The Return of the Native
“Oh, did he?” said Eustacia more gently. “What do you want, Charley?”
“Please will your grandfather lend us his fuelhouse 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 fuelhouse if you like,” said Eustacia
languidly.
The choice of Captain Vye’s fuelhouse as the scene of rehearsal was
dictated by the fact that his dwelling was nearly in the centre of the
heath. The fuelhouse 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 co-operation 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 straight-way 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 fuelhouse. 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 fuelhouse. 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 fuelhouse stood three tall rushlights 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.”
The lad smiled into the glowing turf and began—
“Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
Who learnt in Turkish land to fight,”
continuing the discourse throughout the scenes to the concluding
catastrophe of his fall by the hand of Saint George.
Eustacia had occasionally heard the part recited before. When the lad
ended she began, precisely in the same words, and ranted on without
hitch or divergence till she too reached the end. It was the same
thing, yet how different. Like in form, it had the added softness and
finish of a Raffaelle after Perugino, which, while faithfully
reproducing the original subject, entirely distances the original art.
Charley’s eyes rounded with surprise. “Well, you be a clever lady!” he
said, in admiration. “I’ve been three weeks learning mine.”
“I have heard it before,” she quietly observed. “Now, would you do
anything to please me, Charley?”
“I’d do a good deal, miss.”
“Would you let me play your part for one night?”
“Oh, miss! But your woman’s gown—you couldn’t.”
“I can get boy’s clothes—at least all that would be wanted besides the
mumming dress. What should I have to give you to lend me your things,
to let me take your place for an hour or two on Monday night, and on no
account to say a word about who or what I am? You would, of course,
have to excuse yourself from playing that night, and to say that
somebody—a cousin of Miss Vye’s—would act for you. The other mummers
have never spoken to me in their lives so that it would be safe enough;
and if it were not, I should not mind. Now, what must I give you to
agree to this? Half a crown?”
The youth shook his head
“Five shillings?”
He shook his head again. “Money won’t do it,” he said, brushing the
iron head of the firedog with the hollow of his hand.
“What will, then, Charley?” said Eustacia in a disappointed tone.
“You know what you forbade me at the Maypoling, miss,” murmured the
lad, without looking at her, and still stroking the firedog’s head.
“Yes,” said Eustacia, with a little more hauteur. “You wanted to join
hands with me in the ring, if I recollect?”
“Half an hour of that, and I’ll agree, miss.”
Eustacia regarded the youth steadfastly. He was three years younger
than herself, but apparently not backward for his age. “Half an hour of
what?” she said, though she guessed what.
“Holding your hand in mine.”
She was silent. “Make it a quarter of an hour,” she said
“Yes, Miss Eustacia—I will, if I may kiss it too. A quarter of an hour.
And I’ll swear to do the best I can to let you take my place without
anybody knowing. Don’t you think somebody might know your tongue,
miss?”
“It is possible. But I will put a pebble in my mouth to make is less
likely. Very well; you shall be allowed to have my hand as soon as you
bring the dress and your sword and staff. I don’t want you any longer
now.”
Charley departed, and Eustacia felt more and more interest in life.
Here was something to do: here was some one to see, and a charmingly
adventurous way to see him. “Ah,” she said to herself, “want of an
object to live for—that’s all is the matter with me!”
Eustacia’s manner was as a rule of a slumberous sort, her passions
being of the massive rather than the vivacious kind. But when aroused
she would make a dash which, just for the time, was not unlike the move
of a naturally lively person.
On the question of recognition she was somewhat indifferent. By the
acting lads themselves she was not likely to be known. With the guests
who might be assembled she was hardly so secure. Yet detection, after
all, would be no such dreadful thing. The fact only could be detected,
her true motive never. It would be instantly set down as the passing
freak of a girl whose ways were already considered singular. That she
was doing for an earnest reason what would most naturally be done in
jest was at any rate a safe secret.
The next evening Eustacia stood punctually at the fuelhouse door,
waiting for the dusk which was to bring Charley with the trappings. Her
grandfather was at home tonight, and she would be unable to ask her
confederate indoors.
He appeared on the dark ridge of heathland, like a fly on a Negro,
bearing the articles with him, and came up breathless with his walk.
“Here are the things,” he whispered, placing them upon the threshold.
“And now, Miss Eustacia—”
“The payment. It is quite ready. I am as good as my word.”
She leant against the door-post, and gave him her hand. Charley took it