“There,” he said, as he laid it in his desk, “that’s a good thing done.
If she does not come before tomorrow night I will send it to her.”
Meanwhile, at the house he had just left Thomasin sat sighing uneasily.
Fidelity to her husband had that evening induced her to conceal all
suspicion that Wildeve’s interest in Eustacia had not ended with his
marriage. But she knew nothing positive; and though Clym was her
well-beloved cousin there was one nearer to her still.
When, a little later, Wildeve returned from his walk to Mistover,
Thomasin said, “Damon, where have you been? I was getting quite
frightened, and thought you had fallen into the river. I dislike being
in the house by myself.”
“Frightened?” he said, touching her cheek as if she were some domestic
animal. “Why, I thought nothing could frighten you. It is that you are
getting proud, I am sure, and don’t like living here since we have
risen above our business. Well, it is a tedious matter, this getting a
new house; but I couldn’t have set about it sooner, unless our ten
thousand pounds had been a hundred thousand, when we could have
afforded to despise caution.”
“No—I don’t mind waiting—I would rather stay here twelve months longer
than run any risk with baby. But I don’t like your vanishing so in the
evenings. There’s something on your mind—I know there is, Damon. You go
about so gloomily, and look at the heath as if it were somebody’s gaol
instead of a nice wild place to walk in.”
He looked towards her with pitying surprise. “What, do you like Egdon
Heath?” he said.
“I like what I was born near to; I admire its grim old face.”
“Pooh, my dear. You don’t know what you like.”
“I am sure I do. There’s only one thing unpleasant about Egdon.”
“What’s that?”
“You never take me with you when you walk there. Why do you wander so
much in it yourself if you so dislike it?”
The inquiry, though a simple one, was plainly disconcerting, and he sat
down before replying. “I don’t think you often see me there. Give an
instance.”
“I will,” she answered triumphantly. “When you went out this evening I
thought that as baby was asleep I would see where you were going to so
mysteriously without telling me. So I ran out and followed behind you.
You stopped at the place where the road forks, looked round at the
bonfires, and then said, ‘Damn it, I’ll go!’ And you went quickly up
the left-hand road. Then I stood and watched you.”
Wildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile, “Well, what
wonderful discovery did you make?”
“There—now you are angry, and we won’t talk of this any more.” She went
across to him, sat on a footstool, and looked up in his face.
“Nonsense!” he said, “that’s how you always back out. We will go on
with it now we have begun. What did you next see? I particularly want
to know.”
“Don’t be like that, Damon!” she murmured. “I didn’t see anything. You
vanished out of sight, and then I looked round at the bonfires and came
in.”
“Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. Are you
trying to find out something bad about me?”
“Not at all! I have never done such a thing before, and I shouldn’t
have done it now if words had not sometimes been dropped about you.”
“What _do_ you mean?” he impatiently asked.
“They say—they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings, and it
puts into my mind what I have heard about—”
Wildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. “Now,” he said,
flourishing his hand in the air, “just out with it, madam! I demand to
know what remarks you have heard.”
“Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of Eustacia—nothing more
than that, though dropped in a bit-by-bit way. You ought not to be
angry!”
He observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. “Well,” he said,
“there is nothing new in that, and of course I don’t mean to be rough
towards you, so you need not cry. Now, don’t let us speak of the
subject any more.”
And no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough of a reason for not
mentioning Clym’s visit to her that evening, and his story.
VII.
The Night of the Sixth of November
Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed anxious that
something should happen to thwart her own intention. The only event
that could really change her position was the appearance of Clym. The
glory which had encircled him as her lover was departed now; yet some
good simple quality of his would occasionally return to her memory and
stir a momentary throb of hope that he would again present himself
before her. But calmly considered it was not likely that such a
severance as now existed would ever close up—she would have to live on
as a painful object, isolated, and out of place. She had used to think
of the heath alone as an uncongenial spot to be in; she felt it now of
the whole world.
Towards evening on the sixth her determination to go away again
revived. About four o’clock she packed up anew the few small articles
she had brought in her flight from Alderworth, and also some belonging
to her which had been left here; the whole formed a bundle not too
large to be carried in her hand for a distance of a mile or two. The
scene without grew darker; mud-coloured clouds bellied downwards from
the sky like vast hammocks slung across it, and with the increase of
night a stormy wind arose; but as yet there was no rain.
Eustacia could not rest indoors, having nothing more to do, and she
wandered to and fro on the hill, not far from the house she was soon to
leave. In these desultory ramblings she passed the cottage of Susan
Nunsuch, a little lower down than her grandfather’s. The door was ajar,
and a riband of bright firelight fell over the ground without. As
Eustacia crossed the firebeams she appeared for an instant as distinct
as a figure in a phantasmagoria—a creature of light surrounded by an
area of darkness; the moment passed, and she was absorbed in night
again.
A woman who was sitting inside the cottage had seen and recognized her
in that momentary irradiation. This was Susan herself, occupied in
preparing a posset for her little boy, who, often ailing, was now
seriously unwell. Susan dropped the spoon, shook her fist at the
vanished figure, and then proceeded with her work in a musing, absent
way.
At eight o’clock, the hour at which Eustacia had promised to signal
Wildeve if ever she signalled at all, she looked around the premises to
learn if the coast was clear, went to the furze-rick, and pulled thence
a long-stemmed bough of that fuel. This she carried to the corner of
the bank, and, glancing behind to see if the shutters were all closed,
she struck a light, and kindled the furze. When it was thoroughly
ablaze Eustacia took it by the stem and waved it in the air above her
head till it had burned itself out.
She was gratified, if gratification were possible to such a mood, by
seeing a similar light in the vicinity of Wildeve’s residence a minute
or two later. Having agreed to keep watch at this hour every night, in
case she should require assistance, this promptness proved how strictly
he had held to his word. Four hours after the present time, that is, at
midnight, he was to be ready to drive her to Budmouth, as prearranged.
Eustacia returned to the house. Supper having been got over she retired
early, and sat in her bedroom waiting for the time to go by. The night
being dark and threatening, Captain Vye had not strolled out to gossip
in any cottage or to call at the inn, as was sometimes his custom on
these long autumn nights; and he sat sipping grog alone downstairs.
About ten o’clock there was a knock at the door. When the servant
opened it the rays of the candle fell upon the form of Fairway.
“I was a-forced to go to Lower Mistover tonight,” he said, “and Mr.
Yeobright asked me to leave this here on my way; but, faith, I put it
in the lining of my hat, and thought no more about it till I got back
and was hasping my gate before going to bed. So I have run back with it
at once.”
He handed in a letter and went his way. The girl brought it to the
captain, who found that it was directed to Eustacia. He turned it over
and over, and fancied that the writing was her husband’s, though he
could not be sure. However, he decided to let her have it at once if
possible, and took it upstairs for that purpose; but on reaching the
door of her room and looking in at the keyhole he found there was no
light within, the fact being that Eustacia, without undressing, had
flung herself upon the bed, to rest and gather a little strength for
her coming journey. Her grandfather concluded from what he saw that he
ought not to disturb her; and descending again to the parlour he placed
the letter on the mantelpiece to give it to her in the morning.
At eleven o’clock he went to bed himself, smoked for some time in his
bedroom, put out his light at half-past eleven, and then, as was his
invariable custom, pulled up the blind before getting into bed, that he
might see which way the wind blew on opening his eyes in the morning,
his bedroom window commanding a view of the flagstaff and vane. Just as
he had lain down he was surprised to observe the white pole of the
staff flash into existence like a streak of phosphorus drawn downwards
across the shade of night without. Only one explanation met this—a
light had been suddenly thrown upon the pole from the direction of the
house. As everybody had retired to rest the old man felt it necessary
to get out of bed, open the window softly, and look to the right and
left. Eustacia’s bedroom was lighted up, and it was the shine from her
window which had lighted the pole. Wondering what had aroused her, he
remained undecided at the window, and was thinking of fetching the
letter to slip it under her door, when he heard a slight brushing of
garments on the partition dividing his room from the passage.
The captain concluded that Eustacia, feeling wakeful, had gone for a
book, and would have dismissed the matter as unimportant if he had not
also heard her distinctly weeping as she passed.
“She is thinking of that husband of hers,” he said to himself. “Ah, the
silly goose! she had no business to marry him. I wonder if that letter
is really his?”
He arose, threw his boat-cloak round him, opened the door, and said,
“Eustacia!” There was no answer. “Eustacia!” he repeated louder, “there
is a letter on the mantelpiece for you.”
But no response was made to this statement save an imaginary one from
the wind, which seemed to gnaw at the corners of the house, and the
stroke of a few drops of rain upon the windows.
He went on to the landing, and stood waiting nearly five minutes. Still
she did not return. He went back for a light, and prepared to follow
her; but first he looked into her bedroom. There, on the outside of the
quilt, was the impression of her form, showing that the bed had not
been opened; and, what was more significant, she had not taken her
candlestick downstairs. He was now thoroughly alarmed; and hastily
putting on his clothes he descended to the front door, which he himself
had bolted and locked. It was now unfastened. There was no longer any
doubt that Eustacia had left the house at this midnight hour; and
whither could she have gone? To follow her was almost impossible. Had
the dwelling stood in an ordinary road, two persons setting out, one in
each direction, might have made sure of overtaking her; but it was a
hopeless task to seek for anybody on a heath in the dark, the
practicable directions for flight across it from any point being as
numerous as the meridians radiating from the pole. Perplexed what to
do, he looked into the parlour, and was vexed to find that the letter
still lay there untouched.
At half-past eleven, finding that the house was silent, Eustacia had
lighted her candle, put on some warm outer wrappings, taken her bag in
her hand, and, extinguishing the light again, descended the staircase.
When she got into the outer air she found that it had begun to rain,
and as she stood pausing at the door it increased, threatening to come
on heavily. But having committed herself to this line of action there
was no retreating for bad weather. Even the receipt of Clym’s letter
would not have stopped her now. The gloom of the night was funereal;
all nature seemed clothed in crape. The spiky points of the fir trees
behind the house rose into the sky like the turrets and pinnacles of an
abbey. Nothing below the horizon was visible save a light which was
still burning in the cottage of Susan Nunsuch.
Eustacia opened her umbrella and went out from the enclosure by the
steps over the bank, after which she was beyond all danger of being
perceived. Skirting the pool, she followed the path towards Rainbarrow,
occasionally stumbling over twisted furze roots, tufts of rushes, or
oozing lumps of fleshy fungi, which at this season lay scattered about
the heath like the rotten liver and lungs of some colossal animal. The
moon and stars were closed up by cloud and rain to the degree of
extinction. It was a night which led the traveller’s thoughts
instinctively to dwell on nocturnal scenes of disaster in the
chronicles of the world, on all that is terrible and dark in history
and legend—the last plague of Egypt, the destruction of Sennacherib’s
host, the agony in Gethsemane.
Eustacia at length reached Rainbarrow, and stood still there to think.
Never was harmony more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind
and the chaos of the world without. A sudden recollection had flashed
on her this moment—she had not money enough for undertaking a long
journey. Amid the fluctuating sentiments of the day her unpractical
mind had not dwelt on the necessity of being well-provided, and now
that she thoroughly realized the conditions she sighed bitterly and
ceased to stand erect, gradually crouching down under the umbrella as
if she were drawn into the Barrow by a hand from beneath. Could it be
that she was to remain a captive still? Money—she had never felt its
value before. Even to efface herself from the country means were
required. To ask Wildeve for pecuniary aid without allowing him to
accompany her was impossible to a woman with a shadow of pride left in
her; to fly as his mistress—and she knew that he loved her—was of the
nature of humiliation.
Anyone who had stood by now would have pitied her, not so much on
account of her exposure to weather, and isolation from all of humanity
except the mouldered remains inside the tumulus; but for that other
form of misery which was denoted by the slightly rocking movement that
her feelings imparted to her person. Extreme unhappiness weighed
visibly upon her. Between the drippings of the rain from her umbrella
to her mantle, from her mantle to the heather, from the heather to the
earth, very similar sounds could be heard coming from her lips; and the
tearfulness of the outer scene was repeated upon her face. The wings of
her soul were broken by the cruel obstructiveness of all about her; and
even had she seen herself in a promising way of getting to Budmouth,
entering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port, she would have
been but little more buoyant, so fearfully malignant were other things.
She uttered words aloud. When a woman in such a situation, neither old,
deaf, crazed, nor whimsical, takes upon herself to sob and soliloquize
aloud there is something grievous the matter.
“Can I go, can I go?” she moaned. “He’s not _great_ enough for me to
give myself to—he does not suffice for my desire!... If he had been a
Saul or a Bonaparte—ah! But to break my marriage vow for him—it is too
poor a luxury!... And I have no money to go alone! And if I could, what
comfort to me? I must drag on next year, as I have dragged on this
year, and the year after that as before. How I have tried and tried to
be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me!... I do not
deserve my lot!” she cried in a frenzy of bitter revolt. “O, the
cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of
much; but I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond
my control! O, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me,
who have done no harm to Heaven at all!”
The distant light which Eustacia had cursorily observed in leaving the
house came, as she had divined, from the cottage window of Susan
Nunsuch. What Eustacia did not divine was the occupation of the woman
within at that moment. Susan’s sight of her passing figure earlier in
the evening, not five minutes after the sick boy’s exclamation,
“Mother, I do feel so bad!” persuaded the matron that an evil influence
was certainly exercised by Eustacia’s propinquity.
On this account Susan did not go to bed as soon as the evening’s work
was over, as she would have done at ordinary times. To counteract the
malign spell which she imagined poor Eustacia to be working, the boy’s
mother busied herself with a ghastly invention of superstition,
calculated to bring powerlessness, atrophy, and annihilation on any
human being against whom it was directed. It was a practice well known
on Egdon at that date, and one that is not quite extinct at the present
day.
She passed with her candle into an inner room, where, among other
utensils, were two large brown pans, containing together perhaps a
hundredweight of liquid honey, the produce of the bees during the
foregoing summer. On a shelf over the pans was a smooth and solid
yellow mass of a hemispherical form, consisting of beeswax from the
same take of honey. Susan took down the lump, and cutting off several
thin slices, heaped them in an iron ladle, with which she returned to
the living-room, and placed the vessel in the hot ashes of the
fireplace. As soon as the wax had softened to the plasticity of dough
she kneaded the pieces together. And now her face became more intent.
She began moulding the wax; and it was evident from her manner of
manipulation that she was endeavouring to give it some preconceived
form. The form was human.
By warming and kneading, cutting and twisting, dismembering and
re-joining the incipient image she had in about a quarter of an hour
produced a shape which tolerably well resembled a woman, and was about
six inches high. She laid it on the table to get cold and hard.
Meanwhile she took the candle and went upstairs to where the little boy
was lying.
“Did you notice, my dear, what Mrs. Eustacia wore this afternoon
besides the dark dress?”
“A red ribbon round her neck.”
“Anything else?”
“No—except sandal-shoes.”
“A red ribbon and sandal-shoes,” she said to herself.
Mrs. Nunsuch went and searched till she found a fragment of the
narrowest red ribbon, which she took downstairs and tied round the neck
of the image. Then fetching ink and a quilt from the rickety bureau by
the window, she blackened the feet of the image to the extent
presumably covered by shoes; and on the instep of each foot marked
cross-lines in the shape taken by the sandalstrings of those days.
Finally she tied a bit of black thread round the upper part of the
head, in faint resemblance to a snood worn for confining the hair.
Susan held the object at arm’s length and contemplated it with a
satisfaction in which there was no smile. To anybody acquainted with
the inhabitants of Egdon Heath the image would have suggested Eustacia
Yeobright.
From her workbasket in the window-seat the woman took a paper of pins,
of the old long and yellow sort, whose heads were disposed to come off
at their first usage. These she began to thrust into the image in all
directions, with apparently excruciating energy. Probably as many as
fifty were thus inserted, some into the head of the wax model, some
into the shoulders, some into the trunk, some upwards through the soles
of the feet, till the figure was completely permeated with pins.
She turned to the fire. It had been of turf; and though the high heap
of ashes which turf fires produce was somewhat dark and dead on the
outside, upon raking it abroad with the shovel the inside of the mass
showed a glow of red heat. She took a few pieces of fresh turf from the
chimney-corner and built them together over the glow, upon which the
fire brightened. Seizing with the tongs the image that she had made of
Eustacia, she held it in the heat, and watched it as it began to waste
slowly away. And while she stood thus engaged there came from between
her lips a murmur of words.
It was a strange jargon—the Lord’s Prayer repeated backwards—the
incantation usual in proceedings for obtaining unhallowed assistance
against an enemy. Susan uttered the lugubrious discourse three times
slowly, and when it was completed the image had considerably
diminished. As the wax dropped into the fire a long flame arose from
the spot, and curling its tongue round the figure ate still further
into its substance. A pin occasionally dropped with the wax, and the
embers heated it red as it lay.
VIII.
Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers
While the effigy of Eustacia was melting to nothing, and the fair woman
herself was standing on Rainbarrow, her soul in an abyss of desolation
seldom plumbed by one so young, Yeobright sat lonely at Blooms-End. He
had fulfilled his word to Thomasin by sending off Fairway with the
letter to his wife, and now waited with increased impatience for some
sound or signal of her return. Were Eustacia still at Mistover the very
least he expected was that she would send him back a reply tonight by
the same hand; though, to leave all to her inclination, he had
cautioned Fairway not to ask for an answer. If one were handed to him
he was to bring it immediately; if not, he was to go straight home
without troubling to come round to Blooms-End again that night.
But secretly Clym had a more pleasing hope. Eustacia might possibly
decline to use her pen—it was rather her way to work silently—and
surprise him by appearing at his door. How fully her mind was made up
to do otherwise he did not know.
To Clym’s regret it began to rain and blow hard as the evening
advanced. The wind rasped and scraped at the corners of the house, and
filliped the eavesdroppings like peas against the panes. He walked
restlessly about the untenanted rooms, stopping strange noises in
windows and doors by jamming splinters of wood into the casements and
crevices, and pressing together the leadwork of the quarries where it
had become loosened from the glass. It was one of those nights when
cracks in the walls of old churches widen, when ancient stains on the
ceilings of decayed manor houses are renewed and enlarged from the size
of a man’s hand to an area of many feet. The little gate in the palings
before his dwelling continually opened and clicked together again, but
when he looked out eagerly nobody was there; it was as if invisible
shapes of the dead were passing in on their way to visit him.
Between ten and eleven o’clock, finding that neither Fairway nor
anybody else came to him, he retired to rest, and despite his anxieties
soon fell asleep. His sleep, however, was not very sound, by reason of
the expectancy he had given way to, and he was easily awakened by a
knocking which began at the door about an hour after. Clym arose and
looked out of the window. Rain was still falling heavily, the whole
expanse of heath before him emitting a subdued hiss under the downpour.
It was too dark to see anything at all.
“Who’s there?” he cried.
Light footsteps shifted their position in the porch, and he could just
distinguish in a plaintive female voice the words, “O Clym, come down
and let me in!”
He flushed hot with agitation. “Surely it is Eustacia!” he murmured. If
so, she had indeed come to him unawares.
He hastily got a light, dressed himself, and went down. On his flinging
open the door the rays of the candle fell upon a woman closely wrapped
up, who at once came forward.
“Thomasin!” he exclaimed in an indescribable tone of disappointment.
“It is Thomasin, and on such a night as this! O, where is Eustacia?”
Thomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting.
“Eustacia? I don’t know, Clym; but I can think,” she said with much
perturbation. “Let me come in and rest—I will explain this. There is a
great trouble brewing—my husband and Eustacia!”
“What, what?”
“I think my husband is going to leave me or do something dreadful—I
don’t know what—Clym, will you go and see? I have nobody to help me but
you; Eustacia has not yet come home?”
“No.”
She went on breathlessly: “Then they are going to run off together! He
came indoors tonight about eight o’clock and said in an off-hand way,
‘Tamsie, I have just found that I must go a journey.’ ‘When?’ I said.
‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘Where?’ I asked him. ‘I cannot tell you at
present,’ he said; ‘I shall be back again tomorrow.’ He then went and
busied himself in looking up his things, and took no notice of me at
all. I expected to see him start, but he did not, and then it came to
be ten o’clock, when he said, ‘You had better go to bed.’ I didn’t know
what to do, and I went to bed. I believe he thought I fell asleep, for
half an hour after that he came up and unlocked the oak chest we keep
money in when we have much in the house and took out a roll of
something which I believe was banknotes, though I was not aware that he
had ’em there. These he must have got from the bank when he went there
the other day. What does he want banknotes for, if he is only going off
for a day? When he had gone down I thought of Eustacia, and how he had
met her the night before—I know he did meet her, Clym, for I followed
him part of the way; but I did not like to tell you when you called,
and so make you think ill of him, as I did not think it was so serious.
Then I could not stay in bed; I got up and dressed myself, and when I
heard him out in the stable I thought I would come and tell you. So I
came downstairs without any noise and slipped out.”
“Then he was not absolutely gone when you left?”
“No. Will you, dear Cousin Clym, go and try to persuade him not to go?
He takes no notice of what I say, and puts me off with the story of his
going on a journey, and will be home tomorrow, and all that; but I
don’t believe it. I think you could influence him.”
“I’ll go,” said Clym. “O, Eustacia!”
Thomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having by this time
seated herself she began to unroll it, when a baby appeared as the
kernel to the husks—dry, warm, and unconscious of travel or rough
weather. Thomasin briefly kissed the baby, and then found time to begin
crying as she said, “I brought baby, for I was afraid what might happen
to her. I suppose it will be her death, but I couldn’t leave her with
Rachel!”
Clym hastily put together the logs on the hearth, raked abroad the
embers, which were scarcely yet extinct, and blew up a flame with the
bellows.
“Dry yourself,” he said. “I’ll go and get some more wood.”
“No, no—don’t stay for that. I’ll make up the fire. Will you go at
once—please will you?”
Yeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself. While he was gone
another rapping came to the door. This time there was no delusion that
it might be Eustacia’s—the footsteps just preceding it had been heavy
and slow. Yeobright thinking it might possibly be Fairway with a note
in answer, descended again and opened the door.
“Captain Vye?” he said to a dripping figure.
“Is my granddaughter here?” said the captain.
“No.”
“Then where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you ought to know—you are her husband.”
“Only in name apparently,” said Clym with rising excitement. “I believe
she means to elope tonight with Wildeve. I am just going to look to
it.”
“Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago. Who’s
sitting there?”
“My cousin Thomasin.”
The captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her. “I only hope it is no
worse than an elopement,” he said.
“Worse? What’s worse than the worst a wife can do?”
“Well, I have been told a strange tale. Before starting in search of
her I called up Charley, my stable lad. I missed my pistols the other
day.”
“Pistols?”
“He said at the time that he took them down to clean. He has now owned
that he took them because he saw Eustacia looking curiously at them;
and she afterwards owned to him that she was thinking of taking her
life, but bound him to secrecy, and promised never to think of such a
thing again. I hardly suppose she will ever have bravado enough to use
one of them; but it shows what has been lurking in her mind; and people
who think of that sort of thing once think of it again.”
“Where are the pistols?”
“Safely locked up. O no, she won’t touch them again. But there are more
ways of letting out life than through a bullet-hole. What did you
quarrel about so bitterly with her to drive her to all this? You must
have treated her badly indeed. Well, I was always against the marriage,
and I was right.”
“Are you going with me?” said Yeobright, paying no attention to the
captain’s latter remark. “If so I can tell you what we quarrelled about
as we walk along.”
“Where to?”
“To Wildeve’s—that was her destination, depend upon it.”
Thomasin here broke in, still weeping: “He said he was only going on a
sudden short journey; but if so why did he want so much money? O, Clym,
what do you think will happen? I am afraid that you, my poor baby, will
soon have no father left to you!”
“I am off now,” said Yeobright, stepping into the porch.
“I would fain go with ’ee,” said the old man doubtfully. “But I begin
to be afraid that my legs will hardly carry me there such a night as
this. I am not so young as I was. If they are interrupted in their
flight she will be sure to come back to me, and I ought to be at the
house to receive her. But be it as ’twill I can’t walk to the Quiet
Woman, and that’s an end on’t. I’ll go straight home.”
“It will perhaps be best,” said Clym. “Thomasin, dry yourself, and be
as comfortable as you can.”
With this he closed the door upon her, and left the house in company
with Captain Vye, who parted from him outside the gate, taking the
middle path, which led to Mistover. Clym crossed by the right-hand
track towards the inn.
Thomasin, being left alone, took off some of her wet garments, carried
the baby upstairs to Clym’s bed, and then came down to the sitting-room
again, where she made a larger fire, and began drying herself. The fire
soon flared up the chimney, giving the room an appearance of comfort
that was doubled by contrast with the drumming of the storm without,
which snapped at the windowpanes and breathed into the chimney strange
low utterances that seemed to be the prologue to some tragedy.
But the least part of Thomasin was in the house, for her heart being at
ease about the little girl upstairs she was mentally following Clym on
his journey. Having indulged in this imaginary peregrination for some
considerable interval, she became impressed with a sense of the
intolerable slowness of time. But she sat on. The moment then came when
she could scarcely sit longer, and it was like a satire on her patience
to remember that Clym could hardly have reached the inn as yet. At last
she went to the baby’s bedside. The child was sleeping soundly; but her
imagination of possibly disastrous events at her home, the predominance
within her of the unseen over the seen, agitated her beyond endurance.
She could not refrain from going down and opening the door. The rain
still continued, the candlelight falling upon the nearest drops and
making glistening darts of them as they descended across the throng of
invisible ones behind. To plunge into that medium was to plunge into
water slightly diluted with air. But the difficulty of returning to her
house at this moment made her all the more desirous of doing
so—anything was better than suspense. “I have come here well enough,”
she said, “and why shouldn’t I go back again? It is a mistake for me to
be away.”
She hastily fetched the infant, wrapped it up, cloaked herself as
before, and shoveling the ashes over the fire, to prevent accidents,
went into the open air. Pausing first to put the door key in its old
place behind the shutter, she resolutely turned her face to the
confronting pile of firmamental darkness beyond the palings, and
stepped into its midst. But Thomasin’s imagination being so actively
engaged elsewhere, the night and the weather had for her no terror
beyond that of their actual discomfort and difficulty.
She was soon ascending Blooms-End valley and traversing the undulations
on the side of the hill. The noise of the wind over the heath was
shrill, and as if it whistled for joy at finding a night so congenial
as this. Sometimes the path led her to hollows between thickets of tall
and dripping bracken, dead, though not yet prostrate, which enclosed
her like a pool. When they were more than usually tall she lifted the
baby to the top of her head, that it might be out of the reach of their
drenching fronds. On higher ground, where the wind was brisk and
sustained, the rain flew in a level flight without sensible descent, so
that it was beyond all power to imagine the remoteness of the point at
which it left the bosoms of the clouds. Here self-defence was
impossible, and individual drops stuck into her like the arrows into
Saint Sebastian. She was enabled to avoid puddles by the nebulous
paleness which signified their presence, though beside anything less
dark than the heath they themselves would have appeared as blackness.
Yet in spite of all this Thomasin was not sorry that she had started.
To her there were not, as to Eustacia, demons in the air, and malice in
every bush and bough. The drops which lashed her face were not
scorpions, but prosy rain; Egdon in the mass was no monster whatever,
but impersonal open ground. Her fears of the place were rational, her
dislikes of its worst moods reasonable. At this time it was in her view
a windy, wet place, in which a person might experience much discomfort,
lose the path without care, and possibly catch cold.
If the path is well known the difficulty at such times of keeping
therein is not altogether great, from its familiar feel to the feet;
but once lost it is irrecoverable. Owing to her baby, who somewhat
impeded Thomasin’s view forward and distracted her mind, she did at
last lose the track. This mishap occurred when she was descending an
open slope about two-thirds home. Instead of attempting, by wandering
hither and thither, the hopeless task of finding such a mere thread,
she went straight on, trusting for guidance to her general knowledge of
the contours, which was scarcely surpassed by Clym’s or by that of the
heath-croppers themselves.
At length Thomasin reached a hollow and began to discern through the
rain a faint blotted radiance, which presently assumed the oblong form
of an open door. She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was soon
aware of the nature of the door by its height above the ground.
“Why, it is Diggory Venn’s van, surely!” she said.
A certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew, often Venn’s
chosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood; and she guessed at
once that she had stumbled upon this mysterious retreat. The question
arose in her mind whether or not she should ask him to guide her into
the path. In her anxiety to reach home she decided that she would
appeal to him, notwithstanding the strangeness of appearing before his
eyes at this place and season. But when, in pursuance of this resolve,
Thomasin reached the van and looked in she found it to be untenanted;
though there was no doubt that it was the reddleman’s. The fire was
burning in the stove, the lantern hung from the nail. Round the doorway
the floor was merely sprinkled with rain, and not saturated, which told
her that the door had not long been opened.
While she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep
advancing from the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the
well-known form in corduroy, lurid from head to foot, the lantern beams
falling upon him through an intervening gauze of raindrops.
“I thought you went down the slope,” he said, without noticing her
face. “How do you come back here again?”
“Diggory?” said Thomasin faintly.
“Who are you?” said Venn, still unperceiving. “And why were you crying
so just now?”
“O, Diggory! don’t you know me?” said she. “But of course you don’t,
wrapped up like this. What do you mean? I have not been crying here,
and I have not been here before.”
Venn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her
form.
“Mrs. Wildeve!” he exclaimed, starting. “What a time for us to meet!
And the baby too! What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such
a night as this?”
She could not immediately answer; and without asking her permission he
hopped into his van, took her by the arm, and drew her up after him.
“What is it?” he continued when they stood within.
“I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am in a great hurry
to get home. Please show me as quickly as you can! It is so silly of me
not to know Egdon better, and I cannot think how I came to lose the
path. Show me quickly, Diggory, please.”
“Yes, of course. I will go with ’ee. But you came to me before this,
Mrs. Wildeve?”
“I only came this minute.”
“That’s strange. I was lying down here asleep about five minutes ago,
with the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a
woman’s clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up, for I
don’t sleep heavy, and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying
from the same woman. I opened my door and held out my lantern, and just
as far as the light would reach I saw a woman; she turned her head when
the light sheened on her, and then hurried on downhill. I hung up the
lantern, and was curious enough to pull on my things and dog her a few
steps, but I could see nothing of her any more. That was where I had
been when you came up; and when I saw you I thought you were the same
one.”
“Perhaps it was one of the heathfolk going home?”
“No, it couldn’t be. ’Tis too late. The noise of her gown over the
he’th was of a whistling sort that nothing but silk will make.”
“It wasn’t I, then. My dress is not silk, you see.... Are we anywhere
in a line between Mistover and the inn?”
“Well, yes; not far out.”
“Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!”
She jumped down from the van before he was aware, when Venn unhooked
the lantern and leaped down after her. “I’ll take the baby, ma’am,” he
said. “You must be tired out by the weight.”
Thomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby into Venn’s
hands. “Don’t squeeze her, Diggory,” she said, “or hurt her little arm;
and keep the cloak close over her like this, so that the rain may not
drop in her face.”
“I will,” said Venn earnestly. “As if I could hurt anything belonging
to you!”
“I only meant accidentally,” said Thomasin.
“The baby is dry enough, but you are pretty wet,” said the reddleman
when, in closing the door of his cart to padlock it, he noticed on the
floor a ring of water drops where her cloak had hung from her.
Thomasin followed him as he wound right and left to avoid the larger
bushes, stopping occasionally and covering the lantern, while he looked
over his shoulder to gain some idea of the position of Rainbarrow above
them, which it was necessary to keep directly behind their backs to
preserve a proper course.
“You are sure the rain does not fall upon baby?”
“Quite sure. May I ask how old he is, ma’am?”
“He!” said Thomasin reproachfully. “Anybody can see better than that in
a moment. She is nearly two months old. How far is it now to the inn?”
“A little over a quarter of a mile.”
“Will you walk a little faster?”
“I was afraid you could not keep up.”
“I am very anxious to get there. Ah, there is a light from the window!”
“’Tis not from the window. That’s a gig-lamp, to the best of my
belief.”
“O!” said Thomasin in despair. “I wish I had been there sooner—give me
the baby, Diggory—you can go back now.”
“I must go all the way,” said Venn. “There is a quag between us and
that light, and you will walk into it up to your neck unless I take you
round.”
“But the light is at the inn, and there is no quag in front of that.”
“No, the light is below the inn some two or three hundred yards.”
“Never mind,” said Thomasin hurriedly. “Go towards the light, and not
towards the inn.”
“Yes,” answered Venn, swerving round in obedience; and, after a pause,
“I wish you would tell me what this great trouble is. I think you have
proved that I can be trusted.”
“There are some things that cannot be—cannot be told to—” And then her
heart rose into her throat, and she could say no more.
IX.
Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
Having seen Eustacia’s signal from the hill at eight o’clock, Wildeve
immediately prepared to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped,
accompany her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informing
Thomasin that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient to
rouse her suspicions. When she had gone to bed he collected the few
articles he would require, and went upstairs to the money-chest, whence
he took a tolerably bountiful sum in notes, which had been advanced to
him on the property he was so soon to have in possession, to defray
expenses incidental to the removal.
He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure himself that the
horse, gig, and harness were in a fit condition for a long drive.
Nearly half an hour was spent thus, and on returning to the house
Wildeve had no thought of Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. He had
told the stable lad not to stay up, leading the boy to understand that
his departure would be at three or four in the morning; for this,
though an exceptional hour, was less strange than midnight, the time
actually agreed on, the packet from Budmouth sailing between one and
two.
At last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but to wait. By no
effort could he shake off the oppression of spirits which he had
experienced ever since his last meeting with Eustacia, but he hoped
there was that in his situation which money could cure. He had
persuaded himself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle wife
by settling on her the half of his property, and with chivalrous
devotion towards another and greater woman by sharing her fate, was
possible. And though he meant to adhere to Eustacia’s instructions to
the letter, to deposit her where she wished and to leave her, should
that be her will, the spell that she had cast over him intensified, and
his heart was beating fast in the anticipated futility of such commands
in the face of a mutual wish that they should throw in their lot
together.
He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures,
maxims, and hopes, and at twenty minutes to twelve he again went softly
to the stable, harnessed the horse, and lit the lamps; whence, taking
the horse by the head, he led him with the covered car out of the yard
to a spot by the roadside some quarter of a mile below the inn.
Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving rain by a high
bank that had been cast up at this place. Along the surface of the road
where lit by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones scudded and
clicked together before the wind, which, leaving them in heaps, plunged
into the heath and boomed across the bushes into darkness. Only one
sound rose above this din of weather, and that was the roaring of a
ten-hatch weir to the southward, from a river in the meads which formed
the boundary of the heath in this direction.
He lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy that the
midnight hour must have struck. A very strong doubt had arisen in his
mind if Eustacia would venture down the hill in such weather; yet
knowing her nature he felt that she might. “Poor thing! ’tis like her
ill-luck,” he murmured.
At length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To his
surprise it was nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that he
had driven up the circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adopted
because of the enormous length of the route in proportion to that of
the pedestrian’s path down the open hillside, and the consequent
increase of labour for the horse.
At this moment a footstep approached; but the light of the lamps being
in a different direction the comer was not visible. The step paused,
then came on again.
“Eustacia?” said Wildeve.
The person came forward, and the light fell upon the form of Clym,
glistening with wet, whom Wildeve immediately recognized; but Wildeve,
who stood behind the lamp, was not at once recognized by Yeobright.
He stopped as if in doubt whether this waiting vehicle could have
anything to do with the flight of his wife or not. The sight of
Yeobright at once banished Wildeve’s sober feelings, who saw him again
as the deadly rival from whom Eustacia was to be kept at all hazards.
Hence Wildeve did not speak, in the hope that Clym would pass by
without particular inquiry.
While they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound became audible
above the storm and wind. Its origin was unmistakable—it was the fall
of a body into the stream in the adjoining mead, apparently at a point
near the weir.
Both started. “Good God! can it be she?” said Clym.
“Why should it be she?” said Wildeve, in his alarm forgetting that he
had hitherto screened himself.
“Ah!—that’s you, you traitor, is it?” cried Yeobright. “Why should it
be she? Because last week she would have put an end to her life if she
had been able. She ought to have been watched! Take one of the lamps
and come with me.”
Yeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on; Wildeve did not
wait to unfasten the other, but followed at once along the meadow track
to the weir, a little in the rear of Clym.
Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet in
diameter, into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raised
and lowered by a winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides of
the pool were of masonry, to prevent the water from washing away the
bank; but the force of the stream in winter was sometimes such as to
undermine the retaining wall and precipitate it into the hole. Clym
reached the hatches, the framework of which was shaken to its
foundations by the velocity of the current. Nothing but the froth of
the waves could be discerned in the pool below. He got upon the plank
bridge over the race, and holding to the rail, that the wind might not
blow him off, crossed to the other side of the river. There he leant
over the wall and lowered the lamp, only to behold the vortex formed at
the curl of the returning current.
Wildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the light from
Yeobright’s lamp shed a flecked and agitated radiance across the weir
pool, revealing to the ex-engineer the tumbling courses of the currents
from the hatches above. Across this gashed and puckered mirror a dark
body was slowly borne by one of the backward currents.
“O, my darling!” exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice; and, without
showing sufficient presence of mind even to throw off his greatcoat, he
leaped into the boiling caldron.
Yeobright could now also discern the floating body, though but
indistinctly; and imagining from Wildeve’s plunge that there was life
to be saved he was about to leap after. Bethinking himself of a wiser
plan, he placed the lamp against a post to make it stand upright, and
running round to the lower part of the pool, where there was no wall,
he sprang in and boldly waded upwards towards the deeper portion. Here
he was taken off his legs, and in swimming was carried round into the
centre of the basin, where he perceived Wildeve struggling.
While these hasty actions were in progress here, Venn and Thomasin had
been toiling through the lower corner of the heath in the direction of
the light. They had not been near enough to the river to hear the
plunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage lamp, and watched its
motion into the mead. As soon as they reached the car and horse Venn
guessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in the
course of the moving light. Venn walked faster than Thomasin, and came
to the weir alone.
The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the water,
and the reddleman observed something floating motionless. Being
encumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.
“Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve,” he said hastily. “Run home with
her, call the stable lad, and make him send down to me any men who may
be living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir.”
Thomasin took the child and ran. When she came to the covered car the
horse, though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, as
if conscious of misfortune. She saw for the first time whose it was.
She nearly fainted, and would have been unable to proceed another step
but that the necessity of preserving the little girl from harm nerved
her to an amazing self-control. In this agony of suspense she entered
the house, put the baby in a place of safety, woke the lad and the
female domestic, and ran out to give the alarm at the nearest cottage.
Diggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed that the
small upper hatches or floats were withdrawn. He found one of these
lying upon the grass, and taking it under one arm, and with his lantern
in his hand, entered at the bottom of the pool as Clym had done. As
soon as he began to be in deep water he flung himself across the hatch;
thus supported he was able to keep afloat as long as he chose, holding
the lantern aloft with his disengaged hand. Propelled by his feet, he
steered round and round the pool, ascending each time by one of the
back streams and descending in the middle of the current.
At first he could see nothing. Then amidst the glistening of the
whirlpools and the white clots of foam he distinguished a woman’s
bonnet floating alone. His search was now under the left wall, when
something came to the surface almost close beside him. It was not, as
he had expected, a woman, but a man. The reddleman put the ring of the
lantern between his teeth, seized the floating man by the collar, and,
holding on to the hatch with his remaining arm, struck out into the
strongest race, by which the unconscious man, the hatch, and himself
were carried down the stream. As soon as Venn found his feet dragging
over the pebbles of the shallower part below he secured his footing and
waded towards the brink. There, where the water stood at about the
height of his waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted to drag
forth the man. This was a matter of great difficulty, and he found as
the reason that the legs of the unfortunate stranger were tightly
embraced by the arms of another man, who had hitherto been entirely
beneath the surface.
At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towards him,
and two men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above. They ran
to where Venn was, and helped him in lifting out the apparently drowned
persons, separating them, and laying them out upon the grass. Venn
turned the light upon their faces. The one who had been uppermost was
Yeobright; he who had been completely submerged was Wildeve.
“Now we must search the hole again,” said Venn. “A woman is in there
somewhere. Get a pole.”
One of the men went to the footbridge and tore off the handrail. The
reddleman and the two others then entered the water together from below
as before, and with their united force probed the pool forwards to
where it sloped down to its central depth. Venn was not mistaken in
supposing that any person who had sunk for the last time would be
washed down to this point, for when they had examined to about halfway
across something impeded their thrust.
“Pull it forward,” said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole till
it was close to their feet.
Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wet
drapery enclosing a woman’s cold form, which was all that remained of
the desperate Eustacia.
When they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a stress of grief,
bending over the two unconscious ones who already lay there. The horse
and cart were brought to the nearest point in the road, and it was the
work of a few minutes only to place the three in the vehicle. Venn led
on the horse, supporting Thomasin upon his arm, and the two men
followed, till they reached the inn.
The woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin had hastily
dressed herself and lighted a fire, the other servant being left to
snore on in peace at the back of the house. The insensible forms of
Eustacia, Clym, and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the
carpet, with their feet to the fire, when such restorative processes as
could be thought of were adopted at once, the stableman being in the
meantime sent for a doctor. But there seemed to be not a whiff of life
in either of the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief had been
thrust off awhile by frantic action, applied a bottle of hartshorn to
Clym’s nostrils, having tried it in vain upon the other two. He sighed.
“Clym’s alive!” she exclaimed.
He soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did she attempt to
revive her husband by the same means; but Wildeve gave no sign. There
was too much reason to think that he and Eustacia both were for ever
beyond the reach of stimulating perfumes. Their exertions did not relax
till the doctor arrived, when one by one, the senseless three were
taken upstairs and put into warm beds.
Venn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance, and went to
the door, scarcely able yet to realize the strange catastrophe that had
befallen the family in which he took so great an interest. Thomasin
surely would be broken down by the sudden and overwhelming nature of
this event. No firm and sensible Mrs. Yeobright lived now to support
the gentle girl through the ordeal; and, whatever an unimpassioned
spectator might think of her loss of such a husband as Wildeve, there
could be no doubt that for the moment she was distracted and horrified
by the blow. As for himself, not being privileged to go to her and
comfort her, he saw no reason for waiting longer in a house where he
remained only as a stranger.
He returned across the heath to his van. The fire was not yet out, and
everything remained as he had left it. Venn now bethought himself of
his clothes, which were saturated with water to the weight of lead. He
changed them, spread them before the fire, and lay down to sleep. But
it was more than he could do to rest here while excited by a vivid
imagination of the turmoil they were in at the house he had quitted,
and, blaming himself for coming away, he dressed in another suit,
locked up the door, and again hastened across to the inn. Rain was
still falling heavily when he entered the kitchen. A bright fire was
shining from the hearth, and two women were bustling about, one of whom
was Olly Dowden.
“Well, how is it going on now?” said Venn in a whisper.
“Mr. Yeobright is better; but Mrs. Yeobright and Mr. Wildeve are dead
and cold. The doctor says they were quite gone before they were out of
the water.”
“Ah! I thought as much when I hauled ’em up. And Mrs. Wildeve?”
“She is as well as can be expected. The doctor had her put between
blankets, for she was almost as wet as they that had been in the river,
poor young thing. You don’t seem very dry, reddleman.”
“Oh, ’tis not much. I have changed my things. This is only a little
dampness I’ve got coming through the rain again.”
“Stand by the fire. Mis’ess says you be to have whatever you want, and
she was sorry when she was told that you’d gone away.”
Venn drew near to the fireplace, and looked into the flames in an
absent mood. The steam came from his leggings and ascended the chimney
with the smoke, while he thought of those who were upstairs. Two were
corpses, one had barely escaped the jaws of death, another was sick and
a widow. The last occasion on which he had lingered by that fireplace
was when the raffle was in progress; when Wildeve was alive and well;
Thomasin active and smiling in the next room; Yeobright and Eustacia
just made husband and wife, and Mrs. Yeobright living at Blooms-End. It
had seemed at that time that the then position of affairs was good for
at least twenty years to come. Yet, of all the circle, he himself was
the only one whose situation had not materially changed.
While he ruminated a footstep descended the stairs. It was the nurse,
who brought in her hand a rolled mass of wet paper. The woman was so
engrossed with her occupation that she hardly saw Venn. She took from a
cupboard some pieces of twine, which she strained across the fireplace,
tying the end of each piece to the firedog, previously pulled forward
for the purpose, and, unrolling the wet papers, she began pinning them
one by one to the strings in a manner of clothes on a line.
“What be they?” said Venn.
“Poor master’s banknotes,” she answered. “They were found in his pocket
when they undressed him.”
“Then he was not coming back again for some time?” said Venn.
“That we shall never know,” said she.
Venn was loth to depart, for all on earth that interested him lay under
this roof. As nobody in the house had any more sleep that night, except
the two who slept for ever, there was no reason why he should not
remain. So he retired into the niche of the fireplace where he had used
to sit, and there he continued, watching the steam from the double row
of banknotes as they waved backwards and forwards in the draught of the
chimney till their flaccidity was changed to dry crispness throughout.
Then the woman came and unpinned them, and, folding them together,
carried the handful upstairs. Presently the doctor appeared from above
with the look of a man who could do no more, and, pulling on his
gloves, went out of the house, the trotting of his horse soon dying
away upon the road.
At four o’clock there was a gentle knock at the door. It was from
Charley, who had been sent by Captain Vye to inquire if anything had
been heard of Eustacia. The girl who admitted him looked in his face as
if she did not know what answer to return, and showed him in to where
Venn was seated, saying to the reddleman, “Will you tell him, please?”
Venn told. Charley’s only utterance was a feeble, indistinct sound. He
stood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, “I shall see her
once more?”
“I dare say you may see her,” said Diggory gravely. “But hadn’t you
better run and tell Captain Vye?”
“Yes, yes. Only I do hope I shall see her just once again.”
“You shall,” said a low voice behind; and starting round they beheld by
the dim light, a thin, pallid, almost spectral form, wrapped in a
blanket, and looking like Lazarus coming from the tomb.
It was Yeobright. Neither Venn nor Charley spoke, and Clym continued,
“You shall see her. There will be time enough to tell the captain when
it gets daylight. You would like to see her too—would you not, Diggory?
She looks very beautiful now.”
Venn assented by rising to his feet, and with Charley he followed Clym
to the foot of the staircase, where he took off his boots; Charley did
the same. They followed Yeobright upstairs to the landing, where there
was a candle burning, which Yeobright took in his hand, and with it led
the way into an adjoining room. Here he went to the bedside and folded
back the sheet.
They stood silently looking upon Eustacia, who, as she lay there still
in death, eclipsed all her living phases. Pallor did not include all
the quality of her complexion, which seemed more than whiteness; it was
almost light. The expression of her finely carved mouth was pleasant,
as if a sense of dignity had just compelled her to leave off speaking.
Eternal rigidity had seized upon it in a momentary transition between
fervour and resignation. Her black hair was looser now than either of
them had ever seen it before, and surrounded her brow like a forest.
The stateliness of look which had been almost too marked for a dweller
in a country domicile had at last found an artistically happy
background.
Nobody spoke, till at length Clym covered her and turned aside. “Now
come here,” he said.
They went to a recess in the same room, and there, on a smaller bed,
lay another figure—Wildeve. Less repose was visible in his face than in
Eustacia’s, but the same luminous youthfulness overspread it, and the
least sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him now that he
was born for a higher destiny than this. The only sign upon him of his
recent struggle for life was in his fingertips, which were worn and
sacrificed in his dying endeavours to obtain a hold on the face of the
weir-wall.
Yeobright’s manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so few syllables
since his reappearance, that Venn imagined him resigned. It was only
when they had left the room and stood upon the landing that the true
state of his mind was apparent. Here he said, with a wild smile,
inclining his head towards the chamber in which Eustacia lay, “She is
the second woman I have killed this year. I was a great cause of my
mother’s death, and I am the chief cause of hers.”
“How?” said Venn.
“I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. I did not invite
her back till it was too late. It is I who ought to have drowned
myself. It would have been a charity to the living had the river
overwhelmed me and borne her up. But I cannot die. Those who ought to
have lived lie dead; and here am I alive!”
“But you can’t charge yourself with crimes in that way,” said Venn.
“You may as well say that the parents be the cause of a murder by the
child, for without the parents the child would never have been begot.”
“Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don’t know all the
circumstances. If it had pleased God to put an end to me it would have
been a good thing for all. But I am getting used to the horror of my
existence. They say that a time comes when men laugh at misery through
long acquaintance with it. Surely that time will soon come to me!”
“Your aim has always been good,” said Venn. “Why should you say such
desperate things?”
“No, they are not desperate. They are only hopeless; and my great
regret is that for what I have done no man or law can punish me!”