III
She Goes Out to Battle against Depression
A few days later, before the month of August had expired, Eustaciaand Yeobright sat together at their early dinner. Eustacia's mannerhad become of late almost apathetic. There was a forlorn look abouther beautiful eyes which, whether she deserved it or not, would haveexcited pity in the breast of anyone who had known her during the fullflush of her love for Clym. The feelings of husband and wife varied,in some measure, inversely with their positions. Clym, the afflictedman, was cheerful; and he even tried to comfort her, who had neverfelt a moment of physical suffering in her whole life.
"Come, brighten up, dearest; we shall be all right again. Some dayperhaps I shall see as well as ever. And I solemnly promise that I'llleave off cutting furze as soon as I have the power to do anythingbetter. You cannot seriously wish me to stay idling at home all day?"
"But it is so dreadful--a furze-cutter! and you a man who have livedabout the world, and speak French, and German, and who are fit forwhat is so much better than this."
"I suppose when you first saw me and heard about me I was wrapped ina sort of golden halo to your eyes--a man who knew glorious things,and had mixed in brilliant scenes--in short, an adorable, delightful,distracting hero?"
"Yes," she said, sobbing.
"And now I am a poor fellow in brown leather."
"Don't taunt me. But enough of this. I will not be depressed anymore. I am going from home this afternoon, unless you greatly object.There is to be a village picnic--a gipsying, they call it--at EastEgdon, and I shall go."
"To dance?"
"Why not? You can sing."
"Well, well, as you will. Must I come to fetch you?"
"If you return soon enough from your work. But do not inconvenienceyourself about it. I know the way home, and the heath has no terrorfor me."
"And can you cling to gaiety so eagerly as to walk all the way to avillage festival in search of it?"
"Now, you don't like my going alone! Clym, you are not jealous?"
"No. But I would come with you if it could give you any pleasure;though, as things stand, perhaps you have too much of me already.Still, I somehow wish that you did not want to go. Yes, perhaps Iam jealous; and who could be jealous with more reason than I, ahalf-blind man, over such a woman as you?"
"Don't think like it. Let me go, and don't take all my spirits away!"
"I would rather lose all my own, my sweet wife. Go and do whateveryou like. Who can forbid your indulgence in any whim? You have allmy heart yet, I believe; and because you bear with me, who am in trutha drag upon you, I owe you thanks. Yes, go alone and shine. As forme, I will stick to my doom. At that kind of meeting people wouldshun me. My hook and gloves are like the St. Lazarus rattle of theleper, warning the world to get out of the way of a sight that wouldsadden them." He kissed her, put on his leggings, and went out.
When he was gone she rested her head upon her hands and said toherself, "Two wasted lives--his and mine. And I am come to this! Willit drive me out of my mind?"
She cast about for any possible course which offered the leastimprovement on the existing state of things, and could find none. Sheimagined how all those Budmouth ones who should learn what had becomeof her would say, "Look at the girl for whom nobody was good enough!"To Eustacia the situation seemed such a mockery of her hopes thatdeath appeared the only door of relief if the satire of Heaven shouldgo much further.
Suddenly she aroused herself and exclaimed, "But I'll shake it off.Yes, I WILL shake it off! No one shall know my suffering. I'll bebitterly merry, and ironically gay, and I'll laugh in derision. AndI'll begin by going to this dance on the green."
She ascended to her bedroom and dressed herself with scrupulouscare. To an onlooker her beauty would have made her feelings almostseem reasonable. The gloomy corner into which accident as much asindiscretion had brought this woman might have led even a moderatepartisan to feel that she had cogent reasons for asking the SupremePower by what right a being of such exquisite finish had been placedin circumstances calculated to make of her charms a curse rather thana blessing.
It was five in the afternoon when she came out from the house readyfor her walk. There was material enough in the picture for twenty newconquests. The rebellious sadness that was rather too apparent whenshe sat indoors without a bonnet was cloaked and softened by heroutdoor attire, which always had a sort of nebulousness about it,devoid of harsh edges anywhere; so that her face looked from itsenvironment as from a cloud, with no noticeable lines of demarcationbetween flesh and clothes. The heat of the day had scarcely declinedas yet, and she went along the sunny hills at a leisurely pace, therebeing ample time for her idle expedition. Tall ferns buried her intheir leafage whenever her path lay through them, which now formedminiature forests, though not one stem of them would remain to budthe next year.
The site chosen for the village festivity was one of the lawn-likeoases which were occasionally, yet not often, met with on the plateauxof the heath district. The brakes of furze and fern terminatedabruptly round the margin, and the grass was unbroken. A greencattle-track skirted the spot, without, however, emerging fromthe screen of fern, and this path Eustacia followed, in order toreconnoitre the group before joining it. The lusty notes of theEast Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and she now beheldthe musicians themselves, sitting in a blue waggon with red wheelsscrubbed as bright as new, and arched with sticks, to which boughsand flowers were tied. In front of this was the grand central danceof fifteen or twenty couples, flanked by minor dances of inferiorindividuals whose gyrations were not always in strict keeping withthe tune.
The young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a flush ontheir faces footed it to the girls, who, with the excitement and theexercise, blushed deeper than the pink of their numerous ribbons.Fair ones with long curls, fair ones with short curls, fair oneswith love-locks, fair ones with braids, flew round and round; anda beholder might well have wondered how such a prepossessing setof young women of like size, age, and disposition, could have beencollected together where there were only one or two villages to choosefrom. In the background was one happy man dancing by himself, withclosed eyes, totally oblivious of all the rest. A fire was burningunder a pollard thorn a few paces off, over which three kettles hungin a row. Hard by was a table where elderly dames prepared tea, butEustacia looked among them in vain for the cattle-dealer's wife whohad suggested that she should come, and had promised to obtain acourteous welcome for her.
This unexpected absence of the only local resident whom Eustacia knewconsiderably damaged her scheme for an afternoon of reckless gaiety.Joining in became a matter of difficulty, notwithstanding that, wereshe to advance, cheerful dames would come forward with cups of teaand make much of her as a stranger of superior grace and knowledgeto themselves. Having watched the company through the figures of twodances, she decided to walk a little further, to a cottage where shemight get some refreshment, and then return homeward in the shady timeof evening.
This she did; and by the time that she retraced her steps towards thescene of the gipsying, which it was necessary to repass on her wayto Alderworth, the sun was going down. The air was now so still thatshe could hear the band afar off, and it seemed to be playing withmore spirit, if that were possible, than when she had come away. Onreaching the hill the sun had quite disappeared; but this made littledifference either to Eustacia or to the revellers, for a round yellowmoon was rising before her, though its rays had not yet outmasteredthose from the west. The dance was going on just the same, butstrangers had arrived and formed a ring around the figure, so thatEustacia could stand among these without a chance of being recognized.
A whole village-full of sensuous emotion, scattered abroad all theyear long, surged here in a focus for an hour. The forty hearts ofthose waving couples were beating as they had not done since, twelvemonths before, they had come together in similar jollity. For thetime paganism was revived in their hearts, the pride of life was allin all, and the
y adored none other than themselves.
How many of those impassioned but temporary embraces were destined tobecome perpetual was possibly the wonder of some of those who indulgedin them, as well as of Eustacia who looked on. She began to envythose pirouetters, to hunger for the hope and happiness which thefascination of the dance seemed to engender within them. Desperatelyfond of dancing herself, one of Eustacia's expectations of Parishad been the opportunity it might afford her of indulgence in thisfavourite pastime. Unhappily, that expectation was now extinct withinher for ever.
Whilst she abstractedly watched them spinning and fluctuating in theincreasing moonlight she suddenly heard her name whispered by a voiceover her shoulder. Turning in surprise, she beheld at her elbow onewhose presence instantly caused her to flush to the temples.
It was Wildeve. Till this moment he had not met her eye since themorning of his marriage, when she had been loitering in the church,and had startled him by lifting her veil and coming forward tosign the register as witness. Yet why the sight of him should haveinstigated that sudden rush of blood she could not tell.
Before she could speak he whispered, "Do you like dancing as much asever?"
"I think I do," she replied in a low voice.
"Will you dance with me?"
"It would be a great change for me; but will it not seem strange?"
"What strangeness can there be in relations dancing together?"
"Ah--yes, relations. Perhaps none."
"Still, if you don't like to be seen, pull down your veil; thoughthere is not much risk of being known by this light. Lots ofstrangers are here."
She did as he suggested; and the act was a tacit acknowledgment thatshe accepted his offer.
Wildeve gave her his arm and took her down on the outside of the ringto the bottom of the dance, which they entered. In two minutes morethey were involved in the figure and began working their way upwardsto the top. Till they had advanced halfway thither Eustacia wishedmore than once that she had not yielded to his request; from themiddle to the top she felt that, since she had come out to seekpleasure, she was only doing a natural thing to obtain it. Fairlylaunched into the ceaseless glides and whirls which their new positionas top couple opened up to them, Eustacia's pulses began to move tooquickly for long rumination of any kind.
Through the length of five-and-twenty couples they threaded theirgiddy way, and a new vitality entered her form. The pale ray ofevening lent a fascination to the experience. There is a certaindegree and tone of light which tends to disturb the equilibrium ofthe senses, and to promote dangerously the tenderer moods; added tomovement, it drives the emotions to rankness, the reason becomingsleepy and unperceiving in inverse proportion; and this light fell nowupon these two from the disc of the moon. All the dancing girls feltthe symptoms, but Eustacia most of all. The grass under their feetbecame trodden away, and the hard beaten surface of the sod, whenviewed aslant towards the moonlight, shone like a polished table.The air became quite still, the flag above the waggon which held themusicians clung to the pole, and the players appeared only in outlineagainst the sky; except when the circular mouths of the trombone,ophicleide, and French horn gleamed out like huge eyes from the shadeof their figures. The pretty dresses of the maids lost their subtlerday colours and showed more or less of a misty white. Eustacia floatedround and round on Wildeve's arm, her face rapt and statuesque; hersoul had passed away from and forgotten her features, which were leftempty and quiescent, as they always are when feeling goes beyond theirregister.
How near she was to Wildeve! it was terrible to think of. She couldfeel his breathing, and he, of course, could feel hers. How badlyshe had treated him! yet, here they were treading one measure. Theenchantment of the dance surprised her. A clear line of differencedivided like a tangible fence her experience within this maze ofmotion from her experience without it. Her beginning to dance hadbeen like a change of atmosphere; outside, she had been steeped inarctic frigidity by comparison with the tropical sensations here. Shehad entered the dance from the troubled hours of her late life as onemight enter a brilliant chamber after a night walk in a wood. Wildeveby himself would have been merely an agitation; Wildeve added to thedance, and the moonlight, and the secrecy, began to be a delight.Whether his personality supplied the greater part of this sweetlycompounded feeling, or whether the dance and the scene weighedthe more therein, was a nice point upon which Eustacia herself wasentirely in a cloud.
People began to say "Who are they?" but no invidious inquiries weremade. Had Eustacia mingled with the other girls in their ordinarydaily walks the case would have been different: here she was notinconvenienced by excessive inspection, for all were wrought to theirbrightest grace by the occasion. Like the planet Mercury surroundedby the lustre of sunset, her permanent brilliancy passed without muchnotice in the temporary glory of the situation.
As for Wildeve, his feelings are easy to guess. Obstacles were aripening sun to his love, and he was at this moment in a delirium ofexquisite misery. To clasp as his for five minutes what was anotherman's through all the rest of the year was a kind of thing he ofall men could appreciate. He had long since begun to sigh againfor Eustacia; indeed, it may be asserted that signing the marriageregister with Thomasin was the natural signal to his heart to returnto its first quarters, and that the extra complication of Eustacia'smarriage was the one addition required to make that return compulsory.
Thus, for different reasons, what was to the rest an exhilaratingmovement was to these two a riding upon the whirlwind. The dance hadcome like an irresistible attack upon whatever sense of social orderthere was in their minds, to drive them back into old paths which werenow doubly irregular. Through three dances in succession they spuntheir way; and then, fatigued with the incessant motion, Eustaciaturned to quit the circle in which she had already remained too long.Wildeve led her to a grassy mound a few yards distant, where shesat down, her partner standing beside her. From the time that headdressed her at the beginning of the dance till now they had notexchanged a word.
"The dance and the walking have tired you?" he said tenderly.
"No; not greatly."
"It is strange that we should have met here of all places, aftermissing each other so long."
"We have missed because we tried to miss, I suppose."
"Yes. But you began that proceeding--by breaking a promise."
"It is scarcely worth while to talk of that now. We have formed otherties since then--you no less than I."
"I am sorry to hear that your husband is ill."
"He is not ill--only incapacitated."
"Yes: that is what I mean. I sincerely sympathize with you in yourtrouble. Fate has treated you cruelly."
She was silent awhile. "Have you heard that he has chosen to work asa furze-cutter?" she said in a low, mournful voice.
"It has been mentioned to me," answered Wildeve hesitatingly. "But Ihardly believed it."
"It is true. What do you think of me as a furze-cutter's wife?"
"I think the same as ever of you, Eustacia. Nothing of that sort candegrade you: you ennoble the occupation of your husband."
"I wish I could feel it."
"Is there any chance of Mr. Yeobright getting better?"
"He thinks so. I doubt it."
"I was quite surprised to hear that he had taken a cottage. Ithought, in common with other people, that he would have taken youoff to a home in Paris immediately after you had married him. 'Whata gay, bright future she has before her!' I thought. He will, Isuppose, return there with you, if his sight gets strong again?"
Observing that she did not reply he regarded her more closely. Shewas almost weeping. Images of a future never to be enjoyed, therevived sense of her bitter disappointment, the picture of theneighbours' suspended ridicule which was raised by Wildeve's words,had been too much for proud Eustacia's equanimity.
Wildeve could hardly control his own too forward feelings when he sawher silent perturbation. But he affected not to notice this, and shesoon
recovered her calmness.
"You do not intend to walk home by yourself?" he asked.
"O yes," said Eustacia. "What could hurt me on this heath, who havenothing?"
"By diverging a little I can make my way home the same as yours. Ishall be glad to keep you company as far as Throope Corner." Seeingthat Eustacia sat on in hesitation he added, "Perhaps you think itunwise to be seen in the same road with me after the events of lastsummer?"
"Indeed I think no such thing," she said haughtily. "I shall acceptwhose company I choose, for all that may be said by the miserableinhabitants of Egdon."
"Then let us walk on--if you are ready. Our nearest way is towardsthat holly-bush with the dark shadow that you see down there."
Eustacia arose, and walked beside him in the direction signified,brushing her way over the damping heath and fern, and followed by thestrains of the merrymakers, who still kept up the dance. The moon hadnow waxed bright and silvery, but the heath was proof against suchillumination, and there was to be observed the striking scene of adark, rayless tract of country under an atmosphere charged from itszenith to its extremities with whitest light. To an eye above themtheir two faces would have appeared amid the expanse like two pearlson a table of ebony.
On this account the irregularities of the path were not visible, andWildeve occasionally stumbled; whilst Eustacia found it necessaryto perform some graceful feats of balancing whenever a small tuftof heather or root of furze protruded itself through the grass ofthe narrow track and entangled her feet. At these junctures in herprogress a hand was invariably stretched forward to steady her,holding her firmly until smooth ground was again reached, when thehand was again withdrawn to a respectful distance.
They performed the journey for the most part in silence, and drewnear to Throope Corner, a few hundred yards from which a short pathbranched away to Eustacia's house. By degrees they discerned comingtowards them a pair of human figures, apparently of the male sex.
When they came a little nearer Eustacia broke the silence by saying,"One of those men is my husband. He promised to come to meet me."
"And the other is my greatest enemy," said Wildeve.
"It looks like Diggory Venn."
"That is the man."
"It is an awkward meeting," said she; "but such is my fortune. Heknows too much about me, unless he could know more, and so proveto himself that what he now knows counts for nothing. Well, let itbe: you must deliver me up to them."
"You will think twice before you direct me to do that. Here is a manwho has not forgotten an item in our meetings at Rainbarrow: he is incompany with your husband. Which of them, seeing us together here,will believe that our meeting and dancing at the gipsy-party was bychance?"
"Very well," she whispered gloomily. "Leave me before they come up."
Wildeve bade her a tender farewell, and plunged across the fern andfurze, Eustacia slowly walking on. In two or three minutes she mether husband and his companion.
"My journey ends here for tonight, reddleman," said Yeobright as soonas he perceived her. "I turn back with this lady. Good night."
"Good night, Mr. Yeobright," said Venn. "I hope to see you bettersoon."
The moonlight shone directly upon Venn's face as he spoke, andrevealed all its lines to Eustacia. He was looking suspiciously ather. That Venn's keen eye had discerned what Yeobright's feeblevision had not--a man in the act of withdrawing from Eustacia'sside--was within the limits of the probable.
If Eustacia had been able to follow the reddleman she would soon havefound striking confirmation of her thought. No sooner had Clym givenher his arm and led her off the scene than the reddleman turnedback from the beaten track towards East Egdon, whither he had beenstrolling merely to accompany Clym in his walk, Diggory's van beingagain in the neighbourhood. Stretching out his long legs, he crossedthe pathless portion of the heath somewhat in the direction whichWildeve had taken. Only a man accustomed to nocturnal rambles couldat this hour have descended those shaggy slopes with Venn's velocitywithout falling headlong into a pit, or snapping off his leg byjamming his foot into some rabbit burrow. But Venn went on withoutmuch inconvenience to himself, and the course of his scamper wastowards the Quiet Woman Inn. This place he reached in about half anhour, and he was well aware that no person who had been near ThroopeCorner when he started could have got down here before him.
The lonely inn was not yet closed, though scarcely an individual wasthere, the business done being chiefly with travellers who passed theinn on long journeys, and these had now gone on their way. Venn wentto the public room, called for a mug of ale, and inquired of the maidin an indifferent tone if Mr. Wildeve was at home.
Thomasin sat in an inner room and heard Venn's voice. When customerswere present she seldom showed herself, owing to her inherent dislikefor the business; but perceiving that no one else was there tonightshe came out.
"He is not at home yet, Diggory," she said pleasantly. "But Iexpected him sooner. He has been to East Egdon to buy a horse."
"Did he wear a light wideawake?"
"Yes."
"Then I saw him at Throope Corner, leading one home," said Venn drily."A beauty, with a white face and a mane as black as night. He willsoon be here, no doubt." Rising and looking for a moment at the pure,sweet face of Thomasin, over which a shadow of sadness had passedsince the time when he had last seen her, he ventured to add, "Mr.Wildeve seems to be often away at this time."
"O yes," cried Thomasin in what was intended to be a tone of gaiety."Husbands will play the truant, you know. I wish you could tell me ofsome secret plan that would help me to keep him home at my will inthe evenings."
"I will consider if I know of one," replied Venn in that same lighttone which meant no lightness. And then he bowed in a manner of hisown invention and moved to go. Thomasin offered him her hand; andwithout a sigh, though with food for many, the reddleman went out.
When Wildeve returned, a quarter of an hour later, Thomasin saidsimply, and in the abashed manner usual with her now, "Where is thehorse, Damon?"
"O, I have not bought it, after all. The man asks too much."
"But somebody saw you at Throope Corner leading it home--a beauty,with a white face and a mane as black as night."
"Ah!" said Wildeve, fixing his eyes upon her; "who told you that?"
"Venn the reddleman."
The expression of Wildeve's face became curiously condensed. "Thatis a mistake--it must have been some one else," he said slowly andtestily, for he perceived that Venn's countermoves had begun again.