9--Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together
Having seen Eustacia's signal from the hill at eight o'clock, Wildeveimmediately prepared to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped,accompany her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informingThomasin that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient torouse her suspicions. When she had gone to bed he collected the fewarticles he would require, and went upstairs to the money-chest, whencehe took a tolerably bountiful sum in notes, which had been advancedto him on the property he was so soon to have in possession, to defrayexpenses incidental to the removal.
He then went to the stable and coach-house to assure himself that thehorse, gig, and harness were in a fit condition for a long drive. Nearlyhalf an hour was spent thus, and on returning to the house Wildeve hadno thought of Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. He had told the stablelad not to stay up, leading the boy to understand that his departurewould be at three or four in the morning; for this, though anexceptional hour, was less strange than midnight, the time actuallyagreed 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 noeffort could he shake off the oppression of spirits which he hadexperienced ever since his last meeting with Eustacia, but he hopedthere was that in his situation which money could cure. He had persuadedhimself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle wife by settlingon her the half of his property, and with chivalrous devotion towardsanother and greater woman by sharing her fate, was possible. And thoughhe meant to adhere to Eustacia's instructions to the letter, to deposither where she wished and to leave her, should that be her will, thespell that she had cast over him intensified, and his heart was beatingfast in the anticipated futility of such commands in the face of amutual 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 thestable, harnessed the horse, and lit the lamps; whence, taking the horseby the head, he led him with the covered car out of the yard to a spotby the roadside some quarter of a mile below the inn.
Here Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving rain by a highbank that had been cast up at this place. Along the surface of the roadwhere lit by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones scudded andclicked together before the wind, which, leaving them in heaps, plungedinto the heath and boomed across the bushes into darkness. Only onesound rose above this din of weather, and that was the roaring of aten-hatch weir to the southward, from a river in the meads which formedthe boundary of the heath in this direction.
He lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy that themidnight hour must have struck. A very strong doubt had arisen inhis mind if Eustacia would venture down the hill in such weather; yetknowing her nature he felt that she might. Poor thing! 'tis like herill-luck, he murmured.
At length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To his surpriseit was nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that he had drivenup the circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adopted because of theenormous length of the route in proportion to that of the pedestrian'spath down the open hillside, and the consequent increase of labour forthe horse.
At this moment a footstep approached; but the light of the lamps beingin 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 haveanything to do with the flight of his wife or not. The sight ofYeobright at once banished Wildeve's sober feelings, who saw him againas 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 withoutparticular inquiry.
While they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound became audibleabove the storm and wind. Its origin was unmistakable--it was the fallof a body into the stream in the adjoining mead, apparently at a pointnear the weir.
Both started. Good God! can it be she? said Clym.
Why should it be she? said Wildeve, in his alarm forgetting that hehad hitherto screened himself.
Ah!--that's you, you traitor, is it? cried Yeobright. Why should itbe she? Because last week she would have put an end to her life if shehad been able. She ought to have been watched! Take one of the lamps andcome with me.
Yeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on Wildeve did notwait to unfasten the other, but followed at once along the meadow trackto the weir, a little in the rear of Clym.
Shadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet indiameter, into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raisedand lowered by a winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides of thepool 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 underminethe retaining wall and precipitate it into the hole. Clym reached thehatches, the framework of which was shaken to its foundations by thevelocity of the current. Nothing but the froth of the waves could bediscerned 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, crossedto the other side of the river. There he leant over the wall and loweredthe lamp, only to behold the vortex formed at the curl of the returningcurrent.
Wildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the light fromYeobright's lamp shed a flecked and agitated radiance across the weirpool, revealing to the ex-engineer the tumbling courses of the currentsfrom the hatches above. Across this gashed and puckered mirror a darkbody was slowly borne by one of the backward currents.
O, my darling! exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice; and, withoutshowing sufficient presence of mind even to throw off his greatcoat, heleaped into the boiling caldron.
Yeobright could now also discern the floating body, though butindistinctly; and imagining from Wildeve's plunge that there was life tobe 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 runninground to the lower part of the pool, where there was no wall, he sprangin and boldly waded upwards towards the deeper portion. Here he wastaken off his legs, and in swimming was carried round into the centre ofthe basin, where he perceived Wildeve struggling.
While these hasty actions were in progress here, Venn and Thomasin hadbeen toiling through the lower corner of the heath in the directionof the light. They had not been near enough to the river to hear theplunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage lamp, and watched itsmotion into the mead. As soon as they reached the car and horse Vennguessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in thecourse of the moving light. Venn walked faster than Thomasin, and cameto the weir alone.
The lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across thewater, and the reddleman observed something floating motionless. Beingencumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.
Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve, he said hastily. Run home withher, call the stable lad, and make him send down to me any men who maybe living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir.
Thomasin took the child and ran. When she came to the covered car thehorse, though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, asif conscious of misfortune. She saw for the first time whose it was. Shenearly fainted, and would have been unable to proceed another step butthat the necessity of preserving the little girl from harm nerved herto an amazing self-control. In this agony of suspense she entered thehouse, put the baby in a place of safety, woke the lad and the femaledomestic, and ran out to give the alarm at the nearest cottage.
Diggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed that thesmall upper hatches or floats were withdrawn. He found one of theselying upon the grass, and taking it under one arm, and with his lanternin his hand, entered at the bottom of the pool as Clym had done. As soonas he began to be in deep water he flung himself across the hatch; thussupported he was able to keep afloat as long as he chose, holdingthe lantern aloft with his disengaged hand. Propelled by his feet, hesteered round and round the pool, ascending each time by one of the backstreams and descending in the middle of the current.
At first he could see nothing. Then amidst the glistening of thewhirlpools and the white clots of foam he distinguished a woman's bonnetfloating alone. His search was now under the left wall, when somethingcame to the surface almost close beside him. It was not, as he hadexpected, a woman, but a man. The reddleman put the ring of the lanternbetween his teeth, seized the floating man by the collar, and, holdingon to the hatch with his remaining arm, struck out into the strongestrace, by which the unconscious man, the hatch, and himself were carrieddown the stream. As soon as Venn found his feet dragging over thepebbles of the shallower part below he secured his footing and wadedtowards the brink. There, where the water stood at about the height ofhis waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted to drag forth the man.This was a matter of great difficulty, and he found as the reason thatthe legs of the unfortunate stranger were tightly embraced by the armsof another man, who had hitherto been entirely beneath the surface.
At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towards him,and two men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above. They ranto where Venn was, and helped him in lifting out the apparently drownedpersons, separating them, and laying them out upon the grass. Vennturned the light upon their faces. The one who had been uppermost wasYeobright; he who had been completely submerged was Wildeve.
Now we must search the hole again, said Venn. A woman is in theresomewhere. Get a pole.
One of the men went to the footbridge and tore off the handrail. Thereddleman and the two others then entered the water together from belowas before, and with their united force probed the pool forwards to whereit sloped down to its central depth. Venn was not mistaken in supposingthat any person who had sunk for the last time would be washed down tothis point, for when they had examined to about halfway across somethingimpeded their thrust.
Pull it forward, said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole till itwas close to their feet.
Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wetdrapery enclosing a woman's cold form, which was all that remained ofthe desperate Eustacia.
When they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a stress of grief,bending over the two unconscious ones who already lay there. The horseand cart were brought to the nearest point in the road, and it was thework of a few minutes only to place the three in the vehicle. Vennled on the horse, supporting Thomasin upon his arm, and the two menfollowed, till they reached the inn.
The woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin had hastilydressed herself and lighted a fire, the other servant being left tosnore on in peace at the back of the house. The insensible forms ofEustacia, Clym, and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the carpet,with their feet to the fire, when such restorative processes as couldbe thought of were adopted at once, the stableman being in the meantimesent for a doctor. But there seemed to be not a whiff of life in eitherof the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief had been thrustoff awhile by frantic action, applied a bottle of hartshorn to Clym'snostrils, having tried it in vain upon the other two. He sighed.
Clym's alive! she exclaimed.
He soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did she attempt torevive her husband by the same means; but Wildeve gave no sign. Therewas too much reason to think that he and Eustacia both were for everbeyond the reach of stimulating perfumes. Their exertions did not relaxtill the doctor arrived, when one by one, the senseless three were takenupstairs and put into warm beds.
Venn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance, and went tothe door, scarcely able yet to realize the strange catastrophe thathad befallen the family in which he took so great an interest. Thomasinsurely would be broken down by the sudden and overwhelming nature ofthis event. No firm and sensible Mrs. Yeobright lived now to support thegentle girl through the ordeal; and, whatever an unimpassioned spectatormight think of her loss of such a husband as Wildeve, there could be nodoubt that for the moment she was distracted and horrified by the blow.As for himself, not being privileged to go to her and comfort her, hesaw no reason for waiting longer in a house where he remained only as astranger.
He returned across the heath to his van. The fire was not yet out, andeverything remained as he had left it. Venn now bethought himself ofhis clothes, which were saturated with water to the weight of lead. Hechanged them, spread them before the fire, and lay down to sleep. Butit was more than he could do to rest here while excited by a vividimagination of the turmoil they were in at the house he had quitted,and, blaming himself for coming away, he dressed in another suit,locked up the door, and again hastened across to the inn. Rain was stillfalling heavily when he entered the kitchen. A bright fire was shiningfrom the hearth, and two women were bustling about, one of whom was OllyDowden.
Well, how is it going on now? said Venn in a whisper.
Mr. Yeobright is better; but Mrs. Yeobright and Mr. Wildeve are deadand cold. The doctor says they were quite gone before they were out ofthe water.
Ah! I thought as much when I hauled 'em up. And Mrs. Wildeve?
She is as well as can be expected. The doctor had her put betweenblankets, for she was almost as wet as they that had been in the river,poor young thing. You don't seem very dry, reddleman.
Oh, 'tis not much. I have changed my things. This is only a littledampness I've got coming through the rain again.
Stand by the fire. Mis'ess says you be to have whatever you want, andshe was sorry when she was told that you'd gone away.
Venn drew near to the fireplace, and looked into the flames in an absentmood. The steam came from his leggings and ascended the chimney with thesmoke, while he thought of those who were upstairs. Two were corpses,one had barely escaped the jaws of death, another was sick and a widow.The last occasion on which he had lingered by that fireplace was whenthe raffle was in progress; when Wildeve was alive and well; Thomasinactive and smiling in the next room; Yeobright and Eustacia just madehusband and wife, and Mrs. Yeobright living at Blooms-End. It had seemedat that time that the then position of affairs was good for at leasttwenty years to come. Yet, of all the circle, he himself was the onlyone whose situation had not materially changed.
While he ruminated a footstep descended the stairs. It was the nurse,who brought in her hand a rolled mass of wet paper. The woman was soengrossed with her occupation that she hardly saw Venn. She took from acupboard some pieces of twine, which she strained across the fireplace,tying the end of each piece to the firedog, previously pulled forwardfor the purpose, and, unrolling the wet papers, she began pinning themone by one to the strings in a manner of clothes on a line.
What be they? said Venn.
Poor master's banknotes, she answered. They were found in his pocketwhen they undressed him.
Then he was not coming back again for some time? said Venn.
That we shall never know, said she.
Venn was loth to depart, for all on earth that interested him lay underthis roof. As nobody in the house had any more sleep that night, exceptthe two who slept for ever, there was no reason why he should notremain. So he retired into the niche of the fireplace where he had usedto sit, and there he continued, watching the steam from the double rowof banknotes as they waved backwards and forwards in the draught of thechimney till their flaccidity was changed to dry crispness throughout.Then the woman came and unpinned them, and, folding them together,carried the handful upstairs. Presently the doctor appeared from abovewith the look of a man who could do no more, and, pulling on his gloves,went out of the house, the trotting of his horse soon dying away uponthe road.
At four o'clock there was a gentle knock at the door. It was fromCharley, who had been sent by Captain Vye to inquire if anything hadbeen heard of Eustacia. The girl who admitted him looked in his face asif she did not know what answer to return, and showed him in to whereVenn was seated, saying to the reddleman, Will you tell him, please?
Venn told. Charley's only utterance was a feeble, indistinct sound. Hestood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, I shall see heronce more?
I dare say you may see her, said Diggory gravely. But hadn't youbetter run and tell Captain Vye?
Yes, yes. Only I do hope I shall see her just once again.
You shall, said a low voice behind; and starting round they beheldby the dim light, a thin, pallid, almost spectral form, wrapped in ablanket, and looking like Lazarus coming from the tomb.
It was Yeobright. Neither Venn nor Charley spoke, and Clym continued,You shall see her. There will be time enough to tell the captain whenit gets daylight. You would like to see her too--would you not, Diggory?She looks very beautiful now.
Venn assented by rising to his feet, and with Charley he followed Clymto the foot of the staircase, where he took off his boots; Charley didthe same. They followed Yeobright upstairs to the landing, where therewas a candle burning, which Yeobright took in his hand, and with it ledthe way into an adjoining room. Here he went to the bedside and foldedback the sheet.
They stood silently looking upon Eustacia, who, as she lay there stillin death, eclipsed all her living phases. Pallor did not include allthe quality of her complexion, which seemed more than whiteness; it wasalmost light. The expression of her finely carved mouth was pleasant,as if a sense of dignity had just compelled her to leave off speaking.Eternal rigidity had seized upon it in a momentary transition betweenfervour and resignation. Her black hair was looser now than either ofthem had ever seen it before, and surrounded her brow like a forest. Thestateliness of look which had been almost too marked for a dweller in acountry domicile had at last found an artistically happy background.
Nobody spoke, till at length Clym covered her and turned aside. Nowcome here, he said.
They went to a recess in the same room, and there, on a smaller bed,lay another figure--Wildeve. Less repose was visible in his face thanin Eustacia's, but the same luminous youthfulness overspread it, and theleast sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him now that hewas born for a higher destiny than this. The only sign upon him of hisrecent struggle for life was in his fingertips, which were worn andsacrificed in his dying endeavours to obtain a hold on the face of theweir-wall.
Yeobright's manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so few syllablessince his reappearance, that Venn imagined him resigned. It was onlywhen they had left the room and stood upon the landing that the truestate of his mind was apparent. Here he said, with a wild smile,inclining his head towards the chamber in which Eustacia lay, She isthe second woman I have killed this year. I was a great cause of mymother's death, and I am the chief cause of hers.
How? said Venn.
I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. I did not invite herback till it was too late. It is I who ought to have drowned myself. Itwould have been a charity to the living had the river overwhelmed me andborne her up. But I cannot die. Those who ought to have lived lie dead;and here am I alive!
But you can't charge yourself with crimes in that way, said Venn. Youmay as well say that the parents be the cause of a murder by the child,for without the parents the child would never have been begot.
Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don't know all the circumstances.If it had pleased God to put an end to me it would have been a goodthing for all. But I am getting used to the horror of my existence. Theysay that a time comes when men laugh at misery through long acquaintancewith it. Surely that time will soon come to me!
Your aim has always been good, said Venn. Why should you say suchdesperate things?
No, they are not desperate. They are only hopeless; and my great regretis that for what I have done no man or law can punish me!
BOOK SIX -- AFTERCOURSES