On that evening the interior of Blooms-End, though cosy and
comfortable, had been rather silent. Clym Yeobright was not at home.
Since the Christmas party he had gone on a few days' visit to a friend
about ten miles off.
The shadowy form seen by Venn to part from Wildeve in the porch, and
quickly withdraw into the house, was Thomasin's. On entering she threw
down a cloak which had been carelessly wrapped round her, and came
forward to the light, where Mrs. Yeobright sat at her work-table,
drawn up within the settle, so that part of it projected into the
chimney-corner.
"I don't like your going out after dark alone, Tamsin," said her aunt
quietly, without looking up from her work.
"I have only been just outside the door."
"Well?" inquired Mrs. Yeobright, struck by a change in the tone of
Thomasin's voice, and observing her. Thomasin's cheek was flushed to
a pitch far beyond that which it had reached before her troubles, and
her eyes glittered.
"It was HE who knocked," she said.
"I thought as much."
"He wishes the marriage to be at once."
"Indeed! What--is he anxious?" Mrs. Yeobright directed a searching
look upon her niece. "Why did not Mr. Wildeve come in?"
"He did not wish to. You are not friends with him, he says. He would
like the wedding to be the day after tomorrow, quite privately; at the
church of his parish--not at ours."
"Oh! And what did you say?"
"I agreed to it," Thomasin answered firmly. "I am a practical woman
now. I don't believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under any
circumstances since--since Clym's letter."
A letter was lying on Mrs. Yeobright's work-basket, and at Thomasin's
word her aunt reopened it, and silently read for the tenth time that
day:--
What is the meaning of this silly story that people are
circulating about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve? I should call
such a scandal humiliating if there was the least chance
of its being true. How could such a gross falsehood have
arisen? It is said that one should go abroad to hear
news of home, and I appear to have done it. Of course I
contradict the tale everywhere; but it is very vexing,
and I wonder how it could have originated. It is too
ridiculous that such a girl as Thomasin could so mortify
us as to get jilted on the wedding-day. What has she done?
"Yes," Mrs. Yeobright said sadly, putting down the letter. "If you
think you can marry him, do so. And since Mr. Wildeve wishes it to
be unceremonious, let it be that too. I can do nothing. It is all in
your own hands now. My power over your welfare came to an end when you
left this house to go with him to Anglebury." She continued, half in
bitterness, "I may almost ask, why do you consult me in the matter at
all? If you had gone and married him without saying a word to me, I
could hardly have been angry--simply because, poor girl, you can't do
a better thing."
"Don't say that and dishearten me."
"You are right: I will not."
"I do not plead for him, aunt. Human nature is weak, and I am not a
blind woman to insist that he is perfect. I did think so, but I don't
now. But I know my course, and you know that I know it. I hope for
the best."
"And so do I, and we will both continue to," said Mrs. Yeobright,
rising and kissing her. "Then the wedding, if it comes off, will be
on the morning of the very day Clym comes home?"
"Yes. I decided that it ought to be over before he came. After that
you can look him in the face, and so can I. Our concealments will
matter nothing."
Mrs. Yeobright moved her head in thoughtful assent, and presently
said, "Do you wish me to give you away? I am willing to undertake
that, you know, if you wish, as I was last time. After once
forbidding the banns I think I can do no less."
"I don't think I will ask you to come," said Thomasin reluctantly, but
with decision. "It would be unpleasant, I am almost sure. Better let
there be only strangers present, and none of my relations at all. I
would rather have it so. I do not wish to do anything which may touch
your credit, and I feel that I should be uncomfortable if you were
there, after what has passed. I am only your niece, and there is no
necessity why you should concern yourself more about me."
"Well, he has beaten us," her aunt said. "It really seems as if he
had been playing with you in this way in revenge for my humbling him
as I did by standing up against him at first."
"O no, aunt," murmured Thomasin.
They said no more on the subject then. Diggory Venn's knock came soon
after; and Mrs. Yeobright, on returning from her interview with him
in the porch, carelessly observed, "Another lover has come to ask for
you."
"No?"
"Yes, that queer young man Venn."
"Asks to pay his addresses to me?"
"Yes; and I told him he was too late."
Thomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. "Poor Diggory!" she
said, and then aroused herself to other things.
The next day was passed in mere mechanical deeds of preparation, both
the women being anxious to immerse themselves in these to escape the
emotional aspect of the situation. Some wearing apparel and other
articles were collected anew for Thomasin, and remarks on domestic
details were frequently made, so as to obscure any inner misgivings
about her future as Wildeve's wife.
The appointed morning came. The arrangement with Wildeve was that
he should meet her at the church to guard against any unpleasant
curiosity which might have affected them had they been seen walking
off together in the usual country way.
Aunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride was
dressing. The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of
Thomasin's hair, which she always wore braided. It was braided
according to a calendric system: the more important the day the more
numerous the strands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she
braided it in threes; on ordinary Sundays in fours; at May-polings,
gipsyings, and the like, she braided it in fives. Years ago she had
said that when she married she would braid it in sevens. She had
braided it in sevens today.
"I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all," she
said. "It IS my wedding day, even though there may be something
sad about the time. I mean," she added, anxious to correct any
wrong impression, "not sad in itself, but in its having had great
disappointment and trouble before it."
Mrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called a sigh.
"I almost wish Clym had been at home," she said. "Of course you chose
the time because of his absence."
"Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not telling him
all; but, as it was done not to grieve him, I thought I would carry
out the plan to its end, and tell the whole story when the sky was
clear."
"You are a practical little woman," said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling.
"I wish you and he--no, I don't wish anything. There, it is nine
o'clock," she interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging downstairs.
"I told Damon I would leave at nine," said Thomasin, hastening out of
the room.
Her aunt followed. When Thomasin was going up the little walk from
the door to the wicket-gate, Mrs. Yeobright looked reluctantly at her,
and said, "It is a shame to let you go alone."
"It is necessary," said Thomasin.
"At any rate," added her aunt with forced cheerfulness, "I shall call
upon you this afternoon, and bring the cake with me. If Clym has
returned by that time he will perhaps come too. I wish to show Mr.
Wildeve that I bear him no ill-will. Let the past be forgotten. Well,
God bless you! There, I don't believe in old superstitions, but I'll
do it." She threw a slipper at the retreating figure of the girl, who
turned, smiled, and went on again.
A few steps further, and she looked back. "Did you call me, aunt?"
she tremulously inquired. "Good-bye!"
Moved by an uncontrollable feeling as she looked upon Mrs. Yeobright's
worn, wet face, she ran back, when her aunt came forward, and they met
again. "O--Tamsie," said the elder, weeping, "I don't like to let you
go."
"I--I--am--" Thomasin began, giving way likewise. But, quelling her
grief, she said "Good-bye!" again and went on.
Then Mrs. Yeobright saw a little figure wending its way between
the scratching furze-bushes, and diminishing far up the valley--a
pale-blue spot in a vast field of neutral brown, solitary and
undefended except by the power of her own hope.
But the worst feature in the case was one which did not appear in the
landscape; it was the man.
The hour chosen for the ceremony by Thomasin and Wildeve had been so
timed as to enable her to escape the awkwardness of meeting her cousin
Clym, who was returning the same morning. To own to the partial truth
of what he had heard would be distressing as long as the humiliating
position resulting from the event was unimproved. It was only after a
second and successful journey to the altar that she could lift up her
head and prove the failure of the first attempt a pure accident.
She had not been gone from Blooms-End more than half an hour when
Yeobright came by the meads from the other direction and entered the
house.
"I had an early breakfast," he said to his mother after greeting her.
"Now I could eat a little more."
They sat down to the repeated meal, and he went on in a low, anxious
voice, apparently imagining that Thomasin had not yet come downstairs,
"What's this I have heard about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?"
"It is true in many points," said Mrs. Yeobright quietly; "but it is
all right now, I hope." She looked at the clock.
"True?"
"Thomasin is gone to him today."
Clym pushed away his breakfast. "Then there is a scandal of some
sort, and that's what's the matter with Thomasin. Was it this that
made her ill?"
"Yes. Not a scandal: a misfortune. I will tell you all about it,
Clym. You must not be angry, but you must listen, and you'll find
that what we have done has been done for the best."
She then told him the circumstances. All that he had known of the
affair before he returned from Paris was that there had existed an
attachment between Thomasin and Wildeve, which his mother had at first
discountenanced, but had since, owing to the arguments of Thomasin,
looked upon in a little more favourable light. When she, therefore,
proceeded to explain all he was greatly surprised and troubled.
"And she determined that the wedding should be over before you came
back," said Mrs. Yeobright, "that there might be no chance of her
meeting you, and having a very painful time of it. That's why she has
gone to him; they have arranged to be married this morning."
"But I can't understand it," said Yeobright, rising. "'Tis so unlike
her. I can see why you did not write to me after her unfortunate
return home. But why didn't you let me know when the wedding was
going to be--the first time?"
"Well, I felt vexed with her just then. She seemed to me to be
obstinate; and when I found that you were nothing in her mind I vowed
that she should be nothing in yours. I felt that she was only my
niece after all; I told her she might marry, but that I should take no
interest in it, and should not bother you about it either."
"It wouldn't have been bothering me. Mother, you did wrong."
"I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that you might
throw up your situation, or injure your prospects in some way because
of it, so I said nothing. Of course, if they had married at that time
in a proper manner, I should have told you at once."
"Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!"
"Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did the first time.
It may, considering he's the same man."
"Yes, and I believe it will. Was it right to let her go? Suppose
Wildeve is really a bad fellow?"
"Then he won't come, and she'll come home again."
"You should have looked more into it."
"It is useless to say that," his mother answered with an impatient
look of sorrow. "You don't know how bad it has been here with us all
these weeks, Clym. You don't know what a mortification anything of
that sort is to a woman. You don't know the sleepless nights we've
had in this house, and the almost bitter words that have passed
between us since that Fifth of November. I hope never to pass seven
such weeks again. Tamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have
been ashamed to look anybody in the face; and now you blame me for
letting her do the only thing that can be done to set that trouble
straight."
"No," he said slowly. "Upon the whole I don't blame you. But just
consider how sudden it seems to me. Here was I, knowing nothing; and
then I am told all at once that Tamsie is gone to be married. Well,
I suppose there was nothing better to do. Do you know, mother," he
continued after a moment or two, looking suddenly interested in his
own past history, "I once thought of Tamsin as a sweetheart? Yes, I
did. How odd boys are! And when I came home and saw her this time she
seemed so much more affectionate than usual, that I was quite reminded
of those days, particularly on the night of the party, when she was
unwell. We had the party just the same--was not that rather cruel to
her?"
"It made no difference. I had arranged to give one, and it was not
worth while to make more gloom than necessary. To begin by shutting
ourselves up and telling you of Tamsin's misfortunes would have been
a poor sort of welcome."
Clym remained thinking. "I almost wish you had not had that party,"
he said; "and for other reasons. But I will tell you in a day or two.
We must think of Tamsin now."
They lapsed into silence. "I'll tell you what," said Yeobright again,
in a tone which showed some slumbering feeling still. "I don't think
it kind to Tamsin to let her be married like this, and neither of
us there to keep up her spirits or care a bit about her. She hasn't
disgraced herself, or done anything to deserve that. It is bad enough
that the wedding should be so hurried and unceremonious, without our
keeping away from it in addition. Upon my soul, 'tis almost a shame.
I'll go."
"It is over by this time," said his mother with a sigh; "unless they
were late, or he--"
"Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don't quite like
your keeping me in ignorance, mother, after all. Really, I half hope
he has failed to meet her!"
"And ruined her character?"
"Nonsense: that wouldn't ruin Thomasin."
He took up his hat and hastily left the house. Mrs. Yeobright looked
rather unhappy, and sat still, deep in thought. But she was not long
left alone. A few minutes later Clym came back again, and in his
company came Diggory Venn.
"I find there isn't time for me to get there," said Clym.
"Is she married?" Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the reddleman
a face in which a strange strife of wishes, for and against, was
apparent.