The Return of the Native

“Afeared, no!” said the Grandfer. “Faith, I was never afeard of nothing except Boney, or I shouldn’t ha’ been the soldier I was. Yes, ‘tis a thousand pities you didn’t see me in four!”

By this time the mummers were preparing to leave; but Mrs. Yeobright stopped them by asking them to sit down and have a little supper. To this invitation Father Christmas, in the name of them all, readily agreed.

Eustacia was happy in the opportunity of staying a little longer. The cold and frosty night without was doubly frigid to her. But the lingering was not without its difficulties. Mrs. Yeobright, for want of room in the larger apartment, placed a bench for the mummers halfway through the pantry door, which opened from the sitting-room. Here they seated themselves in a row, the door being left open – thus they were still virtually in the same apartment. Mrs. Yeobright now murmured a few words to her son, who crossed the room to the pantry door, striking his head against the mistletoe as he passed, and brought the mummers beef and bread, cake pastry, mead, and elder-wine, the waiting being done by him and his mother, that the little maid-servant might sit as guest. The mummers doffed their helmets, and began to eat and drink.

“But you will surely have some?” said Clym to the Turkish Knight, as he stood before that warrior, tray in hand. She had refused, and still sat covered, only the sparkle of her eyes being visible between the ribbons which covered her face.

“None, thank you,” replied Eustacia.

“He’s quite a youngster,” said the Saracen apologetically, “and you must excuse him. He’s not one of the old set, but have jined us because t’other couldn’t come.”

“But he will take something?” persisted Yeobright. “Try a glass of mead or elder-wine.”

“Yes, you had better try that,” said the Saracen. “It will keep the cold out going home-along.”

Though Eustacia could not eat without uncovering her face she could drink easily enough beneath her disguise. The elder-wine was accordingly accepted, and the glass vanished inside the ribbons.

At moments during this performance Eustacia was half in doubt about the security of her position; yet it had a fearful joy. A series of attentions paid to her, and yet not to her but to some imaginary person, by the first man she had ever been inclined to adore, complicated her emotions indescribably. She had loved him partly because he was exceptional in this scene, partly because she had determined to love him, chiefly because she was in desperate need of loving somebody after wearying of Wildeve. Believing that she must love him in spite of herself, she had been influenced after the fashion of the second Lord Lyttleton and other persons, who have dreamed that they were to die on a certain day, and by stress of a morbid imagination have actually brought about that event. Once let a maiden admit the possibility of her being stricken with love for someone at a certain hour and place, and the thing is as good as done.

Did anything at this moment suggest to Yeobright the sex of the creature whom that fantastic guise inclosed, how extended was her scope both in feeling and in making others feel, and how far her compass transcended that of her companions in the band? When the disguised Queen of Love appeared before Aeneas a preternatural perfume accompanied her presence and betrayed her quality. If such a mysterious emanation ever was projected by the emotions of an earthly woman upon their object, it must have signified Eustacia’s presence to Yeobright now. He looked at her wistfully, then seemed to fall into a reverie, as if he were forgetting what he observed. The momentary situation ended, he passed on, and Eustacia sipped her wine without knowing what she drank. The man for whom she had pre-determined to nourish a passion went into the small room, and across it to the further extremity.

The mummers, as has been stated, were seated on a bench, one end of which extended into the small apartment, or pantry, for want of space in the outer room. Eustacia, partly from shyness, had chosen the midmost seat, which thus commanded a view of the interior of the pantry as well as the room containing the guests. When Clym passed down the pantry her eyes followed him in the gloom which prevailed there. At the remote end was a door which, just as he was about to open it for himself, was opened by somebody within; and light streamed forth.

The person was Thomasin, with a candle, looking anxious, pale, and interesting. Yeobright appeared glad to see her, and pressed her hand. “That’s right, Tamsie,” he said heartily, as though recalled to himself by the sight of her, “you have decided to come down. I am glad of it.”

“Hush – no, no,” she said quickly. “I only came to speak to you.”

“But why not join us?”

“I cannot. At least I would rather not. I am not well enough, and we shall have plenty of time together now you are going to be home a good long holiday.”

“It isn’t nearly so pleasant without you. Are you really ill?”

“Just a little, my old cousin – here,” she said, playfully sweeping her hand across her heart.

“Ah, Mother should have asked somebody else to be present tonight, perhaps?”

“O no, indeed. I merely stepped down, Clym, to ask you – ” Here he followed her through the doorway into the private room beyond, and, the door closing, Eustacia and the mummer who sat next to her, the only other witness of the performance, saw and heard no more.

The heat flew to Eustacia’s head and cheeks. She instantly guessed that Clym, having been home only these two or three days, had not as yet been made acquainted with Thomasin’s painful situation with regard to Wildeve; and seeing her living there just as she had been living before he left home, he naturally suspected nothing. Eustacia felt a wild jealousy of Thomasin on the instant. Though Thomasin might possibly have tender sentiments towards another man as yet, how long could they be expected to last when she was shut up here with this interesting and travelled cousin of hers? There was no knowing what affection might not soon break out between the two, so constantly in each other’s society, and not a distracting object near. Clym’s boyish love for her might have languished, but it might easily be revived again.

Eustacia was nettled by her own contrivances. What a sheer waste of herself to be dressed thus while another was shining to advantage! Had she known the full effect of the encounter she would have moved heaven and earth to get here in a natural manner. The power of her face all lost, the charm of her emotions all disguised, the fascinations of her coquetry denied existence, nothing but a voice left to her; she had a sense of the doom of Echo. “Nobody here respects me,” she said. She had overlooked the fact that, in coming as a boy among other boys, she would be treated as a boy. The slight, though of her own causing, and self-explanatory, she was unable to dismiss as unwittingly shown, so sensitive had the situation made her.

Women have done much for themselves in histrionic dress. To look far below those who, like a certain fair personator of Polly Peachum early in the last century, and another of Lydia Languish early in this,2 have won not only love but ducal coronets into the bargain, whole shoals of them have reached to the initial satisfaction of getting love almost whence they would. But the Turkish Knight was denied even the chance of achieving this by the fluttering ribbons which she dared not brush aside.

Yeobright returned to the room without his cousin. When within two or three feet of Eustacia he stopped, as if again arrested by a thought. He was gazing at her. She looked another way, disconcerted, and wondered how long this purgatory was to last. After lingering a few seconds he passed on again.

To court their own discomfiture by love is a common instinct with certain perfervid women. Conflicting sensations of love, fear, and shame reduced Eustacia to a state of the utmost uneasiness. To escape was her great and immediate desire. The other mummers appeared to be in no hurry to leave; and murmuring to the lad who sat next to her that she preferred waiting for them outside the house, she moved to the door as imperceptibly as possible, opened it, and slipped out.

The calm, lone scene reassured her. She went forward to the palings and leant over them, looking at the moon. She had stood thus but a little time when the door again opened. Expecting to see the remainder of the band Eustacia turned; but no – Clym Yeobright came out as softly as she had done, and closed the door behind him.

He advanced and stood beside her. “I have an odd opinion,” he said, “and should like to ask you a question. Are you a woman – or am I wrong?”

“I am a woman.”

His eyes lingered on her with great interest. “Do girls often play as mummers now? They never used to.”

“They don’t now.”

“Why did you?”

“To get excitement and shake off depression,” she said in low tones.

“What depressed you?”

“Life.”

“That’s a cause of depression a good many have to put up with.”

“Yes.”

A long silence. “And do you find excitement?” asked Clym at last.

“At this moment, perhaps.”

“Then you are vexed at being discovered?”

“Yes; though I thought I might be.”

“I would gladly have asked you to our party had I known you wished to come. Have I ever been acquainted with you in my youth?”

“Never.”

“Won’t you come in again, and stay as long as you like?”

“No. I wish not to be further recognized.”

“Well, you are safe with me.” After remaining in thought a minute he added gently, “I will not intrude upon you longer. It is a strange way of meeting, and I will not ask why I find a cultivated woman playing such a part as this.”

She did not volunteer the reason which he seemed to hope for, and he wished her good night, going thence round to the back of the house, where he walked up and down by himself for some time before re-entering.

Eustacia, warmed with an inner fire, could not wait for her companions after this. She flung back the ribbons from her face, opened the gate, and at once struck into the heath. She did not hasten along. Her grandfather was in bed at this hour, for she so frequently walked upon the hills on moonlight nights that he took no notice of her comings and goings, and, enjoying himself in his own way, left her to do likewise. A more important subject than that of getting indoors now engrossed her. Yeobright, if he had the least curiosity, would infallibly discover her name. What then? She first felt a sort of exultation at the way in which the adventure had terminated, even though at moments between her exultations she was abashed and blushful. Then this consideration recurred to chill her: What was the use of her exploit? She was at present a total stranger to the Yeobright family. The unreasonable nimbus of romance with which she had encircled that man might be her misery. How could she allow herself to become so infatuated with a stranger? And to fill the cup of her sorrow there would be Thomasin, living day after day in inflammable proximity to him; for she had just learnt that, contrary to her first belief, he was going to stay at home some considerable time.

She reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before opening it she turned and faced the heath once more. The form of Rainbarrow stood above the hills, and the moon stood above Rainbarrow. The air was charged with silence and frost. The scene reminded Eustacia of a circumstance which till that moment she had totally forgotten. She had promised to meet Wildeve by the Barrow this very night at eight, to give a final answer to his pleading for an elopement.

She herself had fixed the evening and the hour. He had probably come to the spot, waited there in the cold, and been greatly disappointed.

“Well, so much the better – it did not hurt him,” she said serenely. Wildeve had at present the rayless outline of the sun through smoked glass, and she could say such things as that with the greatest facility.

She remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin’s winning manner towards her cousin arose again upon Eustacia’s mind.

“O that she had been married to Damon before this!” she said. “And she would if it hadn’t been for me! If I had only known – if I had only known!”

Eustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to the moonlight, and, sighing that tragic sigh of hers which was so much like a shudder, entered the shadow of the roof. She threw off her trappings in the outhouse, rolled them up, and went indoors to her chamber.

7 – A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness

The old captain’s prevailing indifference to his granddaughter’s movements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so happened that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why she had walked out so late.

“Only in search of events, Grandfather,” she said, looking out of the window with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much force behind it whenever the trigger was pressed.

“Search of events – one would think you were one of the bucks I knew at one-and-twenty.”

“It is lonely here.”

“So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would be taken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have been home when I returned from the Woman.”

“I won’t conceal what I did. I wanted an adventure, and I went with the mummers. I played the part of the Turkish Knight.”

“No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn’t expect it of you, Eustacia.”

“It was my first performance, and it certainly will be my last. Now I have told you – and remember it is a secret.”

“Of course. But, Eustacia, you never did – ha! ha! Dammy, how ‘twould have pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my girl. You may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you don’t bother me; but no figuring in breeches again.”

“You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa.”

Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia’s moral training never exceeding in severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever became profitable to good works, would be a result not dear at the price. But her thoughts soon strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a passionate and indescribable solicitude for one to whom she was not even a name, she went forth into the amplitude of tanned wild around her, restless as Ahasuerus the Jew. She was about half a mile from her residence when she beheld a sinister redness arising from a ravine a little way in advance – dull and lurid like a flame in sunlight and she guessed it to signify Diggory Venn.

When the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock of reddle during the last month had inquired where Venn was to be found, people replied, “On Egdon Heath.” Day after day the answer was the same. Now, since Egdon was populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters rather than with sheep and shepherds, and the downs where most of the latter were to be found lay some to the north, some to the west of Egdon, his reason for camping about there like Israel in Zin was not apparent. The position was central and occasionally desirable. But the sale of reddle was not Diggory’s primary object in remaining on the heath, particularly at so late a period of the year, when most travellers of his class had gone into winter quarters.

Eustacia looked at the lonely man. Wildeve had told her at their last meeting that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs. Yeobright as one ready and anxious to take his place as Thomasin’s betrothed. His figure was perfect, his face young and well outlined, his eye bright, his intelligence keen, and his position one which he could readily better if he chose. But in spite of possibilities it was not likely that Thomasin would accept this Ishmaelitish creature while she had a cousin like Yeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the same time not absolutely indifferent. Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor Mrs. Yeobright, in her anxiety for her niece’s future, had mentioned this lover to stimulate the zeal of the other. Eustacia was on the side of the Yeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt’s desire.

“Good morning, miss,” said the reddleman, taking off his cap of hareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-will from recollection of their last meeting.

“Good morning, reddleman,” she said, hardly troubling to lift her heavily shaded eyes to his. “I did not know you were so near. Is your van here too?”

Venn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of purple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to form a dell. Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter in early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their leaves.

The roof and chimney of Venn’s caravan showed behind the tracery and tangles of the brake.

“You remain near this part?” she asked with more interest.

“Yes, I have business here.”

“Not altogether the selling of reddle?”

“It has nothing to do with that.”

“It has to do with Miss Yeobright?”

Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said frankly, “Yes, miss; it is on account of her.”

“On account of your approaching marriage with her?”

Venn flushed through his stain. “Don’t make sport of me, Miss Vye,” he said.

“It isn’t true?”

“Certainly not.”

She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere pis aller in Mrs. Yeobright’s mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of his promotion to that lowly standing. “It was a mere notion of mine,” she said quietly; and was about to pass by without further speech, when, looking round to the right, she saw a painfully well-known figure serpentining upwards by one of the little paths which led to the top where she stood. Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back was at present towards them. She glanced quickly round; to escape that man there was only one way. Turning to Venn, she said, “Would you allow me to rest a few minutes in your van? The banks are damp for sitting on.”

“Certainly, miss; I’ll make a place for you.”

She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling into which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within the door.

“That is the best I can do for you,” he said, stepping down and retiring to the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he walked up and down.

Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from view on the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing of other feet than the reddleman’s, a not very friendly “Good day” uttered by two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the foot-fall of one of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia stretched her neck forward till she caught a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders; and she felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why. It was the sickening feeling which, if the changed heart has any generosity at all in its composition, accompanies the sudden sight of a once-loved one who is beloved no more.

When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near. “That was Mr. Wildeve who passed, miss,” he said slowly, and expressed by his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting unseen.

“Yes, I saw him coming up the hill,” replied Eustacia. “Why should you tell me that?” It was a bold question, considering the reddleman’s knowledge of her past love; but her undemonstrative manner had power to repress the opinions of those she treated as remote from her.

“I am glad to hear that you can ask it,” said the reddleman bluntly. “And, now I think of it, it agrees with what I saw last night.”

“Ah – what was that?” Eustacia wished to leave him, but wished to know.

“Mr. Wildeve stayed at Rainbarrow a long time waiting for a lady who didn’t come.”

“You waited too, it seems?”

“Yes, I always do. I was glad to see him disappointed. He will be there again tonight.”

“To be again disappointed. The truth is, reddleman, that that lady, so far from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin’s marriage with Mr. Wildeve, would be very glad to promote it.”

Venn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did not show it clearly; that exhibition may greet remarks which are one remove from expectation, but it is usually withheld in complicated cases of two removes and upwards. “Indeed, miss,” he replied.

“How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow again tonight?” she asked.

“I heard him say to himself that he would. He’s in a regular temper.”

Eustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured, lifting her deep dark eyes anxiously to his, “I wish I knew what to do. I don’t want to be uncivil to him; but I don’t wish to see him again; and I have some few little things to return to him.”

“If you choose to send ‘em by me, miss, and a note to tell him that you wish to say no more to him, I’ll take it for you quite privately. That would be the most straightforward way of letting him know your mind.”

“Very well,” said Eustacia. “Come towards my house, and I will bring it out to you.”

She went on, and as the path was an infinitely small parting in the shaggy locks of the heath, the reddleman followed exactly in her trail. She saw from a distance that the captain was on the bank sweeping the horizon with his telescope; and bidding Venn to wait where he stood she entered the house alone.

In ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note, and said, in placing them in his hand, “Why are you so ready to take these for me?”

“Can you ask that?”

“I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. Are you as anxious as ever to help on her marriage?”

Venn was a little moved. “I would sooner have married her myself,” he said in a low voice. “But what I feel is that if she cannot be happy without him I will do my duty in helping her to get him, as a man ought.”

Eustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. What a strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion, and sometimes its only one! The reddleman’s disinterestedness was so well deserving of respect that it overshot respect by being barely comprehended; and she almost thought it absurd.

“Then we are both of one mind at last,” she said.

“Yes,” replied Venn gloomily. “But if you would tell me, miss, why you take such an interest in her, I should be easier. It is so sudden and strange.”

Eustacia appeared at a loss. “I cannot tell you that, reddleman,” she said coldly.

Venn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia, went away.

Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended the long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia’s emissary. He slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young inn-keeper and ex-engineer started like Satan at the touch of Ithuriel’s spear.

“The meeting is always at eight o’clock, at this place,” said Venn, “and here we are – we three.”

“We three?” said Wildeve, looking quickly round.

“Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she.” He held up the letter and parcel.

Wildeve took them wonderingly. “I don’t quite see what this means,” he said. “How do you come here? There must be some mistake.”

“It will be cleared from your mind when you have read the letter. Lanterns for one.” The reddleman struck a light, kindled an inch of tallow-candle which he had brought, and sheltered it with his cap.

“Who are you?” said Wildeve, discerning by the candle-light an obscure rubicundity of person in his companion. “You are the reddleman I saw on the hill this morning – why, you are the man who – ”

“Please read the letter.”

“If you had come from the other one I shouldn’t have been surprised,” murmured Wildeve as he opened the letter and read. His face grew serious.

TO MR. WILDEVE.

After some thought I have decided once and for all that we must hold no further communication. The more I consider the matter the more I am convinced that there must be an end to our acquaintance. Had you been uniformly faithful to me throughout these two years you might now have some ground for accusing me of heartlessness; but if you calmly consider what I bore during the period of your desertion, and how I passively put up with your courtship of another without once interfering, you will, I think, own that I have a right to consult my own feelings when you come back to me again. That these are not what they were towards you may, perhaps, be a fault in me, but it is one which you can scarcely reproach me for when you remember how you left me for Thomasin.