The Return of the Native

2--The People at Blooms-End Make Ready

All that afternoon the expected arrival of the subject of Eustacia'sruminations created a bustle of preparation at Blooms-End. Thomasin hadbeen persuaded by her aunt, and by an instinctive impulse of loyaltytowards her cousin Clym, to bestir herself on his account with analacrity unusual in her during these most sorrowful days of her life. Atthe time that Eustacia was listening to the rick-makers' conversationon Clym's return, Thomasin was climbing into a loft over her aunt'sfuelhouse, where the store-apples were kept, to search out the best andlargest of them for the coming holiday-time.

The loft was lighted by a semicircular hole, through which the pigeonscrept to their lodgings in the same high quarters of the premises; andfrom this hole the sun shone in a bright yellow patch upon the figure ofthe maiden as she knelt and plunged her naked arms into the soft brownfern, which, from its abundance, was used on Egdon in packing awaystores of all kinds. The pigeons were flying about her head with thegreatest unconcern, and the face of her aunt was just visible abovethe floor of the loft, lit by a few stray motes of light, as she stoodhalfway up the ladder, looking at a spot into which she was not climberenough to venture.

”Now a few russets, Tamsin. He used to like them almost as well asribstones.”

Thomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook, where moremellow fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. Before picking them outshe stopped a moment.

”Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?” she said, gazingabstractedly at the pigeon-hole, which admitted the sunlight so directlyupon her brown hair and transparent tissues that it almost seemed toshine through her.

”If he could have been dear to you in another way,” said Mrs. Yeobrightfrom the ladder, ”this might have been a happy meeting.”

”Is there any use in saying what can do no good, Aunt?”

”Yes,” said her aunt, with some warmth. ”To thoroughly fill the air withthe past misfortune, so that other girls may take warning and keep clearof it.”

Thomasin lowered her face to the apples again. ”I am a warning toothers, just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are,” she said in alow voice. ”What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to them? 'Tisabsurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me think that I do,by the way they behave towards me? Why don't people judge me by my acts?Now, look at me as I kneel here, picking up these apples--do I looklike a lost woman?... I wish all good women were as good as I!” she addedvehemently.

”Strangers don't see you as I do,” said Mrs. Yeobright; ”they judge fromfalse report. Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly to blame.”

”How quickly a rash thing can be done!” replied the girl. Her lips werequivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that she couldhardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued industriouslysearching to hide her weakness.

”As soon as you have finished getting the apples,” her aunt said,descending the ladder, ”come down, and we'll go for the holly. There isnobody on the heath this afternoon, and you need not fear beingstared at. We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in ourpreparations.”

Thomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together theywent through the white palings to the heath beyond. The open hills wereairy and clear, and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it often appearson a fine winter day, in distinct planes of illumination independentlytoned, the rays which lit the nearer tracts of landscape streamingvisibly across those further off; a stratum of ensaffroned light wasimposed on a stratum of deep blue, and behind these lay still remoterscenes wrapped in frigid grey.

They reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a conicalpit, so that the tops of the trees were not much above the general levelof the ground. Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the bushes, asshe had done under happier circumstances on many similar occasions,and with a small chopper that they had brought she began to lop off theheavily berried boughs.

”Don't scratch your face,” said her aunt, who stood at the edge of thepit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green andscarlet masses of the tree. ”Will you walk with me to meet him thisevening?”

”I should like to. Else it would seem as if I had forgotten him,” saidThomasin, tossing out a bough. ”Not that that would matter much; Ibelong to one man; nothing can alter that. And that man I must marry,for my pride's sake.”

”I am afraid--” began Mrs. Yeobright.

”Ah, you think, 'That weak girl--how is she going to get a man to marryher when she chooses?' But let me tell you one thing, Aunt: Mr. Wildeveis not a profligate man, any more than I am an improper woman. He hasan unfortunate manner, and doesn't try to make people like him if theydon't wish to do it of their own accord.”

”Thomasin,” said Mrs. Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye upon her niece,”do you think you deceive me in your defence of Mr. Wildeve?”

”How do you mean?”

”I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has changed itscolour since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him, andthat you act a part to me.”

”He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him.”

”Now, I put it to you: would you at this present moment agree to be hiswife if that had not happened to entangle you with him?”

Thomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed. ”Aunt,”she said presently, ”I have, I think, a right to refuse to answer thatquestion.”

”Yes, you have.”

”You may think what you choose. I have never implied to you by word ordeed that I have grown to think otherwise of him, and I never will. AndI shall marry him.”

”Well, wait till he repeats his offer. I think he may do it, now that heknows--something I told him. I don't for a moment dispute that it is themost proper thing for you to marry him. Much as I have objected to himin bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure. It is the onlyway out of a false position, and a very galling one.”

”What did you tell him?”

”That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours.”

”Aunt,” said Thomasin, with round eyes, ”what DO you mean?”

”Don't be alarmed; it was my duty. I can say no more about it now, butwhen it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I said it.”

Thomasin was perforce content.

”And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for thepresent?” she next asked.

”I have given my word to. But what is the use of it? He must soon knowwhat has happened. A mere look at your face will show him that somethingis wrong.”

Thomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree. ”Now, hearken tome,” she said, her delicate voice expanding into firmness by a forcewhich was other than physical. ”Tell him nothing. If he finds out that Iam not worthy to be his cousin, let him. But, since he loved me once, wewill not pain him by telling him my trouble too soon. The air is full ofthe story, I know; but gossips will not dare to speak of it to him forthe first few days. His closeness to me is the very thing that willhinder the tale from reaching him early. If I am not made safe fromsneers in a week or two I will tell him myself.”

The earnestness with which Thomasin spoke prevented further objections.Her aunt simply said, ”Very well. He should by rights have been told atthe time that the wedding was going to be. He will never forgive you foryour secrecy.”

”Yes, he will, when he knows it was because I wished to spare him, andthat I did not expect him home so soon. And you must not let me stand inthe way of your Christmas party. Putting it off would only make mattersworse.”

”Of course I shall not. I do not wish to show myself beaten before allEgdon, and the sport of a man like Wildeve. We have enough berries now,I think, and we had better take them home. By the time we have deckedthe house with this and hung up the mistletoe, we must think of startingto meet him.”

Thomasin came out of the tree, shook from her hair and dress the looseberries which had fallen thereon, and went down the hill with her aunt,each woman bearing half the gathered boughs. It was now nearly fouro'clock, and the sunlight was leaving the vales. When the west grew redthe two relatives came again from the house and plunged into the heathin a different direction from the first, towards a point in the distanthighway along which the expected man was to return.