The Return of the Native
path. Show me quickly, Diggory, please.”
“Yes, of course. I will go with ’ee. But you came to me before this,
Mrs. Wildeve?”
“I only came this minute.”
“That’s strange. I was lying down here asleep about five minutes ago,
with the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a
woman’s clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up, for I
don’t sleep heavy, and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying
from the same woman. I opened my door and held out my lantern, and just
as far as the light would reach I saw a woman; she turned her head when
the light sheened on her, and then hurried on downhill. I hung up the
lantern, and was curious enough to pull on my things and dog her a few
steps, but I could see nothing of her any more. That was where I had
been when you came up; and when I saw you I thought you were the same
one.”
“Perhaps it was one of the heathfolk going home?”
“No, it couldn’t be. ’Tis too late. The noise of her gown over the
he’th was of a whistling sort that nothing but silk will make.”
“It wasn’t I, then. My dress is not silk, you see.... Are we anywhere
in a line between Mistover and the inn?”
“Well, yes; not far out.”
“Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!”
She jumped down from the van before he was aware, when Venn unhooked
the lantern and leaped down after her. “I’ll take the baby, ma’am,” he
said. “You must be tired out by the weight.”
Thomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby into Venn’s
hands. “Don’t squeeze her, Diggory,” she said, “or hurt her little arm;
and keep the cloak close over her like this, so that the rain may not
drop in her face.”
“I will,” said Venn earnestly. “As if I could hurt anything belonging
to you!”
“I only meant accidentally,” said Thomasin.
“The baby is dry enough, but you are pretty wet,” said the reddleman
when, in closing the door of his cart to padlock it, he noticed on the
floor a ring of water drops where her cloak had hung from her.
Thomasin followed him as he wound right and left to avoid the larger
bushes, stopping occasionally and covering the lantern, while he looked
over his shoulder to gain some idea of the position of Rainbarrow above
them, which it was necessary to keep directly behind their backs to
preserve a proper course.
“You are sure the rain does not fall upon baby?”
“Quite sure. May I ask how old he is, ma’am?”
“He!” said Thomasin reproachfully. “Anybody can see better than that in
a moment. She is nearly two months old. How far is it now to the inn?”
“A little over a quarter of a mile.”
“Will you walk a little faster?”
“I was afraid you could not keep up.”
“I am very anxious to get there. Ah, there is a light from the window!”
“’Tis not from the window. That’s a gig-lamp, to the best of my
belief.”
“O!” said Thomasin in despair. “I wish I had been there sooner—give me
the baby, Diggory—you can go back now.”
“I must go all the way,” said Venn. “There is a quag between us and
that light, and you will walk into it up to your neck unless I take you
round.”
“But the light is at the inn, and there is no quag in front of that.”
“No, the light is below the inn some two or three hundred yards.”
“Never mind,” said Thomasin hurriedly. “Go towards the light, and not
towards the inn.”
“Yes,” answered Venn, swerving round in obedience; and, after a pause,
“I wish you would tell me what this great trouble is. I think you have
proved that I can be trusted.”
“There are some things that cannot be—cannot be told to—” And then her
heart rose into her throat, and she could say no more.
IX.
Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
Having seen Eustacia’s signal from the hill at eight o’clock, Wildeve
immediately prepared to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped,
accompany her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informing
Thomasin that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient to
rouse her suspicions. When she had gone to bed he collected the few
articles he would require, and went upstairs to the money-chest, whence
he took a tolerably bountiful sum in notes, which had been advanced to
him on the property he was so soon to have in possession, to defray
expenses incidental to the removal.
He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure himself that the
horse, gig, and harness were in a fit condition for a long drive.
Nearly half an hour was spent thus, and on returning to the house
Wildeve had no thought of Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. He had
told the stable lad not to stay up, leading the boy to understand that
his departure would be at three or four in the morning; for this,
though an exceptional hour, was less strange than midnight, the time
actually agreed on, the packet from Budmouth sailing between one and
two.
At last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but to wait. By no
effort could he shake off the oppression of spirits which he had
experienced ever since his last meeting with Eustacia, but he hoped
there was that in his situation which money could cure. He had
persuaded himself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle wife
by settling on her the half of his property, and with chivalrous
devotion towards another and greater woman by sharing her fate, was
possible. And though he meant to adhere to Eustacia’s instructions to
the letter, to deposit her where she wished and to leave her, should
that be her will, the spell that she had cast over him intensified, and
his heart was beating fast in the anticipated futility of such commands
in the face of a mutual wish that they should throw in their lot
together.
He would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures,
maxims, and hopes, and at twenty minutes to twelve he again went softly
to the stable, harnessed the horse, and lit the lamps; whence, taking
the horse by the head, he led him with the covered car out of the yard
to a spot by the roadside some quarter of a mile below the inn.
Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving rain by a high
bank that had been cast up at this place. Along the surface of the road
where lit by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones scudded and
clicked together before the wind, which, leaving them in heaps, plunged
into the heath and boomed across the bushes into darkness. Only one
sound rose above this din of weather, and that was the roaring of a
ten-hatch weir to the southward, from a river in the meads which formed
the boundary of the heath in this direction.
He lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy that the
midnight hour must have struck. A very strong doubt had arisen in his
mind if Eustacia would venture down the hill in such weather; yet
knowing her nature he felt that she might. “Poor thing! ’tis like her
ill-luck,” he murmured.
At length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To his
surprise it was nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that he
had driven up the circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adopted
because of the enormous length of the route in proportion to that of
the pedestrian’s path down the open hillside, and the consequent
increase of labour for the horse.
At this moment a footstep approached; but the light of the lamps being
in a different direction the comer was not visible. The step paused,
then came on again.
“Eustacia?” said Wildeve.
The person came forward, and the light fell upon the form of Clym,
glistening with wet, whom Wildeve immediately recognized; but Wildeve,
who stood behind the lamp, was not at once recognized by Yeobright.
He stopped as if in doubt whether this waiting vehicle could have
anything to do with the flight of his wife or not. The sight of
Yeobright at once banished Wildeve’s sober feelings, who saw him again
as the deadly rival from whom Eustacia was to be kept at all hazards.
Hence Wildeve did not speak, in the hope that Clym would pass by
without particular inquiry.
While they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound became audible
above the storm and wind. Its origin was unmistakable—it was the fall
of a body into the stream in the adjoining mead, apparently at a point
near the weir.
Both started. “Good God! can it be she?” said Clym.
“Why should it be she?” said Wildeve, in his alarm forgetting that he
had hitherto screened himself.
“Ah!—that’s you, you traitor, is it?” cried Yeobright. “Why should it
be she? Because last week she would have put an end to her life if she
had been able. She ought to have been watched! Take one of the lamps
and come with me.”
Yeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on; Wildeve did not
wait to unfasten the other, but followed at once along the meadow track
to the weir, a little in the rear of Clym.
Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet in
diameter, into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raised
and lowered by a winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides of
the pool were of masonry, to prevent the water from washing away the
bank; but the force of the stream in winter was sometimes such as to
undermine the retaining wall and precipitate it into the hole. Clym
reached the hatches, the framework of which was shaken to its
foundations by the velocity of the current. Nothing but the froth of
the waves could be discerned in the pool below. He got upon the plank
bridge over the race, and holding to the rail, that the wind might not
blow him off, crossed to the other side of the river. There he leant
over the wall and lowered the lamp, only to behold the vortex formed at
the curl of the returning current.
Wildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the light from
Yeobright’s lamp shed a flecked and agitated radiance across the weir
pool, revealing to the ex-engineer the tumbling courses of the currents
from the hatches above. Across this gashed and puckered mirror a dark
body was slowly borne by one of the backward currents.
“O, my darling!” exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice; and, without
showing sufficient presence of mind even to throw off his greatcoat, he
leaped into the boiling caldron.
Yeobright could now also discern the floating body, though but
indistinctly; and imagining from Wildeve’s plunge that there was life
to be saved he was about to leap after. Bethinking himself of a wiser
plan, he placed the lamp against a post to make it stand upright, and
running round to the lower part of the pool, where there was no wall,
he sprang in and boldly waded upwards towards the deeper portion. Here
he was taken off his legs, and in swimming was carried round into the
centre of the basin, where he perceived Wildeve struggling.
While these hasty actions were in progress here, Venn and Thomasin had
been toiling through the lower corner of the heath in the direction of
the light. They had not been near enough to the river to hear the
plunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage lamp, and watched its
motion into the mead. As soon as they reached the car and horse Venn
guessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in the
course of the moving light. Venn walked faster than Thomasin, and came
to the weir alone.
The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the water,
and the reddleman observed something floating motionless. Being
encumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.
“Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve,” he said hastily. “Run home with
her, call the stable lad, and make him send down to me any men who may
be living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir.”
Thomasin took the child and ran. When she came to the covered car the
horse, though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, as
if conscious of misfortune. She saw for the first time whose it was.