The Return of the Native
III.
Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning
A consciousness of a vast impassivity in all which lay around him took
possession even of Yeobright in his wild walk towards Alderworth. He
had once before felt in his own person this overpowering of the fervid
by the inanimate; but then it had tended to enervate a passion far
sweeter than that which at present pervaded him. It was once when he
stood parting from Eustacia in the moist still levels beyond the hills.
But dismissing all this he went onward home, and came to the front of
his house. The blinds of Eustacia’s bedroom were still closely drawn,
for she was no early riser. All the life visible was in the shape of a
solitary thrush cracking a small snail upon the door-stone for his
breakfast, and his tapping seemed a loud noise in the general silence
which prevailed; but on going to the door Clym found it unfastened, the
young girl who attended upon Eustacia being astir in the back part of
the premises. Yeobright entered and went straight to his wife’s room.
The noise of his arrival must have aroused her, for when he opened the
door she was standing before the looking glass in her nightdress, the
ends of her hair gathered into one hand, with which she was coiling the
whole mass round her head, previous to beginning toilette operations.
She was not a woman given to speaking first at a meeting, and she
allowed Clym to walk across in silence, without turning her head. He
came behind her, and she saw his face in the glass. It was ashy,
haggard, and terrible. Instead of starting towards him in sorrowful
surprise, as even Eustacia, undemonstrative wife as she was, would have
done in days before she burdened herself with a secret, she remained
motionless, looking at him in the glass. And while she looked the
carmine flush with which warmth and sound sleep had suffused her cheeks
and neck dissolved from view, and the deathlike pallor in his face flew
across into hers. He was close enough to see this, and the sight
instigated his tongue.
“You know what is the matter,” he said huskily. “I see it in your
face.”
Her hand relinquished the rope of hair and dropped to her side, and the
pile of tresses, no longer supported, fell from the crown of her head
about her shoulders and over the white nightgown. She made no reply.
“Speak to me,” said Yeobright peremptorily.
The blanching process did not cease in her, and her lips now became as
white as her face. She turned to him and said, “Yes, Clym, I’ll speak
to you. Why do you return so early? Can I do anything for you?”
“Yes, you can listen to me. It seems that my wife is not very well?”
“Why?”
“Your face, my dear; your face. Or perhaps it is the pale morning light
which takes your colour away? Now I am going to reveal a secret to you.
Ha-ha!”
“O, that is ghastly!”
“What?”
“Your laugh.”
“There’s reason for ghastliness. Eustacia, you have held my happiness
in the hollow of your hand, and like a devil you have dashed it down!”
She started back from the dressing-table, retreated a few steps from
him, and looked him in the face. “Ah! you think to frighten me,” she
said, with a slight laugh. “Is it worth while? I am undefended, and
alone.”
“How extraordinary!”
“What do you mean?”
“As there is ample time I will tell you, though you know well enough. I
mean that it is extraordinary that you should be alone in my absence.
Tell me, now, where is he who was with you on the afternoon of the
thirty-first of August? Under the bed? Up the chimney?”
A shudder overcame her and shook the light fabric of her nightdress
throughout. “I do not remember dates so exactly,” she said. “I cannot
recollect that anybody was with me besides yourself.”
“The day I mean,” said Yeobright, his voice growing louder and harsher,
“was the day you shut the door against my mother and killed her. O, it
is too much—too bad!” He leant over the footpiece of the bedstead for a
few moments, with his back towards her; then rising again—“Tell me,
tell me! tell me—do you hear?” he cried, rushing up to her and seizing
her by the loose folds of her sleeve.
The superstratum of timidity which often overlies those who are daring
and defiant at heart had been passed through, and the mettlesome
substance of the woman was reached. The red blood inundated her face,
previously so pale.
“What are you going to do?” she said in a low voice, regarding him with
a proud smile. “You will not alarm me by holding on so; but it would be
a pity to tear my sleeve.”
Instead of letting go he drew her closer to him. “Tell me the
particulars of—my mother’s death,” he said in a hard, panting whisper;
“or—I’ll—I’ll—”
“Clym,” she answered slowly, “do you think you dare do anything to me
that I dare not bear? But before you strike me listen. You will get
nothing from me by a blow, even though it should kill me, as it
probably will. But perhaps you do not wish me to speak—killing may be
all you mean?”
“Kill you! Do you expect it?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“No less degree of rage against me will match your previous grief for
her.”
“Phew—I shall not kill you,” he said contemptuously, as if under a
sudden change of purpose. “I did think of it; but—I shall not. That
would be making a martyr of you, and sending you to where she is; and I
would keep you away from her till the universe come to an end, if I
could.”
“I almost wish you would kill me,” said she with gloomy bitterness. “It
is with no strong desire, I assure you, that I play the part I have
lately played on earth. You are no blessing, my husband.”
“You shut the door—you looked out of the window upon her—you had a man
in the house with you—you sent her away to die. The inhumanity—the
treachery—I will not touch you—stand away from me—and confess every
word!”
“Never! I’ll hold my tongue like the very death that I don’t mind
meeting, even though I can clear myself of half you believe by
speaking. Yes. I will! Who of any dignity would take the trouble to
clear cobwebs from a wild man’s mind after such language as this? No;
let him go on, and think his narrow thoughts, and run his head into the
mire. I have other cares.”
“’Tis too much—but I must spare you.”
“Poor charity.”
“By my wretched soul you sting me, Eustacia! I can keep it up, and
hotly too. Now, then, madam, tell me his name!”
“Never, I am resolved.”
“How often does he write to you? Where does he put his letters—when
does he meet you? Ah, his letters! Do you tell me his name?”
“I do not.”
“Then I’ll find it myself.” His eyes had fallen upon a small desk that
stood near, on which she was accustomed to write her letters. He went
to it. It was locked.
“Unlock this!”
“You have no right to say it. That’s mine.”
Without another word he seized the desk and dashed it to the floor. The
hinge burst open, and a number of letters tumbled out.
“Stay!” said Eustacia, stepping before him with more excitement than
she had hitherto shown.
“Come, come! stand away! I must see them.”
She looked at the letters as they lay, checked her feeling and moved
indifferently aside; when he gathered them up, and examined them.
By no stretch of meaning could any but a harmless construction be
placed upon a single one of the letters themselves. The solitary
exception was an empty envelope directed to her, and the handwriting
was Wildeve’s. Yeobright held it up. Eustacia was doggedly silent.
“Can you read, madam? Look at this envelope. Doubtless we shall find
more soon, and what was inside them. I shall no doubt be gratified by
learning in good time what a well-finished and full-blown adept in a
certain trade my lady is.”
“Do you say it to me—do you?” she gasped.
He searched further, but found nothing more. “What was in this letter?”
he said.
“Ask the writer. Am I your hound that you should talk to me in this
way?”
“Do you brave me? do you stand me out, mistress? Answer. Don’t look at
me with those eyes if you would bewitch me again! Sooner than that I
die. You refuse to answer?”
“I wouldn’t tell you after this, if I were as innocent as the sweetest
babe in heaven!”
“Which you are not.”
“Certainly I am not absolutely,” she replied. “I have not done what you
suppose; but if to have done no harm at all is the only innocence
recognized, I am beyond forgiveness. But I require no help from your
conscience.”
“You can resist, and resist again! Instead of hating you I could, I
think, mourn for and pity you, if you were contrite, and would confess
all. Forgive you I never can. I don’t speak of your lover—I will give
you the benefit of the doubt in that matter, for it only affects me
personally. But the other—had you half-killed _me_, had it been that
you wilfully took the sight away from these feeble eyes of mine, I
could have forgiven you. But _that’s_ too much for nature!”
“Say no more. I will do without your pity. But I would have saved you
from uttering what you will regret.”
“I am going away now. I shall leave you.”
“You need not go, as I am going myself. You will keep just as far away
from me by staying here.”
“Call her to mind—think of her—what goodness there was in her—it showed
in every line of her face! Most women, even when but slightly annoyed,
show a flicker of evil in some curl of the mouth or some corner of the
cheek; but as for her, never in her angriest moments was there anything
malicious in her look. She was angered quickly, but she forgave just as
readily, and underneath her pride there was the meekness of a child.
What came of it?—what cared you? You hated her just as she was learning
to love you. O! couldn’t you see what was best for you, but must bring
a curse upon me, and agony and death upon her, by doing that cruel
deed! What was the fellow’s name who was keeping you company and
causing you to add cruelty to her to your wrong to me? Was it Wildeve?
Was it poor Thomasin’s husband? Heaven, what wickedness! Lost your
voice, have you? It is natural after detection of that most noble
trick.... Eustacia, didn’t any tender thought of your own mother lead
you to think of being gentle to mine at such a time of weariness? Did
not one grain of pity enter your heart as she turned away? Think what a
vast opportunity was then lost of beginning a forgiving and honest
course. Why did not you kick him out, and let her in, and say I’ll be
an honest wife and a noble woman from this hour? Had I told you to go
and quench eternally our last flickering chance of happiness here you
could have done no worse. Well, she’s asleep now; and have you a
hundred gallants, neither they nor you can insult her any more.”
“You exaggerate fearfully,” she said in a faint, weary voice; “but I
cannot enter into my defence—it is not worth doing. You are nothing to
me in future, and the past side of the story may as well remain untold.
I have lost all through you, but I have not complained. Your blunders
and misfortunes may have been a sorrow to you, but they have been a
wrong to me. All persons of refinement have been scared away from me
since I sank into the mire of marriage. Is this your cherishing—to put
me into a hut like this, and keep me like the wife of a hind? You
deceived me—not by words, but by appearances, which are less seen
through than words. But the place will serve as well as any other—as
somewhere to pass from—into my grave.” Her words were smothered in her
throat, and her head drooped down.
“I don’t know what you mean by that. Am I the cause of your sin?”
(Eustacia made a trembling motion towards him.) “What, you can begin to
shed tears and offer me your hand? Good God! can you? No, not I. I’ll
not commit the fault of taking that.” (The hand she had offered dropped
nervelessly, but the tears continued flowing.) “Well, yes, I’ll take