To Mr. VENN, Dairy-farmer.
Since the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn morning long ago,
the reddleman and Thomasin had not met till today. During the interval
he had shifted his position even further from hers than it had
originally been, by adopting the reddle trade; though he was really in
very good circumstances still. Indeed, seeing that his expenditure was
only one-fourth of his income, he might have been called a prosperous
man.
Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; and the
business to which he had cynically devoted himself was in many ways
congenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere stress of old emotions,
had frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he never intruded upon
her who attracted him thither. To be in Thomasin’s heath, and near her,
yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasure left to him.
Then came the incident of that day, and the reddleman, still loving her
well, was excited by this accidental service to her at a critical
juncture to vow an active devotion to her cause, instead of, as
hitherto, sighing and holding aloof. After what had happened it was
impossible that he should not doubt the honesty of Wildeve’s
intentions. But her hope was apparently centred upon him; and
dismissing his regrets Venn determined to aid her to be happy in her
own chosen way. That this way was, of all others, the most distressing
to himself, was awkward enough; but the reddleman’s love was generous.
His first active step in watching over Thomasin’s interests was taken
about seven o’clock the next evening and was dictated by the news which
he had learnt from the sad boy. That Eustacia was somehow the cause of
Wildeve’s carelessness in relation to the marriage had at once been
Venn’s conclusion on hearing of the secret meeting between them. It did
not occur to his mind that Eustacia’s love signal to Wildeve was the
tender effect upon the deserted beauty of the intelligence which her
grandfather had brought home. His instinct was to regard her as a
conspirator against rather than as an antecedent obstacle to Thomasin’s
happiness.
During the day he had been exceedingly anxious to learn the condition
of Thomasin, but he did not venture to intrude upon a threshold to
which he was a stranger, particularly at such an unpleasant moment as
this. He had occupied his time in moving with his ponies and load to a
new point in the heath, eastward to his previous station; and here he
selected a nook with a careful eye to shelter from wind and rain, which
seemed to mean that his stay there was to be a comparatively extended
one. After this he returned on foot some part of the way that he had
come; and, it being now dark, he diverged to the left till he stood
behind a holly bush on the edge of a pit not twenty yards from
Rainbarrow.
He watched for a meeting there, but he watched in vain. Nobody except
himself came near the spot that night.
But the loss of his labour produced little effect upon the reddleman.
He had stood in the shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look upon a
certain mass of disappointment as the natural preface to all
realizations, without which preface they would give cause for alarm.
The same hour the next evening found him again at the same place; but
Eustacia and Wildeve, the expected trysters, did not appear.
He pursued precisely the same course yet four nights longer, and
without success. But on the next, being the day-week of their previous
meeting, he saw a female shape floating along the ridge and the outline
of a young man ascending from the valley. They met in the little ditch
encircling the barrow—the original excavation from which it had been
thrown up by the ancient British people.
The reddleman, stung with suspicion of wrong to Thomasin, was aroused
to strategy in a moment. He instantly left the bush and crept forward
on his hands and knees. When he had got as close as he might safely
venture without discovery he found that, owing to a cross-wind, the
conversation of the trysting pair could not be overheard.
Near him, as in divers places about the heath, were areas strewn with
large turves, which lay edgeways and upside down awaiting removal by
Timothy Fairway, previous to the winter weather. He took two of these
as he lay, and dragged them over him till one covered his head and
shoulders, the other his back and legs. The reddleman would now have
been quite invisible, even by daylight; the turves, standing upon him
with the heather upwards, looked precisely as if they were growing. He
crept along again, and the turves upon his back crept with him. Had he
approached without any covering the chances are that he would not have
been perceived in the dusk; approaching thus, it was as though he
burrowed underground. In this manner he came quite close to where the
two were standing.
“Wish to consult me on the matter?” reached his ears in the rich,
impetuous accents of Eustacia Vye. “Consult me? It is an indignity to
me to talk so—I won’t bear it any longer!” She began weeping. “I have
loved you, and have shown you that I loved you, much to my regret; and
yet you can come and say in that frigid way that you wish to consult
with me whether it would not be better to marry Thomasin. Better—of
course it would be. Marry her—she is nearer to your own position in
life than I am!”
“Yes, yes; that’s very well,” said Wildeve peremptorily. “But we must
look at things as they are. Whatever blame may attach to me for having
brought it about, Thomasin’s position is at present much worse than
yours. I simply tell you that I am in a strait.”
“But you shall not tell me! You must see that it is only harassing me.
Damon, you have not acted well; you have sunk in my opinion. You have
not valued my courtesy—the courtesy of a lady in loving you—who used to
think of far more ambitious things. But it was Thomasin’s fault. She
won you away from me, and she deserves to suffer for it. Where is she
staying now? Not that I care, nor where I am myself. Ah, if I were dead
and gone how glad she would be! Where is she, I ask?”
“Thomasin is now staying at her aunt’s shut up in a bedroom, and
keeping out of everybody’s sight,” he said indifferently.
“I don’t think you care much about her even now,” said Eustacia with
sudden joyousness, “for if you did you wouldn’t talk so coolly about
her. Do you talk so coolly to her about me? Ah, I expect you do! Why
did you originally go away from me? I don’t think I can ever forgive
you, except on one condition, that whenever you desert me, you come
back again, sorry that you served me so.”
“I never wish to desert you.”
“I do not thank you for that. I should hate it to be all smooth.
Indeed, I think I like you to desert me a little once now and then.
Love is the dismallest thing where the lover is quite honest. O, it is
a shame to say so; but it is true!” She indulged in a little laugh. “My
low spirits begin at the very idea. Don’t you offer me tame love, or
away you go!”
“I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman,” said
Wildeve, “so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a worthy
person. It is I who am the sinner after all; I am not worth the little
finger of either of you.”
“But you must not sacrifice yourself to her from any sense of justice,”
replied Eustacia quickly. “If you do not love her it is the most
merciful thing in the long run to leave her as she is. That’s always
the best way. There, now I have been unwomanly, I suppose. When you
have left me I am always angry with myself for things that I have said
to you.”
Wildeve walked a pace or two among the heather without replying. The
pause was filled up by the intonation of a pollard thorn a little way
to windward, the breezes filtering through its unyielding twigs as
through a strainer. It was as if the night sang dirges with clenched
teeth.
She continued, half sorrowfully, “Since meeting you last, it has
occurred to me once or twice that perhaps it was not for love of me you
did not marry her. Tell me, Damon—I’ll try to bear it. Had I nothing
whatever to do with the matter?”
“Do you press me to tell?”
“Yes, I must know. I see I have been too ready to believe in my own
power.”
“Well, the immediate reason was that the license would not do for the
place, and before I could get another she ran away. Up to that point
you had nothing to do with it. Since then her aunt has spoken to me in
a tone which I don’t at all like.”
“Yes, yes! I am nothing in it—I am nothing in it. You only trifle with
me. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think so much of
you!”
“Nonsense; do not be so passionate.... Eustacia, how we roved among
these bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the shades
of the hills kept us almost invisible in the hollows!”
She remained in moody silence till she said, “Yes; and how I used to
laugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made me
suffer for that since.”
“Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found someone
fairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia.”
“Do you still think you found somebody fairer?”
“Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. The scales are balanced so nicely
that a feather would turn them.”
“But don’t you really care whether I meet you or whether I don’t?” she
said slowly.
“I care a little, but not enough to break my rest,” replied the young
man languidly. “No, all that’s past. I find there are two flowers where
I thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three, or four, or any
number as good as the first.... Mine is a curious fate. Who would have
thought that all this could happen to me?”
She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or anger
seemed an equally possible issue, “Do you love me now?”
“Who can say?”
“Tell me; I will know it!”
“I do, and I do not,” said he mischievously. “That is, I have my times
and my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment you are too
do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another I don’t
know what, except—that you are not the whole world to me that you used
to be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know and nice to meet,
and I dare say as sweet as ever—almost.”
Eustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said, in a voice
of suspended mightiness, “I am for a walk, and this is my way.”
“Well, I can do worse than follow you.”
“You know you can’t do otherwise, for all your moods and changes!” she
answered defiantly. “Say what you will; try as you may; keep away from
me all that you can—you will never forget me. You will love me all your
life long. You would jump to marry me!”
“So I would!” said Wildeve. “Such strange thoughts as I’ve had from
time to time, Eustacia; and they come to me this moment. You hate the
heath as much as ever; that I know.”
“I do,” she murmured deeply. “’Tis my cross, my shame, and will be my
death!”
“I abhor it too,” said he. “How mournfully the wind blows round us
now!”
She did not answer. Its tone was indeed solemn and pervasive. Compound
utterances addressed themselves to their senses, and it was possible to
view by ear the features of the neighbourhood. Acoustic pictures were
returned from the darkened scenery; they could hear where the tracts of
heather began and ended; where the furze was growing stalky and tall;
where it had been recently cut; in what direction the fir-clump lay,
and how near was the pit in which the hollies grew; for these differing
features had their voices no less than their shapes and colours.
“God, how lonely it is!” resumed Wildeve. “What are picturesque ravines
and mists to us who see nothing else? Why should we stay here? Will you
go with me to America? I have kindred in Wisconsin.”
“That wants consideration.”
“It seems impossible to do well here, unless one were a wild bird or a
landscape-painter. Well?”
“Give me time,” she softly said, taking his hand. “America is so far
away. Are you going to walk with me a little way?”
As Eustacia uttered the latter words she retired from the base of the
barrow, and Wildeve followed her, so that the reddleman could hear no
more.
He lifted the turves and arose. Their black figures sank and
disappeared from against the sky. They were as two horns which the
sluggish heath had put forth from its crown, like a mollusc, and had
now again drawn in.
The reddleman’s walk across the vale, and over into the next where his
cart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four. His
spirit was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around his mouth
in that walk carried off upon them the accents of a commination.
He entered the van, where there was a fire in a stove. Without lighting
his candle he sat down at once on the three-legged stool, and pondered
on what he had seen and heard touching that still-loved one of his. He
uttered a sound which was neither sigh nor sob, but was even more
indicative than either of a troubled mind.
“My Tamsie,” he whispered heavily. “What can be done? Yes, I will see
that Eustacia Vye.”
X.
A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion
The next morning, at the time when the height of the sun appeared very
insignificant from any part of the heath as compared with the altitude
of Rainbarrow, and when all the little hills in the lower levels were
like an archipelago in a fog-formed Ægean, the reddleman came from the
brambled nook which he had adopted as his quarters and ascended the
slopes of Mistover Knap.
Though these shaggy hills were apparently so solitary, several keen
round eyes were always ready on such a wintry morning as this to
converge upon a passer-by. Feathered species sojourned here in hiding
which would have created wonder if found elsewhere. A bustard haunted
the spot, and not many years before this five and twenty might have
been seen in Egdon at one time. Marsh-harriers looked up from the
valley by Wildeve’s. A cream-coloured courser had used to visit this
hill, a bird so rare that not more than a dozen have ever been seen in
England; but a barbarian rested neither night nor day till he had shot
the African truant, and after that event cream-coloured coursers
thought fit to enter Egdon no more.
A traveller who should walk and observe any of these visitants as Venn
observed them now could feel himself to be in direct communication with
regions unknown to man. Here in front of him was a wild mallard—just
arrived from the home of the north wind. The creature brought within
him an amplitude of Northern knowledge. Glacial catastrophes, snowstorm
episodes, glittering auroral effects, Polaris in the zenith, Franklin
underfoot—the category of his commonplaces was wonderful. But the bird,
like many other philosophers, seemed as he looked at the reddleman to
think that a present moment of comfortable reality was worth a decade
of memories.
Venn passed on through these towards the house of the isolated beauty
who lived up among them and despised them. The day was Sunday; but as
going to church, except to be married or buried, was exceptional at
Egdon, this made little difference. He had determined upon the bold
stroke of asking for an interview with Miss Vye—to attack her position
as Thomasin’s rival either by art or by storm, showing therein,
somewhat too conspicuously, the want of gallantry characteristic of a
certain astute sort of men, from clowns to kings. The great Frederick
making war on the beautiful Archduchess, Napoleon refusing terms to the
beautiful Queen of Prussia, were not more dead to difference of sex
than the reddleman was, in his peculiar way, in planning the
displacement of Eustacia.
To call at the captain’s cottage was always more or less an undertaking
for the inferior inhabitants. Though occasionally chatty, his moods
were erratic, and nobody could be certain how he would behave at any
particular moment. Eustacia was reserved, and lived very much to
herself. Except the daughter of one of the cotters, who was their
servant, and a lad who worked in the garden and stable, scarcely anyone
but themselves ever entered the house. They were the only genteel
people of the district except the Yeobrights, and though far from rich,
they did not feel that necessity for preserving a friendly face towards
every man, bird, and beast which influenced their poorer neighbours.
When the reddleman entered the garden the old man was looking through
his glass at the stain of blue sea in the distant landscape, the little
anchors on his buttons twinkling in the sun. He recognized Venn as his
companion on the highway, but made no remark on that circumstance,
merely saying, “Ah, reddleman—you here? Have a glass of grog?”
Venn declined, on the plea of it being too early, and stated that his
business was with Miss Vye. The captain surveyed him from cap to
waistcoat and from waistcoat to leggings for a few moments, and finally
asked him to go indoors.
Miss Vye was not to be seen by anybody just then; and the reddleman
waited in the window-bench of the kitchen, his hands hanging across his
divergent knees, and his cap hanging from his hands.
“I suppose the young lady is not up yet?” he presently said to the
servant.
“Not quite yet. Folks never call upon ladies at this time of day.”
“Then I’ll step outside,” said Venn. “If she is willing to see me, will
she please send out word, and I’ll come in.”
The reddleman left the house and loitered on the hill adjoining. A
considerable time elapsed, and no request for his presence was brought.
He was beginning to think that his scheme had failed, when he beheld
the form of Eustacia herself coming leisurely towards him. A sense of
novelty in giving audience to that singular figure had been sufficient
to draw her forth.
She seemed to feel, after a bare look at Diggory Venn, that the man had
come on a strange errand, and that he was not so mean as she had
thought him; for her close approach did not cause him to writhe
uneasily, or shift his feet, or show any of those little signs which
escape an ingenuous rustic at the advent of the uncommon in womankind.
On his inquiring if he might have a conversation with her she replied,
“Yes, walk beside me,” and continued to move on.
Before they had gone far it occurred to the perspicacious reddleman
that he would have acted more wisely by appearing less
unimpressionable, and he resolved to correct the error as soon as he
could find opportunity.
“I have made so bold, miss, as to step across and tell you some strange
news which has come to my ears about that man.”
“Ah! what man?”
He jerked his elbow to the southeast—the direction of the Quiet Woman.
Eustacia turned quickly to him. “Do you mean Mr. Wildeve?”
“Yes, there is trouble in a household on account of him, and I have
come to let you know of it, because I believe you might have power to
drive it away.”
“I? What is the trouble?”
“It is quite a secret. It is that he may refuse to marry Thomasin
Yeobright after all.”
Eustacia, though set inwardly pulsing by his words, was equal to her
part in such a drama as this. She replied coldly, “I do not wish to
listen to this, and you must not expect me to interfere.”
“But, miss, you will hear one word?”
“I cannot. I am not interested in the marriage, and even if I were I
could not compel Mr. Wildeve to do my bidding.”
“As the only lady on the heath I think you might,” said Venn with
subtle indirectness. “This is how the case stands. Mr. Wildeve would
marry Thomasin at once, and make all matters smooth, if so be there
were not another woman in the case. This other woman is some person he
has picked up with, and meets on the heath occasionally, I believe. He
will never marry her, and yet through her he may never marry the woman
who loves him dearly. Now, if you, miss, who have so much sway over us
menfolk, were to insist that he should treat your young neighbour
Tamsin with honourable kindness and give up the other woman, he would
perhaps do it, and save her a good deal of misery.”
“Ah, my life!” said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips so
that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a
similar scarlet fire. “You think too much of my influence over menfolk
indeed, reddleman. If I had such a power as you imagine I would go
straight and use it for the good of anybody who has been kind to
me—which Thomasin Yeobright has not particularly, to my knowledge.”
“Can it be that you really don’t know of it—how much she had always
thought of you?”
“I have never heard a word of it. Although we live only two miles apart
I have never been inside her aunt’s house in my life.”
The superciliousness that lurked in her manner told Venn that thus far
he had utterly failed. He inwardly sighed and felt it necessary to
unmask his second argument.
“Well, leaving that out of the question, ’tis in your power, I assure
you, Miss Vye, to do a great deal of good to another woman.”
She shook her head.
“Your comeliness is law with Mr. Wildeve. It is law with all men who
see ’ee. They say, ‘This well-favoured lady coming—what’s her name? How
handsome!’ Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright,” the reddleman persisted,
saying to himself, “God forgive a rascal for lying!” And she was
handsomer, but the reddleman was far from thinking so. There was a
certain obscurity in Eustacia’s beauty, and Venn’s eye was not trained.
In her winter dress, as now, she was like the tiger-beetle, which, when
observed in dull situations, seems to be of the quietest neutral
colour, but under a full illumination blazes with dazzling splendour.
Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered
her dignity thereby. “Many women are lovelier than Thomasin,” she said,
“so not much attaches to that.”
The reddleman suffered the wound and went on: “He is a man who notices
the looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like
withywind, if you only had the mind.”
“Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him I cannot do
living up here away from him.”
The reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face. “Miss Vye!” he said.
“Why do you say that—as if you doubted me?” She spoke faintly, and her
breathing was quick. “The idea of your speaking in that tone to me!”
she added, with a forced smile of hauteur. “What could have been in
your mind to lead you to speak like that?”
“Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don’t know this man?—I
know why, certainly. He is beneath you, and you are ashamed.”
“You are mistaken. What do you mean?”
The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. “I was at the
meeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word,” he said. “The
woman that stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself.”
It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of
Candaules’ wife glowed in her. The moment had arrived when her lip
would tremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer be
kept down.
“I am unwell,” she said hurriedly. “No—it is not that—I am not in a
humour to hear you further. Leave me, please.”
“I must speak, Miss Vye, in spite of paining you. What I would put
before you is this. However it may come about—whether she is to blame,
or you—her case is without doubt worse than yours. Your giving up Mr.
Wildeve will be a real advantage to you, for how could you marry him?
Now she cannot get off so easily—everybody will blame her if she loses
him. Then I ask you—not because her right is best, but because her
situation is worst—to give him up to her.”
“No—I won’t, I won’t!” she said impetuously, quite forgetful of her
previous manner towards the reddleman as an underling. “Nobody has ever
been served so! It was going on well—I will not be beaten down—by an
inferior woman like her. It is very well for you to come and plead for
her, but is she not herself the cause of all her own trouble? Am I not
to show favour to any person I may choose without asking permission of
a parcel of cottagers? She has come between me and my inclination, and
now that she finds herself rightly punished she gets you to plead for
her!”
“Indeed,” said Venn earnestly, “she knows nothing whatever about it. It
is only I who ask you to give him up. It will be better for her and you
both. People will say bad things if they find out that a lady secretly
meets a man who has ill-used another woman.”
“I have _not_ injured her—he was mine before he was hers! He came
back—because—because he liked me best!” she said wildly. “But I lose
all self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way to!”
“I can keep secrets,” said Venn gently. “You need not fear. I am the
only man who knows of your meetings with him. There is but one thing
more to speak of, and then I will be gone. I heard you say to him that
you hated living here—that Egdon Heath was a jail to you.”
“I did say so. There is a sort of beauty in the scenery, I know; but it
is a jail to me. The man you mention does not save me from that
feeling, though he lives here. I should have cared nothing for him had
there been a better person near.”
The reddleman looked hopeful; after these words from her his third
attempt seemed promising. “As we have now opened our minds a bit,
miss,” he said, “I’ll tell you what I have got to propose. Since I have
taken to the reddle trade I travel a good deal, as you know.”
She inclined her head, and swept round so that her eyes rested in the
misty vale beneath them.
“And in my travels I go near Budmouth. Now Budmouth is a wonderful
place—wonderful—a great salt sheening sea bending into the land like a
bow—thousands of gentlepeople walking up and down—bands of music
playing—officers by sea and officers by land walking among the rest—out
of every ten folks you meet nine of ’em in love.”
“I know it,” she said disdainfully. “I know Budmouth better than you. I
was born there. My father came to be a military musician there from
abroad. Ah, my soul, Budmouth! I wish I was there now.”
The reddleman was surprised to see how a slow fire could blaze on
occasion. “If you were, miss,” he replied, “in a week’s time you would
think no more of Wildeve than of one of those he’th-croppers that we
see yond. Now, I could get you there.”
“How?” said Eustacia, with intense curiosity in her heavy eyes.
“My uncle has been for five and twenty years the trusty man of a rich
widow-lady who has a beautiful house facing the sea. This lady has
become old and lame, and she wants a young company-keeper to read and
sing to her, but can’t get one to her mind to save her life, though
she’ve advertised in the papers, and tried half a dozen. She would jump
to get you, and Uncle would make it all easy.”
“I should have to work, perhaps?”
“No, not real work—you’d have a little to do, such as reading and that.
You would not be wanted till New Year’s Day.”
“I knew it meant work,” she said, drooping to languor again.
“I confess there would be a trifle to do in the way of amusing her; but
though idle people might call it work, working people would call it
play. Think of the company and the life you’d lead, miss; the gaiety
you’d see, and the gentleman you’d marry. My uncle is to inquire for a
trustworthy young lady from the country, as she don’t like town girls.”
“It is to wear myself out to please her! and I won’t go. O, if I could
live in a gay town as a lady should, and go my own ways, and do my own
doings, I’d give the wrinkled half of my life! Yes, reddleman, that
would I.”
“Help me to get Thomasin happy, miss, and the chance shall be yours,”
urged her companion.
“Chance—’tis no chance,” she said proudly. “What can a poor man like
you offer me, indeed?—I am going indoors. I have nothing more to say.
Don’t your horses want feeding, or your reddlebags want mending, or
don’t you want to find buyers for your goods, that you stay idling here
like this?”
Venn spoke not another word. With his hands behind him he turned away,
that she might not see the hopeless disappointment in his face. The
mental clearness and power he had found in this lonely girl had indeed
filled his manner with misgiving even from the first few minutes of
close quarters with her. Her youth and situation had led him to expect
a simplicity quite at the beck of his method. But a system of
inducement which might have carried weaker country lasses along with it
had merely repelled Eustacia. As a rule, the word Budmouth meant
fascination on Egdon. That Royal port and watering place, if truly
mirrored in the minds of the heathfolk, must have combined, in a
charming and indescribable manner a Carthaginian bustle of building
with Tarentine luxuriousness and Baian health and beauty. Eustacia felt
little less extravagantly about the place; but she would not sink her
independence to get there.
When Diggory Venn had gone quite away, Eustacia walked to the bank and
looked down the wild and picturesque vale towards the sun, which was
also in the direction of Wildeve’s. The mist had now so far collapsed
that the tips of the trees and bushes around his house could just be
discerned, as if boring upwards through a vast white cobweb which
cloaked them from the day. There was no doubt that her mind was
inclined thitherward; indefinitely, fancifully—twining and untwining
about him as the single object within her horizon on which dreams might
crystallize. The man who had begun by being merely her amusement, and
would never have been more than her hobby but for his skill in
deserting her at the right moments, was now again her desire. Cessation
in his love-making had revivified her love. Such feeling as Eustacia
had idly given to Wildeve was dammed into a flood by Thomasin. She had
used to tease Wildeve, but that was before another had favoured him.
Often a drop of irony into an indifferent situation renders the whole
piquant.
“I will never give him up—never!” she said impetuously.
The reddleman’s hint that rumour might show her to disadvantage had no
permanent terror for Eustacia. She was as unconcerned at that
contingency as a goddess at a lack of linen. This did not originate in
inherent shamelessness, but in her living too far from the world to
feel the impact of public opinion. Zenobia in the desert could hardly
have cared what was said about her at Rome. As far as social ethics
were concerned Eustacia approached the savage state, though in emotion
she was all the while an epicure. She had advanced to the secret
recesses of sensuousness, yet had hardly crossed the threshold of
conventionality.
XI.
The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman
The reddleman had left Eustacia’s presence with desponding views on
Thomasin’s future happiness; but he was awakened to the fact that one
other channel remained untried by seeing, as he followed the way to his
van, the form of Mrs. Yeobright slowly walking towards the Quiet Woman.
He went across to her; and could almost perceive in her anxious face
that this journey of hers to Wildeve was undertaken with the same
object as his own to Eustacia.
She did not conceal the fact. “Then,” said the reddleman, “you may as
well leave it alone, Mrs. Yeobright.”
“I half think so myself,” she said. “But nothing else remains to be
done besides pressing the question upon him.”
“I should like to say a word first,” said Venn firmly. “Mr. Wildeve is
not the only man who has asked Thomasin to marry him; and why should
not another have a chance? Mrs. Yeobright, I should be glad to marry
your niece and would have done it any time these last two years. There,
now it is out, and I have never told anybody before but herself.”
Mrs. Yeobright was not demonstrative, but her eyes involuntarily
glanced towards his singular though shapely figure.
“Looks are not everything,” said the reddleman, noticing the glance.
“There’s many a calling that don’t bring in so much as mine, if it
comes to money; and perhaps I am not so much worse off than Wildeve.
There is nobody so poor as these professional fellows who have failed;
and if you shouldn’t like my redness—well, I am not red by birth, you
know; I only took to this business for a freak; and I might turn my
hand to something else in good time.”
“I am much obliged to you for your interest in my niece; but I fear
there would be objections. More than that, she is devoted to this man.”
“True; or I shouldn’t have done what I have this morning.”
“Otherwise there would be no pain in the case, and you would not see me
going to his house now. What was Thomasin’s answer when you told her of
your feelings?”
“She wrote that you would object to me; and other things.”
“She was in a measure right. You must not take this unkindly—I merely
state it as a truth. You have been good to her, and we do not forget
it. But as she was unwilling on her own account to be your wife, that
settles the point without my wishes being concerned.”
“Yes. But there is a difference between then and now, ma’am. She is
distressed now, and I have thought that if you were to talk to her
about me, and think favourably of me yourself, there might be a chance
of winning her round, and getting her quite independent of this
Wildeve’s backward and forward play, and his not knowing whether he’ll
have her or no.”
Mrs. Yeobright shook her head. “Thomasin thinks, and I think with her,
that she ought to be Wildeve’s wife, if she means to appear before the
world without a slur upon her name. If they marry soon, everybody will
believe that an accident did really prevent the wedding. If not, it may
cast a shade upon her character—at any rate make her ridiculous. In
short, if it is anyhow possible they must marry now.”
“I thought that till half an hour ago. But, after all, why should her
going off with him to Anglebury for a few hours do her any harm?
Anybody who knows how pure she is will feel any such thought to be
quite unjust. I have been trying this morning to help on this marriage
with Wildeve—yes, I, ma’am—in the belief that I ought to do it, because
she was so wrapped up in him. But I much question if I was right, after
all. However, nothing came of it. And now I offer myself.”
Mrs. Yeobright appeared disinclined to enter further into the question.
“I fear I must go on,” she said. “I do not see that anything else can
be done.”
And she went on. But though this conversation did not divert Thomasin’s
aunt from her purposed interview with Wildeve, it made a considerable
difference in her mode of conducting that interview. She thanked God
for the weapon which the reddleman had put into her hands.
Wildeve was at home when she reached the inn. He showed her silently
into the parlour, and closed the door. Mrs. Yeobright began—
“I have thought it my duty to call today. A new proposal has been made
to me, which has rather astonished me. It will affect Thomasin greatly;
and I have decided that it should at least be mentioned to you.”
“Yes? What is it?” he said civilly.
“It is, of course, in reference to her future. You may not be aware
that another man has shown himself anxious to marry Thomasin. Now,
though I have not encouraged him yet, I cannot conscientiously refuse
him a chance any longer. I don’t wish to be short with you; but I must
be fair to him and to her.”
“Who is the man?” said Wildeve with surprise.
“One who has been in love with her longer than she has with you. He
proposed to her two years ago. At that time she refused him.”
“Well?”
“He has seen her lately, and has asked me for permission to pay his
addresses to her. She may not refuse him twice.”
“What is his name?”
Mrs. Yeobright declined to say. “He is a man Thomasin likes,” she
added, “and one whose constancy she respects at least. It seems to me
that what she refused then she would be glad to get now. She is much
annoyed at her awkward position.”
“She never once told me of this old lover.”
“The gentlest women are not such fools as to show _every_ card.”
“Well, if she wants him I suppose she must have him.”
“It is easy enough to say that; but you don’t see the difficulty. He
wants her much more than she wants him; and before I can encourage
anything of the sort I must have a clear understanding from you that
you will not interfere to injure an arrangement which I promote in the
belief that it is for the best. Suppose, when they are engaged, and
everything is smoothly arranged for their marriage, that you should
step between them and renew your suit? You might not win her back, but
you might cause much unhappiness.”
“Of course I should do no such thing,” said Wildeve “But they are not
engaged yet. How do you know that Thomasin would accept him?”
“That’s a question I have carefully put to myself; and upon the whole
the probabilities are in favour of her accepting him in time. I flatter
myself that I have some influence over her. She is pliable, and I can
be strong in my recommendations of him.”
“And in your disparagement of me at the same time.”
“Well, you may depend upon my not praising you,” she said drily. “And
if this seems like manœuvring, you must remember that her position is
peculiar, and that she has been hardly used. I shall also be helped in
making the match by her own desire to escape from the humiliation of
her present state; and a woman’s pride in these cases will lead her a
very great way. A little managing may be required to bring her round;
but I am equal to that, provided that you agree to the one thing
indispensable; that is, to make a distinct declaration that she is to
think no more of you as a possible husband. That will pique her into
accepting him.”
“I can hardly say that just now, Mrs. Yeobright. It is so sudden.”
“And so my whole plan is interfered with! It is very inconvenient that
you refuse to help my family even to the small extent of saying
distinctly you will have nothing to do with us.”
Wildeve reflected uncomfortably. “I confess I was not prepared for
this,” he said. “Of course I’ll give her up if you wish, if it is
necessary. But I thought I might be her husband.”
“We have heard that before.”
“Now, Mrs. Yeobright, don’t let us disagree. Give me a fair time. I
don’t want to stand in the way of any better chance she may have; only
I wish you had let me know earlier. I will write to you or call in a
day or two. Will that suffice?”
“Yes,” she replied, “provided you promise not to communicate with
Thomasin without my knowledge.”
“I promise that,” he said. And the interview then terminated, Mrs.
Yeobright returning homeward as she had come.
By far the greatest effect of her simple strategy on that day was, as
often happens, in a quarter quite outside her view when arranging it.
In the first place, her visit sent Wildeve the same evening after dark
to Eustacia’s house at Mistover.
At this hour the lonely dwelling was closely blinded and shuttered from
the chill and darkness without. Wildeve’s clandestine plan with her was
to take a little gravel in his hand and hold it to the crevice at the
top of the window shutter, which was on the outside, so that it should
fall with a gentle rustle, resembling that of a mouse, between shutter
and glass. This precaution in attracting her attention was to avoid
arousing the suspicions of her grandfather.
The soft words, “I hear; wait for me,” in Eustacia’s voice from within
told him that she was alone.
He waited in his customary manner by walking round the enclosure and
idling by the pool, for Wildeve was never asked into the house by his
proud though condescending mistress. She showed no sign of coming out
in a hurry. The time wore on, and he began to grow impatient. In the
course of twenty minutes she appeared from round the corner, and
advanced as if merely taking an airing.
“You would not have kept me so long had you known what I come about,”
he said with bitterness. “Still, you are worth waiting for.”
“What has happened?” said Eustacia. “I did not know you were in
trouble. I too am gloomy enough.”
“I am not in trouble,” said he. “It is merely that affairs have come to
a head, and I must take a clear course.”
“What course is that?” she asked with attentive interest.
“And can you forget so soon what I proposed to you the other night?
Why, take you from this place, and carry you away with me abroad.”
“I have not forgotten. But why have you come so unexpectedly to repeat
the question, when you only promised to come next Saturday? I thought I
was to have plenty of time to consider.”
“Yes, but the situation is different now.”
“Explain to me.”
“I don’t want to explain, for I may pain you.”
“But I must know the reason of this hurry.”
“It is simply my ardour, dear Eustacia. Everything is smooth now.”
“Then why are you so ruffled?”
“I am not aware of it. All is as it should be. Mrs. Yeobright—but she
is nothing to us.”
“Ah, I knew she had something to do with it! Come, I don’t like
reserve.”
“No—she has nothing. She only says she wishes me to give up Thomasin
because another man is anxious to marry her. The woman, now she no
longer needs me, actually shows off!” Wildeve’s vexation has escaped
him in spite of himself.
Eustacia was silent a long while. “You are in the awkward position of
an official who is no longer wanted,” she said in a changed tone.
“It seems so. But I have not yet seen Thomasin.”
“And that irritates you. Don’t deny it, Damon. You are actually nettled
by this slight from an unexpected quarter.”
“Well?”
“And you come to get me because you cannot get her. This is certainly a
new position altogether. I am to be a stop-gap.”
“Please remember that I proposed the same thing the other day.”
Eustacia again remained in a sort of stupefied silence. What curious
feeling was this coming over her? Was it really possible that her
interest in Wildeve had been so entirely the result of antagonism that
the glory and the dream departed from the man with the first sound that
he was no longer coveted by her rival? She was, then, secure of him at
last. Thomasin no longer required him. What a humiliating victory! He
loved her best, she thought; and yet—dared she to murmur such
treacherous criticism ever so softly?—what was the man worth whom a
woman inferior to herself did not value? The sentiment which lurks more
or less in all animate nature—that of not desiring the undesired of
others—was lively as a passion in the supersubtle, epicurean heart of
Eustacia. Her social superiority over him, which hitherto had scarcely
ever impressed her, became unpleasantly insistent, and for the first
time she felt that she had stooped in loving him.
“Well, darling, you agree?” said Wildeve.
“If it could be London, or even Budmouth, instead of America,” she
murmured languidly. “Well, I will think. It is too great a thing for me
to decide offhand. I wish I hated the heath less—or loved you more.”
“You can be painfully frank. You loved me a month ago warmly enough to
go anywhere with me.”
“And you loved Thomasin.”
“Yes, perhaps that was where the reason lay,” he returned, with almost
a sneer. “I don’t hate her now.”
“Exactly. The only thing is that you can no longer get her.”
“Come—no taunts, Eustacia, or we shall quarrel. If you don’t agree to
go with me, and agree shortly, I shall go by myself.”
“Or try Thomasin again. Damon, how strange it seems that you could have
married her or me indifferently, and only have come to me because I
am—cheapest! Yes, yes—it is true. There was a time when I should have
exclaimed against a man of that sort, and been quite wild; but it is
all past now.”
“Will you go, dearest? Come secretly with me to Bristol, marry me, and
turn our backs upon this dog-hole of England for ever? Say Yes.”
“I want to get away from here at almost any cost,” she said with
weariness, “but I don’t like to go with you. Give me more time to
decide.”
“I have already,” said Wildeve. “Well, I give you one more week.”
“A little longer, so that I may tell you decisively. I have to consider
so many things. Fancy Thomasin being anxious to get rid of you! I
cannot forget it.”
“Never mind that. Say Monday week. I will be here precisely at this
time.”
“Let it be at Rainbarrow,” said she. “This is too near home; my
grandfather may be walking out.”
“Thank you, dear. On Monday week at this time I will be at the Barrow.
Till then good-bye.”
“Good-bye. No, no, you must not touch me now. Shaking hands is enough
till I have made up my mind.”
Eustacia watched his shadowy form till it had disappeared. She placed
her hand to her forehead and breathed heavily; and then her rich,
romantic lips parted under that homely impulse—a yawn. She was
immediately angry at having betrayed even to herself the possible
evanescence of her passion for him. She could not admit at once that
she might have overestimated Wildeve, for to perceive his mediocrity
now was to admit her own great folly heretofore. And the discovery that
she was the owner of a disposition so purely that of the dog in the
manger had something in it which at first made her ashamed.
The fruit of Mrs. Yeobright’s diplomacy was indeed remarkable, though
not as yet of the kind she had anticipated. It had appreciably
influenced Wildeve, but it was influencing Eustacia far more. Her lover
was no longer to her an exciting man whom many women strove for, and
herself could only retain by striving with them. He was a superfluity.
She went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which is not exactly
grief, and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the
latter days of an ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that the
end of the dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is
one of the most wearisome as well as the most curious stages along the
course between the beginning of a passion and its end.
Her grandfather had returned, and was busily engaged in pouring some
gallons of newly arrived rum into the square bottles of his square
cellaret. Whenever these home supplies were exhausted he would go to
the Quiet Woman, and, standing with his back to the fire, grog in hand,
tell remarkable stories of how he had lived seven years under the
waterline of his ship, and other naval wonders, to the natives, who
hoped too earnestly for a treat of ale from the teller to exhibit any
doubts of his truth.
He had been there this evening. “I suppose you have heard the Egdon
news, Eustacia?” he said, without looking up from the bottles. “The men
have been talking about it at the Woman as if it were of national
importance.”
“I have heard none,” she said.
“Young Clym Yeobright, as they call him, is coming home next week to
spend Christmas with his mother. He is a fine fellow by this time, it
seems. I suppose you remember him?”
“I never saw him in my life.”
“Ah, true; he left before you came here. I well remember him as a
promising boy.”
“Where has he been living all these years?”
“In that rookery of pomp and vanity, Paris, I believe.”