, where the by-road from Mistover joined the highway. Here
he remained fixed for nearly half an hour, and then another pair
of lights came down the hill. It was the old-fashioned wheeled
nondescript belonging to the captain, and Thomasin sat in it alone,
driven by Charley.
The reddleman came up as they slowly turned the corner. "I beg pardon
for stopping you, Mrs. Wildeve," he said. "But I have something to
give you privately from Mrs. Yeobright." He handed a small parcel; it
consisted of the hundred guineas he had just won, roughly twisted up
in a piece of paper.
Thomasin recovered from her surprise, and took the packet. "That's
all, ma'am--I wish you good night," he said, and vanished from her
view.
Thus Venn, in his anxiety to rectify matters, had placed in Thomasin's
hands not only the fifty guineas which rightly belonged to her, but
also the fifty intended for her cousin Clym. His mistake had been
based upon Wildeve's words at the opening of the game, when he
indignantly denied that the guinea was not his own. It had not been
comprehended by the reddleman that at half-way through the performance
the game was continued with the money of another person; and it was an
error which afterwards helped to cause more misfortune than treble the
loss in money value could have done.
The night was now somewhat advanced; and Venn plunged deeper into the
heath, till he came to a ravine where his van was standing--a spot not
more than two hundred yards from the site of the gambling bout. He
entered this movable home of his, lit his lantern, and, before closing
his door for the night, stood reflecting on the circumstances of
the preceding hours. While he stood the dawn grew visible in the
north-east quarter of the heavens, which, the clouds having cleared
off, was bright with a soft sheen at this midsummer time, though it
was only between one and two o'clock. Venn, thoroughly weary, then
shut his door and flung himself down to sleep.
BOOK FOURTH
THE CLOSED DOOR
I
The Rencounter by the Pool
The July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson heather to
scarlet. It was the one season of the year, and the one weather of
the season, in which the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period
represented the second or noontide division in the cycle of those
superficial changes which alone were possible here; it followed the
green or young-fern period, representing the morn, and preceded the
brown period, when the heathbells and ferns would wear the russet
tinges of evening; to be in turn displaced by the dark hue of the
winter period, representing night.
Clym and Eustacia, in their little house at Alderworth, beyond East
Egdon, were living on with a monotony which was delightful to them.
The heath and changes of weather were quite blotted out from their
eyes for the present. They were enclosed in a sort of luminous mist,
which hid from them surroundings of any inharmonious colour, and
gave to all things the character of light. When it rained they were
charmed, because they could remain indoors together all day with such
a show of reason; when it was fine they were charmed, because they
could sit together on the hills. They were like those double stars
which revolve round and round each other, and from a distance appear
to be one. The absolute solitude in which they lived intensified
their reciprocal thoughts; yet some might have said that it had the
disadvantage of consuming their mutual affections at a fearfully
prodigal rate. Yeobright did not fear for his own part; but
recollection of Eustacia's old speech about the evanescence of love,
now apparently forgotten by her, sometimes caused him to ask himself
a question; and he recoiled at the thought that the quality of
finiteness was not foreign to Eden.
When three or four weeks had been passed thus, Yeobright resumed
his reading in earnest. To make up for lost time he studied
indefatigably, for he wished to enter his new profession with the
least possible delay.
Now, Eustacia's dream had always been that, once married to Clym,
she would have the power of inducing him to return to Paris. He had
carefully withheld all promise to do so; but would he be proof against
her coaxing and argument? She had calculated to such a degree on
the probability of success that she had represented Paris, and not
Budmouth, to her grandfather as in all likelihood their future home.
Her hopes were bound up in this dream. In the quiet days since their
marriage, when Yeobright had been poring over her lips, her eyes, and
the lines of her face, she had mused and mused on the subject, even
while in the act of returning his gaze; and now the sight of the
books, indicating a future which was antagonistic to her dream, struck
her with a positively painful jar. She was hoping for the time when,
as the mistress of some pretty establishment, however small, near a
Parisian Boulevard, she would be passing her days on the skirts at
least of the gay world, and catching stray wafts from those town
pleasures she was so well fitted to enjoy. Yet Yeobright was as firm
in the contrary intention as if the tendency of marriage were rather
to develop the fantasies of young philanthropy than to sweep them
away.
Her anxiety reached a high pitch; but there was something in Clym's
undeviating manner which made her hesitate before sounding him on
the subject. At this point in their experience, however, an incident
helped her. It occurred one evening about six weeks after their
union, and arose entirely out of the unconscious misapplication of
Venn of the fifty guineas intended for Yeobright.
A day or two after the receipt of the money Thomasin had sent a note
to her aunt to thank her. She had been surprised at the largeness of
the amount; but as no sum had ever been mentioned she set that down
to her late uncle's generosity. She had been strictly charged by her
aunt to say nothing to her husband of this gift; and Wildeve, as was
natural enough, had not brought himself to mention to his wife a
single particular of the midnight scene in the heath. Christian's
terror, in like manner, had tied his tongue on the share he took in
that proceeding; and hoping that by some means or other the money had
gone to its proper destination, he simply asserted as much, without
giving details.
Therefore, when a week or two had passed away, Mrs. Yeobright began
to wonder why she never heard from her son of the receipt of the
present; and to add gloom to her perplexity came the possibility
that resentment might be the cause of his silence. She could hardly
believe as much, but why did he not write? She questioned Christian,
and the confusion in his answers would at once have led her to
believe that something was wrong, had not one-half of his story been
corroborated by Thomasin's note.
Mrs. Yeobright was in this state of uncertainty when she was informed
one morning that her son's wife was visiting her grandfather at
Mistover. She determined to walk up the hill, see Eustacia, and
ascertain from her daughter-in-law's lips whether the family guineas,
which were to Mrs. Yeobright what family jewels are to wealthier
dowagers, had miscarried or not.
When Christian learnt where she was going his concern reached its
height. At the moment of her departure he could prevaricate no
longer, and, confessing to the gambling, told her the truth as far
as he knew it--that the guineas had been won by Wildeve.
"What, is he going to keep them?" Mrs. Yeobright cried.
"I hope and trust not!" moaned Christian. "He's a good man, and
perhaps will do right things. He said you ought to have gied Mr.
Clym's share to Eustacia, and that's perhaps what he'll do himself."
To Mrs. Yeobright, as soon as she could calmly reflect, there was much
likelihood in this, for she could hardly believe that Wildeve would
really appropriate money belonging to her son. The intermediate
course of giving it to Eustacia was the sort of thing to please
Wildeve's fancy. But it filled the mother with anger none the less.
That Wildeve should have got command of the guineas after all, and
should rearrange the disposal of them, placing Clym's share in Clym's
wife's hands, because she had been his own sweetheart, and might be so
still, was as irritating a pain as any that Mrs. Yeobright had ever
borne.
She instantly dismissed the wretched Christian from her employ for his
conduct in the affair; but, feeling quite helpless and unable to do
without him, told him afterwards that he might stay a little longer
if he chose. Then she hastened off to Eustacia, moved by a much less
promising emotion towards her daughter-in-law than she had felt half
an hour earlier, when planning her journey. At that time it was to
inquire in a friendly spirit if there had been any accidental loss;
now it was to ask plainly if Wildeve had privately given her money
which had been intended as a sacred gift to Clym.
She started at two o'clock, and her meeting with Eustacia was hastened
by the appearance of the young lady beside the pool and bank which
bordered her grandfather's premises, where she stood surveying
the scene, and perhaps thinking of the romantic enactments it had
witnessed in past days. When Mrs. Yeobright approached, Eustacia
surveyed her with the calm stare of a stranger.
The mother-in-law was the first to speak. "I was coming to see you,"
she said.
"Indeed!" said Eustacia with surprise, for Mrs. Yeobright, much to the
girl's mortification, had refused to be present at the wedding. "I
did not at all expect you."
"I was coming on business only," said the visitor, more coldly than at
first. "Will you excuse my asking this--Have you received a gift from
Thomasin's husband?"
"A gift?"
"I mean money!"
"What--I myself?"
"Well, I meant yourself, privately--though I was not going to put it
in that way."
"Money from Mr. Wildeve? No--never! Madam, what do you mean by that?"
Eustacia fired up all too quickly, for her own consciousness of the
old attachment between herself and Wildeve led her to jump to the
conclusion that Mrs. Yeobright also knew of it, and might have come
to accuse her of receiving dishonourable presents from him now.
"I simply ask the question," said Mrs. Yeobright. "I have been--"
"You ought to have better opinions of me--I feared you were against
me from the first!" exclaimed Eustacia.
"No. I was simply for Clym," replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much
emphasis in her earnestness. "It is the instinct of everyone to look
after their own."
"How can you imply that he required guarding against me?" cried
Eustacia, passionate tears in her eyes. "I have not injured him by
marrying him! What sin have I done that you should think so ill of me?
You had no right to speak against me to him when I have never wronged
you."
"I only did what was fair under the circumstances," said Mrs.
Yeobright more softly. "I would rather not have gone into this
question at present, but you compel me. I am not ashamed to tell you
the honest truth. I was firmly convinced that he ought not to marry
you--therefore I tried to dissuade him by all the means in my power.
But it is done now, and I have no idea of complaining any more. I am
ready to welcome you."
"Ah, yes, it is very well to see things in that business point of
view," murmured Eustacia with a smothered fire of feeling. "But why
should you think there is anything between me and Mr. Wildeve? I have
a spirit as well as you. I am indignant; and so would any woman be.
It was a condescension in me to be Clym's wife, and not a manoeuvre,
let me remind you; and therefore I will not be treated as a schemer
whom it becomes necessary to bear with because she has crept into the
family."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Yeobright, vainly endeavouring to control her anger.
"I have never heard anything to show that my son's lineage is not as
good as the Vyes'--perhaps better. It is amusing to hear you talk of
condescension."
"It was condescension, nevertheless," said Eustacia vehemently. "And
if I had known then what I know now, that I should be living in this
wild heath a month after my marriage, I--I should have thought twice
before agreeing."
"It would be better not to say that; it might not sound truthful. I
am not aware that any deception was used on his part--I know there was
not--whatever might have been the case on the other side."
"This is too exasperating!" answered the younger woman huskily, her
face crimsoning, and her eyes darting light. "How can you dare to
speak to me like that? I insist upon repeating to you that had I
known that my life would from my marriage up to this time have been as
it is, I should have said NO. I don't complain. I have never uttered
a sound of such a thing to him; but it is true. I hope therefore that
in the future you will be silent on my eagerness. If you injure me
now you injure yourself."
"Injure you? Do you think I am an evil-disposed person?"
"You injured me before my marriage, and you have now suspected me of
secretly favouring another man for money!"
"I could not help what I thought. But I have never spoken of you
outside my house."
"You spoke of me within it, to Clym, and you could not do worse."
"I did my duty."
"And I'll do mine."
"A part of which will possibly be to set him against his mother. It
is always so. But why should I not bear it as others have borne it
before me!"
"I understand you," said Eustacia, breathless with emotion. "You
think me capable of every bad thing. Who can be worse than a wife
who encourages a lover, and poisons her husband's mind against his
relative? Yet that is now the character given to me. Will you not
come and drag him out of my hands?"
Mrs. Yeobright gave back heat for heat.
"Don't rage at me, madam! It ill becomes your beauty, and I am not
worth the injury you may do it on my account, I assure you. I am only
a poor old woman who has lost a son."
"If you had treated me honourably you would have had him still."
Eustacia said, while scalding tears trickled from her eyes. "You have
brought yourself to folly; you have caused a division which can never
be healed!"
"I have done nothing. This audacity from a young woman is more than I
can bear."
"It was asked for; you have suspected me, and you have made me speak
of my husband in a way I would not have done. You will let him know
that I have spoken thus, and it will cause misery between us. Will
you go away from me? You are no friend!"
"I will go when I have spoken a word. If anyone says I have come
here to question you without good grounds for it, that person speaks
untruly. If anyone says that I attempted to stop your marriage by any
but honest means, that person, too, does not speak the truth. I have
fallen on an evil time; God has been unjust to me in letting you
insult me! Probably my son's happiness does not lie on this side of
the grave, for he is a foolish man who neglects the advice of his
parent. You, Eustacia, stand on the edge of a precipice without
knowing it. Only show my son one-half the temper you have shown me
today--and you may before long--and you will find that though he is
as gentle as a child with you now, he can be as hard as steel!"
The excited mother then withdrew, and Eustacia, panting, stood looking
into the pool.
II
He Is Set Upon by Adversities; but He Sings a Song
The result of that unpropitious interview was that Eustacia, instead
of passing the afternoon with her grandfather, hastily returned home
to Clym, where she arrived three hours earlier than she had been
expected.
She came indoors with her face flushed, and her eyes still showing
traces of her recent excitement. Yeobright looked up astonished; he
had never seen her in any way approaching to that state before. She
passed him by, and would have gone upstairs unnoticed, but Clym was
so concerned that he immediately followed her.
"What is the matter, Eustacia?" he said. She was standing on the
hearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped
in front of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not
answer; and then she replied in a low voice--
"I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!"
A weight fell like a stone upon Clym. That same morning, when Eustacia
had arranged to go and see her grandfather, Clym had expressed a
wish that she would drive down to Blooms-End and inquire for her
mother-in-law, or adopt any other means she might think fit to bring
about a reconciliation. She had set out gaily; and he had hoped for
much.
"Why is this?" he asked.
"I cannot tell--I cannot remember. I met your mother. And I will
never meet her again."
"Why?"
"What do I know about Mr. Wildeve now? I won't have wicked opinions
passed on me by anybody. O! it was too humiliating to be asked if I
had received any money from him, or encouraged him, or something of
the sort--I don't exactly know what!"
"How could she have asked you that?"
"She did."
"Then there must have been some meaning in it. What did my mother say
besides?"
"I don't know what she said, except in so far as this, that we both
said words which can never be forgiven!"
"Oh, there must be some misapprehension. Whose fault was it that her
meaning was not made clear?"
"I would rather not say. It may have been the fault of the
circumstances, which were awkward at the very least. O Clym--I cannot
help expressing it--this is an unpleasant position that you have
placed me in. But you must improve it--yes, say you will--for I hate
it all now! Yes, take me to Paris, and go on with your old occupation,
Clym! I don't mind how humbly we live there at first, if it can only
be Paris, and not Egdon Heath."
"But I have quite given up that idea," said Yeobright, with surprise.
"Surely I never led you to expect such a thing?"
"I own it. Yet there are thoughts which cannot be kept out of mind,
and that one was mine. Must I not have a voice in the matter, now I
am your wife and the sharer of your doom?"
"Well, there are things which are placed beyond the pale of
discussion; and I thought this was specially so, and by mutual
agreement."
"Clym, I am unhappy at what I hear," she said in a low voice; and her
eyes drooped, and she turned away.
This indication of an unexpected mine of hope in Eustacia's bosom
disconcerted her husband. It was the first time that he had
confronted the fact of the indirectness of a woman's movement towards
her desire. But his intention was unshaken, though he loved Eustacia
well. All the effect that her remark had upon him was a resolve to
chain himself more closely than ever to his books, so as to be the
sooner enabled to appeal to substantial results from another course
in arguing against her whim.
Next day the mystery of the guineas was explained. Thomasin paid them
a hurried visit, and Clym's share was delivered up to him by her own
hands. Eustacia was not present at the time.
"Then this is what my mother meant," exclaimed Clym. "Thomasin, do
you know that they have had a bitter quarrel?"
There was a little more reticence now than formerly in Thomasin's
manner towards her cousin. It is the effect of marriage to engender
in several directions some of the reserve it annihilates in one.
"Your mother told me," she said quietly. "She came back to my house
after seeing Eustacia."
"The worst thing I dreaded has come to pass. Was mother much
disturbed when she came to you, Thomasin?"
"Yes."
"Very much indeed?"
"Yes."
Clym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate, and covered his
eyes with his hand.
"Don't trouble about it, Clym. They may get to be friends."
He shook his head. "Not two people with inflammable natures like
theirs. Well, what must be will be."
"One thing is cheerful in it--the guineas are not lost."
"I would rather have lost them twice over than have had this happen."
Amid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to be
indispensable--that he should speedily make some show of progress in
his scholastic plans. With this view he read far into the small hours
during many nights.
One morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with a
strange sensation in his eyes. The sun was shining directly upon the
window-blind, and at his first glance thitherward a sharp pain obliged
him to close his eyelids quickly. At every new attempt to look
about him the same morbid sensibility to light was manifested, and
excoriating tears ran down his cheeks. He was obliged to tie a
bandage over his brow while dressing; and during the day it could not
be abandoned. Eustacia was thoroughly alarmed. On finding that the
case was no better the next morning they decided to send to Anglebury
for a surgeon.
Towards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease to be acute
inflammation induced by Clym's night studies, continued in spite of a
cold previously caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.
Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was so
anxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shut
up in a room from which all light was excluded, and his condition
would have been one of absolute misery had not Eustacia read to him by
the glimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped that the worst would soon be
over; but at the surgeon's third visit he learnt to his dismay that
although he might venture out of doors with shaded eyes in the course
of a month, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading print of
any description, would have to be given up for a long time to come.
One week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten the
gloom of the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia,
but she carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband. Suppose
he should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficient
strength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenial
to her feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling
among the hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to
cohere into substance in the presence of this misfortune. As day after
day passed by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in
this mournful groove, and she would go away from him into the garden
and weep despairing tears.
Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought
he would not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more
unhappy; and the seclusion of their life was such that she would
hardly be likely to learn the news except through a special messenger.
Endeavouring to take the trouble as philosophically as possible, he
waited on till the third week had arrived, when he went into the open
air for the first time since the attack. The surgeon visited him
again at this stage, and Clym urged him to express a distinct opinion.
The young man learnt with added surprise that the date at which he
might expect to resume his labours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes
being in that peculiar state which, though affording him sight enough
for walking about, would not admit of their being strained upon any
definite object without incurring the risk of reproducing ophthalmia
in its acute form.
Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quiet
firmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was
not to be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the world
through smoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, and
fatal to any kind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic in
the face of mishaps which only affected his social standing; and,
apart from Eustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if
it could be made to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To
keep a cottage night-school was one such form; and his affliction did
not master his spirit as it might otherwise have done.
He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon
with which he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old
home. He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted
iron, and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the
tool of a man who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, and
Yeobright learnt from the voice that the speaker was Humphrey.
Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym's condition, and added; "Now, if
yours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just the
same."
"Yes, I could," said Yeobright musingly. "How much do you get for
cutting these faggots?"
"Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very well
on the wages."
During the whole of Yeobright's walk home to Alderworth he was lost
in reflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming up
to the house Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he went
across to her.
"Darling," he said, "I am much happier. And if my mother were
reconciled to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite."
"I fear that will never be," she said, looking afar with her beautiful
stormy eyes. "How CAN you say 'I am happier,' and nothing changed?"
"It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, and
get a living at, in this time of misfortune."
"Yes?"
"I am going to be a furze and turf-cutter."
"No, Clym!" she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent in
her face going off again, and leaving her worse than before.
"Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending the
little money we've got when I can keep down expenditure by an honest
occupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but
that in a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?"
"But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance."
"We don't require it. If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly well
off."
"In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and such
people!" A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia's face, which he did not
see. There had been _nonchalance_ in his tone, showing her that he
felt no absolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positive
horror.
The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage, and borrowed
of him leggings, gloves, a whet-stone, and a hook, to use till he
should be able to purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forth
with his new fellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting a
spot where the furze grew thickest he struck the first blow in his
adopted calling. His sight, like the wings in "Rasselas," though
useless to him for his grand purpose, sufficed for this strait, and
he found that when a little practice should have hardened his palms
against blistering he would be able to work with ease.
Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and went
off to the rendezvous with Humphrey. His custom was to work from four
o'clock in the morning till noon; then, when the heat of the day was
at its highest, to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards
coming out again and working till dusk at nine.
This man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements,
and by the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that his
closest friend might have passed by without recognizing him. He was
a brown spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse, and
nothing more. Though frequently depressed in spirit when not actually
at work, owing to thoughts of Eustacia's position and his mother's
estrangement, when in the full swing of labour he was cheerfully
disposed and calm.
His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world
being limited to a circuit of a few feet from his person. His
familiars were creeping and winged things, and they seemed to enroll
him in their band. Bees hummed around his ears with an intimate
air, and tugged at the heath and furze-flowers at his side in such
numbers as to weigh them down to the sod. The strange amber-coloured
butterflies which Egdon produced, and which were never seen elsewhere,
quivered in the breath of his lips, alighted upon his bowed back, and
sported with the glittering point of his hook as he flourished it up
and down. Tribes of emerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet,
falling awkwardly on their backs, heads, or hips, like unskilful
acrobats, as chance might rule; or engaged themselves in noisy
flirtations under the fern-fronds with silent ones of homely hue. Huge
flies, ignorant of larders and wire-netting, and quite in a savage
state, buzzed about him without knowing that he was a man. In and
out of the fern-dells snakes glided in their most brilliant blue and
yellow guise, it being the season immediately following the shedding
of their old skins, when their colours are brightest. Litters of young
rabbits came out from their forms to sun themselves upon hillocks, the
hot beams blazing through the delicate tissue of each thin-fleshed
ear, and firing it to a blood-red transparency in which the veins
could be seen. None of them feared him.
The monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itself a
pleasure. A forced limitation of effort offered a justification of
homely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience would hardly
have allowed him to remain in such obscurity while his powers were
unimpeded. Hence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obliged
to accompany Humphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would
amuse his companion with sketches of Parisian life and character, and
so while away the time.
On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in the
direction of Yeobright's place of work. He was busily chopping away
at the furze, a long row of faggots which stretched downward from his
position representing the labour of the day. He did not observe her
approach, and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent of
song. It shocked her. To see him there, a poor afflicted man, earning
money by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her to tears; but
to hear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation which,
however satisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educated
lady-wife, wounded her through. Unconscious of her presence, he still
went on singing:--
"Le point du jour
À nos bosquets rend toute leur parure;
Flore est plus belle à son retour;
L'oiseau reprend doux chant d'amour;
Tout célèbre dans la nature
Le point du jour.
"Le point du jour
Cause parfois, cause douleur extrême;
Que l'espace des nuits est court
Pour le berger brûlant d'amour,
Forcé de quitter ce qu'il aime
Au point du jour!"
It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much about
social failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept in
sick despair at thought of the blasting effect upon her own life of
that mood and condition in him. Then she came forward.
"I would starve rather than do it!" she exclaimed vehemently. "And
you can sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!"
"Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving," he
said gently. He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, and
took her hand. "Why do you speak in such a strange way? It is only a
little old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris, and now
just applies to my life with you. Has your love for me all died,
then, because my appearance is no longer that of a fine gentleman?"
"Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it may make me
not love you."
"Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk of doing that?"
"Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won't give in to mine when
I wish you to leave off this shameful labour. Is there anything you
dislike in me that you act so contrarily to my wishes? I am your
wife, and why will you not listen? Yes, I am your wife indeed!"
"I know what that tone means."
"What tone?"
"The tone in which you said, 'Your wife indeed.' It meant, 'Your wife,
worse luck.'"
"It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. A woman may have
reason, though she is not without heart, and if I felt 'worse luck,'
it was no ignoble feeling--it was only too natural. There, you see
that at any rate I do not attempt untruths. Do you remember how,
before we were married, I warned you that I had not good wifely
qualities?"
"You mock me to say that now. On that point at least the only noble
course would be to hold your tongue, for you are still queen of me,
Eustacia, though I may no longer be king of you."
"You are my husband. Does not that content you?"
"Not unless you are my wife without regret."
"I cannot answer you. I remember saying that I should be a serious
matter on your hands."
"Yes, I saw that."
"Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would have seen any
such thing; you are too severe upon me, Clym--I don't like your
speaking so at all."
"Well, I married you in spite of it, and don't regret doing so. How
cold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was
a warmer heart than yours."
"Yes, I fear we are cooling--I see it as well as you," she sighed
mournfully. "And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never
tired of contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could have
thought then that by this time my eyes would not seem so very bright
to yours, nor your lips so very sweet to mine? Two months--is it
possible? Yes, 'tis too true!"
"You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that's a hopeful
sign."
"No. I don't sigh for that. There are other things for me to sigh
for, or any other woman in my place."
"That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste an
unfortunate man?"
"Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity as
much as you. As much?--I think I deserve it more. For you can sing!
It would be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such a
cloud as this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would
astonish and confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you
felt careless about your own affliction, you might have refrained from
singing out of sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such a
position I would curse rather than sing."
Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm. "Now, don't you suppose, my
inexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion,
against the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam and
smoke of that sort than you have ever heard of. But the more I see of
life the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly great
in its greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small
in mine of furze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessings
vouchsafed to us are not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any
great hardship when they are taken away? So I sing to pass the time.
Have you indeed lost all tenderness for me, that you begrudge me a
few cheerful moments?"
"I have still some tenderness left for you."
"Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies with
good fortune!"
"I cannot listen to this, Clym--it will end bitterly," she said in a
broken voice. "I will go home."
III
She Goes Out to Battle against Depression
A few days later, before the month of August had expired, Eustacia
and Yeobright sat together at their early dinner. Eustacia's manner
had become of late almost apathetic. There was a forlorn look about
her beautiful eyes which, whether she deserved it or not, would have
excited pity in the breast of anyone who had known her during the full
flush of her love for Clym. The feelings of husband and wife varied,
in some measure, inversely with their positions. Clym, the afflicted
man, was cheerful; and he even tried to comfort her, who had never
felt a moment of physical suffering in her whole life.
"Come, brighten up, dearest; we shall be all right again. Some day
perhaps I shall see as well as ever. And I solemnly promise that I'll
leave off cutting furze as soon as I have the power to do anything
better. You cannot seriously wish me to stay idling at home all day?"
"But it is so dreadful--a furze-cutter! and you a man who have lived
about the world, and speak French, and German, and who are fit for
what is so much better than this."
"I suppose when you first saw me and heard about me I was wrapped in
a sort of golden halo to your eyes--a man who knew glorious things,
and had mixed in brilliant scenes--in short, an adorable, delightful,
distracting hero?"
"Yes," she said, sobbing.
"And now I am a poor fellow in brown leather."
"Don't taunt me. But enough of this. I will not be depressed any
more. I am going from home this afternoon, unless you greatly object.
There is to be a village picnic--a gipsying, they call it--at East
Egdon, and I shall go."
"To dance?"
"Why not? You can sing."
"Well, well, as you will. Must I come to fetch you?"
"If you return soon enough from your work. But do not inconvenience
yourself about it. I know the way home, and the heath has no terror
for me."
"And can you cling to gaiety so eagerly as to walk all the way to a
village festival in search of it?"
"Now, you don't like my going alone! Clym, you are not jealous?"
"No. But I would come with you if it could give you any pleasure;
though, as things stand, perhaps you have too much of me already.
Still, I somehow wish that you did not want to go. Yes, perhaps I
am jealous; and who could be jealous with more reason than I, a
half-blind man, over such a woman as you?"
"Don't think like it. Let me go, and don't take all my spirits away!"
"I would rather lose all my own, my sweet wife. Go and do whatever
you like. Who can forbid your indulgence in any whim? You have all
my heart yet, I believe; and because you bear with me, who am in truth
a drag upon you, I owe you thanks. Yes, go alone and shine. As for
me, I will stick to my doom. At that kind of meeting people would
shun me. My hook and gloves are like the St. Lazarus rattle of the
leper, warning the world to get out of the way of a sight that would
sadden them." He kissed her, put on his leggings, and went out.
When he was gone she rested her head upon her hands and said to
herself, "Two wasted lives--his and mine. And I am come to this! Will
it drive me out of my mind?"
She cast about for any possible course which offered the least
improvement on the existing state of things, and could find none. She
imagined how all those Budmouth ones who should learn what had become
of her would say, "Look at the girl for whom nobody was good enough!"
To Eustacia the situation seemed such a mockery of her hopes that
death appeared the only door of relief if the satire of Heaven should
go much further.
Suddenly she aroused herself and exclaimed, "But I'll shake it off.
Yes, I WILL shake it off! No one shall know my suffering. I'll be
bitterly merry, and ironically gay, and I'll laugh in derision. And
I'll begin by going to this dance on the green."
She ascended to her bedroom and dressed herself with scrupulous
care. To an onlooker her beauty would have made her feelings almost
seem reasonable. The gloomy corner into which accident as much as
indiscretion had brought this woman might have led even a moderate
partisan to feel that she had cogent reasons for asking the Supreme
Power by what right a being of such exquisite finish had been placed
in circumstances calculated to make of her charms a curse rather than
a blessing.
It was five in the afternoon when she came out from the house ready
for her walk. There was material enough in the picture for twenty new
conquests. The rebellious sadness that was rather too apparent when
she sat indoors without a bonnet was cloaked and softened by her
outdoor attire, which always had a sort of nebulousness about it,
devoid of harsh edges anywhere; so that her face looked from its
environment as from a cloud, with no noticeable lines of demarcation
between flesh and clothes. The heat of the day had scarcely declined
as yet, and she went along the sunny hills at a leisurely pace, there
being ample time for her idle expedition. Tall ferns buried her in
their leafage whenever her path lay through them, which now formed
miniature forests, though not one stem of them would remain to bud
the next year.
The site chosen for the village festivity was one of the lawn-like
oases which were occasionally, yet not often, met with on the plateaux
of the heath district. The brakes of furze and fern terminated
abruptly round the margin, and the grass was unbroken. A green
cattle-track skirted the spot, without, however, emerging from
the screen of fern, and this path Eustacia followed, in order to
reconnoitre the group before joining it. The lusty notes of the
East Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and she now beheld
the musicians themselves, sitting in a blue waggon with red wheels
scrubbed as bright as new, and arched with sticks, to which boughs
and flowers were tied. In front of this was the grand central dance
of fifteen or twenty couples, flanked by minor dances of inferior
individuals whose gyrations were not always in strict keeping with
the tune.
The young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a flush on
their faces footed it to the girls, who, with the excitement and the
exercise, blushed deeper than the pink of their numerous ribbons.
Fair ones with long curls, fair ones with short curls, fair ones
with love-locks, fair ones with braids, flew round and round; and
a beholder might well have wondered how such a prepossessing set
of young women of like size, age, and disposition, could have been
collected together where there were only one or two villages to choose
from. In the background was one happy man dancing by himself, with
closed eyes, totally oblivious of all the rest. A fire was burning
under a pollard thorn a few paces off, over which three kettles hung
in a row. Hard by was a table where elderly dames prepared tea, but
Eustacia looked among them in vain for the cattle-dealer's wife who
had suggested that she should come, and had promised to obtain a
courteous welcome for her.
This unexpected absence of the only local resident whom Eustacia knew
considerably damaged her scheme for an afternoon of reckless gaiety.
Joining in became a matter of difficulty, notwithstanding that, were
she to advance, cheerful dames would come forward with cups of tea
and make much of her as a stranger of superior grace and knowledge
to themselves. Having watched the company through the figures of two
dances, she decided to walk a little further, to a cottage where she
might get some refreshment, and then return homeward in the shady time
of evening.
This she did; and by the time that she retraced her steps towards the
scene of the gipsying, which it was necessary to repass on her way
to Alderworth, the sun was going down. The air was now so still that
she could hear the band afar off, and it seemed to be playing with
more spirit, if that were possible, than when she had come away. On
reaching the hill the sun had quite disappeared; but this made little
difference either to Eustacia or to the revellers, for a round yellow
moon was rising before her, though its rays had not yet outmastered
those from the west. The dance was going on just the same, but
strangers had arrived and formed a ring around the figure, so that
Eustacia could stand among these without a chance of being recognized.
A whole village-full of sensuous emotion, scattered abroad all the
year long, surged here in a focus for an hour. The forty hearts of
those waving couples were beating as they had not done since, twelve
months before, they had come together in similar jollity. For the
time paganism was revived in their hearts, the pride of life was all
in all, and they adored none other than themselves.
How many of those impassioned but temporary embraces were destined to
become perpetual was possibly the wonder of some of those who indulged
in them, as well as of Eustacia who looked on. She began to envy
those pirouetters, to hunger for the hope and happiness which the
fascination of the dance seemed to engender within them. Desperately
fond of dancing herself, one of Eustacia's expectations of Paris
had been the opportunity it might afford her of indulgence in this
favourite pastime. Unhappily, that expectation was now extinct within
her for ever.
Whilst she abstractedly watched them spinning and fluctuating in the
increasing moonlight she suddenly heard her name whispered by a voice
over her shoulder. Turning in surprise, she beheld at her elbow one
whose presence instantly caused her to flush to the temples.
It was Wildeve. Till this moment he had not met her eye since the
morning of his marriage, when she had been loitering in the church,
and had startled him by lifting her veil and coming forward to
sign the register as witness. Yet why the sight of him should have
instigated that sudden rush of blood she could not tell.
Before she could speak he whispered, "Do you like dancing as much as
ever?"
"I think I do," she replied in a low voice.
"Will you dance with me?"
"It would be a great change for me; but will it not seem strange?"
"What strangeness can there be in relations dancing together?"
"Ah--yes, relations. Perhaps none."
"Still, if you don't like to be seen, pull down your veil; though
there is not much risk of being known by this light. Lots of
strangers are here."
She did as he suggested; and the act was a tacit acknowledgment that
she accepted his offer.
Wildeve gave her his arm and took her down on the outside of the ring
to the bottom of the dance, which they entered. In two minutes more
they were involved in the figure and began working their way upwards
to the top. Till they had advanced halfway thither Eustacia wished
more than once that she had not yielded to his request; from the
middle to the top she felt that, since she had come out to seek
pleasure, she was only doing a natural thing to obtain it. Fairly
launched into the ceaseless glides and whirls which their new position
as top couple opened up to them, Eustacia's pulses began to move too
quickly for long rumination of any kind.
Through the length of five-and-twenty couples they threaded their
giddy way, and a new vitality entered her form. The pale ray of
evening lent a fascination to the experience. There is a certain
degree and tone of light which tends to disturb the equilibrium of
the senses, and to promote dangerously the tenderer moods; added to
movement, it drives the emotions to rankness, the reason becoming
sleepy and unperceiving in inverse proportion; and this light fell now
upon these two from the disc of the moon. All the dancing girls felt
the symptoms, but Eustacia most of all. The grass under their feet
became trodden away, and the hard beaten surface of the sod, when
viewed aslant towards the moonlight, shone like a polished table.
The air became quite still, the flag above the waggon which held the
musicians clung to the pole, and the players appeared only in outline
against the sky; except when the circular mouths of the trombone,
ophicleide, and French horn gleamed out like huge eyes from the shade
of their figures. The pretty dresses of the maids lost their subtler
day colours and showed more or less of a misty white. Eustacia floated
round and round on Wildeve's arm, her face rapt and statuesque; her
soul had passed away from and forgotten her features, which were left
empty and quiescent, as they always are when feeling goes beyond their
register.
How near she was to Wildeve! it was terrible to think of. She could
feel his breathing, and he, of course, could feel hers. How badly
she had treated him! yet, here they were treading one measure. The
enchantment of the dance surprised her. A clear line of difference
divided like a tangible fence her experience within this maze of
motion from her experience without it. Her beginning to dance had
been like a change of atmosphere; outside, she had been steeped in
arctic frigidity by comparison with the tropical sensations here. She
had entered the dance from the troubled hours of her late life as one
might enter a brilliant chamber after a night walk in a wood. Wildeve
by himself would have been merely an agitation; Wildeve added to the
dance, and the moonlight, and the secrecy, began to be a delight.
Whether his personality supplied the greater part of this sweetly
compounded feeling, or whether the dance and the scene weighed
the more therein, was a nice point upon which Eustacia herself was
entirely in a cloud.
People began to say "Who are they?" but no invidious inquiries were
made. Had Eustacia mingled with the other girls in their ordinary
daily walks the case would have been different: here she was not
inconvenienced by excessive inspection, for all were wrought to their
brightest grace by the occasion. Like the planet Mercury surrounded
by the lustre of sunset, her permanent brilliancy passed without much
notice in the temporary glory of the situation.
As for Wildeve, his feelings are easy to guess. Obstacles were a
ripening sun to his love, and he was at this moment in a delirium of
exquisite misery. To clasp as his for five minutes what was another
man's through all the rest of the year was a kind of thing he of
all men could appreciate. He had long since begun to sigh again
for Eustacia; indeed, it may be asserted that signing the marriage
register with Thomasin was the natural signal to his heart to return
to its first quarters, and that the extra complication of Eustacia's
marriage was the one addition required to make that return compulsory.
Thus, for different reasons, what was to the rest an exhilarating
movement was to these two a riding upon the whirlwind. The dance had
come like an irresistible attack upon whatever sense of social order
there was in their minds, to drive them back into old paths which were
now doubly irregular. Through three dances in succession they spun
their way; and then, fatigued with the incessant motion, Eustacia
turned to quit the circle in which she had already remained too long.
Wildeve led her to a grassy mound a few yards distant, where she
sat down, her partner standing beside her. From the time that he
addressed her at the beginning of the dance till now they had not
exchanged a word.
"The dance and the walking have tired you?" he said tenderly.
"No; not greatly."
"It is strange that we should have met here of all places, after
missing each other so long."
"We have missed because we tried to miss, I suppose."
"Yes. But you began that proceeding--by breaking a promise."
"It is scarcely worth while to talk of that now. We have formed other
ties since then--you no less than I."
"I am sorry to hear that your husband is ill."
"He is not ill--only incapacitated."
"Yes: that is what I mean. I sincerely sympathize with you in your
trouble. Fate has treated you cruelly."
She was silent awhile. "Have you heard that he has chosen to work as
a furze-cutter?" she said in a low, mournful voice.
"It has been mentioned to me," answered Wildeve hesitatingly. "But I
hardly believed it."
"It is true. What do you think of me as a furze-cutter's wife?"
"I think the same as ever of you, Eustacia. Nothing of that sort can
degrade you: you ennoble the occupation of your husband."
"I wish I could feel it."
"Is there any chance of Mr. Yeobright getting better?"
"He thinks so. I doubt it."
"I was quite surprised to hear that he had taken a cottage. I
thought, in common with other people, that he would have taken you
off to a home in Paris immediately after you had married him. 'What
a gay, bright future she has before her!' I thought. He will, I
suppose, return there with you, if his sight gets strong again?"
Observing that she did not reply he regarded her more closely. She
was almost weeping. Images of a future never to be enjoyed, the
revived sense of her bitter disappointment, the picture of the
neighbours' suspended ridicule which was raised by Wildeve's words,
had been too much for proud Eustacia's equanimity.
Wildeve could hardly control his own too forward feelings when he saw
her silent perturbation. But he affected not to notice this, and she
soon recovered her calmness.
"You do not intend to walk home by yourself?" he asked.
"O yes," said Eustacia. "What could hurt me on this heath, who have
nothing?"
"By diverging a little I can make my way home the same as yours. I
shall be glad to keep you company as far as Throope Corner." Seeing
that Eustacia sat on in hesitation he added, "Perhaps you think it
unwise to be seen in the same road with me after the events of last
summer?"
"Indeed I think no such thing," she said haughtily. "I shall accept
whose company I choose, for all that may be said by the miserable
inhabitants of Egdon."
"Then let us walk on--if you are ready. Our nearest way is towards
that holly-bush with the dark shadow that you see down there."
Eustacia arose, and walked beside him in the direction signified,
brushing her way over the damping heath and fern, and followed by the
strains of the merrymakers, who still kept up the dance. The moon had
now waxed bright and silvery, but the heath was proof against such
illumination, and there was to be observed the striking scene of a
dark, rayless tract of country under an atmosphere charged from its
zenith to its extremities with whitest light. To an eye above them
their two faces would have appeared amid the expanse like two pearls
on a table of ebony.
On this account the irregularities of the path were not visible, and
Wildeve occasionally stumbled; whilst Eustacia found it necessary
to perform some graceful feats of balancing whenever a small tuft
of heather or root of furze protruded itself through the grass of
the narrow track and entangled her feet. At these junctures in her
progress a hand was invariably stretched forward to steady her,
holding her firmly until smooth ground was again reached, when the
hand was again withdrawn to a respectful distance.
They performed the journey for the most part in silence, and drew
near to Throope Corner, a few hundred yards from which a short path
branched away to Eustacia's house. By degrees they discerned coming
towards them a pair of human figures, apparently of the male sex.
When they came a little nearer Eustacia broke the silence by saying,
"One of those men is my husband. He promised to come to meet me."
"And the other is my greatest enemy," said Wildeve.
"It looks like Diggory Venn."
"That is the man."
"It is an awkward meeting," said she; "but such is my fortune. He
knows too much about me, unless he could know more, and so prove
to himself that what he now knows counts for nothing. Well, let it
be: you must deliver me up to them."
"You will think twice before you direct me to do that. Here is a man
who has not forgotten an item in our meetings at Rainbarrow: he is in
company with your husband. Which of them, seeing us together here,
will believe that our meeting and dancing at the gipsy-party was by
chance?"
"Very well," she whispered gloomily. "Leave me before they come up."
Wildeve bade her a tender farewell, and plunged across the fern and
furze, Eustacia slowly walking on. In two or three minutes she met
her husband and his companion.
"My journey ends here for tonight, reddleman," said Yeobright as soon
as he perceived her. "I turn back with this lady. Good night."
"Good night, Mr. Yeobright," said Venn. "I hope to see you better
soon."
The moonlight shone directly upon Venn's face as he spoke, and
revealed all its lines to Eustacia. He was looking suspiciously at
her. That Venn's keen eye had discerned what Yeobright's feeble
vision had not--a man in the act of withdrawing from Eustacia's
side--was within the limits of the probable.
If Eustacia had been able to follow the reddleman she would soon have
found striking confirmation of her thought. No sooner had Clym given
her his arm and led her off the scene than the reddleman turned
back from the beaten track towards East Egdon, whither he had been
strolling merely to accompany Clym in his walk, Diggory's van being
again in the neighbourhood. Stretching out his long legs, he crossed
the pathless portion of the heath somewhat in the direction which
Wildeve had taken. Only a man accustomed to nocturnal rambles could
at this hour have descended those shaggy slopes with Venn's velocity
without falling headlong into a pit, or snapping off his leg by
jamming his foot into some rabbit burrow. But Venn went on without
much inconvenience to himself, and the course of his scamper was
towards the Quiet Woman Inn. This place he reached in about half an
hour, and he was well aware that no person who had been near Throope
Corner when he started could have got down here before him.
The lonely inn was not yet closed, though scarcely an individual was
there, the business done being chiefly with travellers who passed the
inn on long journeys, and these had now gone on their way. Venn went
to the public room, called for a mug of ale, and inquired of the maid
in an indifferent tone if Mr. Wildeve was at home.
Thomasin sat in an inner room and heard Venn's voice. When customers
were present she seldom showed herself, owing to her inherent dislike
for the business; but perceiving that no one else was there tonight
she came out.
"He is not at home yet, Diggory," she said pleasantly. "But I
expected him sooner. He has been to East Egdon to buy a horse."
"Did he wear a light wideawake?"
"Yes."
"Then I saw him at Throope Corner, leading one home," said Venn drily.
"A beauty, with a white face and a mane as black as night. He will
soon be here, no doubt." Rising and looking for a moment at the pure,
sweet face of Thomasin, over which a shadow of sadness had passed
since the time when he had last seen her, he ventured to add, "Mr.
Wildeve seems to be often away at this time."
"O yes," cried Thomasin in what was intended to be a tone of gaiety.
"Husbands will play the truant, you know. I wish you could tell me of
some secret plan that would help me to keep him home at my will in
the evenings."
"I will consider if I know of one," replied Venn in that same light
tone which meant no lightness. And then he bowed in a manner of his
own invention and moved to go. Thomasin offered him her hand; and
without a sigh, though with food for many, the reddleman went out.
When Wildeve returned, a quarter of an hour later, Thomasin said
simply, and in the abashed manner usual with her now, "Where is the
horse, Damon?"
"O, I have not bought it, after all. The man asks too much."
"But somebody saw you at Throope Corner leading it home--a beauty,
with a white face and a mane as black as night."
"Ah!" said Wildeve, fixing his eyes upon her; "who told you that?"
"Venn the reddleman."
The expression of Wildeve's face became curiously condensed. "That
is a mistake--it must have been some one else," he said slowly and
testily, for he perceived that Venn's countermoves had begun again.
IV
Rough Coercion Is Employed
Those words of Thomasin, which seemed so little, but meant so much,
remained in the ears of Diggory Venn: "Help me to keep him home in the
evenings."
On this occasion Venn had arrived on Egdon Heath only to cross to the
other side: he had no further connection with the interests of the
Yeobright family, and he had a business of his own to attend to. Yet
he suddenly began to feel himself drifting into the old track of
manoeuvring on Thomasin's account.
He sat in his van and considered. From Thomasin's words and manner
he had plainly gathered that Wildeve neglected her. For whom could
he neglect her if not for Eustacia? Yet it was scarcely credible
that things had come to such a head as to indicate that Eustacia
systematically encouraged him. Venn resolved to reconnoitre somewhat
carefully the lonely road which led along the vale from Wildeve's
dwelling to Clym's house at Alderworth.
At this time, as had been seen, Wildeve was quite innocent of any
predetermined act of intrigue, and except at the dance on the green
he had not once met Eustacia since her marriage. But that the spirit
of intrigue was in him had been shown by a recent romantic habit of
his: a habit of going out after dark and strolling towards Alderworth,
there looking at the moon and stars, looking at Eustacia's house, and
walking back at leisure.
Accordingly, when watching on the night after the festival, the
reddleman saw him ascend by the little path, lean over the front gate
of Clym's garden, sigh, and turn to go back again. It was plain that
Wildeve's intrigue was rather ideal than real. Venn retreated before
him down the hill to a place where the path was merely a deep groove
between the heather; here he mysteriously bent over the ground for a
few minutes, and retired. When Wildeve came on to that spot his ankle
was caught by something, and he fell headlong.
As soon as he had recovered the power of respiration he sat up and
listened. There was not a sound in the gloom beyond the spiritless
stir of the summer wind. Feeling about for the obstacle which had
flung him down, he discovered that two tufts of heath had been tied
together across the path, forming a loop, which to a traveller was
certain overthrow. Wildeve pulled off the string that bound them, and
went on with tolerable quickness. On reaching home he found the cord
to be of a reddish colour. It was just what he had expected.
Although his weaknesses were not specially those akin to physical
fear, the species of _coup-de-Jarnac_ from one he knew too well
troubled the mind of Wildeve. But his movements were unaltered
thereby. A night or two later he again went along the vale to
Alderworth, taking the precaution of keeping out of any path. The
sense that he was watched, that craft was employed to circumvent his
errant tastes, added piquancy to a journey so entirely sentimental,
so long as the danger was of no fearful sort. He imagined that Venn
and Mrs. Yeobright were in league, and felt that there was a certain
legitimacy in combating such a coalition.
The heath tonight appeared to be totally deserted: and Wildeve, after
looking over Eustacia's garden gate for some little time, with a cigar
in his mouth, was tempted by the fascination that emotional smuggling
had for his nature to advance towards the window, which was not quite
closed, the blind being only partly drawn down. He could see into
the room, and Eustacia was sitting there alone. Wildeve contemplated
her for a minute, and then retreating into the heath beat the ferns
lightly, whereupon moths flew out alarmed. Securing one, he returned
to the window, and holding the moth to the chink, opened his hand.
The moth made towards the candle upon Eustacia's table, hovered round
it two or three times, and flew into the flame.
Eustacia started up. This had been a well-known signal in old times
when Wildeve had used to come secretly wooing to Mistover. She at
once knew that Wildeve was outside, but before she could consider
what to do her husband came in from upstairs. Eustacia's face burnt
crimson at the unexpected collision of incidents, and filled it with
an animation that it too frequently lacked.
"You have a very high colour, dearest," said Yeobright, when he came
close enough to see it. "Your appearance would be no worse if it were
always so."
"I am warm," said Eustacia. "I think I will go into the air for a few
minutes."
"Shall I go with you?"
"O no. I am only going to the gate."
She arose, but before she had time to get out of the room a loud
rapping began upon the front door.
"I'll go--I'll go," said Eustacia in an unusually quick tone for her;
and she glanced eagerly towards the window whence the moth had flown;
but nothing appeared there.
"You had better not at this time of the evening," he said. Clym
stepped before her into the passage, and Eustacia waited, her
somnolent manner covering her inner heat and agitation.
She listened, and Clym opened the door. No words were uttered
outside, and presently he closed it and came back, saying, "Nobody
was there. I wonder what that could have meant?"
He was left to wonder during the rest of the evening, for no
explanation offered itself, and Eustacia said nothing, the additional
fact that she knew of only adding more mystery to the performance.
Meanwhile a little drama had been acted outside which saved Eustacia
from all possibility of compromising herself that evening at least.
While Wildeve had been preparing his moth-signal another person had
come behind him up to the gate. This man, who carried a gun in his
hand, looked on for a moment at the other's operation by the window,
walked up to the house, knocked at the door, and then vanished round
the corner and over the hedge.
"Damn him!" said Wildeve. "He has been watching me again."
As his signal had been rendered futile by this uproarious rapping
Wildeve withdrew, passed out at the gate, and walked quickly down
the path without thinking of anything except getting away unnoticed.
Half-way down the hill the path ran near a knot of stunted hollies,
which in the general darkness of the scene stood as the pupil in a
black eye. When Wildeve reached this point a report startled his ear,
and a few spent gunshots fell among the leaves around him.
There was no doubt that he himself was the cause of that gun's
discharge; and he rushed into the clump of hollies, beating the bushes
furiously with his stick; but nobody was there. This attack was a
more serious matter than the last, and it was some time before Wildeve
recovered his equanimity. A new and most unpleasant system of menace
had begun, and the intent appeared to be to do him grievous bodily
harm. Wildeve had looked upon Venn's first attempt as a species of
horse-play, which the reddleman had indulged in for want of knowing
better; but now the boundary line was passed which divides the
annoying from the perilous.
Had Wildeve known how thoroughly in earnest Venn had become he
might have been still more alarmed. The reddleman had been almost
exasperated by the sight of Wildeve outside Clym's house, and he was
prepared to go to any lengths short of absolutely shooting him, to
terrify the young innkeeper out of his recalcitrant impulses. The
doubtful legitimacy of such rough coercion did not disturb the mind
of Venn. It troubles few such minds in such cases, and sometimes this
is not to be regretted. From the impeachment of Strafford to Farmer
Lynch's short way with the scamps of Virginia there have been many
triumphs of justice which are mockeries of law.
About half a mile below Clym's secluded dwelling lay a hamlet where
lived one of the two constables who preserved the peace in the parish
of Alderworth, and Wildeve went straight to the constable's cottage.
Almost the first thing that he saw on opening the door was the
constable's truncheon hanging to a nail, as if to assure him that
here were the means to his purpose. On inquiry, however, of the
constable's wife he learnt that the constable was not at home.
Wildeve said he would wait.
The minutes ticked on, and the constable did not arrive. Wildeve
cooled down from his state of high indignation to a restless
dissatisfaction with himself, the scene, the constable's wife, and the
whole set of circumstances. He arose and left the house. Altogether,
the experience of that evening had had a cooling, not to say a
chilling, effect on misdirected tenderness, and Wildeve was in no
mood to ramble again to Alderworth after nightfall in hope of a stray
glance from Eustacia.
Thus far the reddleman had been tolerably successful in his rude
contrivances for keeping down Wildeve's inclination to rove in the
evening. He had nipped in the bud the possible meeting between
Eustacia and her old lover this very night. But he had not
anticipated that the tendency of his action would be to divert
Wildeve's movement rather than to stop it. The gambling with the
guineas had not conduced to make him a welcome guest to Clym; but to
call upon his wife's relative was natural, and he was determined to
see Eustacia. It was necessary to choose some less untoward hour than
ten o'clock at night. "Since it is unsafe to go in the evening," he
said, "I'll go by day."
Meanwhile Venn had left the heath and gone to call upon Mrs.
Yeobright, with whom he had been on friendly terms since she had
learnt what a providential countermove he had made towards the
restitution of the family guineas. She wondered at the lateness of
his call, but had no objection to see him.
He gave her a full account of Clym's affliction, and of the state in
which he was living; then, referring to Thomasin, touched gently upon
the apparent sadness of her days. "Now, ma'am, depend upon it," he
said, "you couldn't do a better thing for either of 'em than to make
yourself at home in their houses, even if there should be a little
rebuff at first."
"Both she and my son disobeyed me in marrying; therefore I have
no interest in their households. Their troubles are of their own
making." Mrs. Yeobright tried to speak severely; but the account of
her son's state had moved her more than she cared to show.
"Your visits would make Wildeve walk straighter than he is inclined
to do, and might prevent unhappiness down the heath."
"What do you mean?"
"I saw something tonight out there which I didn't like at all. I wish
your son's house and Mr. Wildeve's were a hundred miles apart instead
of four or five."
"Then there WAS an understanding between him and Clym's wife when he
made a fool of Thomasin!"
"We'll hope there's no understanding now."
"And our hope will probably be very vain. O Clym! O Thomasin!"
"There's no harm done yet. In fact, I've persuaded Wildeve to mind
his own business."
"How?"
"O, not by talking--by a plan of mine called the silent system."
"I hope you'll succeed."
"I shall if you help me by calling and making friends with your son.
You'll have a chance then of using your eyes."
"Well, since it has come to this," said Mrs. Yeobright sadly, "I will
own to you, reddleman, that I thought of going. I should be much
happier if we were reconciled. The marriage is unalterable, my life
may be cut short, and I should wish to die in peace. He is my only
son; and since sons are made of such stuff I am not sorry I have no
other. As for Thomasin, I never expected much from her; and she has
not disappointed me. But I forgave her long ago; and I forgive him
now. I'll go."
At this very time of the reddleman's conversation with Mrs. Yeobright
at Blooms-End another conversation on the same subject was languidly
proceeding at Alderworth.
All the day Clym had borne himself as if his mind were too full of its
own matter to allow him to care about outward things, and his words
now showed what had occupied his thoughts. It was just after the
mysterious knocking that he began the theme. "Since I have been away
today, Eustacia, I have considered that something must be done to heal
up this ghastly breach between my dear mother and myself. It troubles
me."
"What do you propose to do?" said Eustacia abstractedly, for she could
not clear away from her the excitement caused by Wildeve's recent
manoeuvre for an interview.
"You seem to take a very mild interest in what I propose, little or
much," said Clym, with tolerable warmth.
"You mistake me," she answered, reviving at his reproach. "I am only
thinking."
"What of?"
"Partly of that moth whose skeleton is getting burnt up in the wick of
the candle," she said slowly. "But you know I always take an interest
in what you say."
"Very well, dear. Then I think I must go and call upon her."... He
went on with tender feeling: "It is a thing I am not at all too proud
to do, and only a fear that I might irritate her has kept me away so
long. But I must do something. It is wrong in me to allow this sort
of thing to go on."
"What have you to blame yourself about?"
"She is getting old, and her life is lonely, and I am her only son."
"She has Thomasin."
"Thomasin is not her daughter; and if she were that would not excuse
me. But this is beside the point. I have made up my mind to go to
her, and all I wish to ask you is whether you will do your best to
help me--that is, forget the past; and if she shows her willingness to
be reconciled, meet her half-way by welcoming her to our house, or by
accepting a welcome to hers?"
At first Eustacia closed her lips as if she would rather do anything
on the whole globe than what he suggested. But the lines of her mouth
softened with thought, though not so far as they might have softened;
and she said, "I will put nothing in your way; but after what has
passed it is asking too much that I go and make advances."
"You never distinctly told me what did pass between you."
"I could not do it then, nor can I now. Sometimes more bitterness is
sown in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life; and that
may be the case here." She paused a few moments, and added, "If you
had never returned to your native place, Clym, what a blessing it
would have been for you!... It has altered the destinies of--"
"Three people."
"Five," Eustacia thought; but she kept that in.
V
The Journey across the Heath
Thursday, the thirty-first of August, was one of a series of days
during which snug houses were stifling, and when cool draughts were
treats; when cracks appeared in clayey gardens, and were called
"earthquakes" by apprehensive children; when loose spokes were
discovered in the wheels of carts and carriages; and when stinging
insects haunted the air, the earth, and every drop of water that was
to be found.
In Mrs. Yeobright's garden large-leaved plants of a tender kind
flagged by ten o'clock in the morning; rhubarb bent downward at
eleven; and even stiff cabbages were limp by noon.
It was about eleven o'clock on this day that Mrs. Yeobright started
across the heath towards her son's house, to do her best in getting
reconciled with him and Eustacia, in conformity with her words to the
reddleman. She had hoped to be well advanced in her walk before the
heat of the day was at its highest, but after setting out she found
that this was not to be done. The sun had branded the whole heath
with his mark, even the purple heath-flowers having put on a brownness
under the dry blazes of the few preceding days. Every valley was
filled with air like that of a kiln, and the clean quartz sand of
the winter water-courses, which formed summer paths, had undergone
a species of incineration since the drought had set in.
In cool, fresh weather Mrs. Yeobright would have found no
inconvenience in walking to Alderworth, but the present torrid attack
made the journey a heavy undertaking for a woman past middle age; and
at the end of the third mile she wished that she had hired Fairway to
drive her a portion at least of the distance. But from the point at
which she had arrived it was as easy to reach Clym's house as to get
home again. So she went on, the air around her pulsating silently,
and oppressing the earth with lassitude. She looked at the sky
overhead, and saw that the sapphirine hue of the zenith in spring and
early summer had been replaced by a metallic violet.
Occasionally she came to a spot where independent worlds of ephemerons
were passing their time in mad carousal, some in the air, some on the
hot ground and vegetation, some in the tepid and stringy water of a
nearly dried pool. All the shallower ponds had decreased to a vaporous
mud amid which the maggoty shapes of innumerable obscure creatures
could be indistinctly seen, heaving and wallowing with enjoyment.
Being a woman not disinclined to philosophize she sometimes sat down
under her umbrella to rest and to watch their happiness, for a certain
hopefulness as to the result of her visit gave ease to her mind, and
between important thoughts left it free to dwell on any infinitesimal
matter which caught her eyes.
Mrs. Yeobright had never before been to her son's house, and its
exact position was unknown to her. She tried one ascending path and
another, and found that they led her astray. Retracing her steps, she
came again to an open level, where she perceived at a distance a man
at work. She went towards him and inquired the way.
The labourer pointed out the direction, and added, "Do you see that
furze-cutter, ma'am, going up that footpath yond?"
Mrs. Yeobright strained her eyes, and at last said that she did
perceive him.
"Well, if you follow him you can make no mistake. He's going to the
same place, ma'am."
She followed the figure indicated. He appeared of a russet hue,
not more distinguishable from the scene around him than the green
caterpillar from the leaf it feeds on. His progress when actually
walking was more rapid than Mrs. Yeobright's; but she was enabled to
keep at an equable distance from him by his habit of stopping whenever
he came to a brake of brambles, where he paused awhile. On coming
in her turn to each of these spots she found half a dozen long limp
brambles which he had cut from the bush during his halt and laid
out straight beside the path. They were evidently intended for
furze-faggot bonds which he meant to collect on his return.
The silent being who thus occupied himself seemed to be of no more
account in life than an insect. He appeared as a mere parasite of the
heath, fretting its surface in his daily labour as a moth frets a
garment, entirely engrossed with its products, having no knowledge of
anything in the world but fern, furze, heath, lichens, and moss.
The furze-cutter was so absorbed in the business of his journey that
he never turned his head; and his leather-legged and gauntleted form
at length became to her as nothing more than a moving handpost to
show her the way. Suddenly she was attracted to his individuality
by observing peculiarities in his walk. It was a gait she had seen
somewhere before; and the gait revealed the man to her, as the gait
of Ahimaaz in the distant plain made him known to the watchman of the
king. "His walk is exactly as my husband's used to be," she said; and
then the thought burst upon her that the furze-cutter was her son.
She was scarcely able to familiarize herself with this strange
reality. She had been told that Clym was in the habit of cutting
furze, but she had supposed that he occupied himself with the labour
only at odd times, by way of useful pastime; yet she now beheld him as
a furze-cutter and nothing more--wearing the regulation dress of the
craft, and thinking the regulation thoughts, to judge by his motions.
Planning a dozen hasty schemes for at once preserving him and Eustacia
from this mode of life she throbbingly followed the way, and saw him
enter his own door.
At one side of Clym's house was a knoll, and on the top of the knoll a
clump of fir trees so highly thrust up into the sky that their foliage
from a distance appeared as a black spot in the air above the crown
of the hill. On reaching this place Mrs. Yeobright felt distressingly
agitated, weary, and unwell. She ascended, and sat down under their
shade to recover herself, and to consider how best to break the ground
with Eustacia, so as not to irritate a woman underneath whose apparent
indolence lurked passions even stronger and more active than her own.
The trees beneath which she sat were singularly battered, rude, and
wild, and for a few minutes Mrs. Yeobright dismissed thoughts of her
own storm-broken and exhausted state to contemplate theirs. Not a
bough in the nine trees which composed the group but was splintered,
lopped, and distorted by the fierce weather that there held them at
its mercy whenever it prevailed. Some were blasted and split as if by
lightning, black stains as from fire marking their sides, while the
ground at their feet was strewn with dead fir-needles and heaps of
cones blown down in the gales of past years. The place was called the
Devil's Bellows, and it was only necessary to come there on a March or
November night to discover the forcible reasons for that name. On the
present heated afternoon, when no perceptible wind was blowing, the
trees kept up a perpetual moan which one could hardly believe to be
caused by the air.
Here she sat for twenty minutes or more ere she could summon
resolution to go down to the door, her courage being lowered to zero
by her physical lassitude. To any other person than a mother it might
have seemed a little humiliating that she, the elder of the two women,
should be the first to make advances. But Mrs. Yeobright had well
considered all that, and she only thought how best to make her visit
appear to Eustacia not abject but wise.
From her elevated position the exhausted woman could perceive the roof
of the house below, and the garden and the whole enclosure of the
little domicile. And now, at the moment of rising, she saw a second
man approaching the gate. His manner was peculiar, hesitating, and
not that of a person come on business or by invitation. He surveyed
the house with interest, and then walked round and scanned the outer
boundary of the garden, as one might have done had it been the
birthplace of Shakespeare, the prison of Mary Stuart, or the Château
of Hougomont. After passing round and again reaching the gate he went
in. Mrs. Yeobright was vexed at this, having reckoned on finding her
son and his wife by themselves; but a moment's thought showed her that
the presence of an acquaintance would take off the awkwardness of
her first appearance in the house, by confining the talk to general
matters until she had begun to feel comfortable with them. She came
down the hill to the gate, and looked into the hot garden.
There lay the cat asleep on the bare gravel of the path, as if beds,
rugs, and carpets were unendurable. The leaves of the hollyhocks hung
like half-closed umbrellas, the sap almost simmered in the stems, and
foliage with a smooth surface glared like metallic mirrors. A small
apple tree, of the sort called Ratheripe, grew just inside the gate,
the only one which throve in the garden, by reason of the lightness of
the soil; and among the fallen apples on the ground beneath were wasps
rolling drunk with the juice, or creeping about the little caves in
each fruit which they had eaten out before stupefied by its sweetness.
By the door lay Clym's furze-hook and the last handful of faggot-bonds
she had seen him gather; they had plainly been thrown down there as he
entered the house.
VI
A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian
Wildeve, as has been stated, was determined to visit Eustacia boldly,
by day, and on the easy terms of a relation, since the reddleman
had spied out and spoilt his walks to her by night. The spell that
she had thrown over him in the moonlight dance made it impossible
for a man having no strong puritanic force within him to keep away
altogether. He merely calculated on meeting her and her husband in an
ordinary manner, chatting a little while, and leaving again. Every
outward sign was to be conventional; but the one great fact would be
there to satisfy him: he would see her. He did not even desire Clym's
absence, since it was just possible that Eustacia might resent any
situation which could compromise her dignity as a wife, whatever the
state of her heart towards him. Women were often so.
He went accordingly; and it happened that the time of his arrival
coincided with that of Mrs. Yeobright's pause on the hill near the
house. When he had looked round the premises in the manner she had
noticed he went and knocked at the door. There was a few minutes'
interval, and then the key turned in the lock, the door opened, and
Eustacia herself confronted him.
Nobody could have imagined from her bearing now that here stood the
woman who had joined with him in the impassioned dance of the week
before, unless indeed he could have penetrated below the surface and
gauged the real depth of that still stream.
"I hope you reached home safely?" said Wildeve.
"O yes," she carelessly returned.
"And were you not tired the next day? I feared you might be."
"I was rather. You need not speak low--nobody will overhear us. My
small servant is gone on an errand to the village."
"Then Clym is not at home?"
"Yes, he is."
"O! I thought that perhaps you had locked the door because you were
alone and were afraid of tramps."
"No--here is my husband."
They had been standing in the entry. Closing the front door and
turning the key, as before, she threw open the door of the adjoining
room and asked him to walk in. Wildeve entered, the room appearing to
be empty; but as soon as he had advanced a few steps he started. On
the hearth rug lay Clym asleep. Beside him were the leggings, thick
boots, leather gloves, and sleeve-waistcoat in which he worked.
"You may go in; you will not disturb him," she said, following behind.
"My reason for fastening the door is that he may not be intruded upon
by any chance comer while lying here, if I should be in the garden or
upstairs."
"Why is he sleeping there?" said Wildeve in low tones.
"He is very weary. He went out at half-past four this morning, and
has been working ever since. He cuts furze because it is the only
thing he can do that does not put any strain upon his poor eyes." The
contrast between the sleeper's appearance and Wildeve's at this moment
was painfully apparent to Eustacia, Wildeve being elegantly dressed
in a new summer suit and light hat; and she continued: "Ah! you don't
know how differently he appeared when I first met him, though it is
such a little while ago. His hands were as white and soft as mine;
and look at them now, how rough and brown they are! His complexion is
by nature fair, and that rusty look he has now, all of a colour with
his leather clothes, is caused by the burning of the sun."
"Why does he go out at all?" Wildeve whispered.
"Because he hates to be idle; though what he earns doesn't add much
to our exchequer. However, he says that when people are living upon
their capital they must keep down current expenses by turning a penny
where they can."
"The fates have not been kind to you, Eustacia Yeobright."
"I have nothing to thank them for."
"Nor has he--except for their one great gift to him."
"What's that?"
Wildeve looked her in the eyes.
Eustacia blushed for the first time that day. "Well, I am a
questionable gift," she said quietly. "I thought you meant the gift
of content--which he has, and I have not."
"I can understand content in such a case--though how the outward
situation can attract him puzzles me."
"That's because you don't know him. He's an enthusiast about ideas,
and careless about outward things. He often reminds me of the Apostle
Paul."
"I am glad to hear that he's so grand in character as that."
"Yes; but the worst of it is that though Paul was excellent as a man
in the Bible he would hardly have done in real life."
Their voices had instinctively dropped lower, though at first they
had taken no particular care to avoid awakening Clym. "Well, if that
means that your marriage is a misfortune to you, you know who is to
blame," said Wildeve.
"The marriage is no misfortune in itself," she retorted with some
little petulance. "It is simply the accident which has happened since
that has been the cause of my ruin. I have certainly got thistles for
figs in a worldly sense, but how could I tell what time would bring
forth?"
"Sometimes, Eustacia, I think it is a judgment upon you. You rightly
belonged to me, you know; and I had no idea of losing you."
"No, it was not my fault! Two could not belong to you; and remember
that, before I was aware, you turned aside to another woman. It was
cruel levity in you to do that. I never dreamt of playing such a game
on my side till you began it on yours."
"I meant nothing by it," replied Wildeve. "It was a mere interlude.
Men are given to the trick of having a passing fancy for somebody else
in the midst of a permanent love, which reasserts itself afterwards
just as before. On account of your rebellious manner to me I was
tempted to go further than I should have done; and when you still
would keep playing the same tantalizing part I went further still,
and married her." Turning and looking again at the unconscious form
of Clym, he murmured, "I am afraid that you don't value your prize,
Clym... He ought to be happier than I in one thing at least. He may
know what it is to come down in the world, and to be afflicted with a
great personal calamity; but he probably doesn't know what it is to
lose the woman he loved."
"He is not ungrateful for winning her," whispered Eustacia, "and in
that respect he is a good man. Many women would go far for such a
husband. But do I desire unreasonably much in wanting what is called
life--music, poetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing
that are going on in the great arteries of the world? That was the
shape of my youthful dream; but I did not get it. Yet I thought I saw
the way to it in my Clym."
"And you only married him on that account?"
"There you mistake me. I married him because I loved him, but I won't
say that I didn't love him partly because I thought I saw a promise of
that life in him."
"You have dropped into your old mournful key."
"But I am not going to be depressed," she cried perversely. "I began
a new system by going to that dance, and I mean to stick to it. Clym
can sing merrily; why should not I?"
Wildeve looked thoughtfully at her. "It is easier to say you will
sing than to do it; though if I could I would encourage you in your
attempt. But as life means nothing to me, without one thing which is
now impossible, you will forgive me for not being able to encourage
you."
"Damon, what is the matter with you, that you speak like that?" she
asked, raising her deep shady eyes to his.
"That's a thing I shall never tell plainly; and perhaps if I try to
tell you in riddles you will not care to guess them."
Eustacia remained silent for a minute, and she said, "We are in a
strange relationship today. You mince matters to an uncommon nicety.
You mean, Damon, that you still love me. Well, that gives me sorrow,
for I am not made so entirely happy by my marriage that I am willing
to spurn you for the information, as I ought to do. But we have said
too much about this. Do you mean to wait until my husband is awake?"
"I thought to speak to him; but it is unnecessary. Eustacia, if I
offend you by not forgetting you, you are right to mention it; but do
not talk of spurning."
She did not reply, and they stood looking musingly at Clym as he slept
on in that profound sleep which is the result of physical labour
carried on in circumstances that wake no nervous fear.
"God, how I envy him that sweet sleep!" said Wildeve. "I have not
slept like that since I was a boy--years and years ago."
While they thus watched him a click at the gate was audible, and a
knock came to the door. Eustacia went to a window and looked out.
Her countenance changed. First she became crimson, and then the red
subsided till it even partially left her lips.
"Shall I go away?" said Wildeve, standing up.
"I hardly know."
"Who is it?"
"Mrs. Yeobright. O, what she said to me that day! I cannot understand
this visit--what does she mean? And she suspects that past time of
ours."
"I am in your hands. If you think she had better not see me here I'll
go into the next room."
"Well, yes: go."
Wildeve at once withdrew; but before he had been half a minute in the
adjoining apartment Eustacia came after him.
"No," she said, "we won't have any of this. If she comes in she must
see you--and think if she likes there's something wrong! But how can I
open the door to her, when she dislikes me--wishes to see not me, but
her son? I won't open the door!"
Mrs. Yeobright knocked again more loudly.
"Her knocking will, in all likelihood, awaken him," continued
Eustacia, "and then he will let her in himself. Ah--listen."
They could hear Clym moving in the other room, as if disturbed by the
knocking, and he uttered the word "Mother."
"Yes--he is awake--he will go to the door," she said, with a breath of
relief. "Come this way. I have a bad name with her, and you must not
be seen. Thus I am obliged to act by stealth, not because I do ill,
but because others are pleased to say so."
By this time she had taken him to the back door, which was open,
disclosing a path leading down the garden. "Now, one word, Damon,"
she remarked as he stepped forth. "This is your first visit here; let
it be your last. We have been hot lovers in our time, but it won't do
now. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Wildeve. "I have had all I came for, and I am
satisfied."
"What was it?"
"A sight of you. Upon my eternal honour I came for no more."
Wildeve kissed his hand to the beautiful girl he addressed, and passed
into the garden, where she watched him down the path, over the stile
at the end, and into the ferns outside, which brushed his hips as he
went along till he became lost in their thickets. When he had quite
gone she slowly turned, and directed her attention to the interior of
the house.
But it was possible that her presence might not be desired by Clym
and his mother at this moment of their first meeting, or that it
would be superfluous. At all events, she was in no hurry to meet Mrs.
Yeobright. She resolved to wait till Clym came to look for her, and
glided back into the garden. Here she idly occupied herself for a few
minutes, till finding no notice was taken of her she retraced her
steps through the house to the front, where she listened for voices
in the parlour. But hearing none she opened the door and went in. To
her astonishment Clym lay precisely as Wildeve and herself had left
him, his sleep apparently unbroken. He had been disturbed and made to
dream and murmur by the knocking, but he had not awakened. Eustacia
hastened to the door, and in spite of her reluctance to open it to a
woman who had spoken of her so bitterly, she unfastened it and looked
out. Nobody was to be seen. There, by the scraper, lay Clym's hook
and the handful of faggot-bonds he had brought home; in front of her
were the empty path, the garden gate standing slightly ajar; and,
beyond, the great valley of purple heath thrilling silently in the
sun. Mrs. Yeobright was gone.
Clym's mother was at this time following a path which lay hidden from
Eustacia by a shoulder of the hill. Her walk thither from the garden
gate had been hasty and determined, as of a woman who was now no less
anxious to escape from the scene than she had previously been to enter
it. Her eyes were fixed on the ground; within her two sights were
graven--that of Clym's hook and brambles at the door, and that of a
woman's face at a window. Her lips trembled, becoming unnaturally
thin as she murmured, "'Tis too much--Clym, how can he bear to do it!
He is at home; and yet he lets her shut the door against me!"
In her anxiety to get out of the direct view of the house she had
diverged from the straightest path homeward, and while looking about
to regain it she came upon a little boy gathering whortleberries in
a hollow. The boy was Johnny Nunsuch, who had been Eustacia's stoker
at the bonfire, and, with the tendency of a minute body to gravitate
towards a greater, he began hovering round Mrs. Yeobright as soon as
she appeared, and trotted on beside her without perceptible
consciousness of his act.
Mrs. Yeobright spoke to him as one in a mesmeric sleep. "'Tis a long
way home, my child, and we shall not get there till evening."
"I shall," said her small companion. "I am going to play marnels
afore supper, and we go to supper at six o'clock, because father comes
home. Does your father come home at six too?"
"No, he never comes; nor my son either, nor anybody."
"What have made you so down? Have you seen a ooser?"
"I have seen what's worse--a woman's face looking at me through a
window-pane."
"Is that a bad sight?"
"Yes. It is always a bad sight to see a woman looking out at a weary
wayfarer and not letting her in."
"Once when I went to Throope Great Pond to catch effets I seed myself
looking up at myself, and I was frightened and jumped back like
anything."
..."If they had only shown signs of meeting my advances half-way how
well it might have been done! But there is no chance. Shut out! She
must have set him against me. Can there be beautiful bodies without
hearts inside? I think so. I would not have done it against a
neighbour's cat on such a fiery day as this!"
"What is it you say?"
"Never again--never! Not even if they send for me!"
"You must be a very curious woman to talk like that."
"O no, not at all," she said, returning to the boy's prattle. "Most
people who grow up and have children talk as I do. When you grow up
your mother will talk as I do too."
"I hope she won't; because 'tis very bad to talk nonsense."
"Yes, child; it is nonsense, I suppose. Are you not nearly spent with
the heat?"
"Yes. But not so much as you be."
"How do you know?"
"Your face is white and wet, and your head is hanging-down-like."
"Ah, I am exhausted from inside."
"Why do you, every time you take a step, go like this?" The child in
speaking gave to his motion the jerk and limp of an invalid.
"Because I have a burden which is more than I can bear."
The little boy remained silently pondering, and they tottered on side
by side until more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when Mrs.
Yeobright, whose weakness plainly increased, said to him, "I must sit
down here to rest."
When she had seated herself he looked long in her face and said, "How
funny you draw your breath--like a lamb when you drive him till he's
nearly done for. Do you always draw your breath like that?"
"Not always." Her voice was now so low as to be scarcely above a
whisper.
"You will go to sleep there, I suppose, won't you? You have shut your
eyes already."
"No. I shall not sleep much till--another day, and then I hope to have
a long, long one--very long. Now can you tell me if Rimsmoor Pond is
dry this summer?"
"Rimsmoor Pond is, but Oker's Pool isn't, because he is deep, and is
never dry--'tis just over there."
"Is the water clear?"
"Yes, middling--except where the heath-croppers walk into it."
"Then, take this, and go as fast as you can, and dip me up the
clearest you can find. I am very faint."
She drew from the small willow reticule that she carried in her hand
an old-fashioned china teacup without a handle; it was one of half a
dozen of the same sort lying in the reticule, which she had preserved
ever since her childhood, and had brought with her today as a small
present for Clym and Eustacia.
The boy started on his errand, and soon came back with the water,
such as it was. Mrs. Yeobright attempted to drink, but it was so warm
as to give her nausea, and she threw it away. Afterwards she still
remained sitting, with her eyes closed.
The boy waited, played near her, caught several of the little brown
butterflies which abounded, and then said as he waited again, "I like
going on better than biding still. Will you soon start again?"
"I don't know."
"I wish I might go on by myself," he resumed, fearing, apparently,
that he was to be pressed into some unpleasant service. "Do you want
me any more, please?"
Mrs. Yeobright made no reply.
"What shall I tell mother?" the boy continued.
"Tell her you have seen a broken-hearted woman cast off by her son."
Before quite leaving her he threw upon her face a wistful glance,
as if he had misgivings on the generosity of forsaking her thus. He
gazed into her face in a vague, wondering manner, like that of one
examining some strange old manuscript the key to whose characters
is undiscoverable. He was not so young as to be absolutely without
a sense that sympathy was demanded, he was not old enough to be
free from the terror felt in childhood at beholding misery in adult
quarters hitherto deemed impregnable; and whether she were in a
position to cause trouble or to suffer from it, whether she and her
affliction were something to pity or something to fear, it was beyond
him to decide. He lowered his eyes and went on without another word.
Before he had gone half a mile he had forgotten all about her, except
that she was a woman who had sat down to rest.
Mrs. Yeobright's exertions, physical and emotional, had well-nigh
prostrated her; but she continued to creep along in short stages with
long breaks between. The sun had now got far to the west of south and
stood directly in her face, like some merciless incendiary, brand
in hand, waiting to consume her. With the departure of the boy
all visible animation disappeared from the landscape, though the
intermittent husky notes of the male grasshoppers from every tuft of
furze were enough to show that amid the prostration of the larger
animal species an unseen insect world was busy in all the fullness of
life.
In two hours she reached a slope about three-fourths the whole
distance from Alderworth to her own home, where a little patch of
shepherd's-thyme intruded upon the path; and she sat down upon the
perfumed mat it formed there. In front of her a colony of ants had
established a thoroughfare across the way, where they toiled a
never-ending and heavy-laden throng. To look down upon them was like
observing a city street from the top of a tower. She remembered
that this bustle of ants had been in progress for years at the same
spot--doubtless those of the old times were the ancestors of these
which walked there now. She leant back to obtain more thorough rest,
and the soft eastern portion of the sky was as great a relief to her
eyes as the thyme was to her head. While she looked a heron arose on
that side of the sky and flew on with his face towards the sun. He
had come dripping wet from some pool in the valleys, and as he flew
the edges and lining of his wings, his thighs, and his breast were
so caught by the bright sunbeams that he appeared as if formed of
burnished silver. Up in the zenith where he was seemed a free and
happy place, away from all contact with the earthly ball to which she
was pinioned; and she wished that she could arise uncrushed from its
surface and fly as he flew then.
But, being a mother, it was inevitable that she should soon cease to
ruminate upon her own condition. Had the track of her next thought
been marked by a streak in the air, like the path of a meteor,
it would have shown a direction contrary to the heron's, and have
descended to the eastward upon the roof of Clym's house.
VII
The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends
He in the meantime had aroused himself from sleep, sat up, and looked
around. Eustacia was sitting in a chair hard by him, and though she
held a book in her hand she had not looked into it for some time.
"Well, indeed!" said Clym, brushing his eyes with his hands. "How
soundly I have slept! I have had such a tremendous dream, too: one I
shall never forget."
"I thought you had been dreaming," said she.
"Yes. It was about my mother. I dreamt that I took you to her house
to make up differences, and when we got there we couldn't get in,
though she kept on crying to us for help. However, dreams are dreams.
What o'clock is it, Eustacia?"
"Half-past two."
"So late, is it? I didn't mean to stay so long. By the time I have
had something to eat it will be after three."
"Ann is not come back from the village, and I thought I would let you
sleep on till she returned."
Clym went to the window and looked out. Presently he said, musingly,
"Week after week passes, and yet mother does not come. I thought I
should have heard something from her long before this."
Misgiving, regret, fear, resolution, ran their swift course of
expression in Eustacia's dark eyes. She was face to face with a
monstrous difficulty, and she resolved to get free of it by
postponement.
"I must certainly go to Blooms-End soon," he continued, "and I think
I had better go alone." He picked up his leggings and gloves, threw
them down again, and added, "As dinner will be so late today I will
not go back to the heath, but work in the garden till the evening, and
then, when it will be cooler, I will walk to Blooms-End. I am quite
sure that if I make a little advance mother will be willing to forget
all. It will be rather late before I can get home, as I shall not be
able to do the distance either way in less than an hour and a half.
But you will not mind for one evening, dear? What are you thinking of
to make you look so abstracted?"
"I cannot tell you," she said heavily. "I wish we didn't live here,
Clym. The world seems all wrong in this place."
"Well--if we make it so. I wonder if Thomasin has been to Blooms-End
lately. I hope so. But probably not, as she is, I believe, expecting
to be confined in a month or so. I wish I had thought of that before.
Poor mother must indeed be very lonely."
"I don't like you going tonight."
"Why not tonight?"
"Something may be said which will terribly injure me."
"My mother is not vindictive," said Clym, his colour faintly rising.
"But I wish you would not go," Eustacia repeated in a low tone. "If
you agree not to go tonight I promise to go by myself to her house
tomorrow, and make it up with her, and wait till you fetch me."
"Why do you want to do that at this particular time, when at every
previous time that I have proposed it you have refused?"
"I cannot explain further than that I should like to see her alone
before you go," she answered, with an impatient move of her head, and
looking at him with an anxiety more frequently seen upon those of a
sanguine temperament than upon such as herself.
"Well, it is very odd that just when I had decided to go myself you
should want to do what I proposed long ago. If I wait for you to go
tomorrow another day will be lost; and I know I shall be unable to
rest another night without having been. I want to get this settled,
and will. You must visit her afterwards: it will be all the same."
"I could even go with you now?"
"You could scarcely walk there and back without a longer rest than I
shall take. No, not tonight, Eustacia."
"Let it be as you say, then," she replied in the quiet way of one who,
though willing to ward off evil consequences by a mild effort, would
let events fall out as they might sooner than wrestle hard to direct
them.
Clym then went into the garden; and a thoughtful languor stole over
Eustacia for the remainder of the afternoon, which her husband
attributed to the heat of the weather.
In the evening he set out on the journey. Although the heat of summer
was yet intense the days had considerably shortened, and before he had
advanced a mile on his way all the heath purples, browns, and greens
had merged in a uniform dress without airiness or graduation, and
broken only by touches of white where the little heaps of clean quartz
sand showed the entrance to a rabbit-burrow, or where the white flints
of a footpath lay like a thread over the slopes. In almost every
one of the isolated and stunted thorns which grew here and there a
night-hawk revealed his presence by whirring like the clack of a mill
as long as he could hold his breath, then stopping, flapping his
wings, wheeling round the bush, alighting, and after a silent interval
of listening beginning to whirr again. At each brushing of Clym's
feet white miller-moths flew into the air just high enough to catch
upon their dusty wings the mellowed light from the west, which now
shone across the depressions and levels of the ground without falling
thereon to light them up.
Yeobright walked on amid this quiet scene with a hope that all would
soon be well. Three miles on he came to a spot where a soft perfume
was wafted across his path, and he stood still for a moment to
inhale the familiar scent. It was the place at which, four hours
earlier, his mother had sat down exhausted on the knoll covered with
shepherd's-thyme. While he stood a sound between a breathing and a
moan suddenly reached his ears.
He looked to where the sound came from; but nothing appeared there
save the verge of the hillock stretching against the sky in an
unbroken line. He moved a few steps in that direction, and now he
perceived a recumbent figure almost close at his feet.
Among the different possibilities as to the person's individuality
there did not for a moment occur to Yeobright that it might be one of
his own family. Sometimes furze-cutters had been known to sleep out of
doors at these times, to save a long journey homeward and back again;
but Clym remembered the moan and looked closer, and saw that the form
was feminine; and a distress came over him like cold air from a cave.
But he was not absolutely certain that the woman was his mother till
he stooped and beheld her face, pallid, and with closed eyes.
His breath went, as it were, out of his body and the cry of anguish
which would have escaped him died upon his lips. During the momentary
interval that elapsed before he became conscious that something must
be done all sense of time and place left him, and it seemed as if
he and his mother were as when he was a child with her many years
ago on this heath at hours similar to the present. Then he awoke to
activity; and bending yet lower he found that she still breathed, and
that her breath though feeble was regular, except when disturbed by an
occasional gasp.
"O, what is it! Mother, are you very ill--you are not dying?" he
cried, pressing his lips to her face. "I am your Clym. How did you
come here? What does it all mean?"
At that moment the chasm in their lives which his love for Eustacia
had caused was not remembered by Yeobright, and to him the present
joined continuously with that friendly past that had been their
experience before the division.
She moved her lips, appeared to know him, but could not speak; and
then Clym strove to consider how best to move her, as it would be
necessary to get her away from the spot before the dews were intense.
He was able-bodied, and his mother was thin. He clasped his arms
round her, lifted her a little, and said, "Does that hurt you?"
She shook her head, and he lifted her up; then, at a slow pace, went
onward with his load. The air was now completely cool; but whenever
he passed over a sandy patch of ground uncarpeted with vegetation
there was reflected from its surface into his face the heat which it
had imbibed during the day. At the beginning of his undertaking he
had thought but little of the distance which yet would have to be
traversed before Blooms-End could be reached; but though he had slept
that afternoon he soon began to feel the weight of his burden. Thus
he proceeded, like Aeneas with his father; the bats circling round his
head, nightjars flapping their wings within a yard of his face, and
not a human being within call.
While he was yet nearly a mile from the house his mother exhibited
signs of restlessness under the constraint of being borne along, as
if his arms were irksome to her. He lowered her upon his knees and
looked around. The point they had now reached, though far from any
road, was not more than a mile from the Blooms-End cottages occupied
by Fairway, Sam, Humphrey, and the Cantles. Moreover, fifty yards off
stood a hut, built of clods and covered with thin turves, but now
entirely disused. The simple outline of the lonely shed was visible,
and thither he determined to direct his steps. As soon as he arrived
he laid her down carefully by the entrance, and then ran and cut with
his pocketknife an armful of the dryest fern. Spreading this within
the shed, which was entirely open on one side, he placed his mother
thereon; then he ran with all his might towards the dwelling of
Fairway.
Nearly a quarter of an hour had passed, disturbed only by the broken
breathing of the sufferer, when moving figures began to animate the
line between heath and sky. In a few moments Clym arrived with
Fairway, Humphrey, and Susan Nunsuch; Olly Dowden, who had chanced
to be at Fairway's, Christian and Grandfer Cantle following
helter-skelter behind. They had brought a lantern and matches, water,
a pillow, and a few other articles which had occurred to their minds
in the hurry of the moment. Sam had been despatched back again for
brandy, and a boy brought Fairway's pony, upon which he rode off to
the nearest medical man, with directions to call at Wildeve's on his
way, and inform Thomasin that her aunt was unwell.
Sam and the brandy soon arrived, and it was administered by the light
of the lantern; after which she became sufficiently conscious to
signify by signs that something was wrong with her foot. Olly Dowden
at length understood her meaning, and examined the foot indicated. It
was swollen and red. Even as they watched the red began to assume a
more livid colour, in the midst of which appeared a scarlet speck,
smaller than a pea, and it was found to consist of a drop of blood,
which rose above the smooth flesh of her ankle in a hemisphere.
"I know what it is," cried Sam. "She has been stung by an adder!"
"Yes," said Clym instantly. "I remember when I was a child seeing
just such a bite. O, my poor mother!"
"It was my father who was bit," said Sam. "And there's only one way
to cure it. You must rub the place with the fat of other adders, and
the only way to get that is by frying them. That's what they did for
him."
"'Tis an old remedy," said Clym distrustfully, "and I have doubts
about it. But we can do nothing else till the doctor comes."
"'Tis a sure cure," said Olly Dowden, with emphasis. "I've used it
when I used to go out nursing."
"Then we must pray for daylight, to catch them," said Clym gloomily.
"I will see what I can do," said Sam.
He took a green hazel which he had used as a walking-stick, split it
at the end, inserted a small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand
went out into the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and
despatched Susan Nunsuch for a frying-pan. Before she had returned
Sam came in with three adders, one briskly coiling and uncoiling in
the cleft of the stick, and the other two hanging dead across it.
"I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he ought to be,"
said Sam. "These limp ones are two I killed today at work; but as
they don't die till the sun goes down they can't be very stale meat."
The live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in
its small black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its
back seemed to intensify with indignation. Mrs. Yeobright saw the
creature, and the creature saw her: she quivered throughout, and
averted her eyes.
"Look at that," murmured Christian Cantle. "Neighbours, how do we
know but that something of the old serpent in God's garden, that gied
the apple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and
snakes still? Look at his eye--for all the world like a villainous
sort of black currant. 'Tis to be hoped he can't ill-wish us! There's
folks in heath who've been overlooked already. I will never kill
another adder as long as I live."
"Well, 'tis right to be afeard of things, if folks can't help it,"
said Grandfer Cantle. "'Twould have saved me many a brave danger in
my time."
"I fancy I heard something outside the shed," said Christian. "I wish
troubles would come in the daytime, for then a man could show his
courage, and hardly beg for mercy of the most broomstick old woman he
should see, if he was a brave man, and able to run out of her sight!"
"Even such an ignorant fellow as I should know better than do that,"
said Sam.
"Well, there's calamities where we least expect it, whether or no.
Neighbours, if Mrs. Yeobright were to die, d'ye think we should be
took up and tried for the manslaughter of a woman?"
"No, they couldn't bring it in as that," said Sam, "unless they could
prove we had been poachers at some time of our lives. But she'll
fetch round."
"Now, if I had been stung by ten adders I should hardly have lost a
day's work for't," said Grandfer Cantle. "Such is my spirit when I
am on my mettle. But perhaps 'tis natural in a man trained for war.
Yes, I've gone through a good deal; but nothing ever came amiss to me
after I joined the Locals in four." He shook his head and smiled at a
mental picture of himself in uniform. "I was always first in the most
galliantest scrapes in my younger days!"
"I suppose that was because they always used to put the biggest fool
afore," said Fairway from the fire, beside which he knelt, blowing it
with his breath.
"D'ye think so, Timothy?" said Grandfer Cantle, coming forward to
Fairway's side with sudden depression in his face. "Then a man may
feel for years that he is good solid company, and be wrong about
himself after all?"
"Never mind that question, Grandfer. Stir your stumps and get some
more sticks. 'Tis very nonsense of an old man to prattle so when life
and death's in mangling."
"Yes, yes," said Grandfer Cantle, with melancholy conviction. "Well,
this is a bad night altogether for them that have done well in their
time; and if I were ever such a dab at the hautboy or tenor-viol, I
shouldn't have the heart to play tunes upon 'em now."
Susan now arrived with the frying-pan, when the live adder was killed
and the heads of the three taken off. The remainders, being cut into
lengths and split open, were tossed into the pan, which began hissing
and crackling over the fire. Soon a rill of clear oil trickled from
the carcases, whereupon Clym dipped the corner of his handkerchief
into the liquid and anointed the wound.
VIII
Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil
In the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth,
had become considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The
consequences which might result from Clym's discovery that his mother
had been turned from his door that day were likely to be disagreeable,
and this was a quality in events which she hated as much as the
dreadful.
To be left to pass the evening by herself was irksome to her at any
time, and this evening it was more irksome than usual by reason of the
excitements of the past hours. The two visits had stirred her into
restlessness. She was not wrought to any great pitch of uneasiness
by the probability of appearing in an ill light in the discussion
between Clym and his mother, but she was wrought to vexation; and her
slumbering activities were quickened to the extent of wishing that she
had opened the door. She had certainly believed that Clym was awake,
and the excuse would be an honest one as far as it went; but nothing
could save her from censure in refusing to answer at the first knock.
Yet, instead of blaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon
the shoulders of some indistinct, colossal Prince of the World, who
had framed her situation and ruled her lot.
At this time of the year it was pleasanter to walk by night than by
day, and when Clym had been absent about an hour she suddenly resolved
to go out in the direction of Blooms-End, on the chance of meeting
him on his return. When she reached the garden gate she heard wheels
approaching, and looking round beheld her grandfather coming up in his
car.
"I can't stay a minute, thank ye," he answered to her greeting. "I
am driving to East Egdon; but I came round here just to tell you the
news. Perhaps you have heard--about Mr. Wildeve's fortune?"
"No," said Eustacia blankly.
"Well, he has come into a fortune of eleven thousand pounds--uncle
died in Canada, just after hearing that all his family, whom he was
sending home, had gone to the bottom in the _Cassiopeia_; so Wildeve
has come into everything, without in the least expecting it."
Eustacia stood motionless awhile. "How long has he known of this?"
she asked.
"Well, it was known to him this morning early, for I knew it at ten
o'clock, when Charley came back. Now, he is what I call a lucky man.
What a fool you were, Eustacia!"
"In what way?" she said, lifting her eyes in apparent calmness.
"Why, in not sticking to him when you had him."
"Had him, indeed!"
"I did not know there had ever been anything between you till lately;
and, faith, I should have been hot and strong against it if I had
known; but since it seems that there was some sniffing between ye, why
the deuce didn't you stick to him?"
Eustacia made no reply, but she looked as if she could say as much
upon that subject as he if she chose.
"And how is your poor purblind husband?" continued the old man. "Not
a bad fellow either, as far as he goes."
"He is quite well."
"It is a good thing for his cousin what-d'ye-call-her? By George, you
ought to have been in that galley, my girl! Now I must drive on. Do
you want any assistance? What's mine is yours, you know."
"Thank you, grandfather, we are not in want at present," she said
coldly. "Clym cuts furze, but he does it mostly as a useful pastime,
because he can do nothing else."
"He is paid for his pastime, isn't he? Three shillings a hundred, I
heard."
"Clym has money," she said, colouring, "but he likes to earn a
little."
"Very well; good night." And the captain drove on.
When her grandfather was gone Eustacia went on her way mechanically;
but her thoughts were no longer concerning her mother-in-law and Clym.
Wildeve, notwithstanding his complaints against his fate, had been
seized upon by destiny and placed in the sunshine once more. Eleven
thousand pounds! From every Egdon point of view he was a rich man. In
Eustacia's eyes, too, it was an ample sum--one sufficient to supply
those wants of hers which had been stigmatized by Clym in his more
austere moods as vain and luxurious. Though she was no lover of
money she loved what money could bring; and the new accessories she
imagined around him clothed Wildeve with a great deal of interest. She
recollected now how quietly well-dressed he had been that morning: he
had probably put on his newest suit, regardless of damage by briars
and thorns. And then she thought of his manner towards herself.
"O I see it, I see it," she said. "How much he wishes he had me now,
that he might give me all I desire!"
In recalling the details of his glances and words--at the time
scarcely regarded--it became plain to her how greatly they had been
dictated by his knowledge of this new event. "Had he been a man to
bear a jilt ill-will he would have told me of his good fortune in
crowing tones; instead of doing that he mentioned not a word, in
deference to my misfortunes, and merely implied that he loved me
still, as one superior to him."
Wildeve's silence that day on what had happened to him was just the
kind of behaviour calculated to make an impression on such a woman.
Those delicate touches of good taste were, in fact, one of the strong
points in his demeanour towards the other sex. The peculiarity of
Wildeve was that, while at one time passionate, upbraiding, and
resentful towards a woman, at another he would treat her with
such unparalleled grace as to make previous neglect appear as
no discourtesy, injury as no insult, interference as a delicate
attention, and the ruin of her honour as excess of chivalry. This
man, whose admiration today Eustacia had disregarded, whose good
wishes she had scarcely taken the trouble to accept, whom she had
shown out of the house by the back door, was the possessor of eleven
thousand pounds--a man of fair professional education, and one who
had served his articles with a civil engineer.
So intent was Eustacia upon Wildeve's fortunes that she forgot how
much closer to her own course were those of Clym; and instead of
walking on to meet him at once she sat down upon a stone. She was
disturbed in her reverie by a voice behind, and turning her head
beheld the old lover and fortunate inheritor of wealth immediately
beside her.
She remained sitting, though the fluctuation in her look might have
told any man who knew her so well as Wildeve that she was thinking of
him.
"How did you come here?" she said in her clear low tone. "I thought
you were at home."
"I went on to the village after leaving your garden; and now I have
come back again: that's all. Which way are you walking, may I ask?"
She waved her hand in the direction of Blooms-End. "I am going to meet
my husband. I think I may possibly have got into trouble whilst you
were with me today."
"How could that be?"
"By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright."
"I hope that visit of mine did you no harm."
"None. It was not your fault," she said quietly.
By this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered on
together, without speaking, for two or three minutes; when Eustacia
broke silence by saying, "I assume I must congratulate you."
"On what? O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds, you mean. Well, since
I didn't get something else, I must be content with getting that."
"You seem very indifferent about it. Why didn't you tell me today
when you came?" she said in the tone of a neglected person. "I heard
of it quite by accident."
"I did mean to tell you," said Wildeve. "But I--well, I will speak
frankly--I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your
star was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard
work, as your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune
to you would be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside
him, I could not help feeling too that in many respects he was a
richer man than I."
At this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, "What, would
you exchange with him--your fortune for me?"
"I certainly would," said Wildeve.
"As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change
the subject?"
"Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you
care to hear them. I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds,
keep one thousand as ready money, and with the remaining thousand
travel for a year or so."
"Travel? What a bright idea! Where will you go to?"
"From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. Then
I shall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot
weather comes on. In the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a
plan not yet settled, I shall go to Australia and round to India. By
that time I shall have begun to have had enough of it. Then I shall
probably come back to Paris again, and there I shall stay as long as
I can afford to."
"Back to Paris again," she murmured in a voice that was nearly a sigh.
She had never once told Wildeve of the Parisian desires which Clym's
description had sown in her; yet here was he involuntarily in a
position to gratify them. "You think a good deal of Paris?" she
added.
"Yes. In my opinion it is the central beauty-spot of the world."
"And in mine! And Thomasin will go with you?"
"Yes, if she cares to. She may prefer to stay at home."
"So you will be going about, and I shall be staying here!"
"I suppose you will. But we know whose fault that is."
"I am not blaming you," she said quickly.
"Oh, I thought you were. If ever you SHOULD be inclined to blame me,
think of a certain evening by Rainbarrow, when you promised to meet
me and did not. You sent me a letter; and my heart ached to read that
as I hope yours never will. That was one point of divergence. I then
did something in haste... But she is a good woman, and I will say no
more."
"I know that the blame was on my side that time," said Eustacia. "But
it had not always been so. However, it is my misfortune to be too
sudden in feeling. O, Damon, don't reproach me any more--I can't bear
that."
They went on silently for a distance of two or three miles, when
Eustacia said suddenly, "Haven't you come out of your way, Mr.
Wildeve?"
"My way is anywhere tonight. I will go with you as far as the hill
on which we can see Blooms-End, as it is getting late for you to be
alone."
"Don't trouble. I am not obliged to be out at all. I think I would
rather you did not accompany me further. This sort of thing would
have an odd look if known."
"Very well, I will leave you." He took her hand unexpectedly, and
kissed it--for the first time since her marriage. "What light is that
on the hill?" he added, as it were to hide the caress.
She looked, and saw a flickering firelight proceeding from the open
side of a hovel a little way before them. The hovel, which she had
hitherto always found empty, seemed to be inhabited now.
"Since you have come so far," said Eustacia, "will you see me safely
past that hut? I thought I should have met Clym somewhere about here,
but as he doesn't appear I will hasten on and get to Blooms-End before
he leaves."
They advanced to the turf-shed, and when they got near it the
firelight and the lantern inside showed distinctly enough the form of
a woman reclining on a bed of fern, a group of heath men and women
standing around her. Eustacia did not recognize Mrs. Yeobright in the
reclining figure, nor Clym as one of the standers-by till she came
close. Then she quickly pressed her hand upon Wildeve's arm and
signified to him to come back from the open side of the shed into the
shadow.
"It is my husband and his mother," she whispered in an agitated voice.
"What can it mean? Will you step forward and tell me?"
Wildeve left her side and went to the back wall of the hut. Presently
Eustacia perceived that he was beckoning to her, and she advanced and
joined him.
"It is a serious case," said Wildeve.
From their position they could hear what was proceeding inside.
"I cannot think where she could have been going," said Clym to
some one. "She had evidently walked a long way, but even when she
was able to speak just now she would not tell me where. What do you
really think of her?"
"There is a great deal to fear," was gravely answered, in a voice
which Eustacia recognized as that of the only surgeon in the district.
"She has suffered somewhat from the bite of the adder; but it is
exhaustion which has overpowered her. My impression is that her walk
must have been exceptionally long."
"I used to tell her not to overwalk herself this weather," said Clym,
with distress. "Do you think we did well in using the adder's fat?"
"Well, it is a very ancient remedy--the old remedy of the
viper-catchers, I believe," replied the doctor. "It is mentioned as an
infallible ointment by Hoffman, Mead, and I think the Abbé Fontana.
Undoubtedly it was as good a thing as you could do; though I question
if some other oils would not have been equally efficacious."
"Come here, come here!" was then rapidly said in anxious female tones;
and Clym and the doctor could be heard rushing forward from the back
part of the shed to where Mrs. Yeobright lay.
"Oh, what is it?" whispered Eustacia.
"'Twas Thomasin who spoke," said Wildeve. "Then they have fetched
her. I wonder if I had better go in--yet it might do harm."
For a long time there was utter silence among the group within; and it
was broken at last by Clym saying, in an agonized voice, "O Doctor,
what does it mean?"
The doctor did not reply at once; ultimately he said, "She is sinking
fast. Her heart was previously affected, and physical exhaustion has
dealt the finishing blow."
Then there was a weeping of women, then waiting, then hushed
exclamations, then a strange gasping sound, then a painful stillness.
"It is all over," said the doctor.
Further back in the hut the cotters whispered, "Mrs. Yeobright is
dead."
Almost at the same moment the two watchers observed the form of a
small old-fashioned child entering at the open side of the shed.
Susan Nunsuch, whose boy it was, went forward to the opening and
silently beckoned to him to go back.
"I've got something to tell 'ee, mother," he cried in a shrill tone.
"That woman asleep there walked along with me today; and she said I
was to say that I had seed her, and she was a broken-hearted woman and
cast off by her son, and then I came on home."
A confused sob as from a man was heard within, upon which Eustacia
gasped faintly, "That's Clym--I must go to him--yet dare I do it?
No: come away!"
When they had withdrawn from the neighbourhood of the shed she said
huskily, "I am to blame for this. There is evil in store for me."
"Was she not admitted to your house after all?" Wildeve inquired.
"No; and that's where it all lies! Oh, what shall I do! I shall not
intrude upon them: I shall go straight home. Damon, good-bye! I
cannot speak to you any more now."
They parted company; and when Eustacia had reached the next hill she
looked back. A melancholy procession was wending its way by the light
of the lantern from the hut towards Blooms-End. Wildeve was nowhere to
be seen.
BOOK FIFTH
THE DISCOVERY
I
"Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery"
One evening, about three weeks after the funeral of Mrs. Yeobright,
when the silver face of the moon sent a bundle of beams directly upon
the floor of Clym's house at Alderworth, a woman came forth from
within. She reclined over the garden gate as if to refresh herself
awhile. The pale lunar touches which make beauties of hags lent
divinity to this face, already beautiful.
She had not long been there when a man came up the road and with some
hesitation said to her, "How is he tonight, ma'am, if you please?"
"He is better, though still very unwell, Humphrey," replied Eustacia.
"Is he light-headed, ma'am?"
"No. He is quite sensible now."
"Do he rave about his mother just the same, poor fellow?" continued
Humphrey.
"Just as much, though not quite so wildly," she said in a low voice.
"It was very unfortunate, ma'am, that the boy Johnny should ever ha'
told him his mother's dying words, about her being broken-hearted and
cast off by her son. 'Twas enough to upset any man alive."
Eustacia made no reply beyond that of a slight catch in her breath, as
of one who fain would speak but could not; and Humphrey, declining her
invitation to come in, went away.
Eustacia turned, entered the house, and ascended to the front bedroom,
where a shaded light was burning. In the bed lay Clym, pale, haggard,
wide awake, tossing to one side and to the other, his eyes lit by
a hot light, as if the fire in their pupils were burning up their
substance.
"Is it you, Eustacia?" he said as she sat down.
"Yes, Clym. I have been down to the gate. The moon is shining
beautifully, and there is not a leaf stirring."
"Shining, is it? What's the moon to a man like me? Let it shine--let
anything be, so that I never see another day!... Eustacia, I don't
know where to look: my thoughts go through me like swords. O, if
any man wants to make himself immortal by painting a picture of
wretchedness, let him come here!"
"Why do you say so?"
"I cannot help feeling that I did my best to kill her."
"No, Clym."
"Yes, it was so; it is useless to excuse me! My conduct to her was
too hideous--I made no advances; and she could not bring herself to
forgive me. Now she is dead! If I had only shown myself willing to
make it up with her sooner, and we had been friends, and then she
had died, it wouldn't be so hard to bear. But I never went near her
house, so she never came near mine, and didn't know how welcome she
would have been--that's what troubles me. She did not know I was
going to her house that very night, for she was too insensible to
understand me. If she had only come to see me! I longed that she
would. But it was not to be."
There escaped from Eustacia one of those shivering sighs which used
to shake her like a pestilent blast. She had not yet told.
But Yeobright was too deeply absorbed in the ramblings incidental to
his remorseful state to notice her. During his illness he had been
continually talking thus. Despair had been added to his original
grief by the unfortunate disclosure of the boy who had received the
last words of Mrs. Yeobright--words too bitterly uttered in an hour of
misapprehension. Then his distress had overwhelmed him, and he longed
for death as a field labourer longs for the shade. It was the pitiful
sight of a man standing in the very focus of sorrow. He continually
bewailed his tardy journey to his mother's house, because it was an
error which could never be rectified, and insisted that he must have
been horribly perverted by some fiend not to have thought before that
it was his duty to go to her, since she did not come to him. He would
ask Eustacia to agree with him in his self-condemnation; and when she,
seared inwardly by a secret she dared not tell, declared that she
could not give an opinion, he would say, "That's because you didn't
know my mother's nature. She was always ready to forgive if asked to
do so; but I seemed to her to be as an obstinate child, and that made
her unyielding. Yet not unyielding: she was proud and reserved, no
more... Yes, I can understand why she held out against me so long.
She was waiting for me. I dare say she said a hundred times in her
sorrow, 'What a return he makes for all the sacrifices I have made
for him!' I never went to her! When I set out to visit her it was too
late. To think of that is nearly intolerable!"
Sometimes his condition had been one of utter remorse, unsoftened by
a single tear of pure sorrow: and then he writhed as he lay, fevered
far more by thought than by physical ills. "If I could only get one
assurance that she did not die in a belief that I was resentful," he
said one day when in this mood, "it would be better to think of than
a hope of heaven. But that I cannot do."
"You give yourself up too much to this wearying despair," said
Eustacia. "Other men's mothers have died."
"That doesn't make the loss of mine less. Yet it is less the loss
than the circumstances of the loss. I sinned against her, and on that
account there is no light for me."
"She sinned against you, I think."
"No, she did not. I committed the guilt; and may the whole burden be
upon my head!"
"I think you might consider twice before you say that," Eustacia
replied. "Single men have, no doubt, a right to curse themselves as
much as they please; but men with wives involve two in the doom they
pray down."
"I am in too sorry a state to understand what you are refining on,"
said the wretched man. "Day and night shout at me, 'You have helped
to kill her.' But in loathing myself I may, I own, be unjust to you,
my poor wife. Forgive me for it, Eustacia, for I scarcely know what
I do."
Eustacia was always anxious to avoid the sight of her husband in such
a state as this, which had become as dreadful to her as the trial
scene was to Judas Iscariot. It brought before her eyes the spectre
of a worn-out woman knocking at a door which she would not open; and
she shrank from contemplating it. Yet it was better for Yeobright
himself when he spoke openly of his sharp regret, for in silence he
endured infinitely more, and would sometimes remain so long in a
tense, brooding mood, consuming himself by the gnawing of his thought,
that it was imperatively necessary to make him talk aloud, that his
grief might in some degree expend itself in the effort.
Eustacia had not been long indoors after her look at the moonlight
when a soft footstep came up to the house, and Thomasin was announced
by the woman downstairs.
"Ah, Thomasin! Thank you for coming tonight," said Clym when she
entered the room. "Here am I, you see. Such a wretched spectacle am
I, that I shrink from being seen by a single friend, and almost from
you."
"You must not shrink from me, dear Clym," said Thomasin earnestly, in
that sweet voice of hers which came to a sufferer like fresh air into
a Black Hole. "Nothing in you can ever shock me or drive me away. I
have been here before, but you don't remember it."
"Yes, I do; I am not delirious, Thomasin, nor have I been so at all.
Don't you believe that if they say so. I am only in great misery at
what I have done: and that, with the weakness, makes me seem mad. But
it has not upset my reason. Do you think I should remember all about
my mother's death if I were out of my mind? No such good luck. Two
months and a half, Thomasin, the last of her life, did my poor mother
live alone, distracted and mourning because of me; yet she was
unvisited by me, though I was living only six miles off. Two months
and a half--seventy-five days did the sun rise and set upon her in
that deserted state which a dog didn't deserve! Poor people who had
nothing in common with her would have cared for her, and visited her
had they known her sickness and loneliness; but I, who should have
been all to her, stayed away like a cur. If there is any justice in
God let Him kill me now. He has nearly blinded me, but that is not
enough. If He would only strike me with more pain I would believe in
Him for ever!"
"Hush, hush! O, pray, Clym, don't, don't say it!" implored Thomasin,
affrighted into sobs and tears; while Eustacia, at the other side of
the room, though her pale face remained calm, writhed in her chair.
Clym went on without heeding his cousin.
"But I am not worth receiving further proof even of Heaven's
reprobation. Do you think, Thomasin, that she knew me--that she did
not die in that horrid mistaken notion about my not forgiving her,
which I can't tell you how she acquired? If you could only assure me
of that! Do you think so, Eustacia? Do speak to me."
"I think I can assure you that she knew better at last," said
Thomasin. The pallid Eustacia said nothing.
"Why didn't she come to my house? I would have taken her in and
showed her how I loved her in spite of all. But she never came; and I
didn't go to her, and she died on the heath like an animal kicked out,
nobody to help her till it was too late. If you could have seen her,
Thomasin, as I saw her--a poor dying woman, lying in the dark upon the
bare ground, moaning, nobody near, believing she was utterly deserted
by all the world, it would have moved you to anguish, it would have
moved a brute. And this poor woman my mother! No wonder she said to
the child, 'You have seen a broken-hearted woman.' What a state she
must have been brought to, to say that! and who can have done it but
I? It is too dreadful to think of, and I wish I could be punished
more heavily than I am. How long was I what they called out of my
senses?"
"A week, I think."
"And then I became calm."
"Yes, for four days."
"And now I have left off being calm."
"But try to be quiet: please do, and you will soon be strong. If you
could remove that impression from your mind--"
"Yes, yes," he said impatiently. "But I don't want to get strong.
What's the use of my getting well? It would be better for me if I
die, and it would certainly be better for Eustacia. Is Eustacia
there?"
"Yes."
"It would be better for you, Eustacia, if I were to die?"
"Don't press such a question, dear Clym."
"Well, it really is but a shadowy supposition; for unfortunately I am
going to live. I feel myself getting better. Thomasin, how long are
you going to stay at the inn, now that all this money has come to your
husband?"
"Another month or two, probably; until my illness is over. We cannot
get off till then. I think it will be a month or more."
"Yes, yes. Of course. Ah, Cousin Tamsie, you will get over your
trouble--one little month will take you through it, and bring
something to console you; but I shall never get over mine, and no
consolation will come!"
"Clym, you are unjust to yourself. Depend upon it, aunt thought
kindly of you. I know that, if she had lived, you would have been
reconciled with her."
"But she didn't come to see me, though I asked her, before I married,
if she would come. Had she come, or had I gone there, she would never
have died saying, 'I am a broken-hearted woman, cast off by my son.'
My door has always been open to her--a welcome here has always awaited
her. But that she never came to see."
"You had better not talk any more now, Clym," said Eustacia faintly
from the other part of the room, for the scene was growing intolerable
to her.
"Let me talk to you instead for the little time I shall be here,"
Thomasin said soothingly. "Consider what a one-sided way you have of
looking at the matter, Clym. When she said that to the little boy you
had not found her and taken her into your arms; and it might have been
uttered in a moment of bitterness. It was rather like aunt to say
things in haste. She sometimes used to speak so to me. Though she did
not come I am convinced that she thought of coming to see you. Do
you suppose a man's mother could live two or three months without
one forgiving thought? She forgave me; and why should she not have
forgiven you?"
"You laboured to win her round; I did nothing. I, who was going to
teach people the higher secrets of happiness, did not know how to keep
out of that gross misery which the most untaught are wise enough to
avoid."
"How did you get here tonight, Thomasin?" said Eustacia.
"Damon set me down at the end of the lane. He has driven into East
Egdon on business, and he will come and pick me up by-and-by."
Accordingly they soon after heard the noise of wheels. Wildeve had
come, and was waiting outside with his horse and gig.
"Send out and tell him I will be down in two minutes," said Thomasin.
"I will run down myself," said Eustacia.
She went down. Wildeve had alighted, and was standing before the
horse's head when Eustacia opened the door. He did not turn for a
moment, thinking the comer Thomasin. Then he looked, started ever
so little, and said one word: "Well?"
"I have not yet told him," she replied in a whisper.
"Then don't do so till he is well--it will be fatal. You are ill
yourself."
"I am wretched... O Damon," she said, bursting into tears, "I--I can't
tell you how unhappy I am! I can hardly bear this. I can tell nobody
of my trouble--nobody knows of it but you."
"Poor girl!" said Wildeve, visibly affected at her distress, and at
last led on so far as to take her hand. "It is hard, when you have
done nothing to deserve it, that you should have got involved in such
a web as this. You were not made for these sad scenes. I am to blame
most. If I could only have saved you from it all!"
"But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hour
after hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of her
death, and to know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all,
drives me into cold despair. I don't know what to do. Should I tell
him or should I not tell him? I always am asking myself that. O, I
want to tell him; and yet I am afraid. If he find it out he must
surely kill me, for nothing else will be in proportion to his feelings
now. 'Beware the fury of a patient man' sounds day by day in my ears
as I watch him."
"Well, wait till he is better, and trust to chance. And when you
tell, you must only tell part--for his own sake."
"Which part should I keep back?"
Wildeve paused. "That I was in the house at the time," he said in a
low tone.
"Yes; it must be concealed, seeing what has been whispered. How much
easier are hasty actions than speeches that will excuse them!"
"If he were only to die--" Wildeve murmured.
"Do not think of it! I would not buy hope of immunity by so cowardly a
desire even if I hated him. Now I am going up to him again. Thomasin
bade me tell you she would be down in a few minutes. Good-bye."
She returned, and Thomasin soon appeared. When she was seated in the
gig with her husband, and the horse was turning to go off, Wildeve
lifted his eyes to the bedroom windows. Looking from one of them he
could discern a pale, tragic face watching him drive away. It was
Eustacia's.
II
A Lurid Light Breaks In upon a Darkened Understanding
Clym's grief became mitigated by wearing itself out. His strength
returned, and a month after the visit of Thomasin he might have been
seen walking about the garden. Endurance and despair, equanimity and
gloom, the tints of health and the pallor of death, mingled weirdly
in his face. He was now unnaturally silent upon all of the past that
related to his mother; and though Eustacia knew that he was thinking
of it none the less, she was only too glad to escape the topic ever to
bring it up anew. When his mind had been weaker his heart had led him
to speak out; but reason having now somewhat recovered itself he sank
into taciturnity.
One evening when he was thus standing in the garden, abstractedly
spudding up a weed with his stick, a bony figure turned the corner of
the house and came up to him.
"Christian, isn't it?" said Clym. "I am glad you have found me out.
I shall soon want you to go to Blooms-End and assist me in putting
the house in order. I suppose it is all locked up as I left it?"
"Yes, Mister Clym."
"Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?"
"Yes, without a drop o' rain, thank God. But I was coming to tell 'ee
of something else which is quite different from what we have lately
had in the family. I am sent by the rich gentleman at the Woman, that
we used to call the landlord, to tell 'ee that Mrs. Wildeve is doing
well of a girl, which was born punctually at one o'clock at noon,
or a few minutes more or less; and 'tis said that expecting of this
increase is what have kept 'em there since they came into their
money."
"And she is getting on well, you say?"
"Yes, sir. Only Mr. Wildeve is twanky because 'tisn't a boy--that's
what they say in the kitchen, but I was not supposed to notice that."
"Christian, now listen to me."
"Yes, sure, Mr. Yeobright."
"Did you see my mother the day before she died?"
"No, I did not."
Yeobright's face expressed disappointment.
"But I zeed her the morning of the same day she died."
Clym's look lighted up. "That's nearer still to my meaning," he said.
"Yes, I know 'twas the same day; for she said, 'I be going to see him,
Christian; so I shall not want any vegetables brought in for dinner.'"
"See whom?"
"See you. She was going to your house, you understand."
Yeobright regarded Christian with intense surprise. "Why did you
never mention this?" he said. "Are you sure it was my house she was
coming to?"
"O yes. I didn't mention it because I've never zeed you lately. And
as she didn't get there it was all nought, and nothing to tell."
"And I have been wondering why she should have walked in the heath
on that hot day! Well, did she say what she was coming for? It is a
thing, Christian, I am very anxious to know."
"Yes, Mister Clym. She didn't say it to me, though I think she did to
one here and there."
"Do you know one person to whom she spoke of it?"
"There is one man, please, sir, but I hope you won't mention my name
to him, as I have seen him in strange places, particular in dreams.
One night last summer he glared at me like Famine and Sword, and it
made me feel so low that I didn't comb out my few hairs for two days.
He was standing, as it might be, Mister Yeobright, in the middle of
the path to Mistover, and your mother came up, looking as pale--"
"Yes, when was that?"
"Last summer, in my dream."
"Pooh! Who's the man?"
"Diggory, the reddleman. He called upon her and sat with her the
evening before she set out to see you. I hadn't gone home from work
when he came up to the gate."
"I must see Venn--I wish I had known it before," said Clym anxiously.
"I wonder why he has not come to tell me?"
"He went out of Egdon Heath the next day, so would not be likely to
know you wanted him."
"Christian," said Clym, "you must go and find Venn. I am otherwise
engaged, or I would go myself. Find him at once, and tell him I want
to speak to him."
"I am a good hand at hunting up folk by day," said Christian, looking
dubiously round at the declining light; "but as to nighttime, never
is such a bad hand as I, Mister Yeobright."
"Search the heath when you will, so that you bring him soon. Bring
him tomorrow, if you can."
Christian then departed. The morrow came, but no Venn. In the
evening Christian arrived, looking very weary. He had been searching
all day, and had heard nothing of the reddleman.
"Inquire as much as you can tomorrow without neglecting your work,"
said Yeobright. "Don't come again till you have found him."
The next day Yeobright set out for the old house at Blooms-End, which,
with the garden, was now his own. His severe illness had hindered all
preparations for his removal thither; but it had become necessary
that he should go and overlook its contents, as administrator to his
mother's little property; for which purpose he decided to pass the
next night on the premises.
He journeyed onward, not quickly or decisively, but in the slow walk
of one who has been awakened from a stupefying sleep. It was early
afternoon when he reached the valley. The expression of the place,
the tone of the hour, were precisely those of many such occasions in
days gone by; and these antecedent similarities fostered the illusion
that she, who was there no longer, would come out to welcome him.
The garden gate was locked and the shutters were closed, just as he
himself had left them on the evening after the funeral. He unlocked
the gate, and found that a spider had already constructed a large web,
tying the door to the lintel, on the supposition that it was never
to be opened again. When he had entered the house and flung back
the shutters he set about his task of overhauling the cupboards and
closets, burning papers, and considering how best to arrange the place
for Eustacia's reception, until such time as he might be in a position
to carry out his long-delayed scheme, should that time ever arrive.
As he surveyed the rooms he felt strongly disinclined for the
alterations which would have to be made in the time-honoured
furnishing of his parents and grandparents, to suit Eustacia's modern
ideas. The gaunt oak-cased clock, with the picture of the Ascension
on the door-panel and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes on the base;
his grandmother's corner cupboard with the glass door, through which
the spotted china was visible; the dumb-waiter; the wooden tea-trays;
the hanging fountain with the brass tap--whither would these venerable
articles have to be banished?
He noticed that the flowers in the window had died for want of water,
and he placed them out upon the ledge, that they might be taken away.
While thus engaged he heard footsteps on the gravel without, and
somebody knocked at the door.
Yeobright opened it, and Venn was standing before him.
"Good morning," said the reddleman. "Is Mrs. Yeobright at home?"
Yeobright looked upon the ground. "Then you have not seen Christian
or any of the Egdon folks?" he said.
"No. I have only just returned after a long stay away. I called here
the day before I left."
"And you have heard nothing?"
"Nothing."
"My mother is--dead."
"Dead!" said Venn mechanically.
"Her home now is where I shouldn't mind having mine."
Venn regarded him, and then said, "If I didn't see your face I could
never believe your words. Have you been ill?"
"I had an illness."
"Well, the change! When I parted from her a month ago everything
seemed to say that she was going to begin a new life."
"And what seemed came true."
"You say right, no doubt. Trouble has taught you a deeper vein of
talk than mine. All I meant was regarding her life here. She has
died too soon."
"Perhaps through my living too long. I have had a bitter experience
on that score this last month, Diggory. But come in; I have been
wanting to see you."
He conducted the reddleman into the large room where the dancing had
taken place the previous Christmas; and they sat down in the settle
together. "There's the cold fireplace, you see," said Clym. "When
that half-burnt log and those cinders were alight she was alive!
Little has been changed here yet. I can do nothing. My life creeps
like a snail."
"How came she to die?" said Venn.
Yeobright gave him some particulars of her illness and death, and
continued: "After this no kind of pain will ever seem more than
an indisposition to me.--I began saying that I wanted to ask you
something, but I stray from subjects like a drunken man. I am anxious
to know what my mother said to you when she last saw you. You talked
with her a long time, I think?"
"I talked with her more than half an hour."
"About me?"
"Yes. And it must have been on account of what we said that she was
on the heath. Without question she was coming to see you."
"But why should she come to see me if she felt so bitterly against
me? There's the mystery."
"Yet I know she quite forgave 'ee."
"But, Diggory--would a woman, who had quite forgiven her son, say,
when she felt herself ill on the way to his house, that she was
broken-hearted because of his ill-usage? Never!"
"What I know is that she didn't blame you at all. She blamed herself
for what had happened, only herself. I had it from her own lips."
"You had it from her lips that I had NOT ill-treated her; and at the
same time another had it from her lips that I HAD ill-treated her?
My mother was no impulsive woman who changed her opinion every hour
without reason. How can it be, Venn, that she should have told such
different stories in close succession?"
"I cannot say. It is certainly odd, when she had forgiven you, and
had forgiven your wife, and was going to see ye on purpose to make
friends."
"If there was one thing wanting to bewilder me it was this
incomprehensible thing!... Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only
allowed to hold conversation with the dead--just once, a bare minute,
even through a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison--what we
might learn! How many who now ride smiling would hide their heads! And
this mystery--I should then be at the bottom of it at once. But the
grave has for ever shut her in; and how shall it be found out now?"
No reply was returned by his companion, since none could be given; and
when Venn left, a few minutes later, Clym had passed from the dullness
of sorrow to the fluctuation of carking incertitude.
He continued in the same state all the afternoon. A bed was made up
for him in the same house by a neighbour, that he might not have to
return again the next day; and when he retired to rest in the deserted
place it was only to remain awake hour after hour thinking the same
thoughts. How to discover a solution to this riddle of death seemed a
query of more importance than highest problems of the living. There
was housed in his memory a vivid picture of the face of a little boy
as he entered the hovel where Clym's mother lay. The round eyes,
eager gaze, the piping voice which enunciated the words, had operated
like stilettos on his brain.
A visit to the boy suggested itself as a means of gleaning new
particulars; though it might be quite unproductive. To probe a
child's mind after the lapse of six weeks, not for facts which the
child had seen and understood, but to get at those which were in
their nature beyond him, did not promise much; yet when every obvious
channel is blocked we grope towards the small and obscure. There was
nothing else left to do; after that he would allow the enigma to drop
into the abyss of undiscoverable things.
It was about daybreak when he had reached this decision, and he
at once arose. He locked up the house and went out into the green
patch which merged in heather further on. In front of the white
garden-palings the path branched into three like a broad-arrow. The
road to the right led to the Quiet Woman and its neighbourhood; the
middle track led to Mistover Knap; the left-hand track led over
the hill to another part of Mistover, where the child lived. On
inclining into the latter path Yeobright felt a creeping chilliness,
familiar enough to most people, and probably caused by the unsunned
morning air. In after days he thought of it as a thing of singular
significance.
When Yeobright reached the cottage of Susan Nunsuch, the mother of the
boy he sought, he found that the inmates were not yet astir. But in
upland hamlets the transition from a-bed to abroad is surprisingly
swift and easy. There no dense partition of yawns and toilets divides
humanity by night from humanity by day. Yeobright tapped at the upper
window-sill, which he could reach with his walking-stick; and in three
or four minutes the woman came down.
It was not till this moment that Clym recollected her to be the person
who had behaved so barbarously to Eustacia. It partly explained the
insuavity with which the woman greeted him. Moreover, the boy had
been ailing again; and Susan now, as ever since the night when he had
been pressed into Eustacia's service at the bonfire, attributed his
indispositions to Eustacia's influence as a witch. It was one of
those sentiments which lurk like moles underneath the visible surface
of manners, and may have been kept alive by Eustacia's entreaty to the
captain, at the time that he had intended to prosecute Susan for the
pricking in church, to let the matter drop; which he accordingly had
done.
Yeobright overcame his repugnance, for Susan had at least borne his
mother no ill-will. He asked kindly for the boy; but her manner did
not improve.
"I wish to see him," continued Yeobright, with some hesitation; "to
ask him if he remembers anything more of his walk with my mother than
what he has previously told."
She regarded him in a peculiar and criticizing manner. To anybody but
a half-blind man it would have said, "You want another of the knocks
which have already laid you so low."
She called the boy downstairs, asked Clym to sit down on a stool, and
continued, "Now, Johnny, tell Mr. Yeobright anything you can call to
mind."
"You have not forgotten how you walked with the poor lady on that hot
day?" said Clym.
"No," said the boy.
"And what she said to you?"
The boy repeated the exact words he had used on entering the hut.
Yeobright rested his elbow on the table and shaded his face with his
hand; and the mother looked as if she wondered how a man could want
more of what had stung him so deeply.
"She was going to Alderworth when you first met her?"
"No; she was coming away."
"That can't be."
"Yes; she walked along with me. I was coming away too."
"Then where did you first see her?"
"At your house."
"Attend, and speak the truth!" said Clym sternly.
"Yes, sir; at your house was where I seed her first."
Clym started up, and Susan smiled in an expectant way which did not
embellish her face; it seemed to mean, "Something sinister is coming!"
"What did she do at my house?"
"She went and sat under the trees at the Devil's Bellows."
"Good God! this is all news to me!"
"You never told me this before?" said Susan.
"No, mother; because I didn't like to tell 'ee I had been so far. I
was picking black-hearts, and went further than I meant."
"What did she do then?" said Yeobright.
"Looked at a man who came up and went into your house."
"That was myself--a furze-cutter, with brambles in his hand."
"No; 'twas not you. 'Twas a gentleman. You had gone in afore."
"Who was he?"
"I don't know."
"Now tell me what happened next."
"The poor lady went and knocked at your door, and the lady with black
hair looked out of the side window at her."
The boy's mother turned to Clym and said, "This is something you
didn't expect?"
Yeobright took no more notice of her than if he had been of stone.
"Go on, go on," he said hoarsely to the boy.
"And when she saw the young lady look out of the window the old lady
knocked again; and when nobody came she took up the furze-hook and
looked at it, and put it down again, and then she looked at the
faggot-bonds; and then she went away, and walked across to me, and
blowed her breath very hard, like this. We walked on together, she
and I, and I talked to her and she talked to me a bit, but not much,
because she couldn't blow her breath."
"O!" murmured Clym, in a low tone, and bowed his head. "Let's have
more," he said.
"She couldn't talk much, and she couldn't walk; and her face was, O
so queer!"
"How was her face?"
"Like yours is now."
The woman looked at Yeobright, and beheld him colourless, in a cold
sweat. "Isn't there meaning in it?" she said stealthily. "What do
you think of her now?"
"Silence!" said Clym fiercely. And, turning to the boy, "And then you
left her to die?"
"No," said the woman, quickly and angrily. "He did not leave her to
die! She sent him away. Whoever says he forsook her says what's not
true."
"Trouble no more about that," answered Clym, with a quivering mouth.
"What he did is a trifle in comparison with what he saw. Door kept
shut, did you say? Kept shut, she looking out of window? Good heart
of God!--what does it mean?"
The child shrank away from the gaze of his questioner.
"He said so," answered the mother, "and Johnny's a God-fearing boy
and tells no lies."
"'Cast off by my son!' No, by my best life, dear mother, it is not so!
But by your son's, your son's--May all murderesses get the torment
they deserve!"
With these words Yeobright went forth from the little dwelling. The
pupils of his eyes, fixed steadfastly on blankness, were vaguely
lit with an icy shine; his mouth had passed into the phase more or
less imaginatively rendered in studies of Oedipus. The strangest
deeds were possible to his mood. But they were not possible to
his situation. Instead of there being before him the pale face
of Eustacia, and a masculine shape unknown, there was only the
imperturbable countenance of the heath, which, having defied the
cataclysmal onsets of centuries, reduced to insignificance by its
seamed and antique features the wildest turmoil of a single man.
III
Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning
A consciousness of a vast impassivity in all which lay around him took
possession even of Yeobright in his wild walk towards Alderworth. He
had once before felt in his own person this overpowering of the fervid
by the inanimate; but then it had tended to enervate a passion far
sweeter than that which at present pervaded him. It was once when he
stood parting from Eustacia in the moist still levels beyond the
hills.
But dismissing all this he went onward home, and came to the front of
his house. The blinds of Eustacia's bedroom were still closely drawn,
for she was no early riser. All the life visible was in the shape of
a solitary thrush cracking a small snail upon the door-stone for his
breakfast, and his tapping seemed a loud noise in the general silence
which prevailed; but on going to the door Clym found it unfastened,
the young girl who attended upon Eustacia being astir in the back part
of the premises. Yeobright entered and went straight to his wife's
room.
The noise of his arrival must have aroused her, for when he opened the
door she was standing before the looking-glass in her night-dress, the
ends of her hair gathered into one hand, with which she was coiling
the whole mass round her head, previous to beginning toilette
operations. She was not a woman given to speaking first at a meeting,
and she allowed Clym to walk across in silence, without turning her
head. He came behind her, and she saw his face in the glass. It was
ashy, haggard, and terrible. Instead of starting towards him in
sorrowful surprise, as even Eustacia, undemonstrative wife as she was,
would have done in days before she burdened herself with a secret,
she remained motionless, looking at him in the glass. And while
she looked the carmine flush with which warmth and sound sleep had
suffused her cheeks and neck dissolved from view, and the deathlike
pallor in his face flew across into hers. He was close enough to see
this, and the sight instigated his tongue.
"You know what is the matter," he said huskily. "I see it in your
face."
Her hand relinquished the rope of hair and dropped to her side, and
the pile of tresses, no longer supported, fell from the crown of her
head about her shoulders and over the white night-gown. She made no
reply.
"Speak to me," said Yeobright peremptorily.
The blanching process did not cease in her, and her lips now became as
white as her face. She turned to him and said, "Yes, Clym, I'll speak
to you. Why do you return so early? Can I do anything for you?"
"Yes, you can listen to me. It seems that my wife is not very well?"
"Why?"
"Your face, my dear; your face. Or perhaps it is the pale morning
light which takes your colour away? Now I am going to reveal a secret
to you. Ha-ha!"
"O, that is ghastly!"
"What?"
"Your laugh."
"There's reason for ghastliness. Eustacia, you have held my happiness
in the hollow of your hand, and like a devil you have dashed it down!"
She started back from the dressing-table, retreated a few steps from
him, and looked him in the face. "Ah! you think to frighten me," she
said, with a slight laugh. "Is it worth while? I am undefended, and
alone."
"How extraordinary!"
"What do you mean?"
"As there is ample time I will tell you, though you know well enough.
I mean that it is extraordinary that you should be alone in my
absence. Tell me, now, where is he who was with you on the afternoon
of the thirty-first of August? Under the bed? Up the chimney?"
A shudder overcame her and shook the light fabric of her night-dress
throughout. "I do not remember dates so exactly," she said. "I
cannot recollect that anybody was with me besides yourself."
"The day I mean," said Yeobright, his voice growing louder and
harsher, "was the day you shut the door against my mother and killed
her. O, it is too much--too bad!" He leant over the footpiece of the
bedstead for a few moments, with his back towards her; then rising
again: "Tell me, tell me! tell me--do you hear?" he cried, rushing up
to her and seizing her by the loose folds of her sleeve.
The superstratum of timidity which often overlies those who are daring
and defiant at heart had been passed through, and the mettlesome
substance of the woman was reached. The red blood inundated her face,
previously so pale.
"What are you going to do?" she said in a low voice, regarding him
with a proud smile. "You will not alarm me by holding on so; but it
would be a pity to tear my sleeve."
Instead of letting go he drew her closer to him. "Tell me the
particulars of--my mother's death," he said in a hard, panting
whisper; "or--I'll--I'll--"
"Clym," she answered slowly, "do you think you dare do anything to
me that I dare not bear? But before you strike me listen. You will
get nothing from me by a blow, even though it should kill me, as it
probably will. But perhaps you do not wish me to speak--killing may
be all you mean?"
"Kill you! Do you expect it?"
"I do."
"Why?"
"No less degree of rage against me will match your previous grief for
her."
"Phew--I shall not kill you," he said contemptuously, as if under a
sudden change of purpose. "I did think of it; but--I shall not. That
would be making a martyr of you, and sending you to where she is; and
I would keep you away from her till the universe come to an end, if I
could."
"I almost wish you would kill me," said she with gloomy bitterness.
"It is with no strong desire, I assure you, that I play the part I
have lately played on earth. You are no blessing, my husband."
"You shut the door--you looked out of the window upon her--you
had a man in the house with you--you sent her away to die. The
inhumanity--the treachery--I will not touch you--stand away from
me--and confess every word!"
"Never! I'll hold my tongue like the very death that I don't mind
meeting, even though I can clear myself of half you believe by
speaking. Yes. I will! Who of any dignity would take the trouble to
clear cobwebs from a wild man's mind after such language as this? No;
let him go on, and think his narrow thoughts, and run his head into
the mire. I have other cares."
"'Tis too much--but I must spare you."
"Poor charity."
"By my wretched soul you sting me, Eustacia! I can keep it up, and
hotly too. Now, then, madam, tell me his name!"
"Never, I am resolved."
"How often does he write to you? Where does he put his letters--when
does he meet you? Ah, his letters! Do you tell me his name?"
"I do not."
"Then I'll find it myself." His eyes had fallen upon a small desk
that stood near, on which she was accustomed to write her letters.
He went to it. It was locked.
"Unlock this!"
"You have no right to say it. That's mine."
Without another word he seized the desk and dashed it to the floor.
The hinge burst open, and a number of letters tumbled out.
"Stay!" said Eustacia, stepping before him with more excitement than
she had hitherto shown.
"Come, come! stand away! I must see them."
She looked at the letters as they lay, checked her feeling, and moved
indifferently aside; when he gathered them up, and examined them.
By no stretch of meaning could any but a harmless construction be
placed upon a single one of the letters themselves. The solitary
exception was an empty envelope directed to her, and the handwriting
was Wildeve's. Yeobright held it up. Eustacia was doggedly silent.
"Can you read, madam? Look at this envelope. Doubtless we shall find
more soon, and what was inside them. I shall no doubt be gratified by
learning in good time what a well-finished and full-blown adept in a
certain trade my lady is."
"Do you say it to me--do you?" she gasped.
He searched further, but found nothing more. "What was in this
letter?" he said.
"Ask the writer. Am I your hound that you should talk to me in this
way?"
"Do you brave me? do you stand me out, mistress? Answer. Don't look
at me with those eyes as if you would bewitch me again! Sooner than
that I die. You refuse to answer?"
"I wouldn't tell you after this, if I were as innocent as the sweetest
babe in heaven!"
"Which you are not."
"Certainly I am not absolutely," she replied. "I have not done what
you suppose; but if to have done no harm at all is the only innocence
recognized, I am beyond forgiveness. But I require no help from your
conscience."
"You can resist, and resist again! Instead of hating you I could, I
think, mourn for and pity you, if you were contrite, and would confess
all. Forgive you I never can. I don't speak of your lover--I will
give you the benefit of the doubt in that matter, for it only affects
me personally. But the other: had you half-killed ME, had it been
that you wilfully took the sight away from these feeble eyes of mine,
I could have forgiven you. But THAT'S too much for nature!"
"Say no more. I will do without your pity. But I would have saved
you from uttering what you will regret."
"I am going away now. I shall leave you."
"You need not go, as I am going myself. You will keep just as far
away from me by staying here."
"Call her to mind--think of her--what goodness there was in her: it
showed in every line of her face! Most women, even when but slightly
annoyed, show a flicker of evil in some curl of the mouth or some
corner of the cheek; but as for her, never in her angriest moments was
there anything malicious in her look. She was angered quickly, but
she forgave just as readily, and underneath her pride there was the
meekness of a child. What came of it?--what cared you? You hated her
just as she was learning to love you. O! couldn't you see what was
best for you, but must bring a curse upon me, and agony and death
upon her, by doing that cruel deed! What was the fellow's name who
was keeping you company and causing you to add cruelty to her to your
wrong to me? Was it Wildeve? Was it poor Thomasin's husband? Heaven,
what wickedness! Lost your voice, have you? It is natural after
detection of that most noble trick... Eustacia, didn't any tender
thought of your own mother lead you to think of being gentle to mine
at such a time of weariness? Did not one grain of pity enter your
heart as she turned away? Think what a vast opportunity was then lost
of beginning a forgiving and honest course. Why did not you kick him
out, and let her in, and say I'll be an honest wife and a noble woman
from this hour? Had I told you to go and quench eternally our last
flickering chance of happiness here you could have done no worse.
Well, she's asleep now; and have you a hundred gallants, neither they
nor you can insult her any more."
"You exaggerate fearfully," she said in a faint, weary voice; "but I
cannot enter into my defence--it is not worth doing. You are nothing
to me in future, and the past side of the story may as well remain
untold. I have lost all through you, but I have not complained. Your
blunders and misfortunes may have been a sorrow to you, but they
have been a wrong to me. All persons of refinement have been scared
away from me since I sank into the mire of marriage. Is this your
cherishing--to put me into a hut like this, and keep me like the wife
of a hind? You deceived me--not by words, but by appearances, which
are less seen through than words. But the place will serve as well as
any other--as somewhere to pass from--into my grave." Her words were
smothered in her throat, and her head drooped down.
"I don't know what you mean by that. Am I the cause of your sin?"
(Eustacia made a trembling motion towards him.) "What, you can begin
to shed tears and offer me your hand? Good God! can you? No, not I.
I'll not commit the fault of taking that." (The hand she had offered
dropped nervelessly, but the tears continued flowing.) "Well, yes,
I'll take it, if only for the sake of my own foolish kisses that were
wasted there before I knew what I cherished. How bewitched I was! How
could there be any good in a woman that everybody spoke ill of?"
"O, O, O!" she cried, breaking down at last; and, shaking with sobs
which choked her, she sank upon her knees. "O, will you have done! O,
you are too relentless--there's a limit to the cruelty of savages! I
have held out long--but you crush me down. I beg for mercy--I cannot
bear this any longer--it is inhuman to go further with this! If I
had--killed your--mother with my own hand--I should not deserve such a
scourging to the bone as this. O, O! God have mercy upon a miserable
woman!... You have beaten me in this game--I beg you to stay your hand
in pity!... I confess that I--wilfully did not undo the door the first
time she knocked--but--I--should have unfastened it the second--if
I had not thought you had gone to do it yourself. When I found you
had not I opened it, but she was gone. That's the extent of my
crime--towards HER. Best natures commit bad faults sometimes, don't
they?--I think they do. Now I will leave you--for ever and ever!"
"Tell all, and I WILL pity you. Was the man in the house with you
Wildeve?"
"I cannot tell," she said desperately through her sobbing. "Don't
insist further--I cannot tell. I am going from this house. We cannot
both stay here."
"You need not go: I will go. You can stay here."
"No, I will dress, and then I will go."
"Where?"
"Where I came from, or ELSEwhere."
She hastily dressed herself, Yeobright moodily walking up and down
the room the whole of the time. At last all her things were on. Her
little hands quivered so violently as she held them to her chin to
fasten her bonnet that she could not tie the strings, and after a few
moments she relinquished the attempt. Seeing this he moved forward
and said, "Let me tie them."
She assented in silence, and lifted her chin. For once at least in
her life she was totally oblivious of the charm of her attitude. But
he was not, and he turned his eyes aside, that he might not be tempted
to softness.
The strings were tied; she turned from him. "Do you still prefer
going away yourself to my leaving you?" he inquired again.
"I do."
"Very well--let it be. And when you will confess to the man I may
pity you."
She flung her shawl about her and went downstairs, leaving him
standing in the room.
Eustacia had not long been gone when there came a knock at the door
of the bedroom; and Yeobright said, "Well?"
It was the servant; and she replied, "Somebody from Mrs. Wildeve's
have called to tell 'ee that the mis'ess and the baby are getting on
wonderful well, and the baby's name is to be Eustacia Clementine."
And the girl retired.
"What a mockery!" said Clym. "This unhappy marriage of mine to be
perpetuated in that child's name!"
IV
The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One
Eustacia's journey was at first as vague in direction as that of
thistledown on the wind. She did not know what to do. She wished it
had been night instead of morning, that she might at least have borne
her misery without the possibility of being seen. Tracing mile after
mile along between the dying ferns and the wet white spiders' webs,
she at length turned her steps towards her grandfather's house. She
found the front door closed and locked. Mechanically she went round
to the end where the stable was, and on looking in at the stable-door
she saw Charley standing within.
"Captain Vye is not at home?" she said.
"No, ma'am," said the lad in a flutter of feeling; "he's gone to
Weatherbury, and won't be home till night. And the servant is gone
home for a holiday. So the house is locked up."
Eustacia's face was not visible to Charley as she stood at the
doorway, her back being to the sky, and the stable but indifferently
lighted; but the wildness of her manner arrested his attention. She
turned and walked away across the enclosure to the gate, and was
hidden by the bank.
When she had disappeared Charley, with misgiving in his eyes, slowly
came from the stable door, and going to another point in the bank he
looked over. Eustacia was leaning against it on the outside, her face
covered with her hands, and her head pressing the dewy heather which
bearded the bank's outer side. She appeared to be utterly indifferent
to the circumstance that her bonnet, hair, and garments were becoming
wet and disarranged by the moisture of her cold, harsh pillow.
Clearly something was wrong.
Charley had always regarded Eustacia as Eustacia had regarded Clym
when she first beheld him--as a romantic and sweet vision, scarcely
incarnate. He had been so shut off from her by the dignity of her
look and the pride of her speech, except at that one blissful interval
when he was allowed to hold her hand, that he had hardly deemed her
a woman, wingless and earthly, subject to household conditions and
domestic jars. The inner details of her life he had only conjectured.
She had been a lovely wonder, predestined to an orbit in which the
whole of his own was but a point; and this sight of her leaning like a
helpless, despairing creature against a wild wet bank filled him with
an amazed horror. He could no longer remain where he was. Leaping
over, he came up, touched her with his finger, and said tenderly, "You
are poorly, ma'am. What can I do?"
Eustacia started up, and said, "Ah, Charley--you have followed me.
You did not think when I left home in the summer that I should come
back like this!"
"I did not, dear ma'am. Can I help you now?"
"I am afraid not. I wish I could get into the house. I feel
giddy--that's all."
"Lean on my arm, ma'am, till we get to the porch, and I will try to
open the door."
He supported her to the porch, and there depositing her on a seat
hastened to the back, climbed to a window by the help of a ladder,
and descending inside opened the door. Next he assisted her into the
room, where there was an old-fashioned horsehair settee as large as a
donkey-waggon. She lay down here, and Charley covered her with a cloak
he found in the hall.
"Shall I get you something to eat and drink?" he said.
"If you please, Charley. But I suppose there is no fire?"
"I can light it, ma'am."
He vanished, and she heard a splitting of wood and a blowing of
bellows; and presently he returned, saying, "I have lighted a fire in
the kitchen, and now I'll light one here."
He lit the fire, Eustacia dreamily observing him from her couch. When
it was blazing up he said, "Shall I wheel you round in front of it,
ma'am, as the morning is chilly?"
"Yes, if you like."
"Shall I go and bring the victuals now?"
"Yes, do," she murmured languidly.
When he had gone, and the dull sounds occasionally reached her ears
of his movements in the kitchen, she forgot where she was, and had
for a moment to consider by an effort what the sounds meant. After an
interval which seemed short to her whose thoughts were elsewhere, he
came in with a tray on which steamed tea and toast, though it was
nearly lunch-time.
"Place it on the table," she said. "I shall be ready soon."
He did so, and retired to the door; when, however, he perceived that
she did not move he came back a few steps.
"Let me hold it to you, if you don't wish to get up," said Charley.
He brought the tray to the front of the couch, where he knelt down,
adding, "I will hold it for you."
Eustacia sat up and poured out a cup of tea. "You are very kind to
me, Charley," she murmured as she sipped.
"Well, I ought to be," said he diffidently, taking great trouble
not to rest his eyes upon her, though this was their only natural
position, Eustacia being immediately before him. "You have been kind
to me."
"How have I?" said Eustacia.
"You let me hold your hand when you were a maiden at home."
"Ah, so I did. Why did I do that? My mind is lost--it had to do with
the mumming, had it not?"
"Yes, you wanted to go in my place."
"I remember. I do indeed remember--too well!"
She again became utterly downcast; and Charley, seeing that she was
not going to eat or drink any more, took away the tray.
Afterwards he occasionally came in to see if the fire was burning, to
ask her if she wanted anything, to tell her that the wind had shifted
from south to west, to ask her if she would like him to gather her
some blackberries; to all which inquiries she replied in the negative
or with indifference.
She remained on the settee some time longer, when she aroused herself
and went upstairs. The room in which she had formerly slept still
remained much as she had left it, and the recollection that this
forced upon her of her own greatly changed and infinitely worsened
situation again set on her face the undetermined and formless
misery which it had worn on her first arrival. She peeped into her
grandfather's room, through which the fresh autumn air was blowing
from the open window. Her eye was arrested by what was a familiar
sight enough, though it broke upon her now with a new significance.
It was a brace of pistols, hanging near the head of her grandfather's
bed, which he always kept there loaded, as a precaution against
possible burglars, the house being very lonely. Eustacia regarded
them long, as if they were the page of a book in which she read a
new and a strange matter. Quickly, like one afraid of herself, she
returned downstairs and stood in deep thought.
"If I could only do it!" she said. "It would be doing much good to
myself and all connected with me, and no harm to a single one."
The idea seemed to gather force within her, and she remained in
a fixed attitude nearly ten minutes, when a certain finality was
expressed in her gaze, and no longer the blankness of indecision.
She turned and went up the second time--softly and stealthily now--and
entered her grandfather's room, her eyes at once seeking the head of
the bed. The pistols were gone.
The instant quashing of her purpose by their absence affected her
brain as a sudden vacuum affects the body: she nearly fainted. Who
had done this? There was only one person on the premises besides
herself. Eustacia involuntarily turned to the open window which
overlooked the garden as far as the bank that bounded it. On the
summit of the latter stood Charley, sufficiently elevated by its
height to see into the room. His gaze was directed eagerly and
solicitously upon her.
She went downstairs to the door and beckoned to him.
"You have taken them away?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Why did you do it?"
"I saw you looking at them too long."
"What has that to do with it?"
"You have been heart-broken all the morning, as if you did not want
to live."
"Well?"
"And I could not bear to leave them in your way. There was meaning
in your look at them."
"Where are they now?"
"Locked up."
"Where?"
"In the stable."
"Give them to me."
"No, ma'am."
"You refuse?"
"I do. I care too much for you to give 'em up."
She turned aside, her face for the first time softening from the stony
immobility of the earlier day, and the corners of her mouth resuming
something of that delicacy of cut which was always lost in her moments
of despair. At last she confronted him again.
"Why should I not die if I wish?" she said tremulously. "I have made
a bad bargain with life, and I am weary of it--weary. And now you have
hindered my escape. O, why did you, Charley! What makes death painful
except the thought of others' grief?--and that is absent in my case,
for not a sigh would follow me!"
"Ah, it is trouble that has done this! I wish in my very soul that he
who brought it about might die and rot, even if 'tis transportation to
say it!"
"Charley, no more of that. What do you mean to do about this you have
seen?"
"Keep it close as night, if you promise not to think of it again."
"You need not fear. The moment has passed. I promise." She then went
away, entered the house, and lay down.
Later in the afternoon her grandfather returned. He was about to
question her categorically; but on looking at her he withheld his
words.
"Yes, it is too bad to talk of," she slowly returned in answer to his
glance. "Can my old room be got ready for me tonight, grandfather? I
shall want to occupy it again."
He did not ask what it all meant, or why she had left her husband, but
ordered the room to be prepared.
V
An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated
Charley's attentions to his former mistress were unbounded. The only
solace to his own trouble lay in his attempts to relieve hers. Hour
after hour he considered her wants: he thought of her presence there
with a sort of gratitude, and, while uttering imprecations on the
cause of her unhappiness, in some measure blessed the result. Perhaps
she would always remain there, he thought, and then he would be as
happy as he had been before. His dread was lest she should think fit
to return to Alderworth, and in that dread his eyes, with all the
inquisitiveness of affection, frequently sought her face when she was
not observing him, as he would have watched the head of a stockdove
to learn if it contemplated flight. Having once really succoured her,
and possibly preserved her from the rashest of acts, he mentally
assumed in addition a guardian's responsibility for her welfare.
For this reason he busily endeavoured to provide her with pleasant
distractions, bringing home curious objects which he found in the
heath, such as white trumpet-shaped mosses, red-headed lichens, stone
arrow-heads used by the old tribes on Egdon, and faceted crystals from
the hollows of flints. These he deposited on the premises in such
positions that she should see them as if by accident.
A week passed, Eustacia never going out of the house. Then she walked
into the enclosed plot and looked through her grandfather's spy-glass,
as she had been in the habit of doing before her marriage. One day
she saw, at a place where the high-road crossed the distant valley,
a heavily laden waggon passing along. It was piled with household
furniture. She looked again and again, and recognized it to be her
own. In the evening her grandfather came indoors with a rumour that
Yeobright had removed that day from Alderworth to the old house at
Blooms-End.
On another occasion when reconnoitring thus she beheld two female
figures walking in the vale. The day was fine and clear; and the
persons not being more than half a mile off she could see their every
detail with the telescope. The woman walking in front carried a white
bundle in her arms, from one end of which hung a long appendage of
drapery; and when the walkers turned, so that the sun fell more
directly upon them, Eustacia could see that the object was a baby.
She called Charley, and asked him if he knew who they were, though
she well guessed.
"Mrs. Wildeve and the nurse-girl," said Charley.
"The nurse is carrying the baby?" said Eustacia.
"No, 'tis Mrs. Wildeve carrying that," he answered, "and the nurse
walks behind carrying nothing."
The lad was in good spirits that day, for the Fifth of November had
again come round, and he was planning yet another scheme to divert
her from her too absorbing thoughts. For two successive years his
mistress had seemed to take pleasure in lighting a bonfire on the
bank overlooking the valley; but this year she had apparently quite
forgotten the day and the customary deed. He was careful not to
remind her, and went on with his secret preparations for a cheerful
surprise, the more zealously that he had been absent last time and
unable to assist. At every vacant minute he hastened to gather
furze-stumps, thorn-tree roots, and other solid materials from the
adjacent slopes, hiding them from cursory view.
The evening came, and Eustacia was still seemingly unconscious of the
anniversary. She had gone indoors after her survey through the glass,
and had not been visible since. As soon as it was quite dark Charley
began to build the bonfire, choosing precisely that spot on the bank
which Eustacia had chosen at previous times.
When all the surrounding bonfires had burst into existence Charley
kindled his, and arranged its fuel so that it should not require
tending for some time. He then went back to the house, and lingered
round the door and windows till she should by some means or other
learn of his achievement and come out to witness it. But the shutters
were closed, the door remained shut, and no heed whatever seemed to
be taken of his performance. Not liking to call her he went back and
replenished the fire, continuing to do this for more than half an
hour. It was not till his stock of fuel had greatly diminished that
he went to the back door and sent in to beg that Mrs. Yeobright would
open the window-shutters and see the sight outside.
Eustacia, who had been sitting listlessly in the parlour, started up
at the intelligence and flung open the shutters. Facing her on the
bank blazed the fire, which at once sent a ruddy glare into the room
where she was, and overpowered the candles.
"Well done, Charley!" said Captain Vye from the chimney-corner. "But
I hope it is not my wood that he's burning... Ah, it was this time
last year that I met with that man Venn, bringing home Thomasin
Yeobright--to be sure it was! Well, who would have thought that girl's
troubles would have ended so well? What a snipe you were in that
matter, Eustacia! Has your husband written to you yet?"
"No," said Eustacia, looking vaguely through the window at the fire,
which just then so much engaged her mind that she did not resent her
grandfather's blunt opinion. She could see Charley's form on the
bank, shovelling and stirring the fire; and there flashed upon her
imagination some other form which that fire might call up.
She left the room, put on her garden-bonnet and cloak, and went
out. Reaching the bank, she looked over with a wild curiosity and
misgiving, when Charley said to her, with a pleased sense of himself,
"I made it o' purpose for you, ma'am."
"Thank you," she said hastily. "But I wish you to put it out now."
"It will soon burn down," said Charley, rather disappointed. "Is it
not a pity to knock it out?"
"I don't know," she musingly answered.
They stood in silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames,
till Charley, perceiving that she did not want to talk to him, moved
reluctantly away.
Eustacia remained within the bank looking at the fire, intending to
go indoors, yet lingering still. Had she not by her situation been
inclined to hold in indifference all things honoured of the gods
and of men she would probably have come away. But her state was so
hopeless that she could play with it. To have lost is less disturbing
than to wonder if we may possibly have won: and Eustacia could now,
like other people at such a stage, take a standing-point outside
herself, observe herself as a disinterested spectator, and think what
a sport for Heaven this woman Eustacia was.
While she stood she heard a sound. It was the splash of a stone in
the pond.
Had Eustacia received the stone full in the bosom her heart could not
have given a more decided thump. She had thought of the possibility
of such a signal in answer to that which had been unwittingly given by
Charley; but she had not expected it yet. How prompt Wildeve was! Yet
how could he think her capable of deliberately wishing to renew their
assignations now? An impulse to leave the spot, a desire to stay,
struggled within her; and the desire held its own. More than that it
did not do, for she refrained even from ascending the bank and looking
over. She remained motionless, not disturbing a muscle of her face or
raising her eyes; for were she to turn up her face the fire on the
bank would shine upon it, and Wildeve might be looking down.
There was a second splash into the pond.
Why did he stay so long without advancing and looking over? Curiosity
had its way: she ascended one or two of the earth-steps in the bank
and glanced out.
Wildeve was before her. He had come forward after throwing the last
pebble, and the fire now shone into each of their faces from the bank
stretching breast-high between them.
"I did not light it!" cried Eustacia quickly. "It was lit without my
knowledge. Don't, don't come over to me!"
"Why have you been living here all these days without telling me? You
have left your home. I fear I am something to blame for this?"
"I did not let in his mother; that's how it is!"
"You do not deserve what you have got, Eustacia; you are in great
misery; I see it in your eyes, your mouth, and all over you. My poor,
poor girl!" He stepped over the bank. "You are beyond everything
unhappy!"
"No, no; not exactly--"
"It has been pushed too far--it is killing you: I do think it!"
Her usually quiet breathing had grown quicker with his words.
"I--I--" she began, and then burst into quivering sobs, shaken to
the very heart by the unexpected voice of pity--a sentiment whose
existence in relation to herself she had almost forgotten.
This outbreak of weeping took Eustacia herself so much by surprise
that she could not leave off, and she turned aside from him in some
shame, though turning hid nothing from him. She sobbed on desperately;
then the outpour lessened, and she became quieter. Wildeve had
resisted the impulse to clasp her, and stood without speaking.
"Are you not ashamed of me, who used never to be a crying animal?"
she asked in a weak whisper as she wiped her eyes. "Why didn't you go
away? I wish you had not seen quite all that; it reveals too much by
half."
"You might have wished it, because it makes me as sad as you," he said
with emotion and deference. "As for revealing--the word is impossible
between us two."
"I did not send for you--don't forget it, Damon; I am in pain, but I
did not send for you! As a wife, at least, I've been straight."
"Never mind--I came. O, Eustacia, forgive me for the harm I have done
you in these two past years! I see more and more that I have been your
ruin."
"Not you. This place I live in."
"Ah, your generosity may naturally make you say that. But I am the
culprit. I should either have done more or nothing at all."
"In what way?"
"I ought never to have hunted you out, or, having done it, I ought
to have persisted in retaining you. But of course I have no right to
talk of that now. I will only ask this: can I do anything for you?
Is there anything on the face of the earth that a man can do to make
you happier than you are at present? If there is, I will do it. You
may command me, Eustacia, to the limit of my influence; and don't
forget that I am richer now. Surely something can be done to save
you from this! Such a rare plant in such a wild place it grieves me
to see. Do you want anything bought? Do you want to go anywhere? Do
you want to escape the place altogether? Only say it, and I'll do
anything to put an end to those tears, which but for me would never
have been at all."
"We are each married to another person," she said faintly; "and
assistance from you would have an evil sound--after--after--"
"Well, there's no preventing slanderers from having their fill at any
time; but you need not be afraid. Whatever I may feel I promise you
on my word of honour never to speak to you about--or act upon--until
you say I may. I know my duty to Thomasin quite as well as I know my
duty to you as a woman unfairly treated. What shall I assist you in?"
"In getting away from here."
"Where do you wish to go to?"
"I have a place in my mind. If you could help me as far as Budmouth
I can do all the rest. Steamers sail from there across the Channel,
and so I can get to Paris, where I want to be. Yes," she pleaded
earnestly, "help me to get to Budmouth harbour without my
grandfather's or my husband's knowledge, and I can do all the rest."
"Will it be safe to leave you there alone?"
"Yes, yes. I know Budmouth well."
"Shall I go with you? I am rich now."
She was silent.
"Say yes, sweet!"
She was silent still.
"Well, let me know when you wish to go. We shall be at our present
house till December; after that we remove to Casterbridge. Command me
in anything till that time."
"I will think of this," she said hurriedly. "Whether I can honestly
make use of you as a friend, or must close with you as a lover--that
is what I must ask myself. If I wish to go and decide to accept your
company I will signal to you some evening at eight o'clock punctually,
and this will mean that you are to be ready with a horse and trap at
twelve o'clock the same night to drive me to Budmouth harbour in time
for the morning boat."
"I will look out every night at eight, and no signal shall escape me."
"Now please go away. If I decide on this escape I can only meet you
once more unless--I cannot go without you. Go--I cannot bear it
longer. Go--go!"
Wildeve slowly went up the steps and descended into the darkness
on the other side; and as he walked he glanced back, till the bank
blotted out her form from his further view.
VI
Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter
Yeobright was at this time at Blooms-End, hoping that Eustacia would
return to him. The removal of furniture had been accomplished only
that day, though Clym had lived in the old house for more than a week.
He had spent the time in working about the premises, sweeping leaves
from the garden-paths, cutting dead stalks from the flower-beds, and
nailing up creepers which had been displaced by the autumn winds. He
took no particular pleasure in these deeds, but they formed a screen
between himself and despair. Moreover, it had become a religion with
him to preserve in good condition all that had lapsed from his
mother's hands to his own.
During these operations he was constantly on the watch for Eustacia.
That there should be no mistake about her knowing where to find him
he had ordered a notice board to be affixed to the garden gate at
Alderworth, signifying in white letters whither he had removed. When a
leaf floated to the earth he turned his head, thinking it might be her
footfall. A bird searching for worms in the mould of the flower-beds
sounded like her hand on the latch of the gate; and at dusk, when
soft, strange ventriloquisms came from holes in the ground, hollow
stalks, curled dead leaves, and other crannies wherein breezes, worms,
and insects can work their will, he fancied that they were Eustacia,
standing without and breathing wishes of reconciliation.
Up to this hour he had persevered in his resolve not to invite her
back. At the same time the severity with which he had treated her
lulled the sharpness of his regret for his mother, and awoke some
of his old solicitude for his mother's supplanter. Harsh feelings
produce harsh usage, and this by reaction quenches the sentiments that
gave it birth. The more he reflected the more he softened. But to
look upon his wife as innocence in distress was impossible, though he
could ask himself whether he had given her quite time enough--if he
had not come a little too suddenly upon her on that sombre morning.
Now that the first flush of his anger had paled he was disinclined to
ascribe to her more than an indiscreet friendship with Wildeve, for
there had not appeared in her manner the signs of dishonour. And this
once admitted, an absolutely dark interpretation of her act towards
his mother was no longer forced upon him.
On the evening of the fifth November his thoughts of Eustacia were
intense. Echoes from those past times when they had exchanged tender
words all the day long came like the diffused murmur of a seashore
left miles behind. "Surely," he said, "she might have brought herself
to communicate with me before now, and confess honestly what Wildeve
was to her."
Instead of remaining at home that night he determined to go and see
Thomasin and her husband. If he found opportunity he would allude to
the cause of the separation between Eustacia and himself, keeping
silence, however, on the fact that there was a third person in his
house when his mother was turned away. If it proved that Wildeve was
innocently there he would doubtless openly mention it. If he were
there with unjust intentions Wildeve, being a man of quick feeling,
might possibly say something to reveal the extent to which Eustacia
was compromised.
But on reaching his cousin's house he found that only Thomasin was
at home, Wildeve being at that time on his way towards the bonfire
innocently lit by Charley at Mistover. Thomasin then, as always, was
glad to see Clym, and took him to inspect the sleeping baby, carefully
screening the candlelight from the infant's eyes with her hand.
"Tamsin, have you heard that Eustacia is not with me now?" he said
when they had sat down again.
"No," said Thomasin, alarmed.
"And not that I have left Alderworth?"
"No. I never hear tidings from Alderworth unless you bring them. What
is the matter?"
Clym in a disturbed voice related to her his visit to Susan Nunsuch's
boy, the revelation he had made, and what had resulted from his
charging Eustacia with having wilfully and heartlessly done the deed.
He suppressed all mention of Wildeve's presence with her.
"All this, and I not knowing it!" murmured Thomasin in an awestruck
tone. "Terrible! What could have made her--O, Eustacia! And when you
found it out you went in hot haste to her? Were you too cruel?--or is
she really so wicked as she seems?"
"Can a man be too cruel to his mother's enemy?"
"I can fancy so."
"Very well, then--I'll admit that he can. But now what is to be
done?"
"Make it up again--if a quarrel so deadly can ever be made up. I
almost wish you had not told me. But do try to be reconciled. There
are ways, after all, if you both wish to."
"I don't know that we do both wish to make it up," said Clym. "If she
had wished it, would she not have sent to me by this time?"
"You seem to wish to, and yet you have not sent to her."
"True; but I have been tossed to and fro in doubt if I ought, after
such strong provocation. To see me now, Thomasin, gives you no idea
of what I have been; of what depths I have descended to in these few
last days. O, it was a bitter shame to shut out my mother like that!
Can I ever forget it, or even agree to see her again?"
"She might not have known that anything serious would come of it, and
perhaps she did not mean to keep aunt out altogether."
"She says herself that she did not. But the fact remains that keep
her out she did."
"Believe her sorry, and send for her."
"How if she will not come?"
"It will prove her guilty, by showing that it is her habit to nourish
enmity. But I do not think that for a moment."
"I will do this. I will wait for a day or two longer--not longer
than two days certainly; and if she does not send to me in that time I
will indeed send to her. I thought to have seen Wildeve here tonight.
Is he from home?"
Thomasin blushed a little. "No," she said. "He is merely gone out
for a walk."
"Why didn't he take you with him? The evening is fine. You want fresh
air as well as he."
"Oh, I don't care for going anywhere; besides, there is baby."
"Yes, yes. Well, I have been thinking whether I should not consult
your husband about this as well as you," said Clym steadily.
"I fancy I would not," she quickly answered. "It can do no good."
Her cousin looked her in the face. No doubt Thomasin was ignorant
that her husband had any share in the events of that tragic afternoon;
but her countenance seemed to signify that she concealed some
suspicion or thought of the reputed tender relations between Wildeve
and Eustacia in days gone by.
Clym, however, could make nothing of it, and he rose to depart, more
in doubt than when he came.
"You will write to her in a day or two?" said the young woman
earnestly. "I do so hope the wretched separation may come to an end."
"I will," said Clym; "I don't rejoice in my present state at all."
And he left her and climbed over the hill to Blooms-End. Before going
to bed he sat down and wrote the following letter:--
MY DEAR EUSTACIA,--I must obey my heart without consulting
my reason too closely. Will you come back to me? Do so, and
the past shall never be mentioned. I was too severe; but O,
Eustacia, the provocation! You don't know, you never will
know, what those words of anger cost me which you drew down
upon yourself. All that an honest man can promise you I
promise now, which is that from me you shall never suffer
anything on this score again. After all the vows we have
made, Eustacia, I think we had better pass the remainder of
our lives in trying to keep them. Come to me, then, even
if you reproach me. I have thought of your sufferings
that morning on which I parted from you; I know they were
genuine, and they are as much as you ought to bear. Our
love must still continue. Such hearts as ours would never
have been given us but to be concerned with each other. I
could not ask you back at first, Eustacia, for I was unable
to persuade myself that he who was with you was not there
as a lover. But if you will come and explain distracting
appearances I do not question that you can show your
honesty to me. Why have you not come before? Do you think
I will not listen to you? Surely not, when you remember the
kisses and vows we exchanged under the summer moon. Return
then, and you shall be warmly welcomed. I can no longer
think of you to your prejudice--I am but too much absorbed
in justifying you.--Your husband as ever,
CLYM.
"There," he said, as he laid it in his desk, "that's a good thing
done. If she does not come before tomorrow night I will send it to
her."
Meanwhile, at the house he had just left Thomasin sat sighing
uneasily. Fidelity to her husband had that evening induced her to
conceal all suspicion that Wildeve's interest in Eustacia had not
ended with his marriage. But she knew nothing positive; and though
Clym was her well-beloved cousin there was one nearer to her still.
When, a little later, Wildeve returned from his walk to Mistover,
Thomasin said, "Damon, where have you been? I was getting quite
frightened, and thought you had fallen into the river. I dislike
being in the house by myself."
"Frightened?" he said, touching her cheek as if she were some domestic
animal. "Why, I thought nothing could frighten you. It is that you
are getting proud, I am sure, and don't like living here since we have
risen above our business. Well, it is a tedious matter, this getting
a new house; but I couldn't have set about it sooner, unless our
ten thousand pounds had been a hundred thousand, when we could have
afforded to despise caution."
"No--I don't mind waiting--I would rather stay here twelve months
longer than run any risk with baby. But I don't like your vanishing
so in the evenings. There's something on your mind--I know there is,
Damon. You go about so gloomily, and look at the heath as if it were
somebody's gaol instead of a nice wild place to walk in."
He looked towards her with pitying surprise. "What, do you like Egdon
Heath?" he said.
"I like what I was born near to; I admire its grim old face."
"Pooh, my dear. You don't know what you like."
"I am sure I do. There's only one thing unpleasant about Egdon."
"What's that?"
"You never take me with you when you walk there. Why do you wander so
much in it yourself if you so dislike it?"
The inquiry, though a simple one, was plainly disconcerting, and he
sat down before replying. "I don't think you often see me there.
Give an instance."
"I will," she answered triumphantly. "When you went out this evening
I thought that as baby was asleep I would see where you were going to
so mysteriously without telling me. So I ran out and followed behind
you. You stopped at the place where the road forks, looked round at
the bonfires, and then said, 'Damn it, I'll go!' And you went quickly
up the left-hand road. Then I stood and watched you."
Wildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile, "Well, what
wonderful discovery did you make?"
"There--now you are angry, and we won't talk of this any more." She
went across to him, sat on a footstool, and looked up in his face.
"Nonsense!" he said, "that's how you always back out. We will go on
with it now we have begun. What did you next see? I particularly
want to know."
"Don't be like that, Damon!" she murmured. "I didn't see anything.
You vanished out of sight, and then I looked round at the bonfires and
came in."
"Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. Are you
trying to find out something bad about me?"
"Not at all! I have never done such a thing before, and I shouldn't
have done it now if words had not sometimes been dropped about you."
"What DO you mean?" he impatiently asked.
"They say--they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings, and
it puts into my mind what I have heard about--"
Wildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. "Now," he said,
flourishing his hand in the air, "just out with it, madam! I demand to
know what remarks you have heard."
"Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of Eustacia--nothing more
than that, though dropped in a bit-by-bit way. You ought not to be
angry!"
He observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. "Well," he said,
"there is nothing new in that, and of course I don't mean to be rough
towards you, so you need not cry. Now, don't let us speak of the
subject any more."
And no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough of a reason for not
mentioning Clym's visit to her that evening, and his story.
VII
The Night of the Sixth of November
Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed anxious that
something should happen to thwart her own intention. The only event
that could really change her position was the appearance of Clym. The
glory which had encircled him as her lover was departed now; yet some
good simple quality of his would occasionally return to her memory and
stir a momentary throb of hope that he would again present himself
before her. But calmly considered it was not likely that such a
severance as now existed would ever close up: she would have to live
on as a painful object, isolated, and out of place. She had used to
think of the heath alone as an uncongenial spot to be in; she felt it
now of the whole world.
Towards evening on the sixth her determination to go away again
revived. About four o'clock she packed up anew the few small articles
she had brought in her flight from Alderworth, and also some belonging
to her which had been left here: the whole formed a bundle not too
large to be carried in her hand for a distance of a mile or two. The
scene without grew darker; mud-coloured clouds bellied downwards from
the sky like vast hammocks slung across it, and with the increase of
night a stormy wind arose; but as yet there was no rain.
Eustacia could not rest indoors, having nothing more to do, and she
wandered to and fro on the hill, not far from the house she was soon
to leave. In these desultory ramblings she passed the cottage of
Susan Nunsuch, a little lower down than her grandfather's. The door
was ajar, and a riband of bright firelight fell over the ground
without. As Eustacia crossed the firebeams she appeared for an
instant as distinct as a figure in a phantasmagoria--a creature of
light surrounded by an area of darkness: the moment passed, and she
was absorbed in night again.
A woman who was sitting inside the cottage had seen and recognized
her in that momentary irradiation. This was Susan herself, occupied
in preparing a posset for her little boy, who, often ailing, was now
seriously unwell. Susan dropped the spoon, shook her fist at the
vanished figure, and then proceeded with her work in a musing, absent
way.
At eight o'clock, the hour at which Eustacia had promised to signal
Wildeve if ever she signalled at all, she looked around the premises
to learn if the coast was clear, went to the furze-rick, and pulled
thence a long-stemmed bough of that fuel. This she carried to the
corner of the bank, and, glancing behind to see if the shutters were
all closed, she struck a light, and kindled the furze. When it was
thoroughly ablaze Eustacia took it by the stem and waved it in the
air above her head till it had burned itself out.
She was gratified, if gratification were possible to such a mood, by
seeing a similar light in the vicinity of Wildeve's residence a minute
or two later. Having agreed to keep watch at this hour every night,
in case she should require assistance, this promptness proved how
strictly he had held to his word. Four hours after the present time,
that is, at midnight, he was to be ready to drive her to Budmouth, as
prearranged.
Eustacia returned to the house. Supper having been got over she
retired early, and sat in her bedroom waiting for the time to go by.
The night being dark and threatening, Captain Vye had not strolled out
to gossip in any cottage or to call at the inn, as was sometimes his
custom on these long autumn nights; and he sat sipping grog alone
downstairs. About ten o'clock there was a knock at the door. When
the servant opened it the rays of the candle fell upon the form of
Fairway.
"I was a-forced to go to Lower Mistover tonight," he said, "and Mr.
Yeobright asked me to leave this here on my way; but, faith, I put it
in the lining of my hat, and thought no more about it till I got back
and was hasping my gate before going to bed. So I have run back with
it at once."
He handed in a letter and went his way. The girl brought it to the
captain, who found that it was directed to Eustacia. He turned it
over and over, and fancied that the writing was her husband's, though
he could not be sure. However, he decided to let her have it at once
if possible, and took it upstairs for that purpose; but on reaching
the door of her room and looking in at the keyhole he found there was
no light within, the fact being that Eustacia, without undressing, had
flung herself upon the bed, to rest and gather a little strength for
her coming journey. Her grandfather concluded from what he saw that
he ought not to disturb her; and descending again to the parlour he
placed the letter on the mantelpiece to give it to her in the morning.
At eleven o'clock he went to bed himself, smoked for some time in his
bedroom, put out his light at half-past eleven, and then, as was his
invariable custom, pulled up the blind before getting into bed, that
he might see which way the wind blew on opening his eyes in the
morning, his bedroom window commanding a view of the flagstaff and
vane. Just as he had lain down he was surprised to observe the white
pole of the staff flash into existence like a streak of phosphorus
drawn downwards across the shade of night without. Only one
explanation met this--a light had been suddenly thrown upon the pole
from the direction of the house. As everybody had retired to rest the
old man felt it necessary to get out of bed, open the window softly,
and look to the right and left. Eustacia's bedroom was lighted up,
and it was the shine from her window which had lighted the pole.
Wondering what had aroused her, he remained undecided at the window,
and was thinking of fetching the letter to slip it under her door,
when he heard a slight brushing of garments on the partition dividing
his room from the passage.
The captain concluded that Eustacia, feeling wakeful, had gone for a
book, and would have dismissed the matter as unimportant if he had not
also heard her distinctly weeping as she passed.
"She is thinking of that husband of hers," he said to himself. "Ah,
the silly goose! she had no business to marry him. I wonder if that
letter is really his?"
He arose, threw his boat-cloak round him, opened the door, and said,
"Eustacia!" There was no answer. "Eustacia!" he repeated louder,
"there is a letter on the mantelpiece for you."
But no response was made to this statement save an imaginary one from
the wind, which seemed to gnaw at the corners of the house, and the
stroke of a few drops of rain upon the windows.
He went on to the landing, and stood waiting nearly five minutes.
Still she did not return. He went back for a light, and prepared
to follow her; but first he looked into her bedroom. There, on the
outside of the quilt, was the impression of her form, showing that the
bed had not been opened; and, what was more significant, she had not
taken her candlestick downstairs. He was now thoroughly alarmed; and
hastily putting on his clothes he descended to the front door, which
he himself had bolted and locked. It was now unfastened. There was no
longer any doubt that Eustacia had left the house at this midnight
hour; and whither could she have gone? To follow her was almost
impossible. Had the dwelling stood in an ordinary road, two persons
setting out, one in each direction, might have made sure of overtaking
her; but it was a hopeless task to seek for anybody on a heath in the
dark, the practicable directions for flight across it from any point
being as numerous as the meridians radiating from the pole. Perplexed
what to do, he looked into the parlour, and was vexed to find that the
letter still lay there untouched.
At half-past eleven, finding that the house was silent, Eustacia had
lighted her candle, put on some warm outer wrappings, taken her bag in
her hand, and, extinguishing the light again, descended the staircase.
When she got into the outer air she found that it had begun to rain,
and as she stood pausing at the door it increased, threatening to come
on heavily. But having committed herself to this line of action there
was no retreating for bad weather. Even the receipt of Clym's letter
would not have stopped her now. The gloom of the night was funereal;
all nature seemed clothed in crape. The spiky points of the fir trees
behind the house rose into the sky like the turrets and pinnacles of
an abbey. Nothing below the horizon was visible save a light which
was still burning in the cottage of Susan Nunsuch.
Eustacia opened her umbrella and went out from the enclosure by
the steps over the bank, after which she was beyond all danger of
being perceived. Skirting the pool, she followed the path towards
Rainbarrow, occasionally stumbling over twisted furze-roots, tufts
of rushes, or oozing lumps of fleshy fungi, which at this season lay
scattered about the heath like the rotten liver and lungs of some
colossal animal. The moon and stars were closed up by cloud and rain
to the degree of extinction. It was a night which led the traveller's
thoughts instinctively to dwell on nocturnal scenes of disaster in the
chronicles of the world, on all that is terrible and dark in history
and legend--the last plague of Egypt, the destruction of Sennacherib's
host, the agony in Gethsemane.
Eustacia at length reached Rainbarrow, and stood still there to think.
Never was harmony more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind
and the chaos of the world without. A sudden recollection had flashed
on her this moment: she had not money enough for undertaking a long
journey. Amid the fluctuating sentiments of the day her unpractical
mind had not dwelt on the necessity of being well-provided, and now
that she thoroughly realized the condition she sighed bitterly and
ceased to stand erect, gradually crouching down under the umbrella as
if she were drawn into the Barrow by a hand from beneath. Could it
be that she was to remain a captive still? Money: she had never felt
its value before. Even to efface herself from the country means were
required. To ask Wildeve for pecuniary aid without allowing him to
accompany her was impossible to a woman with a shadow of pride left in
her; to fly as his mistress--and she knew that he loved her--was of
the nature of humiliation.
Anyone who had stood by now would have pitied her, not so much on
account of her exposure to weather, and isolation from all of humanity
except the mouldered remains inside the tumulus; but for that other
form of misery which was denoted by the slightly rocking movement
that her feelings imparted to her person. Extreme unhappiness weighed
visibly upon her. Between the drippings of the rain from her umbrella
to her mantle, from her mantle to the heather, from the heather to
the earth, very similar sounds could be heard coming from her lips;
and the tearfulness of the outer scene was repeated upon her face.
The wings of her soul were broken by the cruel obstructiveness of all
about her; and even had she seen herself in a promising way of getting
to Budmouth, entering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port,
she would have been but little more buoyant, so fearfully malignant
were other things. She uttered words aloud. When a woman in such
a situation, neither old, deaf, crazed, nor whimsical, takes upon
herself to sob and soliloquize aloud there is something grievous the
matter.
"Can I go, can I go?" she moaned. "He's not GREAT enough for me to
give myself to--he does not suffice for my desire!... If he had been
a Saul or a Buonaparte--ah! But to break my marriage vow for him--it
is too poor a luxury!... And I have no money to go alone! And if
I could, what comfort to me? I must drag on next year, as I have
dragged on this year, and the year after that as before. How I have
tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been
against me!... I do not deserve my lot!" she cried in a frenzy of
bitter revolt. "O, the cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived
world! I was capable of much; but I have been injured and blighted
and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how hard it is of Heaven
to devise such tortures for me, who have done no harm to Heaven at
all!"
The distant light which Eustacia had cursorily observed in leaving
the house came, as she had divined, from the cottage window of Susan
Nunsuch. What Eustacia did not divine was the occupation of the woman
within at that moment. Susan's sight of her passing figure earlier
in the evening, not five minutes after the sick boy's exclamation,
"Mother, I do feel so bad!" persuaded the matron that an evil
influence was certainly exercised by Eustacia's propinquity.
On this account Susan did not go to bed as soon as the evening's work
was over, as she would have done at ordinary times. To counteract
the malign spell which she imagined poor Eustacia to be working, the
boy's mother busied herself with a ghastly invention of superstition,
calculated to bring powerlessness, atrophy, and annihilation on any
human being against whom it was directed. It was a practice well
known on Egdon at that date, and one that is not quite extinct at the
present day.
She passed with her candle into an inner room, where, among other
utensils, were two large brown pans, containing together perhaps a
hundredweight of liquid honey, the produce of the bees during the
foregoing summer. On a shelf over the pans was a smooth and solid
yellow mass of a hemispherical form, consisting of beeswax from the
same take of honey. Susan took down the lump, and cutting off several
thin slices, heaped them in an iron ladle, with which she returned
to the living-room, and placed the vessel in the hot ashes of the
fireplace. As soon as the wax had softened to the plasticity of dough
she kneaded the pieces together. And now her face became more intent.
She began moulding the wax; and it was evident from her manner of
manipulation that she was endeavouring to give it some preconceived
form. The form was human.
By warming and kneading, cutting and twisting, dismembering and
re-joining the incipient image she had in about a quarter of an hour
produced a shape which tolerably well resembled a woman, and was
about six inches high. She laid it on the table to get cold and hard.
Meanwhile she took the candle and went upstairs to where the little
boy was lying.
"Did you notice, my dear, what Mrs. Eustacia wore this afternoon
besides the dark dress?"
"A red ribbon round her neck."
"Anything else?"
"No--except sandal-shoes."
"A red ribbon and sandal-shoes," she said to herself.
Mrs. Nunsuch went and searched till she found a fragment of the
narrowest red ribbon, which she took downstairs and tied round the
neck of the image. Then fetching ink and a quill from the rickety
bureau by the window, she blackened the feet of the image to the
extent presumably covered by shoes; and on the instep of each foot
marked cross-lines in the shape taken by the sandal-strings of those
days. Finally she tied a bit of black thread round the upper part of
the head, in faint resemblance to a snood worn for confining the hair.
Susan held the object at arm's length and contemplated it with a
satisfaction in which there was no smile. To anybody acquainted with
the inhabitants of Egdon Heath the image would have suggested Eustacia
Yeobright.
From her work-basket in the window-seat the woman took a paper of
pins, of the old long and yellow sort whose heads were disposed
to come off at their first usage. These she began to thrust into
the image in all directions, with apparently excruciating energy.
Probably as many as fifty were thus inserted, some into the head of
the wax model, some into the shoulders, some into the trunk, some
upwards through the soles of the feet, till the figure was completely
permeated with pins.
She turned to the fire. It had been of turf; and though the high heap
of ashes which turf fires produce was somewhat dark and dead on the
outside, upon raking it abroad with the shovel the inside of the mass
showed a glow of red heat. She took a few pieces of fresh turf from
the chimney-corner and built them together over the glow, upon which
the fire brightened. Seizing with the tongs the image that she had
made of Eustacia, she held it in the heat, and watched it as it began
to waste slowly away. And while she stood thus engaged there came
from between her lips a murmur of words.
It was a strange jargon--the Lord's Prayer repeated backwards--the
incantation usual in proceedings for obtaining unhallowed assistance
against an enemy. Susan uttered the lugubrious discourse three
times slowly, and when it was completed the image had considerably
diminished. As the wax dropped into the fire a long flame arose from
the spot, and curling its tongue round the figure ate still further
into its substance. A pin occasionally dropped with the wax, and the
embers heated it red as it lay.
VIII
Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers
While the effigy of Eustacia was melting to nothing, and the fair
woman herself was standing on Rainbarrow, her soul in an abyss of
desolation seldom plumbed by one so young, Yeobright sat lonely at
Blooms-End. He had fulfilled his word to Thomasin by sending off
Fairway with the letter to his wife, and now waited with increased
impatience for some sound or signal of her return. Were Eustacia
still at Mistover the very least he expected was that she would send
him back a reply tonight by the same hand; though, to leave all to her
inclination, he had cautioned Fairway not to ask for an answer. If
one were handed to him he was to bring it immediately; if not, he was
to go straight home without troubling to come round to Blooms-End
again that night.
But secretly Clym had a more pleasing hope. Eustacia might possibly
decline to use her pen--it was rather her way to work silently--and
surprise him by appearing at his door. How fully her mind was made up
to do otherwise he did not know.
To Clym's regret it began to rain and blow hard as the evening
advanced. The wind rasped and scraped at the corners of the house,
and filliped the eavesdroppings like peas against the panes. He
walked restlessly about the untenanted rooms, stopping strange noises
in windows and doors by jamming splinters of wood into the casements
and crevices, and pressing together the lead-work of the quarries
where it had become loosened from the glass. It was one of those
nights when cracks in the walls of old churches widen, when ancient
stains on the ceilings of decayed manor houses are renewed and
enlarged from the size of a man's hand to an area of many feet. The
little gate in the palings before his dwelling continually opened and
clicked together again, but when he looked out eagerly nobody was
there; it was as if invisible shapes of the dead were passing in on
their way to visit him.
Between ten and eleven o'clock, finding that neither Fairway nor
anybody else came to him, he retired to rest, and despite his
anxieties soon fell asleep. His sleep, however, was not very sound,
by reason of the expectancy he had given way to, and he was easily
awakened by a knocking which began at the door about an hour after.
Clym arose and looked out of the window. Rain was still falling
heavily, the whole expanse of heath before him emitting a subdued
hiss under the downpour. It was too dark to see anything at all.
"Who's there?" he cried.
Light footsteps shifted their position in the porch, and he could just
distinguish in a plaintive female voice the words, "O Clym, come down
and let me in!"
He flushed hot with agitation. "Surely it is Eustacia!" he murmured.
If so, she had indeed come to him unawares.
He hastily got a light, dressed himself, and went down. On his
flinging open the door the rays of the candle fell upon a woman
closely wrapped up, who at once came forward.
"Thomasin!" he exclaimed in an indescribable tone of disappointment.
"It is Thomasin, and on such a night as this! O, where is Eustacia?"
Thomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting.
"Eustacia? I don't know, Clym; but I can think," she said with much
perturbation. "Let me come in and rest--I will explain this. There
is a great trouble brewing--my husband and Eustacia!"
"What, what?"
"I think my husband is going to leave me or do something dreadful--I
don't know what--Clym, will you go and see? I have nobody to help me
but you! Eustacia has not yet come home?"
"No."
She went on breathlessly: "Then they are going to run off together! He
came indoors tonight about eight o'clock and said in an off-hand way,
'Tamsie, I have just found that I must go a journey.' 'When?' I said.
'Tonight,' he said. 'Where?' I asked him. 'I cannot tell you at
present,' he said; 'I shall be back again tomorrow.' He then went and
busied himself in looking up his things, and took no notice of me at
all. I expected to see him start, but he did not, and then it came to
be ten o'clock, when he said, 'You had better go to bed.' I didn't
know what to do, and I went to bed. I believe he thought I fell
asleep, for half an hour after that he came up and unlocked the oak
chest we keep money in when we have much in the house and took out a
roll of something which I believe was bank-notes, though I was not
aware that he had 'em there. These he must have got from the bank
when he went there the other day. What does he want bank-notes for,
if he is only going off for a day? When he had gone down I thought of
Eustacia, and how he had met her the night before--I know he did meet
her, Clym, for I followed him part of the way; but I did not like to
tell you when you called, and so make you think ill of him, as I did
not think it was so serious. Then I could not stay in bed; I got up
and dressed myself, and when I heard him out in the stable I thought
I would come and tell you. So I came downstairs without any noise and
slipped out."
"Then he was not absolutely gone when you left?"
"No. Will you, dear Cousin Clym, go and try to persuade him not to go?
He takes no notice of what I say, and puts me off with the story of
his going on a journey, and will be home tomorrow, and all that; but I
don't believe it. I think you could influence him."
"I'll go," said Clym. "O, Eustacia!"
Thomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having by this time
seated herself she began to unroll it, when a baby appeared as the
kernel to the husks--dry, warm, and unconscious of travel or rough
weather. Thomasin briefly kissed the baby, and then found time to
begin crying as she said, "I brought baby, for I was afraid what might
happen to her. I suppose it will be her death, but I couldn't leave
her with Rachel!"
Clym hastily put together the logs on the hearth, raked abroad the
embers, which were scarcely yet extinct, and blew up a flame with the
bellows.
"Dry yourself," he said. "I'll go and get some more wood."
"No, no--don't stay for that. I'll make up the fire. Will you go at
once--please will you?"
Yeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself. While he was gone
another rapping came to the door. This time there was no delusion
that it might be Eustacia's: the footsteps just preceding it had been
heavy and slow. Yeobright thinking it might possibly be Fairway with
a note in answer, descended again and opened the door.
"Captain Vye?" he said to a dripping figure.
"Is my granddaughter here?" said the captain.
"No."
"Then where is she?".
"I don't know."
"But you ought to know--you are her husband."
"Only in name apparently," said Clym with rising excitement. "I
believe she means to elope tonight with Wildeve. I am just going to
look to it."
"Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago. Who's
sitting there?"
"My cousin Thomasin."
The captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her. "I only hope it is no
worse than an elopement," he said.
"Worse? What's worse than the worst a wife can do?"
"Well, I have been told a strange tale. Before starting in search of
her I called up Charley, my stable lad. I missed my pistols the other
day."
"Pistols?"
"He said at the time that he took them down to clean. He has now
owned that he took them because he saw Eustacia looking curiously at
them; and she afterwards owned to him that she was thinking of taking
her life, but bound him to secrecy, and promised never to think of
such a thing again. I hardly suppose she will ever have bravado
enough to use one of them; but it shows what has been lurking in her
mind; and people who think of that sort of thing once think of it
again."
"Where are the pistols?"
"Safely locked up. O no, she won't touch them again. But there are
more ways of letting out life than through a bullet-hole. What did
you quarrel about so bitterly with her to drive her to all this? You
must have treated her badly indeed. Well, I was always against the
marriage, and I was right."
"Are you going with me?" said Yeobright, paying no attention to the
captain's latter remark. "If so I can tell you what we quarrelled
about as we walk along."
"Where to?"
"To Wildeve's--that was her destination, depend upon it."
Thomasin here broke in, still weeping: "He said he was only going on
a sudden short journey; but if so why did he want so much money? O,
Clym, what do you think will happen? I am afraid that you, my poor
baby, will soon have no father left to you!"
"I am off now," said Yeobright, stepping into the porch.
"I would fain go with 'ee," said the old man doubtfully. "But I begin
to be afraid that my legs will hardly carry me there such a night as
this. I am not so young as I was. If they are interrupted in their
flight she will be sure to come back to me, and I ought to be at the
house to receive her. But be it as 'twill I can't walk to the Quiet
Woman, and that's an end on't. I'll go straight home."
"It will perhaps be best," said Clym. "Thomasin, dry yourself, and be
as comfortable as you can."
With this he closed the door upon her, and left the house in company
with Captain Vye, who parted from him outside the gate, taking the
middle path, which led to Mistover. Clym crossed by the right-hand
track towards the inn.
Thomasin, being left alone, took off some of her wet garments,
carried the baby upstairs to Clym's bed, and then came down to the
sitting-room again, where she made a larger fire, and began drying
herself. The fire soon flared up the chimney, giving the room an
appearance of comfort that was doubled by contrast with the drumming
of the storm without, which snapped at the window-panes and breathed
into the chimney strange low utterances that seemed to be the prologue
to some tragedy.
But the least part of Thomasin was in the house, for her heart being
at ease about the little girl upstairs she was mentally following Clym
on his journey. Having indulged in this imaginary peregrination for
some considerable interval, she became impressed with a sense of the
intolerable slowness of time. But she sat on. The moment then came
when she could scarcely sit longer; and it was like a satire on her
patience to remember that Clym could hardly have reached the inn as
yet. At last she went to the baby's bedside. The child was sleeping
soundly; but her imagination of possibly disastrous events at her
home, the predominance within her of the unseen over the seen,
agitated her beyond endurance. She could not refrain from going down
and opening the door. The rain still continued, the candlelight
falling upon the nearest drops and making glistening darts of them as
they descended across the throng of invisible ones behind. To plunge
into that medium was to plunge into water slightly diluted with air.
But the difficulty of returning to her house at this moment made her
all the more desirous of doing so: anything was better than suspense.
"I have come here well enough," she said, "and why shouldn't I go back
again? It is a mistake for me to be away."
She hastily fetched the infant, wrapped it up, cloaked herself as
before, and shoveling the ashes over the fire, to prevent accidents,
went into the open air. Pausing first to put the door key in its
old place behind the shutter, she resolutely turned her face to the
confronting pile of firmamental darkness beyond the palings, and
stepped into its midst. But Thomasin's imagination being so actively
engaged elsewhere, the night and the weather had for her no terror
beyond that of their actual discomfort and difficulty.
She was soon ascending Blooms-End valley and traversing the
undulations on the side of the hill. The noise of the wind over the
heath was shrill, and as if it whistled for joy at finding a night
so congenial as this. Sometimes the path led her to hollows between
thickets of tall and dripping bracken, dead, though not yet prostrate,
which enclosed her like a pool. When they were more than usually tall
she lifted the baby to the top of her head, that it might be out of
the reach of their drenching fronds. On higher ground, where the wind
was brisk and sustained, the rain flew in a level flight without
sensible descent, so that it was beyond all power to imagine the
remoteness of the point at which it left the bosoms of the clouds.
Here self-defence was impossible, and individual drops stuck into
her like the arrows into Saint Sebastian. She was enabled to avoid
puddles by the nebulous paleness which signified their presence,
though beside anything less dark than the heath they themselves would
have appeared as blackness.
Yet in spite of all this Thomasin was not sorry that she had started.
To her there were not, as to Eustacia, demons in the air, and malice
in every bush and bough. The drops which lashed her face were not
scorpions, but prosy rain; Egdon in the mass was no monster whatever,
but impersonal open ground. Her fears of the place were rational,
her dislikes of its worst moods reasonable. At this time it was in
her view a windy, wet place, in which a person might experience much
discomfort, lose the path without care, and possibly catch cold.
If the path is well known the difficulty at such times of keeping
therein is not altogether great, from its familiar feel to the feet;
but once lost it is irrecoverable. Owing to her baby, who somewhat
impeded Thomasin's view forward and distracted her mind, she did at
last lose the track. This mishap occurred when she was descending an
open slope about two-thirds home. Instead of attempting, by wandering
hither and thither, the hopeless task of finding such a mere thread,
she went straight on, trusting for guidance to her general knowledge
of the contours, which was scarcely surpassed by Clym's or by that of
the heath-croppers themselves.
At length Thomasin reached a hollow and began to discern through the
rain a faint blotted radiance, which presently assumed the oblong form
of an open door. She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was
soon aware of the nature of the door by its height above the ground.
"Why, it is Diggory Venn's van, surely!" she said.
A certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew, often Venn's
chosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood; and she guessed at
once that she had stumbled upon this mysterious retreat. The question
arose in her mind whether or not she should ask him to guide her into
the path. In her anxiety to reach home she decided that she would
appeal to him, notwithstanding the strangeness of appearing before
his eyes at this place and season. But when, in pursuance of this
resolve, Thomasin reached the van and looked in she found it to be
untenanted; though there was no doubt that it was the reddleman's.
The fire was burning in the stove, the lantern hung from the nail.
Round the doorway the floor was merely sprinkled with rain, and not
saturated, which told her that the door had not long been opened.
While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep
advancing from the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the
well-known form in corduroy, lurid from head to foot, the lantern
beams falling upon him through an intervening gauze of raindrops.
"I thought you went down the slope," he said, without noticing her
face. "How do you come back here again?"
"Diggory?" said Thomasin faintly.
"Who are you?" said Venn, still unperceiving. "And why were you
crying so just now?"
"O, Diggory! don't you know me?" said she. "But of course you don't,
wrapped up like this. What do you mean? I have not been crying here,
and I have not been here before."
Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her
form.
"Mrs. Wildeve!" he exclaimed, starting. "What a time for us to meet!
And the baby too! What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such
a night as this?"
She could not immediately answer; and without asking her permission he
hopped into his van, took her by the arm, and drew her up after him.
"What is it?" he continued when they stood within.
"I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am in a great hurry
to get home. Please show me as quickly as you can! It is so silly of
me not to know Egdon better, and I cannot think how I came to lose the
path. Show me quickly, Diggory, please."
"Yes, of course. I will go with 'ee. But you came to me before this,
Mrs. Wildeve?"
"I only came this minute."
"That's strange. I was lying down here asleep about five minutes ago,
with the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a
woman's clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up (for I
don't sleep heavy), and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying
from the same woman. I opened my door and held out my lantern, and
just as far as the light would reach I saw a woman: she turned her
head when the light sheened on her, and then hurried on downhill. I
hung up the lantern, and was curious enough to pull on my things and
dog her a few steps, but I could see nothing of her any more. That
was where I had been when you came up; and when I saw you I thought
you were the same one."
"Perhaps it was one of the heath-folk going home?"
"No, it couldn't be. 'Tis too late. The noise of her gown over the
he'th was of a whistling sort that nothing but silk will make."
"It wasn't I, then. My dress is not silk, you see... Are we anywhere
in a line between Mistover and the inn?"
"Well, yes; not far out."
"Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!"
She jumped down from the van before he was aware, when Venn unhooked
the lantern and leaped down after her. "I'll take the baby, ma'am,"
he said. "You must be tired out by the weight."
Thomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby into Venn's
hands. "Don't squeeze her, Diggory," she said, "or hurt her little
arm; and keep the cloak close over her like this, so that the rain may
not drop in her face."
"I will," said Venn earnestly. "As if I could hurt anything belonging
to you!"
"I only meant accidentally," said Thomasin.
"The baby is dry enough, but you are pretty wet," said the reddleman
when, in closing the door of his cart to padlock it, he noticed on the
floor a ring of water drops where her cloak had hung from her.
Thomasin followed him as he wound right and left to avoid the larger
bushes, stopping occasionally and covering the lantern, while he
looked over his shoulder to gain some idea of the position of
Rainbarrow above them, which it was necessary to keep directly behind
their backs to preserve a proper course.
"You are sure the rain does not fall upon baby?"
"Quite sure. May I ask how old he is, ma'am?"
"He!" said Thomasin reproachfully. "Anybody can see better than that
in a moment. She is nearly two months old. How far is it now to the
inn?"
"A little over a quarter of a mile."
"Will you walk a little faster?"
"I was afraid you could not keep up."
"I am very anxious to get there. Ah, there is a light from the
window!"
"'Tis not from the window. That's a gig-lamp, to the best of my
belief."
"O!" said Thomasin in despair. "I wish I had been there sooner--give
me the baby, Diggory--you can go back now."
"I must go all the way," said Venn. "There is a quag between us and
that light, and you will walk into it up to your neck unless I take
you round."
"But the light is at the inn, and there is no quag in front of that."
"No, the light is below the inn some two or three hundred yards."
"Never mind," said Thomasin hurriedly. "Go towards the light, and not
towards the inn."
"Yes," answered Venn, swerving round in obedience; and, after a pause,
"I wish you would tell me what this great trouble is. I think you
have proved that I can be trusted."
"There are some things that cannot be--cannot be told to--" And then
her heart rose into her throat, and she could say no more.
IX
Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
Having seen Eustacia's signal from the hill at eight o'clock, Wildeve
immediately prepared to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped,
accompany her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informing
Thomasin that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient to
rouse her suspicions. When she had gone to bed he collected the few
articles he would require, and went upstairs to the money-chest,
whence he took a tolerably bountiful sum in notes, which had been
advanced to him on the property he was so soon to have in possession,
to defray expenses incidental to the removal.
He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure himself that the
horse, gig, and harness were in a fit condition for a long drive.
Nearly half an hour was spent thus, and on returning to the house
Wildeve had no thought of Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. He had
told the stable-lad not to stay up, leading the boy to understand that
his departure would be at three or four in the morning; for this,
though an exceptional hour, was less strange than midnight, the time
actually agreed on, the packet from Budmouth sailing between one and
two.
At last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but to wait. By no
effort could he shake off the oppression of spirits which he had
experienced ever since his last meeting with Eustacia, but he hoped
there was that in his situation which money could cure. He had
persuaded himself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle
wife by settling on her the half of his property, and with chivalrous
devotion towards another and greater woman by sharing her fate, was
possible. And though he meant to adhere to Eustacia's instructions to
the letter, to deposit her where she wished and to leave her, should
that be her will, the spell that she had cast over him intensified,
and his heart was beating fast in the anticipated futility of such
commands in the face of a mutual wish that they should throw in their
lot together.
He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures,
maxims, and hopes, and at twenty minutes to twelve he again went
softly to the stable, harnessed the horse, and lit the lamps; whence,
taking the horse by the head, he led him with the covered car out of
the yard to a spot by the roadside some quarter of a mile below the
inn.
Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving rain by a
high bank that had been cast up at this place. Along the surface of
the road where lit by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones
scudded and clicked together before the wind, which, leaving them
in heaps, plunged into the heath and boomed across the bushes into
darkness. Only one sound rose above this din of weather, and that was
the roaring of a ten-hatch weir to the southward, from a river in the
meads which formed the boundary of the heath in this direction.
He lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy that the
midnight hour must have struck. A very strong doubt had arisen in his
mind if Eustacia would venture down the hill in such weather; yet
knowing her nature he felt that she might. "Poor thing! 'tis like her
ill-luck," he murmured.
At length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To his
surprise it was nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that he
had driven up the circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adopted
because of the enormous length of the route in proportion to that
of the pedestrian's path down the open hillside, and the consequent
increase of labour for the horse.
At this moment a footstep approached; but the light of the lamps being
in a different direction the comer was not visible. The step paused,
then came on again.
"Eustacia?" said Wildeve.
The person came forward, and the light fell upon the form of Clym,
glistening with wet, whom Wildeve immediately recognized; but Wildeve,
who stood behind the lamp, was not at once recognized by Yeobright.
He stopped as if in doubt whether this waiting vehicle could have
anything to do with the flight of his wife or not. The sight of
Yeobright at once banished Wildeve's sober feelings, who saw him again
as the deadly rival from whom Eustacia was to be kept at all hazards.
Hence Wildeve did not speak, in the hope that Clym would pass by
without particular inquiry.
While they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound became audible
above the storm and wind. Its origin was unmistakable--it was the
fall of a body into the stream in the adjoining mead, apparently at
a point near the weir.
Both started. "Good God! can it be she?" said Clym.
"Why should it be she?" said Wildeve, in his alarm forgetting that he
had hitherto screened himself.
"Ah!--that's you, you traitor, is it?" cried Yeobright. "Why should
it be she? Because last week she would have put an end to her life if
she had been able. She ought to have been watched! Take one of the
lamps and come with me."
Yeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on; Wildeve did
not wait to unfasten the other, but followed at once along the
meadow-track to the weir, a little in the rear of Clym.
Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet in
diameter, into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raised
and lowered by a winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides of
the pool were of masonry, to prevent the water from washing away the
bank; but the force of the stream in winter was sometimes such as
to undermine the retaining wall and precipitate it into the hole.
Clym reached the hatches, the framework of which was shaken to its
foundations by the velocity of the current. Nothing but the froth of
the waves could be discerned in the pool below. He got upon the plank
bridge over the race, and holding to the rail, that the wind might not
blow him off, crossed to the other side of the river. There he leant
over the wall and lowered the lamp, only to behold the vortex formed
at the curl of the returning current.
Wildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the light from
Yeobright's lamp shed a flecked and agitated radiance across the
weir pool, revealing to the ex-engineer the tumbling courses of the
currents from the hatches above. Across this gashed and puckered
mirror a dark body was slowly borne by one of the backward currents.
"O, my darling!" exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice; and, without
showing sufficient presence of mind even to throw off his greatcoat,
he leaped into the boiling caldron.
Yeobright could now also discern the floating body, though but
indistinctly; and imagining from Wildeve's plunge that there was life
to be saved he was about to leap after. Bethinking himself of a wiser
plan he placed the lamp against a post to make it stand upright, and
running round to the lower part of the pool, where there was no wall,
he sprang in and boldly waded upwards towards the deeper portion.
Here he was taken off his legs, and in swimming was carried round into
the centre of the basin, where he perceived Wildeve struggling.
While these hasty actions were in progress here, Venn and Thomasin had
been toiling through the lower corner of the heath in the direction
of the light. They had not been near enough to the river to hear the
plunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage-lamp, and watched its
motion into the mead. As soon as they reached the car and horse Venn
guessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in the
course of the moving light. Venn walked faster than Thomasin, and
came to the weir alone.
The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the water,
and the reddleman observed something floating motionless. Being
encumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.
"Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve," he said hastily. "Run home
with her, call the stable-lad, and make him send down to me any men
who may be living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir."
Thomasin took the child and ran. When she came to the covered car the
horse, though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, as
if conscious of misfortune. She saw for the first time whose it was.
She nearly fainted, and would have been unable to proceed another step
but that the necessity of preserving the little girl from harm nerved
her to an amazing self-control. In this agony of suspense she entered
the house, put the baby in a place of safety, woke the lad and the
female domestic, and ran out to give the alarm at the nearest cottage.
Diggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed that the
small upper hatches or floats were withdrawn. He found one of these
lying upon the grass, and taking it under one arm, and with his
lantern in his hand, entered at the bottom of the pool as Clym had
done. As soon as he began to be in deep water he flung himself across
the hatch; thus supported he was able to keep afloat as long as he
chose, holding the lantern aloft with his disengaged hand. Propelled
by his feet he steered round and round the pool, ascending each
time by one of the back streams and descending in the middle of the
current.
At first he could see nothing. Then amidst the glistening of the
whirlpools and the white clots of foam he distinguished a woman's
bonnet floating alone. His search was now under the left wall, when
something came to the surface almost close beside him. It was not, as
he had expected, a woman, but a man. The reddleman put the ring of
the lantern between his teeth, seized the floating man by the collar,
and, holding on to the hatch with his remaining arm, struck out into
the strongest race, by which the unconscious man, the hatch, and
himself were carried down the stream. As soon as Venn found his feet
dragging over the pebbles of the shallower part below he secured his
footing and waded towards the brink. There, where the water stood at
about the height of his waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted
to drag forth the man. This was a matter of great difficulty, and he
found as the reason that the legs of the unfortunate stranger were
tightly embraced by the arms of another man, who had hitherto been
entirely beneath the surface.
At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towards
him, and two men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above.
They ran to where Venn was, and helped him in lifting out the
apparently drowned persons, separating them, and laying them out upon
the grass. Venn turned the light upon their faces. The one who had
been uppermost was Yeobright; he who had been completely submerged was
Wildeve.
"Now we must search the hole again," said Venn. "A woman is in there
somewhere. Get a pole."
One of the men went to the foot-bridge and tore off the handrail. The
reddleman and the two others then entered the water together from
below as before, and with their united force probed the pool forwards
to where it sloped down to its central depth. Venn was not mistaken
in supposing that any person who had sunk for the last time would
be washed down to this point, for when they had examined to about
half-way across something impeded their thrust.
"Pull it forward," said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole till
it was close to their feet.
Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wet
drapery enclosing a woman's cold form, which was all that remained of
the desperate Eustacia.
When they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a stress of grief,
bending over the two unconscious ones who already lay there. The
horse and cart were brought to the nearest point in the road, and it
was the work of a few minutes only to place the three in the vehicle.
Venn led on the horse, supporting Thomasin upon his arm, and the two
men followed, till they reached the inn.
The woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin had hastily
dressed herself and lighted a fire, the other servant being left to
snore on in peace at the back of the house. The insensible forms of
Eustacia, Clym, and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the
carpet, with their feet to the fire, when such restorative processes
as could be thought of were adopted at once, the stableman being in
the meantime sent for a doctor. But there seemed to be not a whiff
of life left in either of the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor of
grief had been thrust off awhile by frantic action, applied a bottle
of hartshorn to Clym's nostrils, having tried it in vain upon the
othertwo. He sighed.
"Clym's alive!" she exclaimed.
He soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did she attempt to
revive her husband by the same means; but Wildeve gave no sign. There
was too much reason to think that he and Eustacia both were for ever
beyond the reach of stimulating perfumes. Their exertions did not
relax till the doctor arrived, when one by one, the senseless three
were taken upstairs and put into warm beds.
Venn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance, and went
to the door, scarcely able yet to realize the strange catastrophe
that had befallen the family in which he took so great an interest.
Thomasin surely would be broken down by the sudden and overwhelming
nature of this event. No firm and sensible Mrs. Yeobright lived now
to support the gentle girl through the ordeal; and, whatever an
unimpassioned spectator might think of her loss of such a husband
as Wildeve, there could be no doubt that for the moment she was
distracted and horrified by the blow. As for himself, not being
privileged to go to her and comfort her, he saw no reason for waiting
longer in a house where he remained only as a stranger.
He returned across the heath to his van. The fire was not yet out,
and everything remained as he had left it. Venn now bethought himself
of his clothes, which were saturated with water to the weight of lead.
He changed them, spread them before the fire, and lay down to sleep.
But it was more than he could do to rest here while excited by a vivid
imagination of the turmoil they were in at the house he had quitted,
and, blaming himself for coming away, he dressed in another suit,
locked up the door, and again hastened across to the inn. Rain was
still falling heavily when he entered the kitchen. A bright fire was
shining from the hearth, and two women were bustling about, one of
whom was Olly Dowden.
"Well, how is it going on now?" said Venn in a whisper.
"Mr. Yeobright is better; but Mrs. Yeobright and Mr. Wildeve are dead
and cold. The doctor says they were quite gone before they were out
of the water."
"Ah! I thought as much when I hauled 'em up. And Mrs. Wildeve?"
"She is as well as can be expected. The doctor had her put between
blankets, for she was almost as wet as they that had been in the
river, poor young thing. You don't seem very dry, reddleman."
"Oh, 'tis not much. I have changed my things. This is only a little
dampness I've got coming through the rain again."
"Stand by the fire. Mis'ess says you be to have whatever you want,
and she was sorry when she was told that you'd gone away."
Venn drew near to the fireplace, and looked into the flames in an
absent mood. The steam came from his leggings and ascended the
chimney with the smoke, while he thought of those who were upstairs.
Two were corpses, one had barely escaped the jaws of death, another
was sick and a widow. The last occasion on which he had lingered by
that fireplace was when the raffle was in progress; when Wildeve
was alive and well; Thomasin active and smiling in the next room;
Yeobright and Eustacia just made husband and wife, and Mrs. Yeobright
living at Blooms-End. It had seemed at that time that the then
position of affairs was good for at least twenty years to come. Yet,
of all the circle, he himself was the only one whose situation had not
materially changed.
While he ruminated a footstep descended the stairs. It was the nurse,
who brought in her hand a rolled mass of wet paper. The woman was
so engrossed with her occupation that she hardly saw Venn. She took
from a cupboard some pieces of twine, which she strained across the
fireplace, tying the end of each piece to the firedog, previously
pulled forward for the purpose, and, unrolling the wet papers, she
began pinning them one by one to the strings in a manner of clothes
on a line.
"What be they?" said Venn.
"Poor master's bank-notes," she answered. "They were found in his
pocket when they undressed him."
"Then he was not coming back again for some time?" said Venn.
"That we shall never know," said she.
Venn was loth to depart, for all on earth that interested him lay
under this roof. As nobody in the house had any more sleep that
night, except the two who slept for ever, there was no reason why
he should not remain. So he retired into the niche of the fireplace
where he had used to sit, and there he continued, watching the steam
from the double row of bank-notes as they waved backwards and forwards
in the draught of the chimney till their flaccidity was changed to
dry crispness throughout. Then the woman came and unpinned them, and,
folding them together, carried the handful upstairs. Presently the
doctor appeared from above with the look of a man who could do no
more, and, pulling on his gloves, went out of the house, the trotting
of his horse soon dying away upon the road.
At four o'clock there was a gentle knock at the door. It was from
Charley, who had been sent by Captain Vye to inquire if anything had
been heard of Eustacia. The girl who admitted him looked in his face
as if she did not know what answer to return, and showed him in to
where Venn was seated, saying to the reddleman, "Will you tell him,
please?"
Venn told. Charley's only utterance was a feeble, indistinct sound.
He stood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, "I shall see
her once more?"
"I dare say you may see her," said Diggory gravely. "But hadn't you
better run and tell Captain Vye?"
"Yes, yes. Only I do hope I shall see her just once again."
"You shall," said a low voice behind; and starting round they beheld
by the dim light a thin, pallid, almost spectral form, wrapped in a
blanket, and looking like Lazarus coming from the tomb.
It was Yeobright. Neither Venn nor Charley spoke, and Clym continued,
"You shall see her. There will be time enough to tell the captain
when it gets daylight. You would like to see her too--would you not,
Diggory? She looks very beautiful now."
Venn assented by rising to his feet, and with Charley he followed Clym
to the foot of the staircase, where he took off his boots; Charley
did the same. They followed Yeobright upstairs to the landing, where
there was a candle burning, which Yeobright took in his hand, and with
it led the way into an adjoining room. Here he went to the bedside
and folded back the sheet.
They stood silently looking upon Eustacia, who, as she lay there still
in death, eclipsed all her living phases. Pallor did not include all
the quality of her complexion, which seemed more than whiteness;
it was almost light. The expression of her finely carved mouth was
pleasant, as if a sense of dignity had just compelled her to leave
off speaking. Eternal rigidity had seized upon it in a momentary
transition between fervour and resignation. Her black hair was looser
now than either of them had ever seen it before, and surrounded her
brow like a forest. The stateliness of look which had been almost
too marked for a dweller in a country domicile had at last found an
artistically happy background.
Nobody spoke, till at length Clym covered her and turned aside. "Now
come here," he said.
They went to a recess in the same room, and there, on a smaller bed,
lay another figure--Wildeve. Less repose was visible in his face than
in Eustacia's, but the same luminous youthfulness overspread it, and
the least sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him now
that he was born for a higher destiny than this. The only sign upon
him of his recent struggle for life was in his finger-tips, which were
worn and sacrificed in his dying endeavours to obtain a hold on the
face of the weir-wall.
Yeobright's manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so few syllables
since his reappearance, that Venn imagined him resigned. It was only
when they had left the room and stood upon the landing that the true
state of his mind was apparent. Here he said, with a wild smile,
inclining his head towards the chamber in which Eustacia lay, "She is
the second woman I have killed this year. I was a great cause of my
mother's death, and I am the chief cause of hers."
"How?" said Venn.
"I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. I did not invite
her back till it was too late. It is I who ought to have drowned
myself. It would have been a charity to the living had the river
overwhelmed me and borne her up. But I cannot die. Those who ought
to have lived lie dead; and here am I alive!"
"But you can't charge yourself with crimes in that way," said Venn.
"You may as well say that the parents be the cause of a murder by the
child, for without the parents the child would never have been begot."
"Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don't know all the
circumstances. If it had pleased God to put an end to me it would
have been a good thing for all. But I am getting used to the horror
of my existence. They say that a time comes when men laugh at misery
through long acquaintance with it. Surely that time will soon come
to me!"
"Your aim has always been good," said Venn. "Why should you say such
desperate things?"
"No, they are not desperate. They are only hopeless; and my great
regret is that for what I have done no man or law can punish me!"
BOOK SIXTH
AFTERCOURSES
I
The Inevitable Movement Onward
The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout
Egdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and months. All the known
incidents of their love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and
modified, till the original reality bore but a slight resemblance to
the counterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues. Yet, upon the
whole, neither the man nor the woman lost dignity by sudden death.
Misfortune had struck them gracefully, cutting off their erratic
histories with a catastrophic dash, instead of, as with many,
attenuating each life to an uninteresting meagreness, through long
years of wrinkles, neglect, and decay.
On those most nearly concerned the effect was somewhat different.
Strangers who had heard of many such cases now merely heard of one
more; but immediately where a blow falls no previous imaginings
amount to appreciable preparation for it. The very suddenness of
her bereavement dulled, to some extent, Thomasin's feelings; yet,
irrationally enough, a consciousness that the husband she had lost
ought to have been a better man did not lessen her mourning at all.
On the contrary, this fact seemed at first to set off the dead husband
in his young wife's eyes, and to be the necessary cloud to the
rainbow.
But the horrors of the unknown had passed. Vague misgivings about her
future as a deserted wife were at an end. The worst had once been
matter of trembling conjecture; it was now matter of reason only,
a limited badness. Her chief interest, the little Eustacia, still
remained. There was humility in her grief, no defiance in her
attitude; and when this is the case a shaken spirit is apt to be
stilled.
Could Thomasin's mournfulness now and Eustacia's serenity during life
have been reduced to common measure, they would have touched the same
mark nearly. But Thomasin's former brightness made shadow of that
which in a sombre atmosphere was light itself.
The spring came and calmed her; the summer came and soothed her; the
autumn arrived, and she began to be comforted, for her little girl was
strong and happy, growing in size and knowledge every day. Outward
events flattered Thomasin not a little. Wildeve had died intestate,
and she and the child were his only relatives. When administration
had been granted, all the debts paid, and the residue of her husband's
uncle's property had come into her hands, it was found that the sum
waiting to be invested for her own and the child's benefit was little
less than ten thousand pounds.
Where should she live? The obvious place was Blooms-End. The old
rooms, it is true, were not much higher than the between-decks of a
frigate, necessitating a sinking in the floor under the new clock-case
she brought from the inn, and the removal of the handsome brass knobs
on its head, before there was height for it to stand; but, such as the
rooms were, there were plenty of them, and the place was endeared to
her by every early recollection. Clym very gladly admitted her as a
tenant, confining his own existence to two rooms at the top of the
back staircase, where he lived on quietly, shut off from Thomasin and
the three servants she had thought fit to indulge in now that she
was a mistress of money, going his own ways, and thinking his own
thoughts.
His sorrows had made some change in his outward appearance; and yet
the alteration was chiefly within. It might have been said that he
had a wrinkled mind. He had no enemies, and he could get nobody to
reproach him, which was why he so bitterly reproached himself.
He did sometimes think he had been ill-used by fortune, so far as
to say that to be born is a palpable dilemma, and that instead of
men aiming to advance in life with glory they should calculate how
to retreat out of it without shame. But that he and his had been
sarcastically and pitilessly handled in having such irons thrust into
their souls he did not maintain long. It is usually so, except with
the sternest of men. Human beings, in their generous endeavour to
construct a hypothesis that shall not degrade a First Cause, have
always hesitated to conceive a dominant power of lower moral quality
than their own; and, even while they sit down and weep by the waters
of Babylon, invent excuses for the oppression which prompts their
tears.
Thus, though words of solace were vainly uttered in his presence, he
found relief in a direction of his own choosing when left to himself.
For a man of his habits the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a
year which he had inherited from his mother were enough to supply all
worldly needs. Resources do not depend upon gross amounts, but upon
the proportion of spendings to takings.
He frequently walked the heath alone, when the past seized upon
him with its shadowy hand, and held him there to listen to its
tale. His imagination would then people the spot with its ancient
inhabitants: forgotten Celtic tribes trod their tracks about him,
and he could almost live among them, look in their faces, and see
them standing beside the barrows which swelled around, untouched
and perfect as at the time of their erection. Those of the dyed
barbarians who had chosen the cultivable tracts were, in comparison
with those who had left their marks here, as writers on paper beside
writers on parchment. Their records had perished long ago by the
plough, while the works of these remained. Yet they all had lived
and died unconscious of the different fates awaiting their relics.
It reminded him that unforeseen factors operate in the evolution of
immortality.
Winter again came round, with its winds, frosts, tame robins, and
sparkling starlight. The year previous Thomasin had hardly been
conscious of the season's advance; this year she laid her heart open
to external influences of every kind. The life of this sweet cousin,
her baby, and her servants, came to Clym's senses only in the form of
sounds through a wood partition as he sat over books of exceptionally
large type; but his ear became at last so accustomed to these slight
noises from the other part of the house that he almost could witness
the scenes they signified. A faint beat of half-seconds conjured up
Thomasin rocking the cradle, a wavering hum meant that she was singing
the baby to sleep, a crunching of sand as between millstones raised
the picture of Humphrey's, Fairway's, or Sam's heavy feet crossing the
stone floor of the kitchen; a light boyish step, and a gay tune in a
high key, betokened a visit from Grandfer Cantle; a sudden break-off
in the Grandfer's utterances implied the application to his lips of a
mug of small beer, a bustling and slamming of doors meant starting to
go to market; for Thomasin, in spite of her added scope of gentility,
led a ludicrously narrow life, to the end that she might save every
possible pound for her little daughter.
One summer day Clym was in the garden, immediately outside the parlour
window, which was as usual open. He was looking at the pot-flowers on
the sill; they had been revived and restored by Thomasin to the state
in which his mother had left them. He heard a slight scream from
Thomasin, who was sitting inside the room.
"O, how you frightened me!" she said to some one who had entered. "I
thought you were the ghost of yourself."
Clym was curious enough to advance a little further and look in at the
window. To his astonishment there stood within the room Diggory Venn,
no longer a reddleman, but exhibiting the strangely altered hues of
an ordinary Christian countenance, white shirt-front, light flowered
waistcoat, blue-spotted neckerchief, and bottle-green coat. Nothing
in this appearance was at all singular but the fact of its great
difference from what he had formerly been. Red, and all approach to
red, was carefully excluded from every article of clothes upon him;
for what is there that persons just out of harness dread so much as
reminders of the trade which has enriched them?
Yeobright went round to the door and entered.
"I was so alarmed!" said Thomasin, smiling from one to the other. "I
couldn't believe that he had got white of his own accord! It seemed
supernatural."
"I gave up dealing in reddle last Christmas," said Venn. "It was a
profitable trade, and I found that by that time I had made enough to
take the dairy of fifty cows that my father had in his lifetime. I
always thought of getting to that place again if I changed at all, and
now I am there."
"How did you manage to become white, Diggory?" Thomasin asked.
"I turned so by degrees, ma'am."
"You look much better than ever you did before."
Venn appeared confused; and Thomasin, seeing how inadvertently she
had spoken to a man who might possibly have tender feelings for
her still, blushed a little. Clym saw nothing of this, and added
good-humouredly--
"What shall we have to frighten Thomasin's baby with, now you have
become a human being again?"
"Sit down, Diggory," said Thomasin, "and stay to tea."
Venn moved as if he would retire to the kitchen, when Thomasin said
with pleasant pertness as she went on with some sewing, "Of course
you must sit down here. And where does your fifty-cow dairy lie, Mr.
Venn?"
"At Stickleford--about two miles to the right of Alderworth, ma'am,
where the meads begin. I have thought that if Mr. Yeobright would
like to pay me a visit sometimes he shouldn't stay away for want of
asking. I'll not bide to tea this afternoon, thank'ee, for I've got
something on hand that must be settled. 'Tis Maypole-day tomorrow,
and the Shadwater folk have clubbed with a few of your neighbours here
to have a pole just outside your palings in the heath, as it is a nice
green place." Venn waved his elbow towards the patch in front of the
house. "I have been talking to Fairway about it," he continued, "and
I said to him that before we put up the pole it would be as well to
ask Mrs. Wildeve."
"I can say nothing against it," she answered. "Our property does not
reach an inch further than the white palings."
"But you might not like to see a lot of folk going crazy round a
stick, under your very nose?"
"I shall have no objection at all."
Venn soon after went away, and in the evening Yeobright strolled as
far as Fairway's cottage. It was a lovely May sunset, and the birch
trees which grew on this margin of the vast Egdon wilderness had put
on their new leaves, delicate as butterflies' wings, and diaphanous as
amber. Beside Fairway's dwelling was an open space recessed from the
road, and here were now collected all the young people from within a
radius of a couple of miles. The pole lay with one end supported on a
trestle, and women were engaged in wreathing it from the top downwards
with wildflowers. The instincts of merry England lingered on here
with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition
has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon.
Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan
still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic
gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are
forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval
doctrine.
Yeobright did not interrupt the preparations, and went home again.
The next morning, when Thomasin withdrew the curtains of her bedroom
window, there stood the Maypole in the middle of the green, its top
cutting into the sky. It had sprung up in the night, or rather early
morning, like Jack's bean-stalk. She opened the casement to get a
better view of the garlands and posies that adorned it. The sweet
perfume of the flowers had already spread into the surrounding air,
which, being free from every taint, conducted to her lips a full
measure of the fragrance received from the spire of blossom in its
midst. At the top of the pole were crossed hoops decked with small
flowers; beneath these came a milk-white zone of Maybloom; then a zone
of bluebells, then of cowslips, then of lilacs, then of ragged-robins,
daffodils, and so on, till the lowest stage was reached. Thomasin
noticed all these, and was delighted that the May revel was to be so
near.
When afternoon came people began to gather on the green, and Yeobright
was interested enough to look out upon them from the open window
of his room. Soon after this Thomasin walked out from the door
immediately below and turned her eyes up to her cousin's face. She
was dressed more gaily than Yeobright had ever seen her dressed since
the time of Wildeve's death, eighteen months before; since the day of
her marriage even she had not exhibited herself to such advantage.
"How pretty you look today, Thomasin!" he said. "Is it because of the
Maypole?"
"Not altogether." And then she blushed and dropped her eyes, which
he did not specially observe, though her manner seemed to him to be
rather peculiar, considering that she was only addressing himself.
Could it be possible that she had put on her summer clothes to please
him?
He recalled her conduct towards him throughout the last few weeks,
when they had often been working together in the garden, just as they
had formerly done when they were boy and girl under his mother's eye.
What if her interest in him were not so entirely that of a relative as
it had formerly been? To Yeobright any possibility of this sort was
a serious matter; and he almost felt troubled at the thought of it.
Every pulse of loverlike feeling which had not been stilled during
Eustacia's lifetime had gone into the grave with her. His passion for
her had occurred too far on in his manhood to leave fuel enough on
hand for another fire of that sort, as may happen with more boyish
loves. Even supposing him capable of loving again, that love would be
a plant of slow and laboured growth, and in the end only small and
sickly, like an autumn-hatched bird.
He was so distressed by this new complexity that when the enthusiastic
brass band arrived and struck up, which it did about five o'clock,
with apparently wind enough among its members to blow down his house,
he withdrew from his rooms by the back door, went down the garden,
through the gate in the hedge, and away out of sight. He could not
bear to remain in the presence of enjoyment today, though he had tried
hard.
Nothing was seen of him for four hours. When he came back by the same
path it was dusk, and the dews were coating every green thing. The
boisterous music had ceased; but, entering the premises as he did from
behind, he could not see if the May party had all gone till he had
passed through Thomasin's division of the house to the front door.
Thomasin was standing within the porch alone.
She looked at him reproachfully. "You went away just when it began,
Clym," she said.
"Yes. I felt I could not join in. You went out with them, of course?"
"No, I did not."
"You appeared to be dressed on purpose."
"Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people were there. One is
there now."
Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the
paling, and near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy
figure, sauntering idly up and down. "Who is it?" he said.
"Mr. Venn," said Thomasin.
"You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie. He has been
very kind to you first and last."
"I will now," she said; and, acting on the impulse, went through the
wicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole.
"It is Mr. Venn, I think?" she inquired.
Venn started as if he had not seen her--artful man that he was--and
said, "Yes."
"Will you come in?"
"I am afraid that I--"
"I have seen you dancing this evening, and you had the very best of
the girls for your partners. Is it that you won't come in because you
wish to stand here, and think over the past hours of enjoyment?"
"Well, that's partly it," said Mr. Venn, with ostentatious sentiment.
"But the main reason why I am biding here like this is that I want to
wait till the moon rises."
"To see how pretty the Maypole looks in the moonlight?"
"No. To look for a glove that was dropped by one of the maidens."
Thomasin was speechless with surprise. That a man who had to walk
some four or five miles to his home should wait here for such a reason
pointed to only one conclusion: the man must be amazingly interested
in that glove's owner.
"Were you dancing with her, Diggory?" she asked, in a voice which
revealed that he had made himself considerably more interesting to her
by this disclosure.
"No," he sighed.
"And you will not come in, then?"
"Not tonight, thank you, ma'am."
"Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young person's glove, Mr.
Venn?"
"O no; it is not necessary, Mrs. Wildeve, thank you. The moon will
rise in a few minutes."
Thomasin went back to the porch. "Is he coming in?" said Clym, who
had been waiting where she had left him.
"He would rather not tonight," she said, and then passed by him into
the house; whereupon Clym too retired to his own rooms.
When Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and, just
listening by the cot, to assure herself that the child was asleep, she
went to the window, gently lifted the corner of the white curtain,
and looked out. Venn was still there. She watched the growth of
the faint radiance appearing in the sky by the eastern hill, till
presently the edge of the moon burst upwards and flooded the valley
with light. Diggory's form was now distinct on the green; he was
moving about in a bowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass for the
precious missing article, walking in zigzags right and left till he
should have passed over every foot of the ground.
"How very ridiculous!" Thomasin murmured to herself, in a tone which
was intended to be satirical. "To think that a man should be so silly
as to go mooning about like that for a girl's glove! A respectable
dairyman, too, and a man of money as he is now. What a pity!"
At last Venn appeared to find it; whereupon he stood up and raised
it to his lips. Then placing it in his breast-pocket--the nearest
receptacle to a man's heart permitted by modern raiment--he ascended
the valley in a mathematically direct line towards his distant home in
the meadows.
II
Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road
Clym saw little of Thomasin for several days after this; and when they
met she was more silent than usual. At length he asked her what she
was thinking of so intently.
"I am thoroughly perplexed," she said candidly. "I cannot for my life
think who it is that Diggory Venn is so much in love with. None of
the girls at the Maypole were good enough for him, and yet she must
have been there."
Clym tried to imagine Venn's choice for a moment; but ceasing to be
interested in the question he went on again with his gardening.
No clearing up of the mystery was granted her for some time. But one
afternoon Thomasin was upstairs getting ready for a walk, when she had
occasion to come to the landing and call "Rachel." Rachel was a girl
about thirteen, who carried the baby out for airings; and she came
upstairs at the call.
"Have you seen one of my last new gloves about the house, Rachel?"
inquired Thomasin. "It is the fellow to this one."
Rachel did not reply.
"Why don't you answer?" said her mistress.
"I think it is lost, ma'am."
"Lost? Who lost it? I have never worn them but once."
Rachel appeared as one dreadfully troubled, and at last began to cry.
"Please, ma'am, on the day of the Maypole I had none to wear, and I
seed yours on the table, and I thought I would borrow 'em. I did not
mean to hurt 'em at all, but one of them got lost. Somebody gave me
some money to buy another pair for you, but I have not been able to
go anywhere to get 'em."
"Who's somebody?"
"Mr. Venn."
"Did he know it was my glove?"
"Yes. I told him."
Thomasin was so surprised by the explanation that she quite forgot
to lecture the girl, who glided silently away. Thomasin did not move
further than to turn her eyes upon the grass-plat where the Maypole
had stood. She remained thinking, then said to herself that she
would not go out that afternoon, but would work hard at the baby's
unfinished lovely plaid frock, cut on the cross in the newest fashion.
How she managed to work hard, and yet do no more than she had done at
the end of two hours, would have been a mystery to anyone not aware
that the recent incident was of a kind likely to divert her industry
from a manual to a mental channel.
Next day she went her ways as usual, and continued her custom of
walking in the heath with no other companion than little Eustacia, now
of the age when it is a matter of doubt with such characters whether
they are intended to walk through the world on their hands or on their
feet; so that they get into painful complications by trying both. It
was very pleasant to Thomasin, when she had carried the child to some
lonely place, to give her a little private practice on the green turf
and shepherd's-thyme, which formed a soft mat to fall headlong upon
when equilibrium was lost.
Once, when engaged in this system of training, and stooping to remove
bits of stick, fern-stalks, and other such fragments from the child's
path, that the journey might not be brought to an untimely end by some
insuperable barrier a quarter of an inch high, she was alarmed by
discovering that a man on horseback was almost close beside her, the
soft natural carpet having muffled the horse's tread. The rider, who
was Venn, waved his hat in the air and bowed gallantly.
"Diggory, give me my glove," said Thomasin, whose manner it was under
any circumstances to plunge into the midst of a subject which
engrossed her.
Venn immediately dismounted, put his hand in his breastpocket, and
handed the glove.
"Thank you. It was very good of you to take care of it."
"It is very good of you to say so."
"O no. I was quite glad to find you had it. Everybody gets so
indifferent that I was surprised to know you thought of me."
"If you had remembered what I was once you wouldn't have been
surprised."
"Ah, no," she said quickly. "But men of your character are mostly so
independent."
"What is my character?" he asked.
"I don't exactly know," said Thomasin simply, "except it is to cover
up your feelings under a practical manner, and only to show them when
you are alone."
"Ah, how do you know that?" said Venn strategically.
"Because," said she, stopping to put the little girl, who had managed
to get herself upside down, right end up again, "because I do."
"You mustn't judge by folks in general," said Venn. "Still I don't
know much what feelings are now-a-days. I have got so mixed up with
business of one sort and t'other that my soft sentiments are gone off
in vapour like. Yes, I am given up body and soul to the making of
money. Money is all my dream."
"O Diggory, how wicked!" said Thomasin reproachfully, and looking at
him in exact balance between taking his words seriously and judging
them as said to tease her.
"Yes, 'tis rather a rum course," said Venn, in the bland tone of one
comfortably resigned to sins he could no longer overcome.
"You, who used to be so nice!"
"Well, that's an argument I rather like, because what a man has once
been he may be again." Thomasin blushed. "Except that it is rather
harder now," Venn continued.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because you be richer than you were at that time."
"O no--not much. I have made it nearly all over to the baby, as it
was my duty to do, except just enough to live on."
"I am rather glad of that," said Venn softly, and regarding her from
the corner of his eye, "for it makes it easier for us to be friendly."
Thomasin blushed again, and, when a few more words had been said of a
not unpleasing kind, Venn mounted his horse and rode on.
This conversation had passed in a hollow of the heath near the old
Roman road, a place much frequented by Thomasin. And it might have
been observed that she did not in future walk that way less often from
having met Venn there now. Whether or not Venn abstained from riding
thither because he had met Thomasin in the same place might easily
have been guessed from her proceedings about two months later in the
same year.
III
The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin
Throughout this period Yeobright had more or less pondered on his duty
to his cousin Thomasin. He could not help feeling that it would be a
pitiful waste of sweet material if the tender-natured thing should be
doomed from this early stage of her life onwards to dribble away her
winsome qualities on lonely gorse and fern. But he felt this as an
economist merely, and not as a lover. His passion for Eustacia had
been a sort of conserve of his whole life, and he had nothing more of
that supreme quality left to bestow. So far the obvious thing was not
to entertain any idea of marriage with Thomasin, even to oblige her.
But this was not all. Years ago there had been in his mother's mind
a great fancy about Thomasin and himself. It had not positively
amounted to a desire, but it had always been a favourite dream. That
they should be man and wife in good time, if the happiness of neither
were endangered thereby, was the fancy in question. So that what
course save one was there now left for any son who reverenced his
mother's memory as Yeobright did? It is an unfortunate fact that any
particular whim of parents, which might have been dispersed by half
an hour's conversation during their lives, becomes sublimated by
their deaths into a fiat the most absolute, with such results to
conscientious children as those parents, had they lived, would have
been the first to decry.
Had only Yeobright's own future been involved he would have proposed
to Thomasin with a ready heart. He had nothing to lose by carrying
out a dead mother's hope. But he dreaded to contemplate Thomasin
wedded to the mere corpse of a lover that he now felt himself to be.
He had but three activities alive in him. One was his almost daily
walk to the little graveyard wherein his mother lay; another, his
just as frequent visits by night to the more distant enclosure, which
numbered his Eustacia among its dead; the third was self-preparation
for a vocation which alone seemed likely to satisfy his cravings--that
of an itinerant preacher of the eleventh commandment. It was
difficult to believe that Thomasin would be cheered by a husband with
such tendencies as these.
Yet he resolved to ask her, and let her decide for herself. It was
even with a pleasant sense of doing his duty that he went downstairs
to her one evening for this purpose, when the sun was printing on the
valley the same long shadow of the housetop that he had seen lying
there times out of number while his mother lived.
Thomasin was not in her room, and he found her in the front garden.
"I have long been wanting, Thomasin," he began, "to say something
about a matter that concerns both our futures."
"And you are going to say it now?" she remarked quickly, colouring as
she met his gaze. "Do stop a minute, Clym, and let me speak first,
for oddly enough, I have been wanting to say something to you."
"By all means say on, Tamsie."
"I suppose nobody can overhear us?" she went on, casting her eyes
around and lowering her voice. "Well, first you will promise me
this--that you won't be angry and call me anything harsh if you
disagree with what I propose?"
Yeobright promised, and she continued: "What I want is your advice,
for you are my relation--I mean, a sort of guardian to me--aren't you,
Clym?"
"Well, yes, I suppose I am; a sort of guardian. In fact, I am, of
course," he said, altogether perplexed as to her drift.
"I am thinking of marrying," she then observed blandly. "But I shall
not marry unless you assure me that you approve of such a step. Why
don't you speak?"
"I was taken rather by surprise. But, nevertheless, I am very glad
to hear such news. I shall approve, of course, dear Tamsie. Who can
it be? I am quite at a loss to guess. No I am not--'tis the old
doctor!--not that I mean to call him old, for he is not very old after
all. Ah--I noticed when he attended you last time!"
"No, no," she said hastily. "'Tis Mr. Venn."
Clym's face suddenly became grave.
"There, now, you don't like him, and I wish I hadn't mentioned him!"
she exclaimed almost petulantly. "And I shouldn't have done it,
either, only he keeps on bothering me so till I don't know what to
do!"
Clym looked at the heath. "I like Venn well enough," he answered at
last. "He is a very honest and at the same time astute man. He is
clever too, as is proved by his having got you to favour him. But
really, Thomasin, he is not quite--"
"Gentleman enough for me? That is just what I feel. I am sorry now
that I asked you, and I won't think any more of him. At the same time
I must marry him if I marry anybody--that I WILL say!"
"I don't see that," said Clym, carefully concealing every clue to his
own interrupted intention, which she plainly had not guessed. "You
might marry a professional man, or somebody of that sort, by going
into the town to live and forming acquaintances there."
"I am not fit for town life--so very rural and silly as I always have
been. Do not you yourself notice my countrified ways?"
"Well, when I came home from Paris I did, a little; but I don't now."
"That's because you have got countrified too. O, I couldn't live in a
street for the world! Egdon is a ridiculous old place; but I have got
used to it, and I couldn't be happy anywhere else at all."
"Neither could I," said Clym.
"Then how could you say that I should marry some town man? I am sure,
say what you will, that I must marry Diggory, if I marry at all. He
has been kinder to me than anybody else, and has helped me in many
ways that I don't know of!" Thomasin almost pouted now.
"Yes, he has," said Clym in a neutral tone. "Well, I wish with all my
heart that I could say, marry him. But I cannot forget what my mother
thought on that matter, and it goes rather against me not to respect
her opinion. There is too much reason why we should do the little we
can to respect it now."
"Very well, then," sighed Thomasin. "I will say no more."
"But you are not bound to obey my wishes. I merely say what I think."
"O no--I don't want to be rebellious in that way," she said sadly. "I
had no business to think of him--I ought to have thought of my family.
What dreadfully bad impulses there are in me!" Her lips trembled, and
she turned away to hide a tear.
Clym, though vexed at what seemed her unaccountable taste, was in a
measure relieved to find that at any rate the marriage question in
relation to himself was shelved. Through several succeeding days
he saw her at different times from the window of his room moping
disconsolately about the garden. He was half angry with her for
choosing Venn; then he was grieved at having put himself in the way
of Venn's happiness, who was, after all, as honest and persevering a
young fellow as any on Egdon, since he had turned over a new leaf.
In short, Clym did not know what to do.
When next they met she said abruptly, "He is much more respectable
now than he was then!"
"Who? O yes--Diggory Venn."
"Aunt only objected because he was a reddleman."
"Well, Thomasin, perhaps I don't know all the particulars of my
mother's wish. So you had better use your own discretion."
"You will always feel that I slighted your mother's memory."
"No, I will not. I shall think you are convinced that, had she seen
Diggory in his present position, she would have considered him a
fitting husband for you. Now, that's my real feeling. Don't consult
me any more, but do as you like, Thomasin. I shall be content."
It is to be supposed that Thomasin was convinced; for a few days after
this, when Clym strayed into a part of the heath that he had not
lately visited, Humphrey, who was at work there, said to him, "I am
glad to see that Mrs. Wildeve and Venn have made it up again,
seemingly."
"Have they?" said Clym abstractedly.
"Yes; and he do contrive to stumble upon her whenever she walks out
on fine days with the chiel. But, Mr. Yeobright, I can't help feeling
that your cousin ought to have married you. 'Tis a pity to make two
chimley-corners where there need be only one. You could get her away
from him now, 'tis my belief, if you were only to set about it."
"How can I have the conscience to marry after having driven two
women to their deaths? Don't think such a thing, Humphrey. After my
experience I should consider it too much of a burlesque to go to
church and take a wife. In the words of Job, 'I have made a covenant
with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?'"
"No, Mr. Clym, don't fancy that about driving two women to their
deaths. You shouldn't say it."
"Well, we'll leave that out," said Yeobright. "But anyhow God has
set a mark upon me which wouldn't look well in a lovemaking scene.
I have two ideas in my head, and no others. I am going to keep a
night-school; and I am going to turn preacher. What have you got to
say to that, Humphrey?"
"I'll come and hear 'ee with all my heart."
"Thanks. 'Tis all I wish."
As Clym descended into the valley Thomasin came down by the other
path, and met him at the gate. "What do you think I have to tell you,
Clym?" she said, looking archly over her shoulder at him.
"I can guess," he replied.
She scrutinized his face. "Yes, you guess right. It is going to be
after all. He thinks I may as well make up my mind, and I have got to
think so too. It is to be on the twenty-fifth of next month, if you
don't object."
"Do what you think right, dear. I am only too glad that you see your
way clear to happiness again. My sex owes you every amends for the
treatment you received in days gone by."
IV
Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End,
and Clym Finds His Vocation
Anybody who had passed through Blooms-End about eleven o'clock on the
morning fixed for the wedding would have found that, while Yeobright's
house was comparatively quiet, sounds denoting great activity came
from the dwelling of his nearest neighbour, Timothy Fairway. It was
chiefly a noise of feet, briskly crunching hither and thither over
the sanded floor within. One man only was visible outside, and he
seemed to be later at an appointment than he had intended to be, for
he hastened up to the door, lifted the latch, and walked in without
ceremony.
The scene within was not quite the customary one. Standing about the
room was the little knot of men who formed the chief part of the
Egdon coterie, there being present Fairway himself, Grandfer Cantle,
Humphrey, Christian, and one or two turf-cutters. It was a warm day,
and the men were as a matter of course in their shirtsleeves, except
Christian, who had always a nervous fear of parting with a scrap of
his clothing when in anybody's house but his own. Across the stout oak
table in the middle of the room was thrown a mass of striped linen,
which Grandfer Cantle held down on one side, and Humphrey on the
other, while Fairway rubbed its surface with a yellow lump, his face
being damp and creased with the effort of the labour.
"Waxing a bed-tick, souls?" said the newcomer.
"Yes, Sam," said Grandfer Cantle, as a man too busy to waste words.
"Shall I stretch this corner a shade tighter, Timothy?"
Fairway replied, and the waxing went on with unabated vigour. "'Tis
going to be a good bed, by the look o't," continued Sam, after an
interval of silence. "Who may it be for?"
"'Tis a present for the new folks that's going to set up
housekeeping," said Christian, who stood helpless and overcome by the
majesty of the proceedings.
"Ah, to be sure; and a valuable one, 'a b'lieve."
"Beds be dear to fokes that don't keep geese, bain't they, Mister
Fairway?" said Christian, as to an omniscient being.
"Yes," said the furze-dealer, standing up, giving his forehead a
thorough mopping, and handing the beeswax to Humphrey, who succeeded
at the rubbing forthwith. "Not that this couple be in want of one, but
'twas well to show 'em a bit of friendliness at this great racketing
vagary of their lives. I set up both my own daughters in one when
they was married, and there have been feathers enough for another in
the house the last twelve months. Now then, neighbours, I think we
have laid on enough wax. Grandfer Cantle, you turn the tick the right
way outwards, and then I'll begin to shake in the feathers."
When the bed was in proper trim Fairway and Christian brought forward
vast paper bags, stuffed to the full, but light as balloons, and began
to turn the contents of each into the receptacle just prepared. As
bag after bag was emptied, airy tufts of down and feathers floated
about the room in increasing quantity till, through a mishap of
Christian's, who shook the contents of one bag outside the tick,
the atmosphere of the room became dense with gigantic flakes, which
descended upon the workers like a windless snowstorm.
"I never saw such a clumsy chap as you, Christian," said Grandfer
Cantle severely. "You might have been the son of a man that's never
been outside Blooms-End in his life for all the wit you have. Really
all the soldiering and smartness in the world in the father seems to
count for nothing in forming the nater of the son. As far as that
chiel Christian is concerned I might as well have stayed at home and
seed nothing, like all the rest of ye here. Though, as far as myself
is concerned, a dashing spirit has counted for sommat, to be sure!"
"Don't ye let me down so, father; I feel no bigger than a ninepin
after it. I've made but a bruckle hit, I'm afeard."
"Come, come. Never pitch yerself in such a low key as that,
Christian; you should try more," said Fairway.
"Yes, you should try more," echoed the Grandfer with insistence, as if
he had been the first to make the suggestion. "In common conscience
every man ought either to marry or go for a soldier. 'Tis a scandal
to the nation to do neither one nor t'other. I did both, thank God!
Neither to raise men nor to lay 'em low--that shows a poor do-nothing
spirit indeed."
"I never had the nerve to stand fire," faltered Christian. "But as to
marrying, I own I've asked here and there, though without much fruit
from it. Yes, there's some house or other that might have had a
man for a master--such as he is--that's now ruled by a woman alone.
Still it might have been awkward if I had found her; for, d'ye see,
neighbours, there'd have been nobody left at home to keep down
father's spirits to the decent pitch that becomes a old man."
"And you've your work cut out to do that, my son," said Grandfer
Cantle smartly. "I wish that the dread of infirmities was not so
strong in me!--I'd start the very first thing tomorrow to see the
world over again! But seventy-one, though nothing at home, is a high
figure for a rover... Ay, seventy-one, last Candlemasday. Gad, I'd
sooner have it in guineas than in years!" And the old man sighed.
"Don't you be mournful, Grandfer," said Fairway. "Empt some more
feathers into the bed-tick, and keep up yer heart. Though rather
lean in the stalks you be a green-leaved old man still. There's time
enough left to ye yet to fill whole chronicles."
"Begad, I'll go to 'em, Timothy--to the married pair!" said Granfer
Cantle in an encouraged voice, and starting round briskly. "I'll go
to 'em tonight and sing a wedding song, hey? 'Tis like me to do so,
you know; and they'd see it as such. My 'Down in Cupid's Gardens' was
well liked in four; still, I've got others as good, and even better.
What do you say to my
She cal´-led to´ her love´
From the lat´-tice a-bove,
'O come in´ from the fog´-gy fog´-gy dew´.'
"'Twould please 'em well at such a time! Really, now I come to think of
it, I haven't turned my tongue in my head to the shape of a real good
song since Old Midsummer night, when we had the 'Barley Mow' at the
Woman; and 'tis a pity to neglect your strong point where there's few
that have the compass for such things!"
"So 'tis, so 'tis," said Fairway. "Now gie the bed a shake down.
We've put in seventy pound of best feathers, and I think that's as
many as the tick will fairly hold. A bit and a drap wouldn't be amiss
now, I reckon. Christian, maul down the victuals from corner-cupboard
if canst reach, man, and I'll draw a drap o' sommat to wet it with."
They sat down to a lunch in the midst of their work, feathers around,
above, and below them; the original owners of which occasionally came
to the open door and cackled begrudgingly at sight of such a quantity
of their old clothes.
"Upon my soul I shall be chokt," said Fairway when, having extracted a
feather from his mouth, he found several others floating on the mug as
it was handed round.
"I've swallered several; and one had a tolerable quill," said Sam
placidly from the corner.
"Hullo--what's that--wheels I hear coming?" Grandfer Cantle exclaimed,
jumping up and hastening to the door. "Why, 'tis they back again: I
didn't expect 'em yet this half-hour. To be sure, how quick marrying
can be done when you are in the mind for't!"
"O yes, it can soon be DONE," said Fairway, as if something should be
added to make the statement complete.
He arose and followed the Grandfer, and the rest also went to the
door. In a moment an open fly was driven past, in which sat Venn and
Mrs. Venn, Yeobright, and a grand relative of Venn's who had come
from Budmouth for the occasion. The fly had been hired at the nearest
town, regardless of distance and cost, there being nothing on Egdon
Heath, in Venn's opinion, dignified enough for such an event when such
a woman as Thomasin was the bride; and the church was too remote for a
walking bridal-party.
As the fly passed the group which had run out from the homestead they
shouted "Hurrah!" and waved their hands; feathers and down floating
from their hair, their sleeves, and the folds of their garments at
every motion, and Grandfer Cantle's seals dancing merrily in the
sunlight as he twirled himself about. The driver of the fly turned
a supercilious gaze upon them; he even treated the wedded pair
themselves with something like condescension; for in what other
state than heathen could people, rich or poor, exist who were doomed
to abide in such a world's end as Egdon? Thomasin showed no such
superiority to the group at the door, fluttering her hand as quickly
as a bird's wing towards them, and asking Diggory, with tears in her
eyes, if they ought not to alight and speak to these kind neighbours.
Venn, however, suggested that, as they were all coming to the house in
the evening, this was hardly necessary.
After this excitement the saluting party returned to their occupation,
and the stuffing and sewing were soon afterwards finished, when
Fairway harnessed a horse, wrapped up the cumbrous present, and drove
off with it in the cart to Venn's house at Stickleford.
Yeobright, having filled the office at the wedding service which
naturally fell to his hands, and afterwards returned to the house with
the husband and wife, was indisposed to take part in the feasting and
dancing that wound up the evening. Thomasin was disappointed.
"I wish I could be there without dashing your spirits," he said. "But
I might be too much like the skull at the banquet."
"No, no."
"Well, dear, apart from that, if you would excuse me, I should be
glad. I know it seems unkind; but, dear Thomasin, I fear I should not
be happy in the company--there, that's the truth of it. I shall
always be coming to see you at your new home, you know, so that my
absence now will not matter."
"Then I give in. Do whatever will be most comfortable to yourself."
Clym retired to his lodging at the housetop much relieved, and
occupied himself during the afternoon in noting down the heads of a
sermon, with which he intended to initiate all that really seemed
practicable of the scheme that had originally brought him hither, and
that he had so long kept in view under various modifications, and
through evil and good report. He had tested and weighed his
convictions again and again, and saw no reason to alter them, though
he had considerably lessened his plan. His eyesight, by long
humouring in his native air, had grown stronger, but not sufficiently
strong to warrant his attempting his extensive educational project.
Yet he did not repine: there was still more than enough of an
unambitious sort to tax all his energies and occupy all his hours.
Evening drew on, and sounds of life and movement in the lower part of
the domicile became more pronounced, the gate in the palings clicking
incessantly. The party was to be an early one, and all the guests
were assembled long before it was dark. Yeobright went down the back
staircase and into the heath by another path than that in front,
intending to walk in the open air till the party was over, when he
would return to wish Thomasin and her husband good-bye as they
departed. His steps were insensibly bent towards Mistover by the path
that he had followed on that terrible morning when he learnt the
strange news from Susan's boy.
He did not turn aside to the cottage, but pushed on to an eminence,
whence he could see over the whole quarter that had once been
Eustacia's home. While he stood observing the darkening scene
somebody came up. Clym, seeing him but dimly, would have let him pass
silently, had not the pedestrian, who was Charley, recognized the
young man and spoken to him.
"Charley, I have not seen you for a length of time," said Yeobright.
"Do you often walk this way?"
"No," the lad replied. "I don't often come outside the bank."
"You were not at the Maypole."
"No," said Charley, in the same listless tone. "I don't care for that
sort of thing now."
"You rather liked Miss Eustacia, didn't you?" Yeobright gently asked.
Eustacia had frequently told him of Charley's romantic attachment.
"Yes, very much. Ah, I wish--"
"Yes?"
"I wish, Mr. Yeobright, you could give me something to keep that once
belonged to her--if you don't mind."
"I shall be very happy to. It will give me very great pleasure,
Charley. Let me think what I have of hers that you would like. But
come with me to the house, and I'll see."
They walked towards Blooms-End together. When they reached the front
it was dark, and the shutters were closed, so that nothing of the
interior could be seen.
"Come round this way," said Clym. "My entrance is at the back for the
present."
The two went round and ascended the crooked stair in darkness till
Clym's sitting-room on the upper floor was reached, where he lit a
candle, Charley entering gently behind. Yeobright searched his desk,
and taking out a sheet of tissue-paper unfolded from it two or three
undulating locks of raven hair, which fell over the paper like black
streams. From these he selected one, wrapped it up, and gave it to
the lad, whose eyes had filled with tears. He kissed the packet, put
it in his pocket, and said in a voice of emotion, "O, Mr. Clym, how
good you are to me!"
"I will go a little way with you," said Clym. And amid the noise of
merriment from below they descended. Their path to the front led them
close to a little side-window, whence the rays of candles streamed
across the shrubs. The window, being screened from general
observation by the bushes, had been left unblinded, so that a person
in this private nook could see all that was going on within the room
which contained the wedding-guests, except in so far as vision was
hindered by the green antiquity of the panes.
"Charley, what are they doing?" said Clym. "My sight is weaker again
tonight, and the glass of this window is not good."
Charley wiped his own eyes, which were rather blurred with moisture,
and stepped closer to the casement. "Mr. Venn is asking Christian
Cantle to sing," he replied, "and Christian is moving about in his
chair as if he were much frightened at the question, and his father
has struck up a stave instead of him."
"Yes, I can hear the old man's voice," said Clym. "So there's to be
no dancing, I suppose. And is Thomasin in the room? I see something
moving in front of the candles that resembles her shape, I think."
"Yes. She do seem happy. She is red in the face, and laughing at
something Fairway has said to her. O my!"
"What noise was that?" said Clym.
"Mr. Venn is so tall that he knocked his head against the beam in
gieing a skip as he passed under. Mrs. Venn has run up quite
frightened and now she's put her hand to his head to feel if there's a
lump. And now they be all laughing again as if nothing had happened."
"Do any of them seem to care about my not being there?" Clym asked.
"No, not a bit in the world. Now they are all holding up their
glasses and drinking somebody's health."
"I wonder if it is mine?"
"No, 'tis Mr. and Mrs. Venn's, because he is making a hearty sort of
speech. There--now Mrs. Venn has got up, and is going away to put on
her things, I think."
"Well, they haven't concerned themselves about me, and it is quite
right they should not. It is all as it should be, and Thomasin at
least is happy. We will not stay any longer now, as they will soon be
coming out to go home."
He accompanied the lad into the heath on his way home, and, returning
alone to the house a quarter of an hour later, found Venn and Thomasin
ready to start, all the guests having departed in his absence. The
wedded pair took their seats in the four-wheeled dogcart which Venn's
head milker and handy man had driven from Stickleford to fetch them
in; little Eustacia and the nurse were packed securely upon the open
flap behind; and the milker, on an ancient overstepping pony, whose
shoes clashed like cymbals at every tread, rode in the rear, in the
manner of a body-servant of the last century.
"Now we leave you in absolute possession of your own house again,"
said Thomasin as she bent down to wish her cousin good night. "It
will be rather lonely for you, Clym, after the hubbub we have been
making."
"O, that's no inconvenience," said Clym, smiling rather sadly. And
then the party drove off and vanished in the night shades, and
Yeobright entered the house. The ticking of the clock was the only
sound that greeted him, for not a soul remained; Christian, who acted
as cook, valet, and gardener to Clym, sleeping at his father's house.
Yeobright sat down in one of the vacant chairs, and remained in
thought a long time. His mother's old chair was opposite; it had been
sat in that evening by those who had scarcely remembered that it ever
was hers. But to Clym she was almost a presence there, now as always.
Whatever she was in other people's memories, in his she was the
sublime saint whose radiance even his tenderness for Eustacia could
not obscure. But his heart was heavy; that mother had NOT crowned him
in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladness of his
heart. And events had borne out the accuracy of her judgment, and
proved the devotedness of her care. He should have heeded her for
Eustacia's sake even more than for his own. "It was all my fault," he
whispered. "O, my mother, my mother! would to God that I could live
my life again, and endure for you what you endured for me!"
On the Sunday after this wedding an unusual sight was to be seen on
Rainbarrow. From a distance there simply appeared to be a motionless
figure standing on the top of the tumulus, just as Eustacia had stood
on that lonely summit some two years and a half before. But now it
was fine warm weather, with only a summer breeze blowing, and early
afternoon instead of dull twilight. Those who ascended to the
immediate neighbourhood of the Barrow perceived that the erect form in
the centre, piercing the sky, was not really alone. Round him upon
the slopes of the Barrow a number of heathmen and women were reclining
or sitting at their ease. They listened to the words of the man in
their midst, who was preaching, while they abstractedly pulled
heather, stripped ferns, or tossed pebbles down the slope. This was
the first of a series of moral lectures or Sermons on the Mount, which
were to be delivered from the same place every Sunday afternoon as
long as the fine weather lasted.
The commanding elevation of Rainbarrow had been chosen for two
reasons: first, that it occupied a central position among the remote
cottages around; secondly, that the preacher thereon could be seen
from all adjacent points as soon as he arrived at his post, the view
of him being thus a convenient signal to those stragglers who wished
to draw near. The speaker was bareheaded, and the breeze at each waft
gently lifted and lowered his hair, somewhat too thin for a man of his
years, these still numbering less than thirty-three. He wore a shade
over his eyes, and his face was pensive and lined; but, though these
bodily features were marked with decay there was no defect in the
tones of his voice, which were rich, musical, and stirring. He stated
that his discourses to people were to be sometimes secular, and
sometimes religious, but never dogmatic; and that his texts would be
taken from all kinds of books. This afternoon the words were as
follows:--
"'And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto
her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set
for the king's mother; and she sat on his right hand. Then
she said, I desire one small petition of thee; I pray thee
say me not nay. And the king said unto her, Ask, on, my
mother: for I will not say thee nay.'"
Yeobright had, in fact, found his vocation in the career of an
itinerant open-air preacher and lecturer on morally unimpeachable
subjects; and from this day he laboured incessantly in that office,
speaking not only in simple language on Rainbarrow and in the hamlets
round, but in a more cultivated strain elsewhere--from the steps and
porticoes of town-halls, from market-crosses, from conduits, on
esplanades and on wharves, from the parapets of bridges, in barns and
outhouses, and all other such places in the neighbouring Wessex towns
and villages. He left alone creeds and systems of philosophy, finding
enough and more than enough to occupy his tongue in the opinions and
actions common to all good men. Some believed him, and some believed
not; some said that his words were commonplace, others complained of
his want of theological doctrine; while others again remarked that it
was well enough for a man to take to preaching who could not see to do
anything else. But everywhere he was kindly received, for the story
of his life had become generally known.
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