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 foot-bridge 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
half-way 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 left 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
othertwo. 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 bank-notes," 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 bank-notes 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 finger-tips, 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!"
BOOK SIXTH
AFTERCOURSES
I