The Return of the Native

2--He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song

The result of that unpropitious interview was that Eustacia, insteadof passing the afternoon with her grandfather, hastily returned home toClym, where she arrived three hours earlier than she had been expected.

She came indoors with her face flushed, and her eyes still showingtraces of her recent excitement. Yeobright looked up astonished; he hadnever seen her in any way approaching to that state before. Shepassed him by, and would have gone upstairs unnoticed, but Clym was soconcerned that he immediately followed her.

”What is the matter, Eustacia?” he said. She was standing on thehearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped infront of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not answer;and then she replied in a low voice--

”I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!”

A weight fell like a stone upon Clym. That same morning, when Eustaciahad arranged to go and see her grandfather, Clym had expressed a wishthat she would drive down to Blooms-End and inquire for her mother-in-law, or adopt any other means she might think fit to bring about areconciliation. She had set out gaily; and he had hoped for much.

”Why is this?” he asked.

”I cannot tell--I cannot remember. I met your mother. And I will nevermeet her again.”

”Why?”

”What do I know about Mr. Wildeve now? I won't have wicked opinionspassed on me by anybody. O! it was too humiliating to be asked if Ihad received any money from him, or encouraged him, or something of thesort--I don't exactly know what!”

”How could she have asked you that?”

”She did.”

”Then there must have been some meaning in it. What did my mother saybesides?”

”I don't know what she said, except in so far as this, that we both saidwords which can never be forgiven!”

”Oh, there must be some misapprehension. Whose fault was it that hermeaning was not made clear?”

”I would rather not say. It may have been the fault of thecircumstances, which were awkward at the very least. O Clym--I cannothelp expressing it--this is an unpleasant position that you have placedme in. But you must improve it--yes, say you will--for I hate it allnow! Yes, take me to Paris, and go on with your old occupation, Clym! Idon't mind how humbly we live there at first, if it can only be Paris,and not Egdon Heath.”

”But I have quite given up that idea,” said Yeobright, with surprise.”Surely I never led you to expect such a thing?”

”I own it. Yet there are thoughts which cannot be kept out of mind, andthat one was mine. Must I not have a voice in the matter, now I am yourwife and the sharer of your doom?”

”Well, there are things which are placed beyond the pale of discussionand I thought this was specially so, and by mutual agreement.”

”Clym, I am unhappy at what I hear,” she said in a low voice; and hereyes drooped, and she turned away.

This indication of an unexpected mine of hope in Eustacia's bosomdisconcerted her husband. It was the first time that he had confrontedthe fact of the indirectness of a woman's movement towards her desire.But his intention was unshaken, though he loved Eustacia well. All theeffect that her remark had upon him was a resolve to chain himself moreclosely than ever to his books, so as to be the sooner enabled to appealto substantial results from another course in arguing against her whim.

Next day the mystery of the guineas was explained. Thomasin paid thema hurried visit, and Clym's share was delivered up to him by her ownhands. Eustacia was not present at the time.

”Then this is what my mother meant,” exclaimed Clym. ”Thomasin, do youknow that they have had a bitter quarrel?”

There was a little more reticence now than formerly in Thomasin's mannertowards her cousin. It is the effect of marriage to engender in severaldirections some of the reserve it annihilates in one. ”Your mothertold me,” she said quietly. ”She came back to my house after seeingEustacia.”

”The worst thing I dreaded has come to pass. Was Mother much disturbedwhen she came to you, Thomasin?”

”Yes.”

”Very much indeed?”

”Yes.”

Clym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate, and covered hiseyes with his hand.

”Don't trouble about it, Clym. They may get to be friends.”

He shook his head. ”Not two people with inflammable natures like theirs.Well, what must be will be.”

”One thing is cheerful in it--the guineas are not lost.”

”I would rather have lost them twice over than have had this happen.”

Amid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to beindispensable--that he should speedily make some show of progress in hisscholastic plans. With this view he read far into the small hours duringmany nights.

One morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with astrange sensation in his eyes. The sun was shining directly upon thewindow-blind, and at his first glance thitherward a sharp pain obligedhim to close his eyelids quickly. At every new attempt to look abouthim the same morbid sensibility to light was manifested, and excoriatingtears ran down his cheeks. He was obliged to tie a bandage over his browwhile dressing; and during the day it could not be abandoned. Eustaciawas thoroughly alarmed. On finding that the case was no better the nextmorning they decided to send to Anglebury for a surgeon.

Towards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease to be acuteinflammation induced by Clym's night studies, continued in spite of acold previously caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.

Fretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was soanxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shutup in a room from which all light was excluded, and his condition wouldhave been one of absolute misery had not Eustacia read to him by theglimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped that the worst would soon be over;but at the surgeon's third visit he learnt to his dismay that althoughhe might venture out of doors with shaded eyes in the course of amonth, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading print of anydescription, would have to be given up for a long time to come.

One week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten thegloom of the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia, butshe carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband. Supposehe should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficientstrength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenial toher feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling amongthe hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to cohere intosubstance in the presence of this misfortune. As day after day passedby, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in this mournfulgroove, and she would go away from him into the garden and weepdespairing tears.

Yeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought hewould not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more unhappy;and the seclusion of their life was such that she would hardly be likelyto learn the news except through a special messenger. Endeavouring totake the trouble as philosophically as possible, he waited on till thethird week had arrived, when he went into the open air for the firsttime since the attack. The surgeon visited him again at this stage, andClym urged him to express a distinct opinion. The young man learnt withadded surprise that the date at which he might expect to resume hislabours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes being in that peculiar statewhich, though affording him sight enough for walking about, would notadmit of their being strained upon any definite object without incurringthe risk of reproducing ophthalmia in its acute form.

Clym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quietfirmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was notto be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the world throughsmoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, and fatal to anykind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic in the faceof mishaps which only affected his social standing; and, apart fromEustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if it could bemade to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To keep a cottagenight-school was one such form; and his affliction did not master hisspirit as it might otherwise have done.

He walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon withwhich he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old home.He saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron,and advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the tool of aman who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, and Yeobrightlearnt from the voice that the speaker was Humphrey.

Humphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym's condition, and added, ”Now, ifyours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just thesame.”

”Yes, I could,” said Yeobright musingly. ”How much do you get forcutting these faggots?”

”Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very well onthe wages.”

During the whole of Yeobright's walk home to Alderworth he was lost inreflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming up tothe house Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he went acrossto her.

”Darling,” he said, ”I am much happier. And if my mother were reconciledto me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite.”

”I fear that will never be,” she said, looking afar with her beautifulstormy eyes. ”How CAN you say 'I am happier,' and nothing changed?”

”It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, and geta living at, in this time of misfortune.”

”Yes?”

”I am going to be a furze- and turf-cutter.”

”No, Clym!” she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent in herface going off again, and leaving her worse than before.

”Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending thelittle money we've got when I can keep down expenditures by an honestoccupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but thatin a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?”

”But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance.”

”We don't require it. If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly welloff.”

”In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and suchpeople!” A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia's face, which he did notsee. There had been nonchalance in his tone, showing her that he felt noabsolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positive horror.

The very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey's cottage, and borrowed ofhim leggings, gloves, a whetstone, and a hook, to use till he should beable to purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forth with his newfellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where thefurze grew thickest he struck the first blow in his adopted calling. Hissight, like the wings in Rasselas, though useless to him for his grandpurpose, sufficed for this strait, and he found that when a littlepractice should have hardened his palms against blistering he would beable to work with ease.

Day after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and wentoff to the rendezvous with Humphrey. His custom was to work from fouro'clock in the morning till noon then, when the heat of the day was atits highest, to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards comingout again and working till dusk at nine.

This man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements,and by the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that hisclosest friend might have passed by without recognizing him. He was abrown spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse, and nothingmore. Though frequently depressed in spirit when not actually at work,owing to thoughts of Eustacia's position and his mother's estrangement,when in the full swing of labour he was cheerfully disposed and calm.

His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world beinglimited to a circuit of a few feet from his person. His familiars werecreeping and winged things, and they seemed to enroll him in their band.Bees hummed around his ears with an intimate air, and tugged at theheath and furze-flowers at his side in such numbers as to weigh themdown to the sod. The strange amber-coloured butterflies which Egdonproduced, and which were never seen elsewhere, quivered in the breath ofhis lips, alighted upon his bowed back, and sported with theglittering point of his hook as he flourished it up and down. Tribes ofemerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet, falling awkwardly ontheir backs, heads, or hips, like unskilful acrobats, as chance mightrule; or engaged themselves in noisy flirtations under the fern-frondswith silent ones of homely hue. Huge flies, ignorant of larders andwire-netting, and quite in a savage state, buzzed about him withoutknowing that he was a man. In and out of the fern-dells snakes glidedin their most brilliant blue and yellow guise, it being the seasonimmediately following the shedding of their old skins, when theircolours are brightest. Litters of young rabbits came out from theirforms to sun themselves upon hillocks, the hot beams blazing through thedelicate tissue of each thin-fleshed ear, and firing it to a blood-redtransparency in which the veins could be seen. None of them fearedhim.

The monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itselfa pleasure. A forced limitation of effort offered a justification ofhomely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience would hardly haveallowed him to remain in such obscurity while his powers were unimpeded.Hence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obliged to accompanyHumphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would amuse hiscompanion with sketches of Parisian life and character, and so whileaway the time.

On one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in thedirection of Yeobright's place of work. He was busily chopping awayat the furze, a long row of faggots which stretched downward from hisposition representing the labour of the day. He did not observe herapproach, and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent ofsong. It shocked her. To see him there, a poor afflicted man, earningmoney by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her to tears; but tohear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation which, howeversatisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educated lady-wife, wounded her through. Unconscious of her presence, he still wenton singing:--

”Le point du jour A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure; Flore est plus belle a son retour; L'oiseau reprend doux chant d'amour; Tout celebre dans la nature Le point du jour.

”Le point du jour Cause parfois, cause douleur extreme; Que l'espace des nuits est court Pour le berger brulant d'amour, Force de quitter ce qu'il aime Au point du jour!”

It was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much aboutsocial failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept in sickdespair at thought of the blasting effect upon her own life of that moodand condition in him. Then she came forward.

”I would starve rather than do it!” she exclaimed vehemently. ”And youcan sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!”

”Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving,” hesaid gently. He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, andtook her hand. ”Why do you speak in such a strange way? It is only alittle old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris, and nowjust applies to my life with you. Has your love for me all died, then,because my appearance is no longer that of a fine gentleman?”

”Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it may make me notlove you.”

”Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk of doing that?”

”Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won't give in to mine whenI wish you to leave off this shameful labour. Is there anything youdislike in me that you act so contrarily to my wishes? I am your wife,and why will you not listen? Yes, I am your wife indeed!”

”I know what that tone means.”

”What tone?”

”The tone in which you said, 'Your wife indeed.' It meant, 'Your wife,worse luck.'”

”It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. A woman may havereason, though she is not without heart, and if I felt 'worse luck,' itwas no ignoble feeling--it was only too natural. There, you see that atany rate I do not attempt untruths. Do you remember how, before we weremarried, I warned you that I had not good wifely qualities?”

”You mock me to say that now. On that point at least the only noblecourse would be to hold your tongue, for you are still queen of me,Eustacia, though I may no longer be king of you.”

”You are my husband. Does not that content you?”

”Not unless you are my wife without regret.”

”I cannot answer you. I remember saying that I should be a seriousmatter on your hands.”

”Yes, I saw that.”

”Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would have seen any suchthing; you are too severe upon me, Clym--I won't like your speaking soat all.”

”Well, I married you in spite of it, and don't regret doing so. Howcold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was awarmer heart than yours.”

”Yes, I fear we are cooling--I see it as well as you,” she sighedmournfully. ”And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never tiredof contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could have thoughtthen that by this time my eyes would not seem so very bright to yours,nor your lips so very sweet to mine? Two months--is it possible? Yes,'tis too true!”

”You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that's a hopefulsign.”

”No. I don't sigh for that. There are other things for me to sigh for,or any other woman in my place.”

”That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste anunfortunate man?”

”Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity asmuch as you. As much?--I think I deserve it more. For you can sing! Itwould be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such a cloudas this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would astonishand confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you felt carelessabout your own affliction, you might have refrained from singing outof sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such a position I wouldcurse rather than sing.”

Yeobright placed his hand upon her arm. ”Now, don't you suppose, myinexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion,against the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam andsmoke of that sort than you have ever heard of. But the more I see oflife the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly great inits greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small in mine offurze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessings vouchsafed to usare not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any great hardship whenthey are taken away? So I sing to pass the time. Have you indeed lostall tenderness for me, that you begrudge me a few cheerful moments?”

”I have still some tenderness left for you.”

”Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies with goodfortune!”

”I cannot listen to this, Clym--it will end bitterly,” she said in abroken voice. ”I will go home.”