6--The Figure against the Sky
When the whole Egdon concourse had left the site of the bonfire to itsaccustomed loneliness, a closely wrapped female figure approached thebarrow from that quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay. Hadthe reddleman been watching he might have recognized her as the womanwho had first stood there so singularly, and vanished at the approachof strangers. She ascended to her old position at the top, where the redcoals of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes in the corpseof day. There she stood still around her stretching the vast nightatmosphere, whose incomplete darkness in comparison with the totaldarkness of the heath below it might have represented a venial beside amortal sin.
That she was tall and straight in build, that she was lady-like in hermovements, was all that could be learnt of her just now, her form beingwrapped in a shawl folded in the old cornerwise fashion, and her head ina large kerchief, a protection not superfluous at this hour and place.Her back was towards the wind, which blew from the northwest; butwhether she had avoided that aspect because of the chilly gusts whichplayed about her exceptional position, or because her interest lay inthe southeast, did not at first appear.
Her reason for standing so dead still as the pivot of this circleof heath-country was just as obscure. Her extraordinary fixity, herconspicuous loneliness, her heedlessness of night, betokened among otherthings an utter absence of fear. A tract of country unaltered from thatsinister condition which made Caesar anxious every year to get clear ofits glooms before the autumnal equinox, a kind of landscape and weatherwhich leads travellers from the South to describe our island as Homer'sCimmerian land, was not, on the face of it, friendly to women.
It might reasonably have been supposed that she was listening to thewind, which rose somewhat as the night advanced, and laid hold of theattention. The wind, indeed, seemed made for the scene, as the sceneseemed made for the hour. Part of its tone was quite special; what washeard there could be heard nowhere else. Gusts in innumerable seriesfollowed each other from the northwest, and when each one of them racedpast the sound of its progress resolved into three. Treble, tenor, andbass notes were to be found therein. The general ricochet of the wholeover pits and prominences had the gravest pitch of the chime. Next therecould be heard the baritone buzz of a holly tree. Below these in force,above them in pitch, a dwindled voice strove hard at a husky tune, whichwas the peculiar local sound alluded to. Thinner and less immediatelytraceable than the other two, it was far more impressive than either. Init lay what may be called the linguistic peculiarity of the heath; andbeing audible nowhere on earth off a heath, it afforded a shadow ofreason for the woman's tenseness, which continued as unbroken as ever.
Throughout the blowing of these plaintive November winds that notebore a great resemblance to the ruins of human song which remain to thethroat of fourscore and ten. It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, andit brushed so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed, thematerial minutiae in which it originated could be realized as by touch.It was the united products of infinitesimal vegetable causes, and thesewere neither stems, leaves, fruit, blades, prickles, lichen, nor moss.
They were the mummied heathbells of the past summer, originally tenderand purple, now washed colourless by Michaelmas rains, and dried to deadskins by October suns. So low was an individual sound from these that acombination of hundreds only just emerged from silence, and the myriadsof the whole declivity reached the woman's ear but as a shrivelled andintermittent recitative. Yet scarcely a single accent among the manyafloat tonight could have such power to impress a listener withthoughts of its origin. One inwardly saw the infinity of those combinedmultitudes; and perceived that each of the tiny trumpets was seized onentered, scoured and emerged from by the wind as thoroughly as if itwere as vast as a crater.
The spirit moved them. A meaning of the phrase forced itself upon theattention and an emotional listener's fetichistic mood might haveended in one of more advanced quality. It was not, after all, that theleft-hand expanse of old blooms spoke, or the right-hand, or thoseof the slope in front; but it was the single person of something elsespeaking through each at once.
Suddenly, on the barrow, there mingled with all this wild rhetoricof night a sound which modulated so naturally into the rest that itsbeginning and ending were hardly to be distinguished. The bluffs, andthe bushes, and the heather-bells had broken silence; at last, so didthe woman; and her articulation was but as another phrase of the samediscourse as theirs. Thrown out on the winds it became twined in withthem, and with them it flew away.
What she uttered was a lengthened sighing, apparently at somethingin her mind which had led to her presence here. There was a spasmodicabandonment about it as if, in allowing herself to utter the sound thewoman's brain had authorized what it could not regulate. One point wasevident in this; that she had been existing in a suppressed state, andnot in one of languor, or stagnation.
Far away down the valley the faint shine from the window of the innstill lasted on and a few additional moments proved that the window, orwhat was within it, had more to do with the woman's sigh than had eitherher own actions or the scene immediately around. She lifted her lefthand, which held a closed telescope. This she rapidly extended, as ifshe were well accustomed to the operation, and raising it to her eyedirected it towards the light beaming from the inn.
The handkerchief which had hooded her head was now a little thrown back,her face being somewhat elevated. A profile was visible against the dullmonochrome of cloud around her; and it was as though side shadows fromthe features of Sappho and Mrs. Siddons had converged upwards from thetomb to form an image like neither but suggesting both. This, however,was mere superficiality. In respect of character a face may make certainadmissions by its outline; but it fully confesses only in its changes.So much is this the case that what is called the play of the featuresoften helps more in understanding a man or woman than the earnestlabours of all the other members together. Thus the night revealedlittle of her whose form it was embracing, for the mobile parts of hercountenance could not be seen.
At last she gave up her spying attitude, closed the telescope, andturned to the decaying embers. From these no appreciable beams nowradiated, except when a more than usually smart gust brushed over theirfaces and raised a fitful glow which came and went like the blush of agirl. She stooped over the silent circle, and selecting from the brandsa piece of stick which bore the largest live coal at its end, brought itto where she had been standing before.
She held the brand to the ground, blowing the red coal with her mouth atthe same time; till it faintly illuminated the sod, and revealed a smallobject, which turned out to be an hourglass, though she wore a watch.She blew long enough to show that the sand had all slipped through.
Ah! she said, as if surprised.
The light raised by her breath had been very fitful, and a momentaryirradiation of flesh was all that it had disclosed of her face. Thatconsisted of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head being stillenveloped. She threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand, thetelescope under her arm, and moved on.
Along the ridge ran a faint foot-track, which the lady followed. Thosewho knew it well called it a path; and, while a mere visitor would havepassed it unnoticed even by day, the regular haunters of the heathwere at no loss for it at midnight. The whole secret of following theseincipient paths, when there was not light enough in the atmosphere toshow a turnpike road, lay in the development of the sense of touch inthe feet, which comes with years of night-rambling in little-troddenspots. To a walker practised in such places a difference between impacton maiden herbage, and on the crippled stalks of a slight footway, isperceptible through the thickest boot or shoe.
The solitary figure who walked this beat took no notice of the windytune still played on the dead heathbells. She did not turn her head tolook at a group of dark creatures further on, who fled from her presenceas she skirted a ravine where they fed. They were about a score of thesmall wild ponies known as heath-croppers. They roamed at large on theundulations of Egdon, but in numbers too few to detract much from thesolitude.
The pedestrian noticed nothing just now, and a clue to her abstractionwas afforded by a trivial incident. A bramble caught hold of her skirt,and checked her progress. Instead of putting it off and hastening along,she yielded herself up to the pull, and stood passively still. When shebegan to extricate herself it was by turning round and round, and sounwinding the prickly switch. She was in a desponding reverie.
Her course was in the direction of the small undying fire which haddrawn the attention of the men on Rainbarrow and of Wildeve in thevalley below. A faint illumination from its rays began to glow uponher face, and the fire soon revealed itself to be lit, not on the levelground, but on a salient corner or redan of earth, at the junction oftwo converging bank fences. Outside was a ditch, dry except immediatelyunder the fire, where there was a large pool, bearded all round byheather and rushes. In the smooth water of the pool the fire appearedupside down.
The banks meeting behind were bare of a hedge, save such as was formedby disconnected tufts of furze, standing upon stems along the top, likeimpaled heads above a city wall. A white mast, fitted up with sparsand other nautical tackle, could be seen rising against the dark cloudswhenever the flames played brightly enough to reach it. Altogether thescene had much the appearance of a fortification upon which had beenkindled a beacon fire.
Nobody was visible; but ever and anon a whitish something moved abovethe bank from behind, and vanished again. This was a small human hand,in the act of lifting pieces of fuel into the fire, but for all thatcould be seen the hand, like that which troubled Belshazzar, was therealone. Occasionally an ember rolled off the bank, and dropped with ahiss into the pool.
At one side of the pool rough steps built of clods enabled everyone whowished to do so to mount the bank; which the woman did. Within was apaddock in an uncultivated state, though bearing evidence of having oncebeen tilled; but the heath and fern had insidiously crept in, and werereasserting their old supremacy. Further ahead were dimly visible anirregular dwelling-house, garden, and outbuildings, backed by a clump offirs.
The young lady--for youth had revealed its presence in her buoyant boundup the bank--walked along the top instead of descending inside, and cameto the corner where the fire was burning. One reason for the permanenceof the blaze was now manifest: the fuel consisted of hard pieces ofwood, cleft and sawn--the knotty boles of old thorn trees which grew intwos and threes about the hillsides. A yet unconsumed pile of these layin the inner angle of the bank; and from this corner the upturned faceof a little boy greeted her eyes. He was dilatorily throwing up a pieceof wood into the fire every now and then, a business which seemed tohave engaged him a considerable part of the evening, for his face wassomewhat weary.
I am glad you have come, Miss Eustacia, he said, with a sigh ofrelief. I don't like biding by myself.
Nonsense. I have only been a little way for a walk. I have been goneonly twenty minutes.
It seemed long, murmured the sad boy. And you have been so manytimes.
Why, I thought you would be pleased to have a bonfire. Are you not muchobliged to me for making you one?
Yes; but there's nobody here to play wi' me.
I suppose nobody has come while I've been away?
Nobody except your grandfather--he looked out of doors once for 'ee.I told him you were walking round upon the hill to look at the otherbonfires.
A good boy.
I think I hear him coming again, miss.
An old man came into the remoter light of the fire from the directionof the homestead. He was the same who had overtaken the reddleman on theroad that afternoon. He looked wistfully to the top of the bank atthe woman who stood there, and his teeth, which were quite unimpaired,showed like parian from his parted lips.
When are you coming indoors, Eustacia? he asked. 'Tis almost bedtime.I've been home these two hours, and am tired out. Surely 'tis somewhatchildish of you to stay out playing at bonfires so long, and wastingsuch fuel. My precious thorn roots, the rarest of all firing, that Ilaid by on purpose for Christmas--you have burnt 'em nearly all!
I promised Johnny a bonfire, and it pleases him not to let it go outjust yet, said Eustacia, in a way which told at once that she wasabsolute queen here. Grandfather, you go in to bed. I shall follow yousoon. You like the fire, don't you, Johnny?
The boy looked up doubtfully at her and murmured, I don't think I wantit any longer.
Her grandfather had turned back again, and did not hear the boy's reply.As soon as the white-haired man had vanished she said in a tone of piqueto the child, Ungrateful little boy, how can you contradict me? Nevershall you have a bonfire again unless you keep it up now. Come, tell meyou like to do things for me, and don't deny it.
The repressed child said, Yes, I do, miss, and continued to stir thefire perfunctorily.
Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooked six-pence, saidEustacia, more gently. Put in one piece of wood every two or threeminutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge alittle longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a frogjump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure yourun and tell me, because it is a sign of rain.
Yes, Eustacia.
Miss Vye, sir.
Miss Vy--stacia.
That will do. Now put in one stick more.
The little slave went on feeding the fire as before. He seemed a mereautomaton, galvanized into moving and speaking by the wayward Eustacia'swill. He might have been the brass statue which Albertus Magnus is saidto have animated just so far as to make it chatter, and move, and be hisservant.
Before going on her walk again the young girl stood still on the bankfor a few instants and listened. It was to the full as lonely a placeas Rainbarrow, though at rather a lower level; and it was more shelteredfrom wind and weather on account of the few firs to the north. The bankwhich enclosed the homestead, and protected it from the lawless state ofthe world without, was formed of thick square clods, dug from the ditchon the outside, and built up with a slight batter or incline, whichforms no slight defense where hedges will not grow because of the windand the wilderness, and where wall materials are unattainable. Otherwisethe situation was quite open, commanding the whole length of the valleywhich reached to the river behind Wildeve's house. High above this tothe right, and much nearer thitherward than the Quiet Woman Inn, theblurred contour of Rainbarrow obstructed the sky.
After her attentive survey of the wild slopes and hollow ravines agesture of impatience escaped Eustacia. She vented petulant wordsevery now and then, but there were sighs between her words, and suddenlistenings between her sighs. Descending from her perch she againsauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though this time she did not go thewhole way.
Twice she reappeared at intervals of a few minutes and each time shesaid--
Not any flounce into the pond yet, little man?
No, Miss Eustacia, the child replied.
Well, she said at last, I shall soon be going in, and then I willgive you the crooked sixpence, and let you go home.
Thank'ee, Miss Eustacia, said the tired stoker, breathing more easily.And Eustacia again strolled away from the fire, but this time nottowards Rainbarrow. She skirted the bank and went round to the wicketbefore the house, where she stood motionless, looking at the scene.
Fifty yards off rose the corner of the two converging banks, with thefire upon it; within the bank, lifting up to the fire one stick at atime, just as before, the figure of the little child. She idly watchedhim as he occasionally climbed up in the nook of the bank and stoodbeside the brands. The wind blew the smoke, and the child's hair, andthe corner of his pinafore, all in the same direction the breeze died,and the pinafore and hair lay still, and the smoke went up straight.
While Eustacia looked on from this distance the boy's form visiblystarted--he slid down the bank and ran across towards the white gate.
Well? said Eustacia.
A hopfrog have jumped into the pond. Yes, I heard 'en!
Then it is going to rain, and you had better go home. You will not beafraid? She spoke hurriedly, as if her heart had leapt into her throatat the boy's words.
No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence.
Yes, here it is. Now run as fast as you can--not that way--through thegarden here. No other boy in the heath has had such a bonfire as yours.
The boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing, marched awayinto the shadows with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving hertelescope and hourglass by the gate, brushed forward from the wickettowards the angle of the bank, under the fire.
Here, screened by the outwork, she waited. In a few moments a splash wasaudible from the pond outside. Had the child been there he would havesaid that a second frog had jumped in; but by most people the soundwould have been likened to the fall of a stone into the water. Eustaciastepped upon the bank.
Yes? she said, and held her breath.
Thereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against thelow-reaching sky over the valley, beyond the outer margin of the pool.He came round it and leapt upon the bank beside her. A low laugh escapedher--the third utterance which the girl had indulged in tonight. Thefirst, when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed anxiety; thesecond, on the ridge, had expressed impatience; the present was oneof triumphant pleasure. She let her joyous eyes rest upon him withoutspeaking, as upon some wondrous thing she had created out of chaos.
I have come, said the man, who was Wildeve. You give me no peace. Whydo you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the evening.The words were not without emotion, and retained their level tone as ifby a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.
At this unexpectedly repressing manner in her lover the girl seemed torepress herself also. Of course you have seen my fire, she answeredwith languid calmness, artificially maintained. Why shouldn't I have abonfire on the Fifth of November, like other denizens of the heath?
I knew it was meant for me.
How did you know it? I have had no word with you since you--you choseher, and walked about with her, and deserted me entirely, as if I hadnever been yours life and soul so irretrievably!
Eustacia! could I forget that last autumn at this same day of the monthand at this same place you lighted exactly such a fire as a signal forme to come and see you? Why should there have been a bonfire again byCaptain Vye's house if not for the same purpose?
Yes, yes--I own it, she cried under her breath, with a drowsy fervourof manner and tone which was quite peculiar to her. Don't beginspeaking to me as you did, Damon you will drive me to say words I wouldnot wish to say to you. I had given you up, and resolved not to think ofyou any more; and then I heard the news, and I came out and got the fireready because I thought that you had been faithful to me.
What have you heard to make you think that? said Wildeve, astonished.
That you did not marry her! she murmured exultingly. And I knew itwas because you loved me best, and couldn't do it.... Damon, you havebeen cruel to me to go away, and I have said I would never forgive you.I do not think I can forgive you entirely, even now--it is too much fora woman of any spirit to quite overlook.
If I had known you wished to call me up here only to reproach me, Iwouldn't have come.
But I don't mind it, and I do forgive you now that you have not marriedher, and have come back to me!
Who told you that I had not married her?
My grandfather. He took a long walk today, and as he was coming home heovertook some person who told him of a broken-off wedding--he thought itmight be yours, and I knew it was.
Does anybody else know?
I suppose not. Now Damon, do you see why I lit my signal fire? You didnot think I would have lit it if I had imagined you to have become thehusband of this woman. It is insulting my pride to suppose that.
Wildeve was silent; it was evident that he had supposed as much.
Did you indeed think I believed you were married? she again demandedearnestly. Then you wronged me; and upon my life and heart I can hardlybear to recognize that you have such ill thoughts of me! Damon, you arenot worthy of me--I see it, and yet I love you. Never mind, let it go--Imust bear your mean opinion as best I may.... It is true, is it not, sheadded with ill-concealed anxiety, on his making no demonstration, thatyou could not bring yourself to give me up, and are still going to loveme best of all?
Yes; or why should I have come? he said touchily. Not thatfidelity will be any great merit in me after your kind speech about myunworthiness, which should have been said by myself if by anybody, andcomes with an ill grace from you. However, the curse of inflammabilityis upon me, and I must live under it, and take any snub from a woman. Ithas brought me down from engineering to innkeeping--what lower stage ithas in store for me I have yet to learn. He continued to look upon hergloomily.
She seized the moment, and throwing back the shawl so that the firelightshone full upon her face and throat, said with a smile, Have you seenanything better than that in your travels?
Eustacia was not one to commit herself to such a position without goodground. He said quietly, No.
Not even on the shoulders of Thomasin?
Thomasin is a pleasing and innocent woman.
That's nothing to do with it, she cried with quick passionateness. Wewill leave her out; there are only you and me now to think of. After along look at him she resumed with the old quiescent warmth, Must I goon weakly confessing to you things a woman ought to conceal; andown that no words can express how gloomy I have been because of thatdreadful belief I held till two hours ago--that you had quite desertedme?
I am sorry I caused you that pain.
But perhaps it is not wholly because of you that I get gloomy, shearchly added. It is in my nature to feel like that. It was born in myblood, I suppose.
Hypochondriasis.
Or else it was coming into this wild heath. I was happy enough atBudmouth. O the times, O the days at Budmouth! But Egdon will bebrighter again now.
I hope it will, said Wildeve moodily. Do you know the consequenceof this recall to me, my old darling? I shall come to see you again asbefore, at Rainbarrow.
Of course you will.
And yet I declare that until I got here tonight I intended, after thisone good-bye, never to meet you again.
I don't thank you for that, she said, turning away, while indignationspread through her like subterranean heat. You may come again toRainbarrow if you like, but you won't see me; and you may call, but Ishall not listen; and you may tempt me, but I won't give myself to youany more.
You have said as much before, sweet; but such natures as yours don't soeasily adhere to their words. Neither, for the matter of that, do suchnatures as mine.
This is the pleasure I have won by my trouble, she whispered bitterly.Why did I try to recall you? Damon, a strange warring takes place in mymind occasionally. I think when I become calm after you woundings, 'DoI embrace a cloud of common fog after all?' You are a chameleon, and nowyou are at your worst colour. Go home, or I shall hate you!
He looked absently towards Rainbarrow while one might have countedtwenty, and said, as if he did not much mind all this, Yes, I will gohome. Do you mean to see me again?
If you own to me that the wedding is broken off because you love mebest.
I don't think it would be good policy, said Wildeve, smiling. Youwould get to know the extent of your power too clearly.
But tell me!
You know.
Where is she now?
I don't know. I prefer not to speak of her to you. I have not yetmarried her; I have come in obedience to your call. That is enough.
I merely lit that fire because I was dull, and thought I would get alittle excitement by calling you up and triumphing over you as the Witchof Endor called up Samuel. I determined you should come; and you havecome! I have shown my power. A mile and half hither, and a mile andhalf back again to your home--three miles in the dark for me. Have I notshown my power?
He shook his head at her. I know you too well, my Eustacia; I know youtoo well. There isn't a note in you which I don't know; and that hotlittle bosom couldn't play such a cold-blooded trick to save its life. Isaw a woman on Rainbarrow at dusk looking down towards my house. I thinkI drew out you before you drew out me.
The revived embers of an old passion glowed clearly in Wildeve now; andhe leant forward as if about to put his face towards her cheek.
O no, she said, intractably moving to the other side of the decayedfire. What did you mean by that?
Perhaps I may kiss your hand?
No, you may not.
Then I may shake your hand?
No.
Then I wish you good night without caring for either. Good-bye,good-bye.
She returned no answer, and with the bow of a dancing-master hevanished on the other side of the pool as he had come.
Eustacia sighed--it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a sigh which shookher like a shiver. Whenever a flash of reason darted like anelectric light upon her lover--as it sometimes would--and showed hisimperfections, she shivered thus. But it was over in a second, andshe loved on. She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved on. Shescattered the half-burnt brands, went indoors immediately, and up toher bedroom without a light. Amid the rustles which denoted her to beundressing in the darkness other heavy breaths frequently came; and thesame kind of shudder occasionally moved through her when, ten minuteslater, she lay on her bed asleep.