Book Three - The Fascination
1 - "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 market-men, 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."
2 - 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 advanced. 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.
3 - 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 field-fare 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
tree-tops 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
ground-work 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,
bumblebees 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 trend. 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.
4 - 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 hairbreadths 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 forever. Forever-do you hear?--forever!"
"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. 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 whole-hearted 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.
5 - 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 wrongheadedness. 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 heart-aching 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.
6 - 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 midday. 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 fond-like 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. His might have been called the Rousseau of Egdon.
7 - 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 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 moneybags, 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."
"Wonderfull wonderfull"
"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-sleeves, 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.
8 - 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
heath-flies, 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 fox-glove 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 candlelight 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 highroad. 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 carriagelamps 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 byroad 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 halfway 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 northeast 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.