Thomasin looked as if quite overcome by her aunt's change of manner.
"It means just what it seems to mean: I am--not married," she replied
faintly. "Excuse me--for humiliating you, aunt, by this mishap: I am
sorry for it. But I cannot help it."
"Me? Think of yourself first."
"It was nobody's fault. When we got there the parson wouldn't marry
us because of some trifling irregularity in the license."
"What irregularity?"
"I don't know. Mr. Wildeve can explain. I did not think when I went
away this morning that I should come back like this." It being dark,
Thomasin allowed her emotion to escape her by the silent way of tears,
which could roll down her cheek unseen.
"I could almost say that it serves you right--if I did not feel that
you don't deserve it," continued Mrs. Yeobright, who, possessing two
distinct moods in close contiguity, a gentle mood and an angry, flew
from one to the other without the least warning. "Remember, Thomasin,
this business was none of my seeking; from the very first, when you
began to feel foolish about that man, I warned you he would not make
you happy. I felt it so strongly that I did what I would never have
believed myself capable of doing--stood up in the church, and made
myself the public talk for weeks. But having once consented, I don't
submit to these fancies without good reason. Marry him you must after
this."
"Do you think I wish to do otherwise for one moment?" said Thomasin,
with a heavy sigh. "I know how wrong it was of me to love him, but
don't pain me by talking like that, aunt! You would not have had me
stay there with him, would you?--and your house is the only home I
have to return to. He says we can be married in a day or two."
"I wish he had never seen you."
"Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world, and not
let him see me again. No, I won't have him!"
"It is too late to speak so. Come with me. I am going to the inn to
see if he has returned. Of course I shall get to the bottom of this
story at once. Mr. Wildeve must not suppose he can play tricks upon
me, or any belonging to me."
"It was not that. The license was wrong, and he couldn't get another
the same day. He will tell you in a moment how it was, if he comes."
"Why didn't he bring you back?"
"That was me!" again sobbed Thomasin. "When I found we could not be
married I didn't like to come back with him, and I was very ill. Then
I saw Diggory Venn, and was glad to get him to take me home. I cannot
explain it any better, and you must be angry with me if you will."
"I shall see about that," said Mrs. Yeobright; and they turned towards
the inn, known in the neighbourhood as the Quiet Woman, the sign of
which represented the figure of a matron carrying her head under her
arm, beneath which gruesome design was written the couplet so well
known to frequenters of the inn:--
SINCE THE WOMAN'S QUIET
LET NO MAN BREED A RIOT.
The front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow, whose
dark shape seemed to threaten it from the sky. Upon the door was
a neglected brass plate, bearing the unexpected inscription, "Mr.
Wildeve, Engineer"--a useless yet cherished relic from the time when
he had been started in that profession in an office at Budmouth by
those who had hoped much from him, and had been disappointed. The
garden was at the back, and behind this ran a still deep stream,
forming the margin of the heath in that direction, meadow-land
appearing beyond the stream.
But the thick obscurity permitted only skylines to be visible of
any scene at present. The water at the back of the house could be
heard, idly spinning whirpools in its creep between the rows of dry
feather-headed reeds which formed a stockade along each bank. Their
presence was denoted by sounds as of a congregation praying humbly,
produced by their rubbing against each other in the slow wind.
The window, whence the candlelight had shone up the vale to the eyes
of the bonfire group, was uncurtained, but the sill lay too high for
a pedestrian on the outside to look over it into the room. A vast
shadow, in which could be dimly traced portions of a masculine
contour, blotted half the ceiling.
"He seems to be at home," said Mrs. Yeobright.
"Must I come in, too, aunt?" asked Thomasin faintly. "I suppose not;
it would be wrong."
"You must come, certainly--to confront him, so that he may make no
false representations to me. We shall not be five minutes in the
house, and then we'll walk home."
Entering the open passage she tapped at the door of the private
parlour, unfastened it, and looked in.
The back and shoulders of a man came between Mrs. Yeobright's eyes and
the fire. Wildeve, whose form it was, immediately turned, arose, and
advanced to meet his visitors.
He was quite a young man, and of the two properties, form and motion,
the latter first attracted the eye in him. The grace of his movement
was singular: it was the pantomimic expression of a lady-killing
career. Next came into notice the more material qualities, among
which was a profuse crop of hair impending over the top of his face,
lending to his forehead the high-cornered outline of an early Gothic
shield; and a neck which was smooth and round as a cylinder. The lower
half of his figure was of light build. Altogether he was one in whom
no man would have seen anything to admire, and in whom no woman would
have seen anything to dislike.
He discerned the young girl's form in the passage, and said,
"Thomasin, then, has reached home. How could you leave me in that
way, darling?" And turning to Mrs. Yeobright: "It was useless to argue
with her. She would go, and go alone."
"But what's the meaning of it all?" demanded Mrs. Yeobright haughtily.
"Take a seat," said Wildeve, placing chairs for the two women. "Well,
it was a very stupid mistake, but such mistakes will happen. The
license was useless at Anglebury. It was made out for Budmouth, but
as I didn't read it I wasn't aware of that."
"But you had been staying at Anglebury?"
"No. I had been at Budmouth--till two days ago--and that was where I
had intended to take her; but when I came to fetch her we decided upon
Anglebury, forgetting that a new license would be necessary. There was
not time to get to Budmouth afterwards."
"I think you are very much to blame," said Mrs. Yeobright.
"It was quite my fault we chose Anglebury," Thomasin pleaded. "I
proposed it because I was not known there."
"I know so well that I am to blame that you need not remind me of it,"
replied Wildeve shortly.
"Such things don't happen for nothing," said the aunt. "It is a great
slight to me and my family; and when it gets known there will be a
very unpleasant time for us. How can she look her friends in the face
tomorrow? It is a very great injury, and one I cannot easily forgive.
It may even reflect on her character."
"Nonsense," said Wildeve.
Thomasin's large eyes had flown from the face of one to the face of
the other during this discussion, and she now said anxiously, "Will
you allow me, aunt, to talk it over alone with Damon for five minutes?
Will you, Damon?"
"Certainly, dear," said Wildeve, "if your aunt will excuse us." He led
her into an adjoining room, leaving Mrs. Yeobright by the fire.
As soon as they were alone, and the door closed, Thomasin said,
turning up her pale, tearful face to him, "It is killing me, this,
Damon! I did not mean to part from you in anger at Anglebury this
morning; but I was frightened, and hardly knew what I said. I've not
let aunt know how much I have suffered to-day; and it is so hard to
command my face and voice, and to smile as if it were a slight thing
to me; but I try to do so, that she may not be still more indignant
with you. I know you could not help it, dear, whatever aunt may
think."
"She is very unpleasant."
"Yes," Thomasin murmured, "and I suppose I seem so now... Damon, what
do you mean to do about me?"
"Do about you?"
"Yes. Those who don't like you whisper things which at moments make me
doubt you. We mean to marry, I suppose, don't we?"
"Of course we do. We have only to go to Budmouth on Monday, and we
marry at once."
"Then do let us go!--O Damon, what you make me say!" She hid her
face in her handkerchief. "Here am I asking you to marry me, when
by rights you ought to be on your knees imploring me, your cruel
mistress, not to refuse you, and saying it would break your heart if I
did. I used to think it would be pretty and sweet like that; but how
different!"
"Yes, real life is never at all like that."
"But I don't care personally if it never takes place," she added with
a little dignity; "no, I can live without you. It is aunt I think of.
She is so proud, and thinks so much of her family respectability,
that she will be cut down with mortification if this story should
get abroad before--it is done. My cousin Clym, too, will be much
wounded."
"Then he will be very unreasonable. In fact, you are all rather
unreasonable."
Thomasin coloured a little, and not with love. But whatever the
momentary feeling which caused that flush in her, it went as it came,
and she humbly said, "I never mean to be, if I can help it. I merely
feel that you have my aunt to some extent in your power at last."
"As a matter of justice it is almost due to me," said Wildeve. "Think
what I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is
to any man to have the banns forbidden: the double insult to a man
unlucky enough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons,
and Heaven knows what, as I am. I can never forget those banns. A
harsher man would rejoice now in the power I have of turning upon your
aunt by going no further in the business."
She looked wistfully at him with her sorrowful eyes as he said those
words, and her aspect showed that more than one person in the room
could deplore the possession of sensitiveness. Seeing that she was
really suffering he seemed disturbed and added, "This is merely a
reflection you know. I have not the least intention to refuse to
complete the marriage, Tamsie mine--I could not bear it."
"You could not, I know!" said the fair girl, brightening. "You, who
cannot bear the sight of pain in even an insect, or any disagreeable
sound, or unpleasant smell even, will not long cause pain to me and
mine."
"I will not, if I can help it."
"Your hand upon it, Damon."
He carelessly gave her his hand.
"Ah, by my crown, what's that?" he said suddenly.
There fell upon their ears the sound of numerous voices singing in
front of the house. Among these, two made themselves prominent by
their peculiarity: one was a very strong bass, the other a wheezy thin
piping. Thomasin recognized them as belonging to Timothy Fairway and
Grandfer Cantle respectively.
"What does it mean--it is not skimmity-riding, I hope?" she said, with
a frightened gaze at Wildeve.
"Of course not; no, it is that the heath-folk have come to sing to
us a welcome. This is intolerable!" He began pacing about, the men
outside singing cheerily--
"He told´ her that she´ was the joy´ of his life´.
And if´ she'd con-sent´ he would make her his wife´;
She could´ not refuse´ him; to church´ so they went´,
Young Will was forgot´, and young Sue´ was content´;
And then´ was she kiss'd´ and set down´ on his knee´,
No man´ in the world´ was so lov´-ing as he´!"
Mrs. Yeobright burst in from the outer room. "Thomasin, Thomasin!"
she said, looking indignantly at Wildeve; "here's a pretty exposure!
Let us escape at once. Come!"
It was, however, too late to get away by the passage. A rugged
knocking had begun upon the door of the front room. Wildeve, who had
gone to the window, came back.
"Stop!" he said imperiously, putting his hand upon Mrs. Yeobright's
arm. "We are regularly besieged. There are fifty of them out there
if there's one. You stay in this room with Thomasin; I'll go out and
face them. You must stay now, for my sake, till they are gone, so
that it may seem as if all was right. Come, Tamsie dear, don't go
making a scene--we must marry after this; that you can see as well as
I. Sit still, that's all--and don't speak much. I'll manage them.
Blundering fools!"
He pressed the agitated girl into a seat, returned to the outer room
and opened the door. Immediately outside, in the passage, appeared
Grandfer Cantle singing in concert with those still standing in
front of the house. He came into the room and nodded abstractedly
to Wildeve, his lips still parted, and his features excruciatingly
strained in the emission of the chorus. This being ended, he said
heartily, "Here's welcome to the newmade couple, and God bless 'em!"
"Thank you," said Wildeve, with dry resentment, his face as gloomy as
a thunderstorm.
At the Grandfer's heels now came the rest of the group, which included
Fairway, Christian, Sam the turf-cutter, Humphrey, and a dozen others.
All smiled upon Wildeve, and upon his tables and chairs likewise,
from a general sense of friendliness towards the articles as well as
towards their owner.
"We be not here afore Mrs. Yeobright after all," said Fairway,
recognizing the matron's bonnet through the glass partition which
divided the public apartment they had entered from the room where the
women sat. "We struck down across, d'ye see, Mr. Wildeve, and she
went round by the path."
"And I see the young bride's little head!" said Grandfer, peeping in
the same direction, and discerning Thomasin, who was waiting beside
her aunt in a miserable and awkward way. "Not quite settled in
yet--well, well, there's plenty of time."
Wildeve made no reply; and probably feeling that the sooner he treated
them the sooner they would go, he produced a stone jar, which threw a
warm halo over matters at once.
"That's a drop of the right sort, I can see," said Grandfer Cantle,
with the air of a man too well-mannered to show any hurry to taste
it.
"Yes," said Wildeve, "'tis some old mead. I hope you will like it."
"O ay!" replied the guests, in the hearty tones natural when the words
demanded by politeness coincide with those of deepest feeling. "There
isn't a prettier drink under the sun."
"I'll take my oath there isn't," added Grandfer Cantle. "All that can
be said against mead is that 'tis rather heady, and apt to lie about a
man a good while. But tomorrow's Sunday, thank God."
"I feel'd for all the world like some bold soldier after I had had
some once," said Christian.
"You shall feel so again," said Wildeve, with condescension, "Cups or
glasses, gentlemen?"
"Well, if you don't mind, we'll have the beaker, and pass 'en round;
'tis better than heling it out in dribbles."
"Jown the slippery glasses," said Grandfer Cantle. "What's the good
of a thing that you can't put down in the ashes to warm, hey,
neighbours; that's what I ask?"
"Right, Grandfer," said Sam; and the mead then circulated.
"Well," said Timothy Fairway, feeling demands upon his praise in some
form or other, "'tis a worthy thing to be married, Mr. Wildeve; and
the woman you've got is a dimant, so says I. Yes," he continued, to
Grandfer Cantle, raising his voice so as to be heard through the
partition, "her father (inclining his head towards the inner room) was
as good a feller as ever lived. He always had his great indignation
ready against anything underhand."
"Is that very dangerous?" said Christian.
"And there were few in these parts that were upsides with him," said
Sam. "Whenever a club walked he'd play the clarinet in the band that
marched before 'em as if he'd never touched anything but a clarinet
all his life. And then, when they got to church door he'd throw down
the clarinet, mount the gallery, snatch up the bass-viol, and rozum
away as if he'd never played anything but a bass-viol. Folk would
say--folk that knowed what a true stave was--'Surely, surely that's
never the same man that I saw handling the clarinet so masterly by
now!"
"I can mind it," said the furze-cutter. "'Twas a wonderful thing that
one body could hold it all and never mix the fingering."
"There was Kingsbere church likewise," Fairway recommenced, as one
opening a new vein of the same mine of interest.
Wildeve breathed the breath of one intolerably bored, and glanced
through the partition at the prisoners.
"He used to walk over there of a Sunday afternoon to visit his old
acquaintance Andrew Brown, the first clarinet there; a good man
enough, but rather screechy in his music, if you can mind?"
"'A was."
"And neighbour Yeobright would take Andrey's place for some part of
the service, to let Andrey have a bit of a nap, as any friend would
naturally do."
"As any friend would," said Grandfer Cantle, the other listeners
expressing the same accord by the shorter way of nodding their heads.
"No sooner was Andrey asleep and the first whiff of neighbour
Yeobright's wind had got inside Andrey's clarinet than everyone in
church feeled in a moment there was a great soul among 'em. All heads
would turn, and they'd say, 'Ah, I thought 'twas he!' One Sunday I can
well mind--a bass-viol day that time, and Yeobright had brought his
own. 'Twas the Hundred-and-thirty-third to 'Lydia'; and when they'd
come to 'Ran down his beard and o'er his robes its costly moisture
shed,' neighbour Yeobright, who had just warmed to his work, drove his
bow into them strings that glorious grand that he e'en a'most sawed
the bass-viol into two pieces. Every winder in church rattled as if
'twere a thunderstorm. Old Pa'son Williams lifted his hands in his
great holy surplice as natural as if he'd been in common clothes, and
seemed to say to hisself, 'O for such a man in our parish!' But not a
soul in Kingsbere could hold a candle to Yeobright."
"Was it quite safe when the winder shook?" Christian inquired.
He received no answer, all for the moment sitting rapt in admiration
of the performance described. As with Farinelli's singing before the
princesses, Sheridan's renowned Begum Speech, and other such examples,
the fortunate condition of its being for ever lost to the world
invested the deceased Mr. Yeobright's _tour de force_ on that
memorable afternoon with a cumulative glory which comparative
criticism, had that been possible, might considerably have shorn down.
"He was the last you'd have expected to drop off in the prime of
life," said Humphrey.
"Ah, well: he was looking for the earth some months afore he went. At
that time women used to run for smocks and gown-pieces at Greenhill
Fair, and my wife that is now, being a long-legged slittering maid,
hardly husband-high, went with the rest of the maidens, for 'a was
a good runner afore she got so heavy. When she came home I said--we
were then just beginning to walk together--'What have ye got, my
honey?' 'I've won--well, I've won--a gown-piece,' says she, her
colours coming up in a moment. 'Tis a smock for a crown, I thought;
and so it turned out. Ay, when I think what she'll say to me now
without a mossel of red in her face, it do seem strange that 'a
wouldn't say such a little thing then... However, then she went on,
and that's what made me bring up the story. 'Well, whatever clothes
I've won, white or figured, for eyes to see or for eyes not to see'
('a could do a pretty stroke of modesty in those days), 'I'd sooner
have lost it than have seen what I have. Poor Mr. Yeobright was took
bad directly he reached the fair ground, and was forced to go home
again.' That was the last time he ever went out of the parish."
"'A faltered on from one day to another, and then we heard he was
gone."
"D'ye think he had great pain when 'a died?" said Christian.
"O no: quite different. Nor any pain of mind. He was lucky enough to
be God A'mighty's own man."
"And other folk--d'ye think 'twill be much pain to 'em, Mister
Fairway?"
"That depends on whether they be afeard."
"I bain't afeard at all, I thank God!" said Christian strenuously.
"I'm glad I bain't, for then 'twon't pain me... I don't think I be
afeard--or if I be I can't help it, and I don't deserve to suffer. I
wish I was not afeard at all!"
There was a solemn silence, and looking from the window, which was
unshuttered and unblinded, Timothy said, "Well, what a fess little
bonfire that one is, out by Cap'n Vye's! 'Tis burning just the same
now as ever, upon my life."
All glances went through the window, and nobody noticed that Wildeve
disguised a brief, telltale look. Far away up the sombre valley of
heath, and to the right of Rainbarrow, could indeed be seen the light,
small, but steady and persistent as before.
"It was lighted before ours was," Fairway continued; "and yet every
one in the country round is out afore 'n."
"Perhaps there's meaning in it!" murmured Christian.
"How meaning?" said Wildeve sharply.
Christian was too scattered to reply, and Timothy helped him.
"He means, sir, that the lonesome dark-eyed creature up there that
some say is a witch--ever I should call a fine young woman such a
name--is always up to some odd conceit or other; and so perhaps 'tis
she."
"I'd be very glad to ask her in wedlock, if she'd hae me, and take
the risk of her wild dark eyes ill-wishing me," said Grandfer Cantle
staunchly.
"Don't ye say it, father!" implored Christian.
"Well, be dazed if he who do marry the maid won't hae an uncommon
picture for his best parlour," said Fairway in a liquid tone, placing
down the cup of mead at the end of a good pull.
"And a partner as deep as the North Star," said Sam, taking up the cup
and finishing the little that remained. "Well, really, now I think we
must be moving," said Humphrey, observing the emptiness of the vessel.
"But we'll gie 'em another song?" said Grandfer Cantle. "I'm as full
of notes as a bird!"
"Thank you, Grandfer," said Wildeve. "But we will not trouble you
now. Some other day must do for that--when I have a party."
"Be jown'd if I don't learn ten new songs for't, or I won't learn a
line!" said Grandfer Cantle. "And you may be sure I won't disappoint
ye by biding away, Mr. Wildeve."
"I quite believe you," said that gentleman.
All then took their leave, wishing their entertainer long life and
happiness as a married man, with recapitulations which occupied some
time. Wildeve attended them to the door, beyond which the deep-dyed
upward stretch of heath stood awaiting them, an amplitude of darkness
reigning from their feet almost to the zenith, where a definite form
first became visible in the lowering forehead of Rainbarrow. Diving
into the dense obscurity in a line headed by Sam the turf-cutter, they
pursued their trackless way home.
When the scratching of the furze against their leggings had fainted
upon the ear, Wildeve returned to the room where he had left Thomasin
and her aunt. The women were gone.
They could only have left the house in one way, by the back window;
and this was open.
Wildeve laughed to himself, remained a moment thinking, and idly
returned to the front room. Here his glance fell upon a bottle of
wine which stood on the mantelpiece. "Ah--old Dowden!" he murmured;
and going to the kitchen door shouted, "Is anybody here who can take
something to old Dowden?"
There was no reply. The room was empty, the lad who acted as his
factotum having gone to bed. Wildeve came back put on his hat, took
the bottle, and left the house, turning the key in the door, for there
was no guest at the inn tonight. As soon as he was on the road the
little bonfire on Mistover Knap again met his eye.
"Still waiting, are you, my lady?" he murmured.
However, he did not proceed that way just then; but leaving the hill
to the left of him, he stumbled over a rutted road that brought him to
a cottage which, like all other habitations on the heath at this hour,
was only saved from being visible by a faint shine from its bedroom
window. This house was the home of Olly Dowden, the besom-maker, and
he entered.
The lower room was in darkness; but by feeling his way he found a
table, whereon he placed the bottle, and a minute later emerged again
upon the heath. He stood and looked north-east at the undying little
fire--high up above him, though not so high as Rainbarrow.
We have been told what happens when a woman deliberates; and the
epigram is not always terminable with woman, provided that one be in
the case, and that a fair one. Wildeve stood, and stood longer, and
breathed perplexedly, and then said to himself with resignation,
"Yes--by Heaven, I must go to her, I suppose!"
Instead of turning in the direction of home he pressed on rapidly by a
path under Rainbarrow towards what was evidently a signal light.