In the evening of this last day of expectation, which was the
twenty-third of December, Eustacia was at home alone. She had
passed the recent hour in lamenting over a rumour newly come to
her ears--that Yeobright's visit to his mother was to be of short
duration, and would end some time the next week. "Naturally," she
said to herself. A man in the full swing of his activities in a gay
city could not afford to linger long on Egdon Heath. That she would
behold face to face the owner of the awakening voice within the limits
of such a holiday was most unlikely, unless she were to haunt the
environs of his mother's house like a robin, to do which was difficult
and unseemly.
The customary expedient of provincial girls and men in such
circumstances is churchgoing. In an ordinary village or country town
one can safely calculate that, either on Christmas-day or the Sunday
contiguous, any native home for the holidays, who has not through age
or _ennui_ lost the appetite for seeing and being seen, will turn
up in some pew or other, shining with hope, self-consciousness, and
new clothes. Thus the congregation on Christmas morning is mostly
a Tussaud collection of celebrities who have been born in the
neighbourhood. Hither the mistress, left neglected at home all the
year, can steal and observe the development of the returned lover who
has forgotten her, and think as she watches him over her prayer-book
that he may throb with a renewed fidelity when novelties have lost
their charm. And hither a comparatively recent settler like Eustacia
may betake herself to scrutinize the person of a native son who left
home before her advent upon the scene, and consider if the friendship
of his parents be worth cultivating during his next absence in order
to secure a knowledge of him on his next return.
But these tender schemes were not feasible among the scattered
inhabitants of Egdon Heath. In name they were parishioners, but
virtually they belonged to no parish at all. People who came to these
few isolated houses to keep Christmas with their friends remained in
their friends' chimney-corners drinking mead and other comforting
liquors till they left again for good and all. Rain, snow, ice, mud
everywhere around, they did not care to trudge two or three miles to
sit wet-footed and splashed to the nape of their necks among those
who, though in some measure neighbours, lived close to the church, and
entered it clean and dry. Eustacia knew it was ten to one that Clym
Yeobright would go to no church at all during his few days of leave,
and that it would be a waste of labour for her to go driving the pony
and gig over a bad road in hope to see him there.
It was dusk, and she was sitting by the fire in the dining-room or
hall, which they occupied at this time of the year in preference to
the parlour, because of its large hearth, constructed for turf-fires,
a fuel the captain was partial to in the winter season. The only
visible articles in the room were those on the window-sill, which
showed their shapes against the low sky: the middle article being the
old hourglass, and the other two a pair of ancient British urns which
had been dug from a barrow near, and were used as flower-pots for two
razor-leaved cactuses. Somebody knocked at the door. The servant was
out; so was her grandfather. The person, after waiting a minute, came
in and tapped at the door of the room.
"Who's there?" said Eustacia.
"Please, Cap'n Vye, will you let us--"
Eustacia arose and went to the door. "I cannot allow you to come in
so boldly. You should have waited."
"The cap'n said I might come in without any fuss," was answered in a
lad's pleasant voice.
"Oh, did he?" said Eustacia more gently. "What do you want, Charley?"
"Please will your grandfather lend us his fuel-house to try over our
parts in, tonight at seven o'clock?"
"What, are you one of the Egdon mummers for this year?"
"Yes, miss. The cap'n used to let the old mummers practise here."
"I know it. Yes, you may use the fuel-house if you like," said
Eustacia languidly.
The choice of Captain Vye's fuel-house as the scene of rehearsal was
dictated by the fact that his dwelling was nearly in the centre of the
heath. The fuel-house was as roomy as a barn, and was a most desirable
place for such a purpose. The lads who formed the company of players
lived at different scattered points around, and by meeting in this
spot the distances to be traversed by all the comers would be about
equally proportioned.
For mummers and mumming Eustacia had the greatest contempt. The
mummers themselves were not afflicted with any such feeling for
their art, though at the same time they were not enthusiastic. A
traditional pastime is to be distinguished from a mere revival in no
more striking feature than in this, that while in the revival all is
excitement and fervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity
and absence of stir which sets one wondering why a thing that is done
so perfunctorily should be kept up at all. Like Balaam and other
unwilling prophets, the agents seem moved by an inner compulsion
to say and do their allotted parts whether they will or no. This
unweeting manner of performance is the true ring by which, in this
refurbishing age, a fossilized survival may be known from a spurious
reproduction.
The piece was the well-known play of "Saint George," and all who were
behind the scenes assisted in the preparations, including the women
of each household. Without the cooperation of sisters and sweethearts
the dresses were likely to be a failure; but on the other hand, this
class of assistance was not without its drawbacks. The girls could
never be brought to respect tradition in designing and decorating the
armour; they insisted on attaching loops and bows of silk and velvet
in any situation pleasing to their taste. Gorget, gusset, basinet,
cuirass, gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of these feminine
eyes were practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps of fluttering
colour.
It might be that Joe, who fought on the side of Christendom, had a
sweetheart, and that Jim, who fought on the side of the Moslem, had
one likewise. During the making of the costumes it would come to the
knowledge of Joe's sweetheart that Jim's was putting brilliant silk
scallops at the bottom of her lover's surcoat, in addition to the
ribbons of the visor, the bars of which, being invariably formed of
coloured strips about half an inch wide hanging before the face,
were mostly of that material. Joe's sweetheart straightway placed
brilliant silk on the scallops of the hem in question, and, going a
little further, added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces. Jim's, not
to be outdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere.
The result was that in the end the Valiant Soldier, of the Christian
army, was distinguished by no peculiarity of accoutrement from the
Turkish Knight; and what was worse, on a casual view Saint George
himself might be mistaken for his deadly enemy, the Saracen. The
guisers themselves, though inwardly regretting this confusion of
persons, could not afford to offend those by whose assistance they
so largely profited, and the innovations were allowed to stand.
There was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity.
The Leech or Doctor preserved his character intact: his darker
habiliments, peculiar hat, and the bottle of physic slung under his
arm, could never be mistaken. And the same might be said of the
conventional figure of Father Christmas, with his gigantic club, an
older man, who accompanied the band as general protector in long night
journeys from parish to parish, and was bearer of the purse.
Seven o'clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in a short
time Eustacia could hear voices in the fuel-house. To dissipate in
some trifling measure her abiding sense of the murkiness of human life
she went to the "linhay" or lean-to-shed, which formed the root-store
of their dwelling and abutted on the fuel-house. Here was a small
rough hole in the mud wall, originally made for pigeons, through which
the interior of the next shed could be viewed. A light came from it
now; and Eustacia stepped upon a stool to look in upon the scene.
On a ledge in the fuel-house stood three tall rush-lights and by the
light of them seven or eight lads were marching about, haranguing, and
confusing each other, in endeavours to perfect themselves in the play.
Humphrey and Sam, the furze and turf cutters, were there looking on,
so also was Timothy Fairway, who leant against the wall and prompted
the boys from memory, interspersing among the set words remarks and
anecdotes of the superior days when he and others were the Egdon
mummers-elect that these lads were now.
"Well, ye be as well up to it as ever ye will be," he said. "Not that
such mumming would have passed in our time. Harry as the Saracen
should strut a bit more, and John needn't holler his inside out.
Beyond that perhaps you'll do. Have you got all your clothes ready?"
"We shall by Monday."
"Your first outing will be Monday night, I suppose?"
"Yes. At Mrs. Yeobright's."
"Oh, Mrs. Yeobright's. What makes her want to see ye? I should think
a middle-aged woman was tired of mumming."
"She's got up a bit of a party, because 'tis the first Christmas that
her son Clym has been home for a long time."
"To be sure, to be sure--her party! I am going myself. I almost
forgot it, upon my life."
Eustacia's face flagged. There was to be a party at the Yeobrights';
she, naturally, had nothing to do with it. She was a stranger to
all such local gatherings, and had always held them as scarcely
appertaining to her sphere. But had she been going, what an
opportunity would have been afforded her of seeing the man whose
influence was penetrating her like summer sun! To increase that
influence was coveted excitement; to cast it off might be to regain
serenity; to leave it as it stood was tantalizing.
The lads and men prepared to leave the premises, and Eustacia returned
to her fireside. She was immersed in thought, but not for long. In a
few minutes the lad Charley, who had come to ask permission to use the
place, returned with the key to the kitchen. Eustacia heard him, and
opening the door into the passage said, "Charley, come here."
The lad was surprised. He entered the front room not without
blushing; for he, like many, had felt the power of this girl's face
and form.
She pointed to a seat by the fire, and entered the other side of the
chimney-corner herself. It could be seen in her face that whatever
motive she might have had in asking the youth indoors would soon
appear.
"Which part do you play, Charley--the Turkish Knight, do you not?"
inquired the beauty, looking across the smoke of the fire to him on
the other side.
"Yes, miss, the Turkish Knight," he replied diffidently.
"Is yours a long part?"
"Nine speeches, about."
"Can you repeat them to me? If so I should like to hear them."