The Return of the Native
“When I think of you and your new crotchets,” said Mrs. Yeobright, with
some emphasis, “I naturally don’t feel so comfortable as I did a
twelvemonth ago. It is incredible to me that a man accustomed to the
attractive women of Paris and elsewhere should be so easily worked upon
by a girl in a heath. You could just as well have walked another way.”
“I had been studying all day.”
“Well, yes,” she added more hopefully, “I have been thinking that you
might get on as a schoolmaster, and rise that way, since you really are
determined to hate the course you were pursuing.”
Yeobright was unwilling to disturb this idea, though his scheme was far
enough removed from one wherein the education of youth should be made a
mere channel of social ascent. He had no desires of that sort. He had
reached the stage in a young man’s life when the grimness of the
general human situation first becomes clear; and the realization of
this causes ambition to halt awhile. In France it is not uncustomary to
commit suicide at this stage; in England we do much better, or much
worse, as the case may be.
The love between the young man and his mother was strangely invisible
now. Of love it may be said, the less earthly the less demonstrative.
In its absolutely indestructible form it reaches a profundity in which
all exhibition of itself is painful. It was so with these. Had
conversations between them been overheard, people would have said, “How
cold they are to each other!”
His theory and his wishes about devoting his future to teaching had
made an impression on Mrs. Yeobright. Indeed, how could it be otherwise
when he was a part of her—when their discourses were as if carried on
between the right and the left hands of the same body? He had despaired
of reaching her by argument; and it was almost as a discovery to him
that he could reach her by a magnetism which was as superior to words
as words are to yells.
Strangely enough he began to feel now that it would not be so hard to
persuade her who was his best friend that comparative poverty was
essentially the higher course for him, as to reconcile to his feelings
the act of persuading her. From every provident point of view his
mother was so undoubtedly right, that he was not without a sickness of
heart in finding he could shake her.
She had a singular insight into life, considering that she had never
mixed with it. There are instances of persons who, without clear ideas
of the things they criticize have yet had clear ideas of the relations
of those things. Blacklock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe
visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who was also blind,
gave excellent lectures on colour, and taught others the theory of
ideas which they had and he had not. In the social sphere these gifted
ones are mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw, and
estimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it intuition.
What was the great world to Mrs. Yeobright? A multitude whose
tendencies could be perceived, though not its essences. Communities
were seen by her as from a distance; she saw them as we see the throngs
which cover the canvases of Sallaert, Van Alsloot, and others of that
school—vast masses of beings, jostling, zigzagging, and processioning
in definite directions, but whose features are indistinguishable by the
very comprehensiveness of the view.
One could see that, as far as it had gone, her life was very complete
on its reflective side. The philosophy of her nature, and its
limitation by circumstances, was almost written in her movements. They
had a majestic foundation, though they were far from being majestic;
and they had a ground-work of assurance, but they were not assured. As
her once elastic walk had become deadened by time, so had her natural
pride of life been hindered in its blooming by her necessities.
The next slight touch in the shaping of Clym’s destiny occurred a few
days after. A barrow was opened on the heath, and Yeobright attended
the operation, remaining away from his study during several hours. In
the afternoon Christian returned from a journey in the same direction,
and Mrs. Yeobright questioned him.
“They have dug a hole, and they have found things like flowerpots
upside down, Mis’ess Yeobright; and inside these be real charnel bones.
They have carried ’em off to men’s houses; but I shouldn’t like to
sleep where they will bide. Dead folks have been known to come and
claim their own. Mr. Yeobright had got one pot of the bones, and was
going to bring ’em home—real skellington bones—but ’twas ordered
otherwise. You’ll be relieved to hear that he gave away his pot and
all, on second thoughts; and a blessed thing for ye, Mis’ess Yeobright,
considering the wind o’ nights.”
“Gave it away?”
“Yes. To Miss Vye. She has a cannibal taste for such churchyard
furniture seemingly.”
“Miss Vye was there too?”
“Ay, ’a b’lieve she was.”
When Clym came home, which was shortly after, his mother said, in a
curious tone, “The urn you had meant for me you gave away.”
Yeobright made no reply; the current of her feeling was too pronounced
to admit it.
The early weeks of the year passed on. Yeobright certainly studied at
home, but he also walked much abroad, and the direction of his walk was
always towards some point of a line between Mistover and Rainbarrow.
The month of March arrived, and the heath showed its first signs of
awakening from winter trance. The awakening was almost feline in its
stealthiness. The pool outside the bank by Eustacia’s dwelling, which
seemed as dead and desolate as ever to an observer who moved and made
noises in his observation, would gradually disclose a state of great
animation when silently watched awhile. A timid animal world had come
to life for the season. Little tadpoles and efts began to bubble up
through the water, and to race along beneath it; toads made noises like
very young ducks, and advanced to the margin in twos and threes;
overhead, bumblebees flew hither and thither in the thickening light,
their drone coming and going like the sound of a gong.
On an evening such as this Yeobright descended into the Blooms-End
valley from beside that very pool, where he had been standing with
another person quite silently and quite long enough to hear all this
puny stir of resurrection in nature; yet he had not heard it. His walk
was rapid as he came down, and he went with a springy trend. Before
entering upon his mother’s premises he stopped and breathed. The light
which shone forth on him from the window revealed that his face was
flushed and his eye bright. What it did not show was something which
lingered upon his lips like a seal set there. The abiding presence of
this impress was so real that he hardly dared to enter the house, for
it seemed as if his mother might say, “What red spot is that glowing
upon your mouth so vividly?”
But he entered soon after. The tea was ready, and he sat down opposite
his mother. She did not speak many words; and as for him, something had
been just done and some words had been just said on the hill which
prevented him from beginning a desultory chat. His mother’s taciturnity
was not without ominousness, but he appeared not to care. He knew why
she said so little, but he could not remove the cause of her bearing
towards him. These half-silent sittings were far from uncommon with
them now. At last Yeobright made a beginning of what was intended to
strike at the whole root of the matter.
“Five days have we sat like this at meals with scarcely a word. What’s
the use of it, Mother?”
“None,” said she, in a heart-swollen tone. “But there is only too good
a reason.”
“Not when you know all. I have been wanting to speak about this, and I
am glad the subject is begun. The reason, of course, is Eustacia Vye.
Well, I confess I have seen her lately, and have seen her a good many
times.”
“Yes, yes; and I know what that amounts to. It troubles me, Clym. You
are wasting your life here; and it is solely on account of her. If it
had not been for that woman you would never have entertained this
teaching scheme at all.”
Clym looked hard at his mother. “You know that is not it,” he said.
“Well, I know you had decided to attempt it before you saw her; but
that would have ended in intentions. It was very well to talk of, but
ridiculous to put in practice. I fully expected that in the course of a
month or two you would have seen the folly of such self-sacrifice, and
would have been by this time back again to Paris in some business or
other. I can understand objections to the diamond trade—I really was
thinking that it might be inadequate to the life of a man like you even
though it might have made you a millionaire. But now I see how mistaken
you are about this girl I doubt if you could be correct about other
things.”
“How am I mistaken in her?”
“She is lazy and dissatisfied. But that is not all of it. Supposing her
to be as good a woman as any you can find, which she certainly is not,
why do you wish to connect yourself with anybody at present?”
“Well, there are practical reasons,” Clym began, and then almost broke
off under an overpowering sense of the weight of argument which could
be brought against his statement. “If I take a school an educated woman
would be invaluable as a help to me.”
“What! you really mean to marry her?”
“It would be premature to state that plainly. But consider what obvious
advantages there would be in doing it. She——”
“Don’t suppose she has any money. She hasn’t a farthing.”
“She is excellently educated, and would make a good matron in a
boarding-school. I candidly own that I have modified my views a little,
in deference to you; and it should satisfy you. I no longer adhere to
my intention of giving with my own mouth rudimentary education to the
lowest class. I can do better. I can establish a good private school
for farmers’ sons, and without stopping the school I can manage to pass
examinations. By this means, and by the assistance of a wife like
her——”
“Oh, Clym!”
“I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one of the best schools
in the county.”
Yeobright had enunciated the word “her” with a fervour which, in
conversation with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. Hardly a maternal
heart within the four seas could in such circumstances, have helped
being irritated at that ill-timed betrayal of feeling for a new woman.
“You are blinded, Clym,” she said warmly. “It was a bad day for you
when you first set eyes on her. And your scheme is merely a castle in
the air built on purpose to justify this folly which has seized you,
and to salve your conscience on the irrational situation you are in.”
“Mother, that’s not true,” he firmly answered.
“Can you maintain that I sit and tell untruths, when all I wish to do
is to save you from sorrow? For shame, Clym! But it is all through that
woman—a hussy!”
Clym reddened like fire and rose. He placed his hand upon his mother’s
shoulder and said, in a tone which hung strangely between entreaty and
command, “I won’t hear it. I may be led to answer you in a way which we
shall both regret.”
His mother parted her lips to begin some other vehement truth, but on
looking at him she saw that in his face which led her to leave the
words unsaid. Yeobright walked once or twice across the room, and then
suddenly went out of the house. It was eleven o’clock when he came in,
though he had not been further than the precincts of the garden. His
mother was gone to bed. A light was left burning on the table, and
supper was spread. Without stopping for any food he secured the doors
and went upstairs.
IV.
An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness
The next day was gloomy enough at Blooms-End. Yeobright remained in his