The Return of the Native
was just possible that Eustacia might resent any situation which could
compromise her dignity as a wife, whatever the state of her heart
towards him. Women were often so.
He went accordingly; and it happened that the time of his arrival
coincided with that of Mrs. Yeobright’s pause on the hill near the
house. When he had looked round the premises in the manner she had
noticed he went and knocked at the door. There was a few minutes’
interval, and then the key turned in the lock, the door opened, and
Eustacia herself confronted him.
Nobody could have imagined from her bearing now that here stood the
woman who had joined with him in the impassioned dance of the week
before, unless indeed he could have penetrated below the surface and
gauged the real depth of that still stream.
“I hope you reached home safely?” said Wildeve.
“O yes,” she carelessly returned.
“And were you not tired the next day? I feared you might be.”
“I was rather. You need not speak low—nobody will over-hear us. My
small servant is gone on an errand to the village.”
“Then Clym is not at home?”
“Yes, he is.”
“O! I thought that perhaps you had locked the door because you were
alone and were afraid of tramps.”
“No—here is my husband.”
They had been standing in the entry. Closing the front door and turning
the key, as before, she threw open the door of the adjoining room and
asked him to walk in. Wildeve entered, the room appearing to be empty;
but as soon as he had advanced a few steps he started. On the hearthrug
lay Clym asleep. Beside him were the leggings, thick boots, leather
gloves, and sleeve-waistcoat in which he worked.
“You may go in; you will not disturb him,” she said, following behind.
“My reason for fastening the door is that he may not be intruded upon
by any chance comer while lying here, if I should be in the garden or
upstairs.”
“Why is he sleeping there?” said Wildeve in low tones.
“He is very weary. He went out at half-past four this morning, and has
been working ever since. He cuts furze because it is the only thing he
can do that does not put any strain upon his poor eyes.” The contrast
between the sleeper’s appearance and Wildeve’s at this moment was
painfully apparent to Eustacia, Wildeve being elegantly dressed in a
new summer suit and light hat; and she continued: “Ah! you don’t know
how differently he appeared when I first met him, though it is such a
little while ago. His hands were as white and soft as mine; and look at
them now, how rough and brown they are! His complexion is by nature
fair, and that rusty look he has now, all of a colour with his leather
clothes, is caused by the burning of the sun.”
“Why does he go out at all!” Wildeve whispered.
“Because he hates to be idle; though what he earns doesn’t add much to
our exchequer. However, he says that when people are living upon their
capital they must keep down current expenses by turning a penny where
they can.”
“The fates have not been kind to you, Eustacia Yeobright.”
“I have nothing to thank them for.”
“Nor has he—except for their one great gift to him.”
“What’s that?”
Wildeve looked her in the eyes.
Eustacia blushed for the first time that day. “Well, I am a
questionable gift,” she said quietly. “I thought you meant the gift of
content—which he has, and I have not.”
“I can understand content in such a case—though how the outward
situation can attract him puzzles me.”
“That’s because you don’t know him. He’s an enthusiast about ideas, and
careless about outward things. He often reminds me of the Apostle
Paul.”
“I am glad to hear that he’s so grand in character as that.”
“Yes; but the worst of it is that though Paul was excellent as a man in
the Bible he would hardly have done in real life.”
Their voices had instinctively dropped lower, though at first they had
taken no particular care to avoid awakening Clym. “Well, if that means
that your marriage is a misfortune to you, you know who is to blame,”
said Wildeve.
“The marriage is no misfortune in itself,” she retorted with some
little petulance. “It is simply the accident which has happened since
that has been the cause of my ruin. I have certainly got thistles for
figs in a worldly sense, but how could I tell what time would bring
forth?”
“Sometimes, Eustacia, I think it is a judgment upon you. You rightly
belonged to me, you know; and I had no idea of losing you.”
“No, it was not my fault! Two could not belong to you; and remember
that, before I was aware, you turned aside to another woman. It was
cruel levity in you to do that. I never dreamt of playing such a game
on my side till you began it on yours.”
“I meant nothing by it,” replied Wildeve. “It was a mere interlude. Men
are given to the trick of having a passing fancy for somebody else in
the midst of a permanent love, which reasserts itself afterwards just
as before. On account of your rebellious manner to me I was tempted to
go further than I should have done; and when you still would keep
playing the same tantalizing part I went further still, and married
her.” Turning and looking again at the unconscious form of Clym, he
murmured, “I am afraid that you don’t value your prize, Clym.... He
ought to be happier than I in one thing at least. He may know what it
is to come down in the world, and to be afflicted with a great personal
calamity; but he probably doesn’t know what it is to lose the woman he
loved.”
“He is not ungrateful for winning her,” whispered Eustacia, “and in
that respect he is a good man. Many women would go far for such a
husband. But do I desire unreasonably much in wanting what is called
life—music, poetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing that
are going on in the great arteries of the world? That was the shape of
my youthful dream; but I did not get it. Yet I thought I saw the way to
it in my Clym.”
“And you only married him on that account?”
“There you mistake me. I married him because I loved him, but I won’t
say that I didn’t love him partly because I thought I saw a promise of
that life in him.”
“You have dropped into your old mournful key.”
“But I am not going to be depressed,” she cried perversely. “I began a
new system by going to that dance, and I mean to stick to it. Clym can
sing merrily; why should not I?”
Wildeve looked thoughtfully at her. “It is easier to say you will sing
than to do it; though if I could I would encourage you in your attempt.
But as life means nothing to me, without one thing which is now
impossible, you will forgive me for not being able to encourage you.”
“Damon, what is the matter with you, that you speak like that?” she
asked, raising her deep shady eyes to his.
“That’s a thing I shall never tell plainly; and perhaps if I try to
tell you in riddles you will not care to guess them.”
Eustacia remained silent for a minute, and she said, “We are in a
strange relationship today. You mince matters to an uncommon nicety.
You mean, Damon, that you still love me. Well, that gives me sorrow,
for I am not made so entirely happy by my marriage that I am willing to
spurn you for the information, as I ought to do. But we have said too
much about this. Do you mean to wait until my husband is awake?”
“I thought to speak to him; but it is unnecessary, Eustacia, if I
offend you by not forgetting you, you are right to mention it; but do
not talk of spurning.”
She did not reply, and they stood looking musingly at Clym as he slept
on in that profound sleep which is the result of physical labour
carried on in circumstances that wake no nervous fear.
“God, how I envy him that sweet sleep!” said Wildeve. “I have not slept
like that since I was a boy—years and years ago.”
While they thus watched him a click at the gate was audible, and a
knock came to the door. Eustacia went to a window and looked out.
Her countenance changed. First she became crimson, and then the red
subsided till it even partially left her lips.
“Shall I go away?” said Wildeve, standing up.
“I hardly know.”
“Who is it?”
“Mrs. Yeobright. O, what she said to me that day! I cannot understand
this visit—what does she mean? And she suspects that past time of
ours.”
“I am in your hands. If you think she had better not see me here I’ll
go into the next room.”
“Well, yes—go.”
Wildeve at once withdrew; but before he had been half a minute in the
adjoining apartment Eustacia came after him.
“No,” she said, “we won’t have any of this. If she comes in she must
see you—and think if she likes there’s something wrong! But how can I
open the door to her, when she dislikes me—wishes to see not me, but
her son? I won’t open the door!”
Mrs. Yeobright knocked again more loudly.
“Her knocking will, in all likelihood, awaken him,” continued Eustacia,
“and then he will let her in himself. Ah—listen.”
They could hear Clym moving in the other room, as if disturbed by the
knocking, and he uttered the word “Mother.”
“Yes—he is awake—he will go to the door,” she said, with a breath of
relief. “Come this way. I have a bad name with her, and you must not be
seen. Thus I am obliged to act by stealth, not because I do ill, but
because others are pleased to say so.”
By this time she had taken him to the back door, which was open,
disclosing a path leading down the garden. “Now, one word, Damon,” she
remarked as he stepped forth. “This is your first visit here; let it be
your last. We have been hot lovers in our time, but it won’t do now.
Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” said Wildeve. “I have had all I came for, and I am
satisfied.”
“What was it?”
“A sight of you. Upon my eternal honour I came for no more.”
Wildeve kissed his hand to the beautiful girl he addressed, and passed
into the garden, where she watched him down the path, over the stile at
the end, and into the ferns outside, which brushed his hips as he went
along till he became lost in their thickets. When he had quite gone she
slowly turned, and directed her attention to the interior of the house.
But it was possible that her presence might not be desired by Clym and
his mother at this moment of their first meeting, or that it would be
superfluous. At all events, she was in no hurry to meet Mrs. Yeobright.
She resolved to wait till Clym came to look for her, and glided back
into the garden. Here she idly occupied herself for a few minutes, till
finding no notice was taken of her she retraced her steps through the
house to the front, where she listened for voices in the parlour. But
hearing none she opened the door and went in. To her astonishment Clym
lay precisely as Wildeve and herself had left him, his sleep apparently
unbroken. He had been disturbed and made to dream and murmur by the
knocking, but he had not awakened. Eustacia hastened to the door, and
in spite of her reluctance to open it to a woman who had spoken of her
so bitterly, she unfastened it and looked out. Nobody was to be seen.
There, by the scraper, lay Clym’s hook and the handful of faggot-bonds
he had brought home; in front of her were the empty path, the garden
gate standing slightly ajar; and, beyond, the great valley of purple
heath thrilling silently in the sun. Mrs. Yeobright was gone.
Clym’s mother was at this time following a path which lay hidden from
Eustacia by a shoulder of the hill. Her walk thither from the garden
gate had been hasty and determined, as of a woman who was now no less
anxious to escape from the scene than she had previously been to enter
it. Her eyes were fixed on the ground; within her two sights were
graven—that of Clym’s hook and brambles at the door, and that of a
woman’s face at a window. Her lips trembled, becoming unnaturally thin
as she murmured, “’Tis too much—Clym, how can he bear to do it! He is
at home; and yet he lets her shut the door against me!”