Eustacia stood just within the heath, straining her eyes in the
direction of Mrs. Yeobright's house and premises. No light, sound, or
movement was perceptible there. The evening was chilly; the spot was
dark and lonely. She inferred that the guest had not yet come; and
after lingering ten or fifteen minutes she turned again towards home.
She had not far retraced her steps when sounds in front of her
betokened the approach of persons in conversation along the same path.
Soon their heads became visible against the sky. They were walking
slowly; and though it was too dark for much discovery of character
from aspect, the gait of them showed that they were not workers on the
heath. Eustacia stepped a little out of the foot-track to let them
pass. They were two women and a man; and the voices of the women were
those of Mrs. Yeobright and Thomasin.
They went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared to discern her
dusky form. There came to her ears in a masculine voice, "Good
night!"
She murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round. She could
not, for a moment, believe that chance, unrequested, had brought into
her presence the soul of the house she had gone to inspect, the man
without whom her inspection would not have been thought of.
She strained her eyes to see them, but was unable. Such was her
intentness, however, that it seemed as if her ears were performing
the functions of seeing as well as hearing. This extension of power
can almost be believed in at such moments. The deaf Dr. Kitto was
probably under the influence of a parallel fancy when he described his
body as having become, by long endeavour, so sensitive to vibrations
that he had gained the power of perceiving by it as by ears.
She could follow every word that the ramblers uttered. They were
talking no secrets. They were merely indulging in the ordinary
vivacious chat of relatives who have long been parted in person though
not in soul. But it was not to the words that Eustacia listened; she
could not even have recalled, a few minutes later, what the words
were. It was to the alternating voice that gave out about one-tenth of
them--the voice that had wished her good night. Sometimes this throat
uttered Yes, sometimes it uttered No; sometimes it made inquiries
about a timeworn denizen of the place. Once it surprised her notions
by remarking upon the friendliness and geniality written in the faces
of the hills around.
The three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her ear.
Thus much had been granted her; and all besides withheld. No event
could have been more exciting. During the greater part of the
afternoon she had been entrancing herself by imagining the fascination
which must attend a man come direct from beautiful Paris--laden with
its atmosphere, familiar with its charms. And this man had greeted
her.
With the departure of the figures the profuse articulations of the
women wasted away from her memory; but the accents of the other stayed
on. Was there anything in the voice of Mrs. Yeobright's son--for Clym
it was--startling as a sound? No; it was simply comprehensive. All
emotional things were possible to the speaker of that "good night."
Eustacia's imagination supplied the rest--except the solution to one
riddle. What COULD the tastes of that man be who saw friendliness and
geniality in these shaggy hills?
On such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through a highly
charged woman's head; and they indicate themselves on her face; but
the changes, though actual, are minute. Eustacia's features went
through a rhythmical succession of them. She glowed; remembering the
mendacity of the imagination, she flagged; then she freshened; then
she fired; then she cooled again. It was a cycle of aspects, produced
by a cycle of visions.
Eustacia entered her own house; she was excited. Her grandfather was
enjoying himself over the fire, raking about the ashes and exposing
the red-hot surface of the turves, so that their lurid glare
irradiated the chimney-corner with the hues of a furnace.
"Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?" she said,
coming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth. "I wish
we were. They seem to be very nice people."
"Be hanged if I know why," said the captain. "I liked the old man
well enough, though he was as rough as a hedge. But you would never
have cared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. They sit in
the kitchen, drink mead and elderwine, and sand the floor to keep it
clean. A sensible way of life; but would you like it?"
"I thought Mrs. Yeobright was a ladylike woman? A curate's daughter,
was she not?"
"Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did; and I suppose
she has taken kindly to it by this time. Ah, I recollect that I once
accidentally offended her, and I have never seen her since."
That night was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one which she
hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from
Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable
one. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was
certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia's situation before.
It had as many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many
fluctuations as the Northern Lights, as much colour as a parterre
in June, and was as crowded with figures as a coronation. To Queen
Scheherazade the dream might have seemed not far removed from
commonplace; and to a girl just returned from all the courts of
Europe it might have seemed not more than interesting. But amid the
circumstances of Eustacia's life it was as wonderful as a dream could
be.
There was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation scenes a
less extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly appeared behind the
general brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to wondrous music,
and her partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her
through the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being
closed. The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came
into her ear from under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman
in Paradise. Suddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers,
dived into one of the pools of the heath, and came out somewhere
beneath into an iridescent hollow, arched with rainbows. "It must
be here," said the voice by her side, and blushingly looking up she
saw him removing his casque to kiss her. At that moment there was a
cracking noise, and his figure fell into fragments like a pack of
cards.